AN ILL-OMEN.
It was even so.
The young girl had coaxed the big Briton to take her in a boat to the
galley, so as to meet and embrace her father, before he came on shore.
She was a peculiarly affectionate child, and jealous to boot. She knew
that, so soon as he landed, his whole attention would be engrossed by her
very exacting mother, who moreover would keep her in the background, and
would chide should the father divert his notice from herself to his child.
She was therefore determined to be the first to salute him, and to receive
his endearments, and to lavish on him her affection, unchecked by her
mother.
As for the slave, he knew that he would get into trouble if he complied
with the girl’s request, but he was unable to resist her blandishments.
And now Domitia reached the side of the galley, and a rope was cast to the
boat, caught by Eboracus, who shipped his oars, and the little skiff was
made fast to the side of the vessel.
The eyes of the father had already recognized his child. Domitia stood in
the bows and extended her arms, poised on tiptoe, as if, like a bird about
to leap into the air and fly to his embrace.
[Illustration: “DOMITIA EXTENDED HER ARMS.” _Page 10._]
And now he caught her hand, looked into her dancing, twinkling eyes, as
drops of the very Ægean itself, set in her sweet face, and in another
moment she was clinging round his neck, and sobbing as though her heart
would break, yet not with sorrow, but through excess of otherwise
inexpressible joy.
For an hour she had him to herself—all to herself—the dear father whom she
had not seen for half a year, to tell him how she loved him, to hear about
himself, to pour into his ear her story of pleasures and pains, great
pleasures and trifling pains.
And yet—no, not wholly uninterrupted was the meeting and sweet converse,
for the father said:
“My darling, hast thou no word for Lucius?”
“Lamia! He is here?”
The father, Cnæus Domitius Corbulo, with a smile turned and beckoned.
Then a young man, with pleasant, frank face, came up. He had remained at a
distance, when father and daughter met, but had been unable to withdraw
his eyes from the happy group.
“Domitia, you have not forgotten your old playmate, have you?”
With a light blush like the tint on the petal of the rose of June, the
girl extended her hand.
“Nay, nay!” said Corbulo. “A gentler, kinder greeting, after so long a
separation.”
Then she held up her modest cheek, and the young man lightly touched it
with his lips.
She drew herself away and said:
“You will not be angry if I give all my thoughts and words and looks to my
father now. When we come on shore, he will be swallowed up by others.”
Lamia stepped back.
“Do not be offended,” she said with a smile, and the loveliest, most
bewitching dimples came into her cheeks. “I have not indeed been without
thought of you, Lucius, but have spun and spun and weaved too, enough to
make you a tunic, all with my own hands, and a purple _clavus_—it nigh
ruined me, the dyed Tyrian wool cost(1)—I will not say; but I wove little
crossed L’s into the texture.”
“What,” said Corbulo. “For Lucius and Longina?”
The girl became crimson.
Lamia came to her succor. “That could not be,” said he, “for Longina and
Lucius are never across, but alack! Lucius is often so with Lamia, when he
has done some stupid thing and he sees a frown on his all but father’s
face, but hears no word of reproach.”
“My boy,” said Corbulo, “when a man knows his own faults, then a reprimand
is unnecessary, and what is unnecessary is wrong.”
Lamia bowed and retired.
And now again father and daughter were alone together in the prow
observing the arc of the harbor in which the ship was gliding smoothly.
And now the sailors had out their poles and hooks, and they ran the vessel
beside the wharf, and cast out ropes that were made fast to bronze rings
in the marble breasting of the quay.
Domitia would at once have drawn her father on shore, but he restrained
her.
“Not yet, my daughter,” he said; “the goddess must precede thee.”
And now ensued a singular formality.
From the bows of the vessel, the captain and steerer took a statuette of
Artemis, in bronze, the Ephesian goddess, with female head and numerous
breasts, but with the lower limbs swaddled, and the swaddling bands
decorated with representations of all kinds of beasts, birds, and fishes.
This image was now conveyed on shore, followed by the passengers and crew.
On the quay stood an altar, upon which charcoal ever burnt, under the
charge of a priest who attended to it continuously, and whenever a ship
entered the port or was about to leave, added fuel, and raked and blew up
the fire.
Simultaneously from a small temple on the quay issued a priest with veiled
head, and his attendants came to the altar, cast some grains of incense on
the embers, and as the blue fragrant smoke arose and was dissipated by the
sea breeze, he said:—
“The Goddess Aphrodite of Corinth salutes her divine sister, the
Many-Breasted Artemis of Ephesus, and welcomes her. And she further prays
that she may not smite the city or the port with fire, pestilence or
earthquake.”
Then captain, steerman, pilot and the rest of the company advanced in
procession to the temple, and on reaching it offered a handful of sweet
gums on an altar there, before the image of the foam-born goddess of
Beauty, and said:—
“We who come from the sea, having safely traversed the Ægean, escaped
rocks and sand-banks, whirlpools and storms, under the protection of the
great goddess of Ephesus, salute in her name the goddess of Beauty, and
receive her welcome with thankfulness. And great Artemis beseeches her
sister to suffer her and the vessel with passengers and goods and crew,
that she conducts and protects, to pass across the isthmus, without let
and molestation; and she for her part undertakes to pay the accustomed
toll, and the due to the temple of Aphrodite, and that neither the
passengers nor the crew shall in any way injure or disturb the inhabitants
of Corinth or of the Isthmus.”
This ceremony concluded, all were at liberty to disperse; the sailors to
attend to the vessel, the slaves of Corbulo to look to and land such of
his luggage as he was likely to want, and Corbulo to go to his wife, who
had placed herself in an attitude to receive him.
The captain, at the same time, entered the harbor-master’s office to
arrange about the crossing of the isthmus, and to settle tolls.
For the vessel was not to make more stay than a few days at the port of
Cenchræa. After Longa Duilia was ready, then she and her husband and
family were to proceed to Lechæum, the port on the Corinthian Gulf, there
to embark for Italy. The vessel would leave the harbor and go to Diolchus,
that point of the Isthmus on the east where the neck of land was
narrowest. There the ships would be hauled out of the water, placed on
rollers, and by means of oxen, assisted by gangs of slaves, would convey
the vessel over the land for six miles to the Gulf of Corinth, where again
she would be floated.
Immediately behind the Roman general, Corbulo, the father of Domitia,
walked two individuals, both wearing long beards, and draped to the feet.
One of these had a characteristically Oriental head. His eyes were set
very close together, his nose was aquiline, his tint sallow, his eyebrows
heavy and bushy, and his general expression one of cunning and subtlety.
His movements were stately.
The other was not so tall. He was clumsy in movement, rugged in feature,
with a broken nose, his features distinctly Occidental, as was his bullet
head. His hair was sandy, and scant on his crown. He wore a smug,
self-complacent expression on his pursed-up lips and had a certain “I am
Sir Oracle, let no dog bark” look in his pale eyes.
These two men, walking side by side, eyed each other with ill-concealed
dislike and disdain.
The former was a Chaldæan, who was usually called Elymas, but affected in
Greek to be named Ascletarion.
The latter was an Italian philosopher who had received his training in
Greece at a period when all systems of philosophy were broken up and
jostled each other in their common ruin.
No sooner was the ceremony at an end, and Corbulo had hastened from the
wharf to meet and embrace his wife, and Lamia had drawn off Domitia for a
few words, than these two men left to themselves instinctively turned to
launch their venom at each other.
The philosopher, with a toss of his beard, and a lifting of his light
eyebrows, and the protrusion of his lower lip said:
“And pray, what has the profundity of Ascletarion alias Elymas beheld in
the bottom of that well he terms his soul?”
“He has been able to see what is hidden from the shallowness of Claudius
Senecio alias Spermologos(2) over the surface of which shallowness his
soul careers like a water spider.”
“And that is, O muddiness?”
“Ill-luck, O insipidity.”
“Why so?—not, the Gods forfend, that I lay any weight on anything you may
say. But I like to hear your vaticinations that I may laugh over them.”
“Hear, then. Because a daughter of Earth dared to set foot on the vessel
consecrated to and conducted by Artemis before that the tutelary goddess
had been welcomed by and had saluted the tutelary deity of the land.”
“I despise your prophecies of evil, thou crow.”
“Not more than do I thy platitudes, O owl!”
“Hearken to the words of the poet,” said the philosopher, and he started
quoting the Œdipus Tyrannus: “The Gods know the affairs of mortals. But
among men, it is by no means certain that a soothsayer is of more account
than myself!” And Senecio snapped his fingers in the face of the Magus.
“Conclude thy quotation,” retorted Elymas. “‘A man’s wisdom may surpass
Wisdom itself. Therefore never will I condemn the seer, lest his words
prove true.’ How like you that?” and he snapped his fingers under the nose
of the philosopher.