When they were called in to supper the two women were awaiting them,
bright‐eyed and radiant, at a modest, but well‐filled table. Their new‐
found cheerfulness, however, was doomed to a brief existence. Cestus
remained silent and gloomy; and Masthlion, equally taciturn, despatched
his meal rapidly, as though it were a task to be well rid of. Their
dampened spirits were still more depressed, when the potter, immediately
on swallowing the last mouthful, announced, in a blunt, matter‐of‐fact
way, his intended visit to Capreae. With a certain amount of dismay they
at once expressed their disapprobation of the undertaking. It oppressed
them with a sense of dread—it was of too great a magnitude. The very name
of Caesar filled them with awe. They used their best efforts to dissuade
the potter, assisted by the interjectory remarks and sarcasms of Cestus;
but they plainly saw that their efforts were doomed to be vain. Masthlion
bade them put away their fears, and, with something of his natural manner,
clapped his wife gently on the shoulder as he went back to his workshop.
Without being reassured, the women went silently about their work of
removing the supper things, their hearts as heavy as before they had been
cheerful.
‘Have _you_ put this into his head?’ demanded Tibia suddenly of her
brother. Her glance was suspicious and her tone unusually sharp.
‘Have I put it into his head?’ replied Cestus, with concentrated scorn.
‘Oh, to be sure. Had I put it into his head, in the first place, I should
hardly have taken the trouble I have to drive it out again.’
His sister being silenced he said no more, and sat tilting himself
backward and forward, in moody silence, on his stool.
Neæra bestowed on him one or two lofty glances, which plainly showed that
her ideas flowed in the same direction as the dame’s. She said nothing,
however, and glided hither and thither, in and out, in her occupation.
Presently she went quietly to the door of the workshop, and, tapping
gently, asked for admission. Cestus caught the sounds and stopped his
restless motion. The door creaked open, and by and by it closed again, and
Neæra returned into the passage. The Suburan’s quick ear heard the voices
of the two females mingling outside. There was a smothered sob, and
presently a light foot sped up the stairs. Tibia then came into the room
to give a parting touch to its arrangements before retiring for the night.
Her face was more dejected than ever.
‘She has been in to see him,’ observed Cestus.
Tibia nodded yes.
‘And did no good, I can tell.’
The dame this time shook her head, and remained standing, with one hand on
her hip and the other underneath a kind of apron which she wore over her
gown, as if ready to lift it to stanch the drops which struggled into her
patient eyes.
‘Very well, then,’ continued her brother, ‘we may as well give the matter
up, for the man will go his own way. It’s of no use to show him his
madness. That being the case, there is something you must know without any
further delay, since he is determined to throw himself away. Wait and I
will bring him in.’
‘He is busy, Cestus,’ dissuaded she.
‘He will have to make a few moments’ leisure, however,’ was the reply, and
the Suburan went accordingly to summon the potter.
The latter obeyed without demur on learning the reason for his required
presence. Cestus shut the door and took his former position on his stool.
‘Brother‐in‐law, since you will not listen to reason concerning this
errand of yours to Capreae, and since I have small hope of ever seeing you
return, Tibia must hear, in your presence, what I have already told you
alone. Your life is your own, and if you are determined to shorten it at
once you can do so, I suppose. That is your own matter, and you can settle
it with or without your wife’s help. But in the matter of the child called
Neæra, I am concerned; and as you are about to rob me of my best witness
in her case, I must arrange matters as best I may, so as to be able to do
without you.’
‘You put it in a pleasant way, kinsman,’ returned Masthlion, smiling; ‘but
as you are bent on putting me to death I won’t argue the point.
Nevertheless I agree with you that it is time Tibia should know what we
know about our child—I still call her ours, you see. It was only at your
wish that I have kept silence as long as this. Tell her the story—I
cannot.’
Tibia sat looking from one to the other in her mute way, her hands lying
folded in her lap, and her eyes full of anxious curiosity. What new
trouble was this which was about to be launched upon her? Was it the
secret which had darkened her husband’s face so long? Was it not enough to
be told that he was about to throw away his life on the morrow? Cestus,
her brother, was the cloud upon her house. It was time he left it, since
matters had seemed to go strangely wrong with the hour of his arrival.
What of the child Neæra? He had brought her there—did he want to take her
away again?
Her gaze fixed on the Suburan as this thought broke upon her slow brain.
Her brows knitted slightly, and her eyes seemed to contract and congeal,
for a moment, into lifeless glassy balls. She had a manner of meeting
bitter trouble, as it were, with a motionless, voiceless, passive
numbness. It resembled the action of some animals and reptiles when seized
in the grip of a ferocious enemy. The functions of body and brain seemed
withdrawn into an impenetrable inner casket, leaving all else relaxed,
lifeless, and torpid. It is the supreme effort to resist exquisite
torture, this power of self‐paralysation, this contraction of all sense
into the numbness of oblivion; whilst to the beholder the spectacle of
mute suffering is the most heartrending of all.
Cestus, without further delay, began the same narrative he had already
related to Masthlion. Tibia sat like a carven image, with her hands
clenched in her lap and her head half bowed. Once only during the recital
she started slightly, when she heard the noble parentage of the child she
had tended, and she gave a swift, half‐startled glance, first at Cestus,
and then at her husband. When the end came and the speaker’s voice ceased,
and she heard the decree that Neæra was to be given up to her own people,
her fingers twitched nervously for a time.
‘This, then, is what has haunted thee and darkened the house!’ she cried
out sharply to her husband, as she threw her apron over her head.
The anguish of her glance cut the potter to the heart. A silence fell on
the room for a minute. Masthlion could not summon a word, and Cestus swung
uneasily on his stool. Then the latter cleared his throat and tried to
smooth matters, with arguments already familiar to the reader.
‘Why, Tibia, you have tended the child till she has become like your own,
and it is hard, I admit, to hear she must leave you. But consider, she was
bound to go, for the Centurion will marry her and take her away to Rome,
at all events. Why trouble them? The only way, if you cannot abide without
being near her, is to go after her. I have already told Masthlion this,
with all the common sense one can be capable of, and shown him how it is
the best place for employment in all his work.’
‘I have already agreed; if Tibia is willing we will go to the great city,’
said Masthlion.
‘Ay—but not now—not at once!’ replied Cestus sharply. ‘Only, as you say,
when you come back from Capreae. That is another thing altogether. It is a
promise on condition with a vengeance, when there is every chance you will
not be alive to perform it. Hark’ee, Tibia, I am eager for us all to go at
once, for this reason, that I am anxious concerning the girl. There have
been a couple of fellows from Capreae in the shop lately, for nothing in
the world but to see the child herself. I saw them, heard them, watched
them. What does this mean? Why, that some fine night your house may be
broken into, and the girl carried off to the island by a gang of Caesar’s
blackguards. Once there, you may cry for ever to get her back. Is it not
time, think you, to be moving such a good‐looking lass out of the reach of
the tiger’s claws? Will you leave her to the chance of such a fate, for
the sake of a fool’s errand, on the score of a glass bowl?’
‘The fool’s errand shall be carried out, look you,’ interposed Masthlion
sternly, ‘so no more of that. Nevertheless, if you scent danger so close,
there is nothing to prevent you all taking ship or horse to‐morrow, if
need be. I will follow when I am ready to bid farewell to Surrentum.’
‘And that is your determination?’
‘It is—I leave the rest to Tibia.’
‘Then she and the girl and myself will go hence without delay.’
‘Speak for yourself, brother,’ said Tibia, standing. ‘When I go my husband
goes also.’
‘The girl, then, I shall take alone,’ cried Cestus furiously.
‘If she will go with thee,’ said Tibia.
He started up so violently that he upset his stool, and he stood, for a
moment, stuttering with passion. Failing to produce an intelligible sound,
he stamped his foot savagely and rushed out of the room.
Masthlion gave a grim sort of a smile and went to his workshop. Ere he
could shut the door, Tibia slipped silently after him.