THE END OF THE DAY.
A rumor, none knew from whom it arose, spread rapidly in whispers, sending
a quiver of alarm, distress, pity, through the entire wedding party,
reaching last of all him most concerned.
None dared breathe in his ear what all feared; but none would separate
till it was surely ascertained whether what was surmised was a fact or
not.
The slaves knew it and looked wistfully at Lamia.
He was engaged in making trifling presents to the many guests and
well-wishers, moving from one to another, attended by slaves with trays
piled up with gifts.
Eboracus burst on him, through the throng, forgetting, in his agitation
and fear, the diffidence that belonged to his position.
“Sir! Where is the mistress?”
Lamia, without looking at him, or desisting from what he was about,
answered:
“Within, being freed from her veil and bridal ornaments.”
“Sir! Lucius! she has been stolen from you! she has been carried away.”
Lamia stood as one petrified.
“How dare you utter such a jest?”
“It is no jest—she has been conveyed hence. She is not in your house.”
Without another word, Lamia flew into the portion of the house to which
Domitia had retired.
There all was in confusion. The female slaves were either struck down with
terror, or crying out that they were not to blame.
“Where is she?” asked Lamia, hardly realizing that there was actual loss,
thinking this was some frolic of his young companions, who on such
occasions allowed themselves great licence.
To add to the confusion, a tame magpie with clipped wing, belonging to the
gouty old Lamia, got in the way of every one, and screamed when run over;
and the elder man roared out reproach and brandished his crutch when the
life of his pet was endangered.
Claudia, like a pious woman, had rushed to the _lararium_ to supplicate
the assistance of the Gods, especially of Lamius, son of Hercules and
Omphale, the reputed half-divine ancestor of the family.
Domitia had disappeared.—How?—none could say. She had been spirited away,
one said in this manner, another said in that. One held it as his opinion
that she had been carried off by some disbanded Vitellian soldiers who
were said to lurk about the suburbs of Rome and commit depredations. Some
thought that in maiden shyness she had fled home; some whispered that the
Gods had translated her; others that a former lover had suborned the
servants to admit him, and that he had conveyed her from her husband’s
house to his own.
But in what direction had she been taken? There again opinions differed,
and tongues gave conflicting accounts. One had seen a litter hurried down
the Clivus Scauri. One declared that he had seen a girl running in the
direction of Nero’s lake, and suggested that this was Domitia who had gone
thither to destroy herself. One had noticed suspicious-looking men wrapped
in military cloaks lounging about, and these had disappeared—he had even
seen the backs of some near the Porta Metrovia. Then one cried out:—
“What else can be expected when such an ill-omened bird is kept in the
house, as a magpie?”
Not until all guests, visitors, had been excluded from the house, could
anything be learned with certainty, and that was little. During the
afternoon, shortly before the arrival of the procession, several male and
female slaves had arrived under the direction of a Chaldæan soothsayer,
who announced that he had been sent along with them to the house of the
bridegroom by the bride’s mother, the Lady Duilia, and that they formed a
portion of Domitia’s attendance, who had been associated with her in her
former home, and would be about her person in her new quarters. No
suspicion had been roused, and as the Magian spoke with authority, and
gave directions, which it was presumed he was commissioned to do, and as
old Lamia was crippled with gout and moreover indisposed to attend to such
matters, and the old lady was simple to childishness, these strangers were
suffered to do much what they pleased; and on the bride retiring to be
divested of the flame colored veil, her wreath and other ornaments, had
been allowed to take possession of her.
What happened further they did not know. In the excitement of the arrival
of visitors nothing had been observed till some of the household servants
remarked that the servants of the family of Duilia had left,—that there
had been a bustle in the garden court, and that a litter had departed,
borne by men who ran under their load. But even then no notion that the
bride had been carried off was entertained. For some time no suspicion of
mischief arose. When the slaves became aware that their new mistress was
no longer in the house, there was first some surprise entertained that she
was not seen, then a notion that she might be unwell or over-tired—but the
first word that suggested that she had been conveyed away came from
without the house, from a guest who inquired casually what lady had left
the house, in a litter, borne by trotting porters. Lamia, in violent
agitation, at once hurried to the house whence Domitia had come, to ask
for an explanation. There he learned nothing satisfactory. No servants had
been sent beforehand. Domitia had taken with her two female slaves, but
they had attended her in the procession. The sorcerer, it was true, had
disappeared and had not returned.
Lamia was obliged to return home, without his anxiety being in any way
removed.
On reaching his palace on the Cœlian, he learned something further. In the
room in which Domitia had been divested of her bridal ornaments, which lay
scattered in disorder, was a crystal cup that contained the dregs of wine,
and this wine was drugged with a powerful narcotic. Of this the slave who
acted as house-surgeon and physician was certain. He had tasted it and
detected the presence of an opiate. Nothing further could be learned,
neither whence came the strange slaves nor whither they had gone.
In the mean time a party surrounding a closed litter had passed through
the Porta Capena, and was hurrying along the Appian Way.
Directly the city was left, a tall man who directed the convoy called a
halt;—then approaching the litter, he drew back the curtains, and said:—
“Asleep! Two of you take her up, lift her, set her on her feet and rouse
her.”
He was obeyed and a helpless body was removed, sustained between two stout
slaves, and made to stand on the causeway.
“Shake her,” said the director, who was none other than the Chaldæan. “If
she sleep on, she will never wake. Roused and made to walk she must be. We
need fear no pursuit. I have left those behind who will spread a false
rumor, and send such as think she has been carried away along the wrong
road. Make her walk.”
The helpless girl—it was Domitia—staggered with drowsiness and stumbled.
“Let me sleep,” she murmured.
“It must not be, lady. To let you sleep is to consign you to death. You
must be constrained to walk.”
“Let me sleep!” she fretfully said.
“If you sleep you die.”
“I want to die—only to sleep. I am dead weary.”
“Make her move along,” said the sorcerer in a low tone, and the slaves who
held her up drew her forward. She scarce moved her feet.
“Oh, you are cruel. I want to sleep. An hour! half an hour. For one moment
longer!” she pleaded.
Still the bearers drew her forward, they did not lift her so that she need
not move her feet. She was constrained to step forward.
“I pray you! I will give you gold. You shall have all my jewels. Lay me
down. Let go your hold, and I will lie where I am, and sleep.”
“Draw her further.—Hark! here come horses. Aside! behind that tomb!”
The party stole from off the road and secreted itself behind one of the
mausoleums that line the sides of the Appian Way.
“Shake her—lest she doze off in your arms,” said Elymas, and the slaves
obeyed.
Then Domitia began to sob. “Have pity! only for a little while, I am so
tired. The day has been so long and so wearying.”
“They are passed—mere travellers,” said the sorcerer. “Into the road
again. Force her to walk.”
Then she called, “Lamia—my Lucius! come to me, drive these men away. They
will not let me sleep,” and she struggled to free herself, and unable to
do so by a spasmodic effort, began to sob, and sobbed herself into a half
doze.
“She is sleeping. Run with her,” called the Magus.
In vain did she weep, entreat, threaten, naught availed, she was forced to
advance; now to take a few steps, to rest on her feet, to walk in
actuality. The very anger she felt at not being allowed to cast herself
down, fold her hands under her head, and drop off into unconsciousness,
tended to rouse her.
After about half an hour, her entreaties to be allowed to rest became less
frequent, and alternated with inquiries as to where she was, whither she
was going, why she was forced to walk, and that at night. Then she ceased
altogether to complain of drowsiness, and finding she met with no response
to her inquiries as to her destination, she became silent; she was now
conscious, but her brain was clouded, perplexed. She could remember
nothing that would account for her present position. Whether she were in a
dream, laboring under nightmare, she could not tell, and purposely she
struck her foot against one of the paving blocks of lava, and by the pain
assured herself that she was actually awake.
But where was she?
She looked up. The sky was besprent with stars, a sky limpid, tender,
vaporless and vast, out of which the stars throbbed with iridescent light
in all the changeful flicker of topaz, emerald and ruby. And the air was
full of flying stars, in tens of thousands, they settled on rushes by the
roadside in chains of fire, they flashed across the eyes, they settled
down on the dress; and out of the cool grass shone the steady lustre of
innumerable glow-worms.
The milky way, like an illumined veil, crossed the vault, vaporous,
transparent with stars shining through it.
From the black monuments on each side hooted the owls, bats swept by,
diving out of night to brush by the passers along the road and plunge back
into night, like old forgotten fancies of the dreaming mind, that recur
and vanish again, in waking hours. Out of the grass the crickets shrilled,
and frogs called with flutelike tones at intervals, whilst others
maintained an incessant chatter.
Where was she? What were these great fantastic edifices on each side of
the road? They were no houses, for out of none glimmered a light. No
occupants stood in the doors, or sang and piped on the threshold. These
were no taverns, for no host invited to rest within, and praised his fare.
The road was forsaken, still as death, and these mansions were the
dwellings of the dead. She knew this now—that she was on one of the roads
that led from the gates of Rome, lined with tombs. How she had got there
she knew not. Least of all did she know for what reason she was being
dragged along it. She had thus trudged for a considerable time; she had
ceased to speak. She was occupied with her thoughts. Weary she was, but in
too great anguish of mind to be aware how weary she was, till tripping on
a stone she fell.
Then a voice said:—
“She is full awake now. There is naught to fear. Let her again mount the
litter.”
“Elymas!” exclaimed the girl, “I know you, I know your voice. What means
this? Whither am I being taken?”
“Madam,” said the sorcerer in reply, after a pause, “your own eyes shall
answer the question better than my lips, to-morrow.”