abashed at the unaccustomed splendor about him, had, little by little,
from his first entrance, shrunk into a corner, now advanced; and Ænone,
once more resolutely assuring herself that, with the changes which time,
position, difference of place and costume had thrown about her, she
could defy recognition, summoned all her courage, and looked him in the
face. It may have been with an unacknowledged fear lest, now that she
saw him so freely in the broad daylight, some latent spark of the old
attachment might burst into a flame, and withdraw her heart from its
proper duty; but at the first glance she felt that in this respect she
had nothing to dread. In almost every particular, Cleotos had but little
changed. His costume was but slightly different from that which he had
always been accustomed to wear; for the centurion, in view of the chance
of effecting a profitable sale, had, for that occasion, made him put on
suitable and becoming attire. The face was still youthful--the eye, as
of old, soft, expressive, and unhardened by the ferocities of the world
about him. As Ænone looked, it seemed as though the years which had
passed rolled back again, and that she was once more a girl. But it also
seemed as though something else had passed away--as though she looked
not upon a lover, but rather upon a quiet, kindhearted, innocent
friend--one who could ever be dear to her as a brother, but as nothing
else. What was it which had so flitted away that the same face could now
stir up no fire of passion, but only a friendly interest? Something, she
could not tell what; but she thanked the gods that it was so, and drew a
long breath of relief.
But it was none the less incumbent upon her, for the sake of that
present friendship and for the memory of that old regard, to cast her
protection over him. For an instant the thought flashed across her that
it would be well to purchase him, not simply for a page, but so that she
could have him in the way of kind treatment and attention until some
opportunity of restoring him to his native land might occur. But then
again was the danger that, if any great length of time should meanwhile
elapse, unconsidered trifles might lead to a recognition. No, that plan
could not be thought of. She must keep a protecting eye upon him from a
distance, and trust to the future for a safe working out of the problem.
'It cannot be,' she murmured, in answer, half to her father, half to her
own suggestion.
''Tis well,' muttered the centurion, rising with an air of displeasure
which indicated that he thought it very ill. 'I supposed that it would
be a kindness to the imperator or to yourself to give the first offer of
the man. But it matters little. The captain Polidorus will take him any
moment at a fair price.'
'You will not send him to the captain Polidorus?' exclaimed Ænone in
affright. For at once the many atrocities of that man toward his slaves
rose in her mind--how that he had slain one in a moment of passion--how
that he had deliberately beaten another to death for attempting to
escape to the catacombs--how that stripes and torture were the daily
portion of the unfortunates in his power--and that, not by reason of any
gross neglect of their duty, but for the merest and most trifling
inadvertencies. Better death than such a fate.
'Pah! What can I do?' retorted Porthenus, skilfully touching the chord
of her sympathies, as he saw how sensitive she was to its vibrations.
'It is true that Polidorus is no fawning woman, and that he greets his
slaves with the rod and the brand, and what not. It is true that he
thinks but little of sending one of them to Hades through the avenue of
his fishponds. But that, after all, is his affair, and if he chooses to
destroy his property, what should it matter to me? Am I so rich that I
can afford to lose a fair purchaser because he may incline to hang or
drown his bargain? Such self-denial may suit the governor of a
province, but should not be expected of a poor centurion.'
Ænone trembled, and again the impulse to make the purchase came upon
her. Better to risk anything for herself--recognition, discovery,
suspicion, or misconstruction, than that her friendship should so far
fail as to allow this poor captive to fall into the hands of a brutish
tyrant. There was a purse of gold in the half-opened drawer of a table
which stood near her; and, in sore perplexity, she raised it, then let
it fall, and again lifted it. As the centurion listened to the ring of
the metal, his eyes sparkled, and he prepared to apply new arguments,
when Cleotos himself sprang forward.
'I know nothing about this Polidorus of whom they speak,' said he,
dropping upon one knee at her feet. 'And it is not to save myself from
his hands that I ask your pity, most noble lady. There is much that I
have already suffered, and perhaps a little more might make no
difference, or, better yet, might close the scene with me forever. It is
for other reasons that I would wish to be in this house--even as the
lowest, meanest slave of all, rather than to live in the halls of the
emperor Titus himself. There is one in this house, most noble lady, from
whom I have long been cruelly separated, and who--what can I say but
that if, when I was a free man, she gave me her love, now, in my
abasement, she will not fail with that love to brighten my lot?'
Ænone started. At hearing such words, there could be but one thought in
her mind--that he had actually recognized her, and that, without waiting
to see whether or not she had forgotten him, and certainly knowing that
in any event her position toward him had become changed, he was daring
to covertly suggest a renewal of their old relationship. But the next
words reassured her.
'We lived near each other in Samos, my lady. I was happy, and I blessed
the fates for smiling upon us. How was I then to know that she would be
torn away from me upon the very day when I was to have led her to my own
home?'
'You say that she is here? Is it--do you speak of Leta?' cried Ænone.
'Leta was her name,' he responded, in some surprise that his secret had
been so promptly penetrated before he had more than half unfolded it.
'And she is here.'
There was to Ænone perhaps one instant of almost unconscious regret at
learning that she had been forgotten for another. But it passed away
like a fleeting cloud--banished from her mind by the full blaze of
happiness which poured in upon her at the thought that here at last was
what would counteract the cruel schemes which were warring against her
peace, and would thereby bring sure relief to her sorrow.
'And she is here,' repeated Cleotos. 'When at the first she was torn
from my side, most noble lady, I would have died, if I could, for I did
not believe that life had any further blessing in store for me. But,
though the Roman armies were cruel, the fates have been kind, and have
again brought us near. It was but a week ago that, as I looked up by the
moonlight at these palace walls, I saw her. Can it be, that after so
long a time, the gods meant I should be brought near, to have but this
one glimpse of happiness, and then again be sundered from it?'
'It cannot be--it was not meant to be,' exclaimed Ænone, with energy;
and again lifting the purse of gold, she placed it in the centurion's
hand. 'There, I will purchase your slave,' she said. 'Take from this his
proper price, and leave him with me.'
CHAPTER IX.
The centurion received the purse with ill-dissembled joy. Had he been
fully able to control himself, he would doubtless have maintained a
quiet air of dignified self-possession, befitting one giving full value
for what he had received, and therefore not expected to exhibit any
peculiarly marked or lively satisfaction. But the affair had been
concluded so suddenly, and with such a liberal confidence in his
discretion, that, for the moment, his hands trembled with excitement,
and his face shone with avaricious pleasure.
Then he began to count out the gold pieces, gleefully dropping some into
his pouch, and reluctantly putting others back into the purse. From the
first he had established in his own mind the valuation which he would
place upon the slave; and he had taken care to make his calculation upon
such a liberal scale that he could well afford to consent to a large
deduction, if it were required of him. Now he reasoned that, as his
child had merely told him to take out what was proper, there could be no
impropriety in paying himself at the highest possible price. She would
never mind, and there were many comforts which he needed, and which an
extra gold piece or two would enable him to procure for himself.
Then, as he weighed the purse and pondered over it, numerous wants and
requirements, which he had hardly known until that time, came into his
mind. He might supply them all, if he were not too timid or scrupulous
in availing himself of an opportunity such as might never come to him
again. Had even his first valuation of the slave been a sufficient one?
He ought certainly to consider that the man could read and write, and
was of such beauty and grace that he could be trained to a most courtly
air; and it was hardly proper to sell him for no more than the price of
a couple of gladiators, mere creatures of bone and brawn. And, in any
event, it was hardly probable that Ænone knew the true value of slaves,
or even remembered how much her purse had contained.
Thus meanly reflecting, the centurion dropped more of the gold pieces
into his pocket, all the while eying the slave with keen scrutiny, as
though calculating the market value of every hair upon his head. Then,
with a sigh, he handed back the purse, most wofully lightened of its
contents, and turned from the room, endeavoring to compose his features
into a decent appearance of sober indifference, and muttering that he
would not have allowed himself to be betrayed into giving up such a
prize so cheaply had it not been that he had an especial regard for the
imperator Sergius Vanno, and that the house of Porthenus had never
nourished mere traders to wrangle and chaffer over their property.
In one of his conjectures he had been correct. It was little that Ænone
knew or cared about the price she was paying. Had the purse been
returned to her entirely empty, she would have thrown it unheedingly
into the drawer, and have never dreamed but that all had been rightly
done. There was now but one idea filling her heart. She thought not
about money nor any imprudence which she was committing, nor yet upon
the chance of recognition. She only reflected that the day of her
triumph had come--that at the sight of the long-absent lover, Leta would
abandon the wrong path in which she had been straying, would throw
herself into his arms, would tell him how, through the loss of him, she
had become reckless, and had allowed her suffering mind to become
perverted from the right--but that now all was again well; and thus
confessing and being forgiven, would, in the ever-present joy of that
forgiveness, lead for the future a different life, and, instead of a
rival, become to her mistress a friend and ally.
Glowing with this bright hope, Ænone scarcely noticed the shuffling
departure of the centurion, but, fixing her eyes upon the captive,
keenly scrutinized his appearance. Not that it was likely that Leta, in
the first flush of her joy at meeting him, would notice or care in what
guise he was presented, so long as the soul which had so often
responded to her own was there. But it was well that there should be
nothing neglected which, without being directly essential to the
production of a proper impression, might be tributary to it.
The inspection was satisfactory. Not only was the dress of the captive
clean, neat, becoming, and suitable to his station, but his appearance
had undergone visible improvement since Ænone had last seen him. The
rest and partial composure of even the few intervening days had sufficed
to restore tone to his complexion, roundness to his cheeks, and
something of the old merry smile to his eyes. And though complete
restoration was not yet effected, enough had been accomplished to show
that there was much latent beauty which would not fail to develop itself
under the stimulant of additional rest and kindly treatment.
'Go in, thither,' said Ænone, pointing to the adjoining room, in which
Leta was occupied. 'When you are there, you will--it will be told you
what you are to do.'
Cleotos bowed low, and passed through into the other room; and Ænone
followed him with a glance which betrayed the longing she felt to enter
with him and witness the meeting of the two lovers. But a sense of
propriety outweighed her curiosity and restrained her. It was not right,
indeed, that she should intrude. Such recognitions should be sacred to
the persons directly interested in them. She would therefore remain
outside, and there await Cleotos's return. And as she took into her
hands a little parchment ode which lay upon her table, and nervously
endeavored to interest herself in it, she delightedly pictured the
sudden transport of those within the next room, and the beaming joy with
which, hand in hand, they would finally emerge to thank her for their
newly gained happiness.
In the mean time, Leta, having delivered her message, and received her
rebuke for the interruption, had retired to the other room, and there,
as usual, resumed her daily task of embroidery. Bending low over the
intricate stitches and counting their spaces, her features, at a casual
glance, still bore their impress of meek and unconscious humility, so
far did her accustomed self-control seem to accompany her even when
alone. But a more attentive scrutiny would have detected, half hidden
beneath the fringed eyelids, a sparkle of gratified triumph, and, in the
slightly bent corners of the mouth, a shade of haughty disdain; and
little by little, as the moments progressed, these indications of an
inner, irrepressible nature gained in intensity, and, as though her
fingers were stayed by a tumult of thought, her work slowly began to
slip from her grasp.
At length, lifting her head, and, perhaps, for the first time realizing
that she was alone and might indulge her impulses without restraint, she
abruptly threw from her the folds of the embroidery, and stood erect.
Why should she longer trifle with that weak affair of velvet and dyes?
Who was the poor, inanimate, and tearful statue in the next room, to
order her to complete those tasks? What to herself were the past deeds
of the Vanni, that they should be perpetuated in ill-fashioned tapestry,
to be hung around a gilded banquet hall? By the gods! she would from
that day make a new history in the family life; and it should be
recorded, not with silken threads upon embroidered velvet, but should be
engraved deeply and ineffaceably upon human hearts!
Standing motionless in the centre of the room, with one foot upon the
half-completed tapestry, she now for the first time, and in a flash of
inspiration, gave shape and comeliness to her previously confusedly
arranged ideas. Until the present moment she had had but little thought
of accomplishing anything beyond skilfully availing herself of her
natural attractions so as to climb from her menial position into
something a little better and higher. If, in the struggle to raise
herself from the degradation of slavery, she were obliged to engage in a
rivalry with her mistress, and, by robbing her of the affection
naturally belonging to her, were to crush her to the earth, it was a
thing to be deplored, but it must none the less be done. She might,
perhaps, pity the victim, but the sacrifice must be accomplished all the
same.
But now these vague dreams of a somewhat better lot, to be determined by
future chance circumstances, rolled away like a shapeless cloud, and
left in their place one bright image as the settled object of her
ambition. So lofty, so dazzling seemed the prize, that another person
would have shrunk in dismay from even the thought of striving for it,
and even she, for the moment, recoiled. But she was of too determined a
nature to falter long. The higher the object to be attained the fewer
would be the competitors, and the greater the chance of success to
unwearying determination. And if there were but one chance of success in
a thousand, it were still worth the struggle.
This great thought which stimulated her ambition was nothing less than
the resolution to become the wife of the imperator Sergius. At first it
startled her with its apparent wild extravagance; but little by little,
as she weighed the chances, it seemed to become more practicable. There
was, indeed, nothing grossly impossible in the idea. Men of high rank
had ere now married their slaves, and the corrupted society of Rome had
winked at mesalliances which, in the days of the republic, would not
have been tolerated. And she was merely a slave from accidental
circumstances--being free born, and having, but a month before, been the
pride and ornament of a respectable though lowly family. Once let her
liberty be restored, and the scarcely perceptible taint of a few weeks'
serfdom be removed from her, and she would be, in all social respects,
fully the equal of the poor, trembling maid of Ostia, to whom, a few
years before, the patrician had not been ashamed to stoop.
This bar of social inequality thus removed, the rest might be in her own
hands. Sergius no longer felt for his wife the old affection, under the
impulse of which he had wedded her; and the few poor remains of the love
which he still cherished, more from habit than otherwise, were fast
disappearing. This was already so evident as to have become the common
gossip of even the lowliest slaves in the household. And he loved
herself instead, for not only his actions, but his words had told her
so. A little more craft and plotting, therefore--a little further
display of innocent and lowly meekness and timid obedience--a few more
well-considered efforts to widen the conjugal breach--a week or two more
persistent exercise of those fascinations which men were so feeble to
resist--jealousy, recrimination, quarrels, and a divorce--and the whole
thing might be accomplished. In those days of laxity, divorce was an
easy matter. In this case there was no family influence upon the part of
the wife to be set up in opposition--but merely an old centurion,
ignorant and powerless. A few writings, for form's sake--and the day
that sent the weeping wife from the door might install the manumitted
and triumphant slave in her place.
All aglow with the ravishing prospect--her eager hopes converting the
possible into the probable, and again, by a rapid change, the probable
into the certain, the Greek stood spurning the needle work at her feet.
Then glancing around, the whim seized upon her to assume, for a moment
in advance, her coming stately dignity. At the side of the room, upon a
slightly elevated platform, was a crimson lounge--Ænone's especial and
proper seat. Over one arm of this lounge hung, in loose folds, a robe
of purple velvet, with an embroidered fringe of pearls--a kind of cloak
of state, usually worn by her upon the reception of ceremonious visits.
To this lounge Leta strode, threw herself upon it, drew the velvet
garment over her shoulders, so that the long folds fell down gracefully
and swept the marble pavement at her feet, and there, half sitting, half
reclining, assumed an attitude of courtly dignity, as though mistress of
the palace.
And it must be confessed that she well suited the place. With her lithe,
graceful figure thrown into a position in which the gentle languor of
unembarrassed leisure was mingled with the dignity of queenly
state--with her burning eyes so tempered in their brilliancy that they
seemed ready at the same instant to bid defiance to impertinent
intrusion, and to bestow gracious condescension upon suppliant
timidity--with every feature glowing with that proper pride which is not
arrogance, and that proper kindliness which is not humility--there was
probably in all Rome no noble matron who could as well adorn her chair
of ceremony. Beside her, the true mistress of the place would have
appeared as a timid child dismayed with unaccustomed honors; and in
comparison, the empress herself might not fill her throne in the palace
of the Cæsars with half the grace and dignity.
Then, as she there sat, momentarily altering her attitude to correspond
the better with her ideas of proper bearing, and gathering into newer
and more pleasing folds the sweeping breadths of the velvet mantle, the
door was slowly swung open, and there glided noiselessly in, clad in its
neat and coarse tunic, the timid figure of her old lover Cleotos.
For an instant they remained gazing at each other as though paralyzed.
Cleotos--who had looked to see her in her simple white vestment as of
old, and had expected at her first glance to rush to her arms, and there
be allowed to pour forth his joy at again meeting her, never more to
part--beheld with dismay this gorgeously arrayed and queenly figure.
This could not be the Leta whom he had known, or, if so, how changed!
Was this the customary attire of slaves in high-placed families? Or
could it be the token of a guilty favoritism? His heart sank within him;
and he stood nervously clinging against the door behind him, fearing to
advance, lest, at the first step, some terrible truth, of which he had
already seemed to feel the premonitions, might burst upon him.
And she, for the moment, sat aghast, not knowing but that the gods, to
punish her pride and ambition, had sent a spectre to confront her. But
being of strong mind and but little given to superstitious terrors, she
instantly reasoned out the facts of his simultaneous captivity with
herself and coincidence of ownership; and her sole remaining doubt was
in what manner she should treat him. They had parted in sorrow and
tears, and she knew that he now expected her to fall into his arms and
there repeat her former vows of constancy and love. But that could not
be. Had he come to her but an hour before, while her dreams of the
future were of a vague and unsatisfactory character, she might have
acted upon such an impulse. But now, a glorious vision of what might
possibly happen had kindled her ambition with brighter fires than ever
before; and could she surrender all that, and think again only upon
starving freedom in a cottage home?
'Is it thou, Cleotos? Welcome to Rome!' she said at length, throwing
from her shoulder the purple cloak, and approaching him. As she spoke,
she held out her hand. He took it in his own, in a lifeless and
mechanical sort of way, and gazed into her face with a strange look of
inquiring doubt, which momentarily settled into an expression of deeper
apprehension. The blackness of despair began to enter into his soul. Now
that she was divested of her borrowed richness, she looked more like
herself, and that was surely her voice uttering tones of greeting; but
somehow her heart did not seem to be in them, and, for a certainty, this
had not been her wonted style of welcome.
'I thought,' she continued, 'that thou wert slain. Certainly when I
parted from you ere you fled into the mountains--'
'You know that I fled not at all,' he interrupted, the color mounting
into his temples. 'Why do you speak so, Leta? I retired to the mountains
to meet my friends there and with them carry on the defence; and,
previous thereto, I conducted you to what I believed to be a place of
safety. And I fought my best against the foe, and was brought nigh unto
death. This I did, though I can boast of but a weak and slender frame.
And it is hard that the first greeting of one so well loved as you
should be a taunt.'
'Nay, forgive me,' she said. 'I doubt not your valor. It was but in
forgetfulness that I spoke. I meant it not for a taunt.' And in truth
she had not so meant it. It was but the inadvertent expression of a
feeling which the sight of his feeble and boyish figure unwittingly made
upon her--an incapacity to connect deeds of valor with apparent physical
weakness. But this very inability to judge of his true nature by the
soul that strove to look into her own rather than by material
impressions was perhaps no slight proof of the little unison between her
nature and his.
'Sit down here,' she continued, 'and tell me all that has happened to
you.' And they sat together, and he briefly told her of his warlike
adventures, his wound, his captivity, his recognition of herself, and
his successful attempt to be once more under the same roof with her. And
somehow it still seemed to him that their talk was not as of old, and
that her sympathy with his misfortunes was but weak and cheerless; and
though he tried to interweave the customary words of endearment with his
story, there was a kind of inner check upon him, so that they came not
readily to his lips as of old. And she sat, trying to listen, and indeed
keeping the thread of his adventures in her mind; but all the while
finding her attention fail as she speculated how she could best give
that explanation of her feelings which she knew would soon be demanded
of her.
'And here I am at last, Leta--as yourself, a slave!' he concluded.
'Courage, my friend!' was her answer. 'There are very many degrees and
fates reserved for all in this old Rome, and much for every man to
learn. And many a one who has begun as a slave has, in the end, attained
not only to freedom, but to high honor and station.'