"Stay," continued he, laying it down, "I will not punish thee
undeservedly. Take these; they will bear thee harmless with thy
master."
The dwarf took the writing thankfully, and made the best of his way to
the dwelling of the soothsayer.
The officer now beckoned Cedric that he should follow. In a low room
by the guard-chamber at the gate the following conversation took
place.
"There is evil denounced us of a truth," said Verecundus; "but it may
be the gods have sent thee hither for our rescue, as the oracle hath
said."
The Briton fixed his wondering eyes on the soldier whilst he
continued.
"I have pondered the words well, and if thou prove trusty, ere this
night pass the plot shall be discovered and the ringleaders secured.
We have need of such a one as thou--a stranger, whom they will not
suspect, and will use the intelligence he obtains with a vigilant and
cunning eye. There is work for thee, which, if well done, may bring
thee to great wealth and honour. If thou fail, we fall together in the
same ruin. There is a plot against the emperor; and one which hath its
being, ay in the very secrets of the palace. Those nearest him I am
well assured are the chief movers in the conspiracy. 'Tis this makes
it so perilous to discover, and without a fitting agent the mischief
will not be overcome. I have thought to throw myself at the emperor's
feet, but having no proof withal to support my suspicions, I should in
all likelihood fall a sacrifice to my own fidelity."
"But how," asked the bewildered Cedric, "shall I discover them? Verily
it doth seem that to-day I am destined to work out impossibilities.
How it comes to pass that a poor ignorant wretch like myself should
compass these things, it faileth my weak fancy to discover!"
"The soothsayer's speech is not lightly to be regarded. Hark thee,
knave! Is life precious unto thee?"
"Yea, truly is it. I have a wife and children, besides a few herds and
other live stock, likewise sundry beeves i' the forest. But unless I
can find favour in your eyes, my goods, alas! I am not like to see
again."
"Nor wilt thou peradventure again behold the light of yon blessed sun
which hath just gone down. The shades of evening are upon us, and the
shadows of death are upon thine eyelids; for, hark thee, I do suspect
some treasonable message in thine errand to the city."
Cedric, with a look of terror and incredulity, stammered out--
"As I live, I know not thy meaning!"
"Thou art in my power; and unless thou servest me faithfully, thou
diest a cruel and fearful death. What was the exact message wherewith
thou was entrusted?"
The Briton's countenance brightened as he replied--
"I give it to thee with right good-will. No treason lurks there, I
trow. 'Take this,' said my master, yesternight, giving me a signet
ring; 'take it to York by daybreak. At the gate show it to the guard.
If they let thee pass, well. If not, return, for there is mischief in
the city. At the bridge, shouldest thou get so far, again show it,
where, I doubt not, thou shalt find thereby a ready passage. Seek thee
out some by-tavern where thou mayest refresh; then about mid-day go
into the street called the Goldsmiths', and there inquire for one
Caius Lupus, the empress' jeweller. Show him the signet, and mark what
he shall tell thee.'"
"Thou hast given him the signet, then?" said the centurion, sharply.
"Nay. For my mistress, as ill-luck would have it, hearing of my
journey, and she having had some knowledge of the soothsayer's art
aforetime, bade me consult him ere my errand was ready with the
goldsmith, and deliver a pressing request for the horoscope which had
been long promised. What passed then, as thou knowest, is the cause of
my calamity."
"But didst thou not search out the dwelling of this same Caius, and do
thine errand?"
"I did. But in the straits which I endured I was not careful to note
the time. An hour past mid-day I sought out his dwelling; but he was
gone to the palace on urgent business with the empress, nor was it
known when he might return."
"Sayest thou so, friend? I would like to look at this same potent
talisman."
Cedric drew forth the ring. It was a beautiful onyx, on which,
engraven with exquisite workmanship, was a head of the youthful
Caracalla encircled by a laurel wreath, showing marks of the most
consummate skill.
"Was thine errand told to the soothsayer?" was the next inquiry.
"Verily, nay," said the messenger; "there was little space for parley
ere I was thrust forth."
"He saw not the signet, then?"
"Of a truth it has not been shown save to the guards for my passport."
"Now, knave, thy life hangs on a thread so brittle that a breath shall
break it. This same goldsmith I do suspect; but thou shalt see him,
and whatsoever he showeth I will be at hand that thou mayest tell me
privily. I will then instruct thee what thou shalt do. If thou fail
not in thy mission, truly thou shalt have great rewards from the
emperor. But if thou whisper--ay to the walls--of our meeting, thou
diest! Remember thou art watched. Think not to escape."
The poor wretch caught hold on this last hope of deliverance, and
promised to obey.
There was a narrow vault beneath the women's apartments in the palace,
communicating by many intricate passages with an outlet into the
Forum. Here, on this eventful night, was an unusual assemblage. The
vault was deep, even below the common foundations of the city, and
where the light of day never came. An iron lamp hung from one of the
massy arches of the roof; the damp and stagnant vapours lending an
awful indistinctness to the objects they surrounded. Chill drops lay
on the walls and on the slippery floor. The stone benches were green
with mildew; and it seemed as though the foot of man had rarely passed
its threshold.
In this chamber several individuals were now assembled in earnest
discourse, their conversation whispered rather than spoken; yet their
intrepid and severe looks, and animated gestures, ever and anon
betrayed some deep and resolute purpose more than usually portentous.
"An untoward event truly," said one of the speakers, Virius Lupus
himself, the emperor's private secretary. "If the old magician could
have been won, it had been well."
"He might have saved the encounter and hazard we must now undergo. But
let him hold his fealty. We have stout hearts and resolute hands enow
to bring the matter to a successful issue." Thus spoke Caracalla, the
unnatural eldest born of his father.
"And yet," replied the secretary, "he hath a ready admittance to his
person, and a great sway over thy father's councils."
"I heed him not, now that brave men work. It were time that our trusty
servant, the commander at Isurium, had sent the message, with the
token I left him on my departure. Ere this we ought to have known the
hour we may expect his troops to move on the capital. I had thought to
have made all safe--to have put it beyond the power of fate to
frustrate our purpose; but I was foiled like a beardless boy at his
weapons." He gnashed his teeth as he spoke; and this monster of
cruelty breathed a horrible threat against the life even of a parent
and a king.
"Here is the roll," said one, who from his inkhorn and reed-pen seemed
to be the scribe, and whose ambition had been lured by a promise that
he should have the office of sextumvir in the imperial city.
"Here be the names and disposition of the troops; the avenues and
gates to which they are appointed."
"We but wait a messenger from Isurium to make our plans complete,"
said Caracalla. "By the same courier I send back this cypher. Examine
it, Fabricius. The troops of Lucius Claudius are to march directly on
the Forum, and slay all who attempt resistance. Thou, Virius Lupus,
wilt guide them through the secret passage into the palace."
The secretary bowed assent.
"Though the empress knows not our high purpose, it is by her
connivance we are here, safe from the emperor's spies. Under her
mantle we are hidden. Suspicion hath crossed her that I am about to
head the troops; that my father, oppressed with age and infirmities,
will retire to Rome; and that I, Caracalla, rule in Britain."
"Then she knows not the mishap of yesternight?"
"She knows of the attempt, but not the agent. I would the messenger
were come. 'Tis an unforeseen delay. I pray the gods there be not
treachery somewhere. The officers and guards at the Calcarian gate and
the bridge are ours; they were instructed to obey the signet."
"We will vouch for the fidelity," said two or three of the
conspirators.
"Should he not arrive before midnight we must strike," said Fabricius.
"Ay, as before," said the more cautious secretary. "But we may now get
a broken head for our pains."
"The time brooks not delay," said Caracalla. "Every moment now is big
with danger to our enterprise."
"Be not again too hasty," replied the secretary; "there be none that
will divulge our plans. Let every part be complete before we act. We
cannot succeed should there be a disjointed purpose."
Caracalla, vehement, and unused to the curb, was about to reply, when
the door opened and a dumb slave slowly entered. He crossed his hands,
and pointed to the door.
"A messenger," said they all.
"The gods are at last propitious," said Caracalla. "Let him approach."
Soon one was led in by the sentinel, blindfolded, and the latter
immediately withdrew.
"The sign," cried the secretary.
The stranger, without hesitation, presented a ring.
"'Tis the same," said Caracalla. He touched a concealed spring in the
signet, and from underneath the gem drew forth a little paper with a
scrap of writing in cypher. It was held before the lamp, and the
intelligence it contained rendered their plot complete. Ere break of
day, the deed would be accomplished. The morning would see Caracalla
proclaimed, and Severus deposed.
"Have ye any token to my master?" inquired the messenger.
"Take back this writing," said Virius Lupus. "Thou wilt find him not
far from the city. We wait his coming."
"This leaden-heeled Mercury should have a largess," said the chief,
"but in this den we have not wherewithal to give him. Hold! here is a
good recompense, methinks," continued he, taking the crystal goblet
from a recess. "Take this to thy mistress, and tell her to buy it from
thee. We will see her anon. That charmed cup hath foiled me once, but
I will foil thee now, and the powers thou servest. Thou shall not
again cross my path!"
Cedric took the gift, wrapping it beneath his cloak.
"Thou mayest depart."
The dumb sentinel again took charge of him, and led him away by many
intricate passages towards the entrance, where it seems the goldsmith
had directed him on presenting the signet of Caracalla. The person who
took charge of him was a dumb eunuch, a slave in the service of the
empress.
But the terrors of death were upon the wretched victim. He knew the
centurion would assuredly be at hand to receive his report, and he
could not escape. He had not brought back one word of intelligence;
and being blindfolded, he knew not whither he had been taken. The
writing he carried would assuredly be unintelligible save to those for
whom it was intended. His mission, he could perceive, had utterly
failed. The centurion would not be able to profit by anything he had
brought back, and must inevitably, according to his pledge, at once
render him up to the soothsayer. Whilst ruminating on his hard fate a
sudden thought crossed him. There was little probability of success,
but at all events it might operate as a diversion in his favour, and
the design was immediately executed. Skulking for a moment behind the
slave, he tore off the bandage, and tripped up the heels of his
conductor. Before the latter could recover himself the Briton's gripe
was on his throat.
"Now, slave, thou art my prisoner! Lead on, or by this good sword,
thou diest!"
The torch he carried was luckily not extinguished in the fall. The
eunuch, almost choking, made a sign that he would obey. With the drawn
blade at his throat, the slave went on; but Cedrick, ever wary, and
with that almost instinctive sagacity peculiar to man in his
half-civilised state, kept a tiger-like watch on every movement of his
prisoner, which enabled him to detect the fingers of the slave
suddenly raised to his lips, and a shrill whistle would have consigned
him over to certain and immediate destruction; but he struck down the
uplifted hand with a blow which made his treacherous conductor crouch
and cringe almost to the ground.
"Another attempt," said Cedric, "and we perish together!"
The wily slave looked all penitence and submission. Silently
proceeding, apparently through the underground avenues of the palace,
Cedric was momentarily expecting his arrival at the place where the
centurion kept watch. A flight of steps now brought them to a spacious
landing-place. Suddenly a lamp was visible, and beneath it sat a
number of soldiers, the emperor's body-guard. They gave way as the
eunuch passed by, followed by Cedric, his sword still drawn. Several
of these groups were successively cleared: the guide, by a
countersign, was enabled to thread his way through every obstacle that
presented itself. The Briton's heart misgave him as they approached a
vestibule, before which a phalanx of the guards kept watch. Here he
thought it prudent to sheath his weapon, though he still followed the
eunuch, as his only remaining chance of escape. Even here they were
instantly admitted, and without any apparent hesitation. The door
turned slowly on its pivot, and Cedric found himself in a
richly-decorated chamber, where, by the light of a single lamp, and
with the smell of perfumed vapour in his nostrils, he saw a figure in
costly vestments reclining on a couch. The slave prostrated himself.
"What brings thee from thy mistress at this untimely hour? A message
from the empress?"
Here the speaker raised himself from the couch, and the slave, with
great vehemence, made certain signs, which the wondering Briton
understood not.
"Ah!" said the emperor, his eyes directly levelled at the supposed
culprit; "thou hast found the thief who, in the confusion of
yesternight, bore away the magic cup. Bring him hither that I may
question him ere his carcase be sent to the beasts."
The doomed wretch was now fairly in the paws of the very tyrant he had
so long dreaded. The death which by every stratagem he had striven to
avoid was now inevitable. He was betrayed by means of the very device
he had, as he thought, so craftily adopted; but still his natural
sagacity did not forsake him even in this unexpected emergency. As he
prostrated himself, presenting the cup he had stowed away safely in
his cloak, he still kept a wary eye on the slave who had betrayed him.
He saw him preparing to depart; and knowing that his only hope of
deliverance lay in preventing his guide from giving warning to the
conspirators they had just left, Cedric, with a sudden spring, leaped
upon him like a tiger, even in the presence of the monarch.
The latter, astounded at this unexpected act of temerity, was for a
few moments inactive. This pause was too precious to be lost.
Desperation gave him courage, and Cedric addressed the dread ruler of
the world even whilst he clutched the gasping traitor.
"Here, great monarch, here is the traitor; and if I prove him not
false, on my head be the recompense!"
He said this in a tone of such earnestness and anxiety that the
emperor was suddenly diverted from his purpose of summoning his
attendants. He saw the favourite slave of the empress writhing in the
gripe of the barbarian; but the events of the last few hours had
awakened suspicions which the lightest accusations might confirm. He
remembered his son's guilt; the facility of his escape; and it might
be that treason stood on the very threshold, ready to strike. He
determined to sift the matter; and the guard now summoned, the parties
were separated--each awaiting the fiat of the monarch.
"Where is Virius Lupus?" was the emperor's first inquiry.
"He hath not returned from the apartments of the empress."
"Let this slave be bound," cried Cedric. "Force him to conduct you
even to the place whence, blindfold, he hath just led me; and if you
find not a nest of traitors, my own head shall be the forfeit."
Dark and fearful was the flash that shot from the emperor's eye on the
devoted eunuch. Pale and trembling he fell on his knees, supplicating
with uplifted hands for mercy. He knew it was vain to dissemble.
"And what wert thou doing in such perilous company?" inquired the
emperor, turning to Cedric, and in a voice which made him shrink.
"Let the centurion, Diogenes Verecundus, be sought out. He waits my
return by the Forum gate. To him the city owes a discovery of this
plot, and Rome her monarch!"
The faithful centurion was soon found. The eunuch conducted them
secretly to the vault. The conspirators were seized in the very height
of their anticipated success. The roll containing the names of the
leaders, the plan of attack, and the disposition of the rebellious
troops, was discovered; and the morning sun darted a fearful ray on
the ghastly and bleeding heads uplifted on the walls and battlements
of the imperial palace.
But with misplaced clemency the monster Caracalla was again pardoned.
The centurion Diogenes Verecundus was raised to the dignity of
Sexumvir. The only reward claimed by the generous and sturdy Briton
was an act of immunity for his master, who was merely dismissed from
his post and banished the kingdom.
[22] This tale was written for the _Traditions of
the County of York_. It appeared by permission in an Annual
entitled _The White Rose of York_: but having only had a local
circulation at the time, and having been carefully revised by
the author during the last winter of his life, it finds a place
here.
[23] Aldborough
[24] Lubinus in Juven. p. 294.
* * * * *
[i] Pile or Peel of Foundrey, both names are used.
[ii] This seems to be a slight misquote. Oliver Goldsmith's
poem starts with "For still I tried each fickle art"
and not "And".
[iii] The usual present-day form seems to be: "Non omnes qui
habent citharam sunt citharoedi."
[iv] According to the OED one definition of "prog" could
conceivably apply: a slang term for food. It also may
be a typo for "grog".
[v] Probably "coranto": a baroque/renaissance dance style
according to Wikipedia.
[vi] The spelling of "ultima Thule" instead of "Ultima Thule"
has been noted, but not corrected.
END OF VOL. II.
* * * * *
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