NIGHT.
The unconscious officer's wound was hastily but skilfully bound up and
the blood stanched, he was raised in a _lectica_ or litter, and carried
home with great care to his mansion. In the quietest chamber of the
house, he was laid upon a costly bed, one of rare wood with feet of
ivory and with purple coverlets curiously broidered with gold.
Titanus, having done his utmost, had gone away with Carnion, much cast
down, the more so that he was under command by the emperor to leave
Rome immediately on foreign service.
Coryna was left beside her brother, with the physician and a faithful
intelligent slave. The depth of her feelings could not be sounded, yet
there was staying power of a kind. Grief, admiration and anxiety
surged around a will of rock. Within, a whirling storm: without, a
pallid calm. She watched for the first signs of consciousness as the
eagle watches for its prey.
Tharsos lay as if in death, with the soft light of serenity still on
his manly face and classic brow. He moved at last and opened his eyes.
"Where is the Christian maiden?" said he in dreamy feebleness, his
expression changing into a look of anxiety.
Much relieved in tension, Coryna answered softly--
"Some kind one quickly conveyed her away, my brother, but I have sent
several of our slaves over the city to find out her lodging-place and
to enquire after her health."
A radiant joy covered his face, and he remained silent for a little.
Then he spoke with quiet earnestness:--
"My sister, thou knowest her worth. Look after her, I pray thee, for
her own sake, and for the sake of Him she serves so well. But"--and
here he halted, trying painfully to take a deep breath.
"Speak not, my brother," said Coryna soothingly.
Becoming calm, he resumed--"Hasten the search, Coryna; ask the maiden
to come and see me before I die. Tell her that I shall regard her
visit as a kindness and honour. I desire much to speak to her, my
beloved sister, to place thee in her care, and then I shall die in
peace." Tharsos spoke these last words very feebly, and then closing
his eyes he sank bask into unconsciousness.
Coryna's heart was torn, but she would not renounce hope.
* * * * *
It was difficult to trace where Pathema had gone, humble Christian
friends having taken her to a remote, obscure, but comfortable home.
One messenger, however, got word of her whereabouts late the same
night, but too late to be prudent to call. When he knocked at the door
next day he did not know that the object of his search was well
informed through her friends concerning Tharsos' critical state, and
that already there was a brief, beautiful, tablet-letter in her own
handwriting, lying near his unconscious pillow.
Weakened by her cruel experience, Pathema was resting quietly upon a
couch beside a small open window, her heart full of gratitude to God
for deliverance and of anxiety about her human deliverer.
"Is there a maiden named Pathema lodging here?" Marcellus, the
messenger, enquired.
"There is, sir," said a little Roman maid, the daughter of the hostess,
much excited as she looked out into the street and saw six slaves in
red livery standing beside a grand palanquin.
"My master, Tharsos, is at the point of death, but he would like to see
the Christian maiden ere he die."
Pathema overheard these words, and rose up at once. Though weak in
body, she was resolute in mind, and she had enjoyed a providential
night's rest. There was no delay in arranging matters, and she stepped
into the _lectica_ calmly but as one about to go through a painful
ordeal.
After elbowing their way through the streets, Marcellus leading, the
slaves at length laid their burden down beside a statue of Caractacus
in the vestibule before the door of the young nobleman's mansion.
Like the usual Roman dwelling, the exterior was not prepossessing; but
when Marcellus opened the door, the prospective view was peculiarly
magnificent. The doors and curtains of successive courts were drawn
aside, revealing active fountains, marble pillars with splendid
statuary, and a lawn and shrubbery exposed above to the blue Italian
sky.
Pathema ascended the marble steps, and passing through the richly
gilded door inlaid with tortoise-shell, she stood for a moment on the
mosaic floor of the _ostium_ or entrance hall. Overhead, a parrot of
brilliant plumage greeted her with the salutation, "Joy be with thee."
Going straight on for a few feet, she passed into the _atrium_, a
pillared court, where Coryna, the image of Tharsos in finer mould, met
her and kissed her hand in touching silence.
Leading the way, Coryna went on through the _cavaedium_, a larger
Corinthian-columned court, in whose centre stood a splashing fountain,
shooting its crystal stream towards the open sky. Passing the
_tablinum_ or room of archives, they proceeded into the _peristylium_,
a still larger transverse court or lawn with verdant shrubbery and a
chaste towering fountain.
Here there was a Roman lady, elegantly dressed and richly jewelled.
Her dark-complexioned face was strikingly beautiful, yet marred by a
lofty look of haughtiness. She walked around the lawn with the alert
graceful movements of a panther. Evidently she was laboring under
considerable excitement, and when Coryna and Pathema entered, her black
eyes flashed out a deadly scorn.
Inwardly disturbed, yet meeting the lady's look with a smile, Coryna
turned aside between the marble columns into one of the _exedrae_ or
rooms for conversation. Guiding Pathema to a comfortable seat, she
spoke for the first time, saying,
"Welcome to our home!"
"I thank thee for the honour," answered Pathema, "and I am glad to
come, yet greatly pained."
"My brother did right," was the quiet response.
"Receive, I pray thee," said Pathema in tears, "my deepest gratitude
for thy brother's deed."
"Tharsos will yet receive it personally," was the happy answer.
"I rejoice to hear thy hope," replied Pathema with brightening eyes.
"I have hope, but the physicians have little or none."
After a little further conversation during which the visitor's whole
heart was drawn out to the noble character before her, Coryna craved
liberty for a moment to bid her friend in the _peristylium_ farewell.
As she went out, a female slave entered to wait upon Pathema and show
her every necessary attention. The slave was not long in her presence
when she bewailed the calamity that had come upon her beloved master.
Then she mentioned that the young lady in the _peristylium_ was much
distressed.
"Emerentia," she continued, "loves him exceedingly, and he liked her in
return. Her father and mother leave to-day for a distant city of the
empire, and she goes with them."
Pathema was grieved, and she expressed the fervent hope that the
nobleman would recover, for the distressed lady's sake, as well as his
own.
"Emerentia," added the slave, "is generous and accomplished--that is
why the master liked her--but her goodness is not so strong as her
pride and jealousy. The lady is fierce in her feelings. She hates the
Christians, and more so now than ever."
After a few minutes Coryna returned, restrained and quiet, but with the
trace of a tear that had stolen down her fair face.
"My brother," said she with hesitation, "earnestly desired that thou
shouldst come and stay with me for a time. Is this possible? May I
hope it is."
Pathema was taken by surprise. Her home and beloved parents and the
poor of Patara had been much in her heart. Her father had been more
than once in Rome, trying to obtain her liberty, and he had provided
long ago the temporary abode she had been carried to by Christian
friends. This now swept across her vision. But it was quickly
followed by another picture--the self-sacrificing act of the nobleman
in whose mansion she was now a guest. And he was dying--so the
physicians feared. Duty--gratitude--consolation--everything demanded
her presence. Her answer was unhesitating and prompt--
"I will stay with thee."
And Coryna bent down and kissed her, with a feeling that was warmly
returned.
Tharsos was beyond the stage of knowing anyone. In spite of the best
medical skill, fever had quickly set in, and the battle began in
earnest between life and death.
Now was the opportunity for a woman's soldiership--soldiership of the
highest kind--where woman only can excel. The weapons are experience,
presence of mind, patience, endurance and compassion. With all these
Pathema was perfectly armed, her value was speedily recognised, and she
became an unassuming soldier in the strife. There were days and nights
of anxious care and watching, the utmost was performed, and nothing
left undone. Yet Tharsos seemed to be marching straight without
resource to the grim enemy's gloomy gate. The thought was painful
beyond measure, but it seemed to Pathema that the noble-minded man must
die!
While the fever lay upon him he spoke in bits of sentences about the
Nazarene, mysterious, divine! and the devoted disciple Pathema. His
language was now subdued and reverential, tender and touching, as if he
stood in the presence of unearthly beings; then indignant, emphatic,
even wild, as if he were again surrounded by the cruel and inquisitive
multitude--a wildness wholly unlike that of the quiet reserved man in
health. Sitting up and pointing to the walls he would cry--
"Great God! the fiends, mad, malignant, blood-thirsty, the fiends of
Tartarus have entered thy fair world in the bodies of men."