and horses were placed together in a camp, and surrounded by a wall of
tree trunks, stones, and shields. Meanwhile shouts and whistles were
still heard; nay, when Tarautas came out on the arena in the highly
decorated armor of a Roman legate, at the head of a troop of heavily
armed men, and again greeted the emperor, the commotion began afresh.
But Caracalla's patience was exhausted, and the high-priest saw by his
pale cheeks and twitching eyelids what was passing in his mind; so,
inspired by the fervent hope of averting some incalculable disaster from
his fellow-citizens, he took his place in front of the statue of the god,
and, lifting up his hands, he began:
"In the name of Serapis, O Macedonians!" His deep, ringing tones sounded
above the voices of the insurgents in the upper rows, and there was
silence.
Not a sound was to be heard but the long-drawn howling of the wind, and
now and then the flap of a strip of cloth torn from the velarium by the
gale. Mingling with these might be heard the uncanny hooting of owls and
daws which the illumination had brought out of their nests in the
cornice, and which the storm was now driving in again.
Timotheus, in a clear and audible address, now appealed to his audience
to remain quiet, not to disturb the splendid entertainment here set
before them, and above all to remember that great Caesar, the divine
ruler of the world, was in their midst, an honor to each and all. As the
guest of the most hospitable city on earth, their illustrious sovereign
had a right to expect from every Alexandrian the most ardent endeavors to
make his stay here delightful. It was his part as high-priest to uplift
his warning voice in the name of the greatest of the gods, that the ill-
will of a few malcontents might not give rise to an idea in the mind of
their beloved guest that the natives of Alexandria were blind to the
blessings for which every citizen had to thank his beneficent rule.
A shrill whistle here interrupted his discourse, and a voice shouted:
"What blessings? We know of none."
But Timotheus was not to be checked, and went on more vehemently
"All of you who, by the grace of Caesar, have been made Roman citizens--"
But again a voice broke in--the speaker was the overseer of the granaries
of Seleukus, sitting in the second tier--"And do you suppose we do not
know what the honor costs us?"
This query was heartily applauded, and then suddenly, as if by magic, a
perfect chorus arose, chanting a distich which one man in the crowd had
first given out and then two or three had repeated, to which a fourth had
given a sort of tune, till it was shouted by every one present at the
very top of his voice, with marked application to him of whom it spoke.
From the topmost row of places, on every side of the amphitheatre, rang
out the following lines, which but a moment before no one had ever heard:
"Death to the living, to pay for burying those that are dead;
Since, what the taxes have spared, soldiers have ruthlessly seized."
And the words certainly came from the heart; of the people, for they
seemed never weary of repeating them; and it was not till a tremendous
clap of thunder shook the very walls that several were silent and looked
up with increasing alarm. The moment's pause was seized on to begin the
fight. Caesar bit his lip in powerless fury, and his hatred of the
towns-people, who had thus so plainly given him to understand their
sentiments, was rising from one minute to the next. He felt it a real
misfortune that he was unable to punish on the spot the insult thus
offered him; swelling with rage, he remembered a speech made by Caligula,
and wished the town had but one head, that he might sever it from the
body. The blood throbbed so fiercely in his temples, and there was such
a singing in his ears, that for some little time he neither saw nor heard
what was going on. This terrible agitation might cost him yet some hours
of great suffering. But he need no longer dread them so much; for there
sat the living remedy which he believed he had secured by the strongest
possible ties.
How fair she was! And, as he looked round once more at Melissa, he
observed that her eye was turned on him with evident anxiety. At this a
light seemed to dawn in his clouded soul, and he was once more conscious
of the love which had blossomed in his heart. But it would never do to
make her who had wrought the miracle so soon the confidante of his
hatred. He had seen her angry, had seen her weep, and had seen her
smile; and within the next few days, which were to make him a happy man
instead of a tortured victim, he longed only to see her great eyes
sparkle and her lips overflow with words of love, joy, and gratitude.
His score with the Alexandrians must be settled later, and it was in his
power to make them atone with their blood and bitterly rue the deeds of
this night.
He passed his hand over his furrowed brow, as though to wake himself from
a bad dream; nay, he even found a smile when next his eyes met hers; and
those spectators to whom his aspect seemed more absorbing than the
horrible slaughter in the arena, looked at each other in amazement, for
the indifference or the dissimulation, whichever it might be, with which
Caesar regarded this unequaled scene of bloodshed, seemed to them quite
incredible.
Never, since his very first visit to a circus, had Caracalla left
unnoticed for so long a time the progress of such a battle as this.
However, nothing very remarkable had so far occurred, for the actual
seizure of the camp had but just begun with the massacre of the Alemanni
and the suicide of the women.
At this moment the gladiator Tarautas, as nimble as a cat and as
bloodthirsty as a hungry wolf, sprang on to one of the enemy's piled-up
wagons, and a tall swordsman, with a bear-skin over his shoulder, and
long, reddish-gold hair, flew to meet him.
This was no sham German! Caracalla knew the man. He had been brought to
Rome among the captive chiefs, and, as he had proved to be a splendid
horseman, he had found employment in Caesar's stables. His conduct had
always been blameless till, on the day when Caracalla had entered
Alexandria, he had, in a drunken fit, killed first the man set over him,
a hot-headed Gaul, and then the two lictors who had attempted to
apprehend him. He was condemned to death, and had been placed on the
German side to fight for his life in the arena.
And how he fought! How he defied the most determined of gladiators, and
parried his strokes with his short sword! This was a combat really worth
watching; indeed, it so captivated Caracalla that he forgot everything
else. The name of the German's antagonist had been applied to him--
Caesar. Just now the many-voiced yell "Tarautas!" had been meant for
him; and, accustomed as he was to read an omen in every incident, he said
to himself, and called Fate to witness, that the gladiator's doom would
foreshadow his own. If Tarautas fell, then Caesar's days were numbered;
if he triumphed, then a long and happy life would be his.
He could leave the decision to Tarautas with perfect confidence; he was
the strongest gladiator in the empire, and he was fighting with a sharp
sword against the blunt one in his antagonist's hand, who probably had
forgotten in the stable how to wield the sword as he had done of yore.
But the German was the son of a chief, and had followed arms from his
earliest youth. Here it was defense for dear life, however glorious it
might be to die under the eyes of the man whom he had learned to honor as
the conqueror and tyrant of many nations, among them his own. So the
strong and practiced athlete did his best.
He, like his opponent, felt that the eyes of ten thousand were on him,
and he also longed to purge himself of the dishonor which, by actual
murder, he had brought on himself and on the race of which he was still
a son. Every muscle of his powerful frame gained more rigid tension at
the thought, and when he was presently hit by the sword of his hitherto
unconquered foe, and felt the warm blood flow over his breast and left
arm, he collected all his strength. With the battle-cry of his tribe, he
flung his huge body on the gladiator. Heedless of the furious sword-
thrust with which Tarautas returned the assault, he threw himself off the
top of the packed wagon on to the stones of the camp inclosure, and the
combatants rolled, locked together like one man, from the wall into the
sand of the arena.
Caracalla started as though he himself had been the injured victim, and
watched, but in vain, to see the supple Tarautas, who had escaped such
perils before now, free himself from the weight of the German's body.
But the struggle continued to rage round the pair, and neither stirred a
finger. At this Caesar, greatly disturbed, started to his feet, and
desired Theocritus to make inquiry as to whether Tarautas were wounded or
dead; and while the favorite was gone he could not sit still. Agitated
by distressing fears, he rose to speak first to one and then to another
of his suite, only to drop on his seat again and glance once more at the
butchery below. He was fully persuaded that his own end must be near,
if indeed Tarautas were dead. At last he heard Theocritus's voice, and,
as he turned to ask him the news, he met a look from the lady Berenike,
who had risen to quit the theatre.
He shuddered!--the image of Vindex and his nephew rose once more before
his mind's eye; at the same moment, however, Theocritus hailed him with
the exclamation:
"That fellow, Tarautas, is not a man at all! I should call him an eel if
he were not so broad shouldered. The rascal is alive, and the physician
says that in three weeks he will be ready again to fight four bears or
two Alemanni!"
A light as of sudden sunshine broke on Caesar's face, and he was
perfectly cheerful again, though a fearful clap of thunder rattled
through the building, and one of those deluges of rain which are known
only in the south came pouring down into the open theatre, extinguishing
the fires and lights, and tearing the velarium from its fastenings till
it hung flapping in the wind and lashing the upper tiers of places, so as
to drive the spectators to a hasty retreat.
Men were flying, women screaming and sobbing, and the heralds loudly
proclaimed that the performance was suspended, and would be resumed on
the next day but one.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
He only longed to be hopeful once more, to enjoy the present
Never to be astonished at anything