THERE IS NO STAR.
A quarter of an hour had elapsed since Corbulo entered the peristyle of
the villa, when the young man Lamia came out.
He was still pale as death, and his muscles twitched with strong emotion.
He glanced about him in quest of Longa Duilia, but that lady had retired
precipitately to the _gynaikonitis_, or Lady’s hall, where she had
summoned to her a bevy of female slaves and had accumulated about her an
apothecary’s shop of restoratives.
Domitia was still in the garden, playing with the kid, and Lamia at once
went to her, not speedily, but with repugnance.
She immediately desisted from her play, and smiled at his approach. They
were old acquaintances, and had seen much of each other in Syria.
Corbulo had not been proconsul, but legate in the East, and had made
Antioch his headquarters. He had been engaged against the Parthians and
Armenians for eight years, but the war had been intermittent, and between
the campaigns he had returned to Antioch, to the society of his wife and
little daughter.
The former, a dashing, vain and ambitious woman, had made a _salon_ there
which was frequented by the best society of the province. Corbulo, a
quiet, thoughtful and modest man, shrunk from the stir and emptiness of
such life, and had found rest and enjoyment in the company of his
daughter.
Lamia had served as his secretary and aide-de-camp. He was a youth of much
promise, and of singular integrity of mind and purity of morals in a
society that was self-seeking, voluptuous, and corrupt.
He belonged to the Ælian _gens_ or clan, but he had been adopted by a
Lamia, a member of a family in the same clan, that claimed descent from
Lamius, a son of Poseidon, or Neptune, by one of those fictions so dear to
the Roman noble houses, and which caused the fabrication of mythical
origins, just as the ambition of certain honorable families in England led
to the falsification of the Roll of Battle Abbey.
Pliny tells a horrible story of the first Lamia of importance, known to
authentic history. He had been an adherent of Cæsar and a friend of
Cicero. He was supposed to be dead in the year in which he had been
elected prætor, and was placed on the funeral pyre, when consciousness
returned, but too late for him to be saved. The flames rose and enveloped
him, and he died shrieking and struggling to escape from the bandages that
bound him to the bier on which he lay.
Lucius Lamia had been kindly treated by Corbulo, and the young man’s heart
had gone out to the venerated general, to whom he looked up as a model of
all the old Roman virtues, as well as a man of commanding military genius.
The simplicity of the old soldier’s manner and the freshness of his mind
had acted as a healthful and bracing breeze upon the youth’s moral
character.
And now he took the young girl by the hand, and walked with her up and
down the pleached avenues for some moments without speaking.
His breast heaved. His head swam. His hand that held hers worked
convulsively.
All at once Domitia stood still.
She had looked up wondering at his manner, into his eyes, and had seen
that they were full.
“What ails you, Lucius?”
“Come, sit by me on the margin of the basin,” said he. “By the Gods! I
conjure thee to summon all thy fortitude. I have news to communicate, and
they of the saddest——”
“What! are we not to return to Rome? O Lamia, I was a child when I left
it, but I love our house at Gabii, and the lake there, and the garden.”
“It is worse than that, Domitia.” He seated himself on the margin of a
basin, and nervously, not knowing what he did, drew his finger in the
water, describing letters, and chasing the darting fish.
“Domitia, you belong to an ancient race. You are a Roman, and have the
blood of the Gods in your veins. So nerve thy heroic soul to hear the
worst.”
And still he thrust after the frightened fish with his finger, and she
looked down, and saw them dart like shadows in the pool, and her own
frightened thoughts darted as nimbly and as blindly about in her head.
“Why, how now, Lamia? Thou art descended by adoption from the
Earth-shakes, and tremblest as a girl! See—a tear fell into the basin. Oh,
Lucius! My very kid rears in surprise.”
“Do not mock. Prepare for the worst. Think what would be the sorest ill
that could befall thee.”
Domitia withdrew her eyes from the fish and the water surface rippled by
his finger, and looked now with real terror in his face.
“My father?”
Then Lamia raised his dripping finger and pointed to the house.
She looked, and saw that the gardener had torn down boughs of cypress, and
therewith was decorating the doorway.
At the same moment rose a long-drawn, desolate wail, rising, falling,
ebbing, flowing—a sea of sound infinitely sad, heart-thrilling,
blood-congealing.
For one awful moment, one of those moments that seems an eternity, Domitia
remained motionless.
She could hear articulate words, voices now.
“Come back! O Cnæus! Come, thou mighty warrior! Come, thou pillar of thy
race! Come back, thou shadow! Return, O fleeted soul! See, see! thy
tabernacle is still warm. Return, O soul! return!”
She knew it—the _conclamatio_; that cry uttered about the dead in the
hopes of bringing back the spirit that has fled.
Then, before Lamia could stop her, Domitia started from the margin of the
pool, startling the fish again and sending them flying as rays from where
she had been seated, and ran to the house.
The gardener, with the timidity of a slave, did not venture to forbid
passage.
A soldier who was withdrawing extended his arm to bar the doorway. Quick
as thought she dived below this barrier, and next moment with a cry that
cut through the wail of the mourners, she cast herself on the body of her
father, that lay extended on the mosaic floor, with a blood-stained sword
at his side, and a dark rill running from his breast over the enamelled
pavement.
Next moment Lamia entered.
Around the hall were mourners, slaves of the house, as also some of those
of Longa Duilia, raising their arms and lowering them, uttering their
cries of lamentation and invocations to the departed soul, some rending
their garments, others making believe to tear their hair and scratch their
faces.
In the midst lay the dead general, and his child clung to him, kissed him,
chafed his hands, endeavored to stanch his wound, and addressed him with
endearments.
But all was in vain. The spirit was beyond recall, and were it to return
would again be expelled. Corbulo was dead.
The poor child clasped him, convulsed with tears; her copious chestnut
hair had become unbound, and was strewed about her, and even dipped in her
father’s blood. She was as though frantic with despair; her gestures, her
cry very different from the formal expressions and utterances of the
servile mourners.
But Lamia at length touched her, and said—
“Come away, Domitia. You cannot prevent Fate.”
Suddenly she reared herself on her knees, and put back the burnished rain
of hair that shrouded her face, and said in harsh tones:—
“Who slew him?”
“He fell on his own sword.”
“Why! He was happy?”
Before an answer was given, she reeled and fell unconscious across her
father’s body.
Then Lamia stooped, gathered her up tenderly, pitifully, in his arms, and
bore her forth into the garden to the fountain, where he could bathe her
face, and where the cool air might revive her.
Why was Corbulo dead? and why had he died by his own hand?
The Emperor Nero was, as Duilia had told her husband, at this very time in
Greece, and further, hard by at Corinth, where he was engaged in
superintending the cutting of a canal, that was to remove the difficulty
of a passage from the Saronic to the Corinthian Gulf.
Nero had come to Greece attended by his Augustal band of five thousand
youths with flowing locks, and gold bangles on their wrists, divided into
three companies, whose duty it was to applaud the imperial mountebank, and
rouse or lead enthusiasm, the Hummers by buzzing approval, the Clappers by
beating their hands together, and the Clashers by kicking pots about so as
to produce a contagious uproar.
Nero was possessed with the delusion that he had a fine voice, and that he
was an incomparable actor. Yet his range was so small, that when striving
to sink to a bass note, his voice became a gurgle, and when he attempted
to soar to a high note, he raised himself on his toes, became purple in
face, and emitted a screech like a peacock.
Not satisfied with the obsequious applause of the Roman and Neapolitan
citizens who crowded the theatre to hear the imperial buffoon twitter, he
resolved to contest for prizes in the games of Greece.
A fleet attended him, crowded with actors, singers, dancers, heaped up
with theatrical properties, masks, costumes, wigs, and fiddles.
He would show the Greeks that he could drive a chariot, sing and strut the
stage now in male and then in female costume, and adapt his voice to the
sex he personated, now grumbling in masculine tones, then squeaking in
falsetto, and incomparable in each.
But with the cunning of a madman, he took with him, as his court, the
wealthiest nobles of Rome, whom he had marked out for death, either
because he coveted their fortunes or suspected their loyalty.
Wherever he went, into whatsoever city he entered, his artistic eye noted
the finest statues and paintings, and he carried them off, from temple as
from marketplace, to decorate Rome or enrich his Golden House, the palace
he had erected for himself.
Tortured by envy of every one who made himself conspicuous; hating,
fearing such as were in all men’s mouths, through their achievements, or
notable for virtue, his suspicion had for some time rested on Domitius
Corbulo, who had won laurels first in Germany and afterwards in Syria.
He had summoned him to Rome, with the promise of preferments, his purpose
being to withdraw him from the army that adored him, and to destroy him.
No sooner did the tidings reach the tyrant at Corinth, that the veteran
hero was arrived at Cenchræa, than he sent him a message to commit
suicide. A gracious condescension that, for the property of the man who
was executed was forfeit and his wife and children reduced to beggary,
whereas the will of the testator who destroyed himself was allowed to
remain in force.
Lamia washed the stains from the hands and locks of the girl, and bathed
her face with water till she came round.
Then, when he saw that she had recovered full consciousness, he asked to
be allowed to hasten for assistance. She bowed her head, as she could not
speak, and he entered the women’s portion of the villa to summon some of
the female slaves. These were, however, in no condition to answer his call
and be of use. Duilia had monopolized the attentions of almost all such as
had not been commissioned to raise the funeral wail. Some, indeed, there
were, scattered in all directions, running against each other, doing
nothing save add to the general confusion, but precisely these were
useless for Lamia’s purpose.
Unwilling to leave the child longer alone, Lucius returned to the garden,
and saw Domitia seated on the breastwork of the fountain.
Ten years seemed to have passed over her head, so altered was she.
She was not now weeping. The rigidity of the fainting fit seemed not to
have left her face, nor relaxed the stony appearance it had assumed. Her
eyes were lustreless, and her lips without color.
The young man was startled at her look.
“Domitia!” said he.
She raised her eyes to him, and said in reply,
“Lucius!” Then letting them fall, she added in hard, colorless tones,
“There is one thing I desire of thee. By some means or other, I care not
what, bring me into the presence of the monster. I know how my father has
come by his death—as have so many others, the best and the noblest. I have
but one ambition on earth, I see but a single duty before me—to drive if
it be but a silver bodkin into his heart.”
“Domitia!”
“Lucius, the last words my father used to me were to bid me look to the
stars and to sail by them. I look and I see one only star. I feel but one
only duty on earth—to revenge his death.”
“My friend!” said Lamia, in a low tone. “Be careful of thy words. If
overheard, they might cause your blood to be mingled with his.”
“I care not.”
“But to me it matters sovereignly.”
“Why? Dost thou care for me?”
“Above all in the world.”
“Then revenge me.”
“Domitia, my grief is little less than thine. If you would revenge the
loss, so would I. But what can be done? He, the coward, is carefully
guarded. None are suffered to approach him who have not first been
searched, and even then are not allowed within arm’s length. Nothing can
be done, save invoke the Gods.”
“The Gods!” laughed the girl hoarsely. “The Gods! They set up the base,
the foul, and crown him with roses, and trample the noble and good into
the earth. The Gods! see you now! They set a star in heaven, they grave a
duty in my heart, and the star is unattainable, and the duty, they make
impossible of achievement. Bah! There is no star. There are no duties on
earth, and no Gods in heaven.”