Of this Edition of Whyte-Melville’s Works One Thousand and Fifty Copies only have been printed by Morrison and Gibb Limited, Edinburgh, who have distributed the type

THE WORKS OF
G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE
EDITED BY
Sir HERBERT MAXWELL, Bart.
VOLUME XXII.

THE GLADIATORS

‘The Briton watching his opportunity seized the bit in his powerful grasp.’

BY
G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE

[pg ix]

CONTENTS

[pg xiii]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE GLADIATORS

THE GLADIATORS

Eros

CHAPTER I
THE IVORY GATE

Dark and stern, in their weird beauty, lower the sad brows of the Queen of Hell. Dear to her are the pomp and power, the shadowy vastness, and the terrible splendour of the nether world. Dear to her the pride of her unbending consort; and doubly dear the wide imperial sway, that rules the immortal destinies of souls. But dearer far than these—dearer than flashing crown and fiery sceptre, and throne of blazing gold—are the memories that glimmer bright as sunbeams athwart those vistas of gloomy grandeur, and seem to fan her weary spirit like a fresh breeze from the realms of upper earth. She has not forgotten, she never can forget, the dewy flowers, the blooming fragrance of lavish Sicily, nor the sparkling sea, and the summer haze, and the golden harvests that wave and whisper in the garden and granary of the world. Then a sad smile steals over the haughty face; the stern beauty softens in the gleam, and, for a while, the daughter of Ceres is a laughing girl once more.

So the Ivory Gate swings back, and gentle doves come forth on snowy wings, flying upwards through the gloom, to bear balm and consolation to the weary and the wounded and the lost. Now this was the dream the birds of Peace brought with them, to soothe the broken spirit of a sleeping slave.

The old boar has turned to bay at last. Long and severe has been the chase; through many an echoing woodland, down many a sunny glade, by copse and dingle, rock and cave, through splashing stream, and deep, dank, quivering morass, the large rough hounds have tracked him, unerring and pitiless, till they have set him up here, against the trunk of the old oak-tree, and he has turned—a true British denizen of the waste—to sell his life dearly, and fight unconquered to the last. His small eye glows like a burning coal; the stiff bristles are up along his huge black body, flecked with white froth that he churns and throws about him, as he offers those curved and ripping tusks, now to one, now to another of his crowding, baying, leaping foes.

“Have at him! Good dogs!” shouts the hunter, running in with a short, broad-bladed boar-spear in his hand. Breathless is he, and wearied with the long miles of tangled forests he has traversed; but his heart is glad within him, and his blood tingles with a strange wild thrill of triumph known only to the votaries of the chase.

“Have at him good dogs”

Gelert is down, torn and mangled from flank to dewlap; Luath has the wild swine by the throat; and a foot of gleaming steel, driven home by a young, powerful arm, has entered behind the neck and pierces downwards to the very brisket. The shaft of the spear snaps short across, as the thick unwieldy body turns slowly over, and the boar shivers out his life on the smooth sward, soft and green as velvet, that exists nowhere but in Britain.

The dream changes. The boar has disappeared, and the woodland gives place to a fair and smiling plain. Vast herds of shaggy red cattle are browsing contentedly, with their wide-horned heads to the breeze; flocks of sheep dot the green undulating pastures, that stretch away towards the sea. A gull turns its white wing against the clear blue sky; there is a hum of insects in the air, mingled with the barking of dogs, the lowing of kine, the laughter of women, and other sounds of peace, abundance, and content. A child is playing round its mother’s knee—a child with frank bold brow and golden curls, and large blue fearless eyes, sturdy of limb, quick of gesture, fond, imperious, and wilful. The mother, a tall woman, with a beautiful but mournful face, is gazing steadfastly at the sea, and seems unconscious of her boy’s caresses, who is fondling and kissing the white hand he holds in both his own. Her large shapely figure is draped in snowy robes that trail upon the ground, and massive ornaments of gold encircle arms and ankles. At intervals she looks fondly down [pg 3]upon the child; but ever her face resumes its wistful expression, as she fixes her eyes again upon the sea. There is nothing of actual sorrow in that steadfast gaze—still less of impatience, or anger, or discontent. Memory is the prevailing sentiment portrayed—memory, tender, absorbing, irresistible, without a ray of hope, but without a shadow of self-reproach. There is a statue of Mnemosyne at one of the entrances to the Forum that carries on its marble brow the same crushing weight of thought; that wears on its delicate features, graven into the saddest of beauty by the Athenian’s chisel, just such a weary and despondent look. Where can the British child have seen those tasteful spoils of Greece that deck her imperial mistress? And yet he thinks of that statue as he looks up in his mother’s face. But the fair tall woman shivers and draws her robe closer about her, and taking the child in her arms, nestles his head against her bosom and covers him over with her draperies, for the wind blows moist and chill, the summer air is white with driving mist, huge shapeless forms loom through the haze, and the busy sounds of life and laughter have subsided into the stillness of a vast and dreary plain.

The child and its mother have disappeared, but a tall, strong youth, just entering upon manhood, with the same blue eyes and fearless brow, is present in their stead. He is armed for the first time with the weapons of a warrior. He has seen blows struck in anger now, and fronted the legions as they advanced, and waged his fearless unskilful valour against the courage, and the tactics, and the discipline of Rome. So he is invested with sword, and helm, and target, and takes his place, not without boyish pride, amongst the young warriors who encircle the hallowed spot where the Druids celebrate their solemn and mysterious rites.

The mist comes thicker still, driving over the plain in waves of vapour, that impart a ghostly air of motion to the stones that tower erect around the mystic circle. Grey, moss-grown, and unhewn, hand of man seems never to have desecrated those mighty blocks of granite, standing there, changeless and awful, like types of eternity. Dim and indistinct are they as the worship they guard. Hard and stern as the pitiless faith of sacrifice, vengeance, and oblation, inculcated at their base. A wild low chant comes wailing on the breeze, and through the gathering mist a long line of white-robed priests winds slowly into the circle. Stern and gloomy are they of aspect, lofty of stature, and large of limb, with long grey beards and tresses waving in the wind. [pg 4]Each wears a crown of oak-leaves round his head; each grasps a wand covered with ivy in his hand. The youth cannot resist an exclamation of surprise. There is desecration in his thought, there is profanity in his words. Louder and louder swells the chant. Closer and closer still contracts the circle. The white-robed priests are hemming him in to the very centre of the mystic ring, and see! the sacrificial knife is already bared and whetted, and flourished in the air by a long brawny arm. The young warrior strives to fly. Horror! his feet refuse to stir, his hands cleave powerless to his sides. He seems turning to stone. A vague fear paralyses him that he too will become one of those granite masses to stand there motionless during eternity. His heart stops beating within him, and the transformation seems about to be completed, when lo! a warlike peal of trumpets breaks the spell, and he shakes his spear aloft and leaps gladly from the earth, exulting in the sense of life and motion once more.

Again the dream changes. Frenzied priest and Druidical stone have vanished like the mist that encircled them. It is a beautiful balmy night in June. The woods are black and silver in the moonlight. Not a breath of air stirs the topmost twigs of the lofty elm cut clear and distinct against the sky. Not a ripple blurs the surface of the lake, spread out and gleaming like a sheet of polished steel. The bittern calls at intervals from the adjacent marsh, and the nightingale carols in the copse. All is peaceful and beautiful, and suggestive of enjoyment or repose. Yet here, lying close amongst the foxglove and the fern, long lines of white-robed warriors are waiting but the signal for assault. And yonder, where the earthwork rises dark and level against the sky, paces to and fro a high-crested sentinel, watching over the safety of the eagles, with the calm and ceaseless vigilance of that discipline which has made the legionaries masters of the world.

Once more the trumpets peal; the only sound to be heard in that array of tents, drawn up with such order and precision, behind the works, except the footfall of the Roman guard, firm and regular, as it relieves the previous watch. In a short space that duty will be performed; and then, if ever, must the attack be made with any probability of success. Youth is impatient of delay—the young warrior’s pulse beats audibly, and he feels the edge of his blade and the point of his short-handled javelin, with an intensity of longing that is absolutely painful. At length the word is passed from rank to rank. Like the crest of a sea-wave breaking into foam, rises that wavering line of white, rolling its length out in the moonlight, [pg 5]as man after man springs erect at the touch of his comrade; and then a roar of voices, a rush of feet, and the wave dashes up and breaks against the steady solid resistance of the embankment. But discipline is not to be caught thus napping. Ere the echo of their trumpets has died out among the distant hills, the legionaries stand to their arms throughout the camp. Already the rampart gleams and bristles with shield and helmet, javelin, sword, and spear. Already the eagle is awake and defiant; unruffled, indeed, in plumage, but with beak and talons bare and whetted for defence. The tall centurions marshal their men in line even and regular, as though about to defile by the throne of Cæsar, rather than to repel the attack of a wild barbarian foe. The tribunes, with their golden crests, take up their appointed posts in the four corners of the camp; while the prætor himself gives his orders calm and unmoved from the centre.

Over the roar of the swarming Britons sounds the clear trumpet-note pealing out its directions, concise and intelligible as a living voice, and heard by the combatants far and wide, inspiring courage and confidence, and order in the confusion. Brandishing their long swords, the white-clad warriors of Britain rush tumultuously to the attack. Already, they have filled the ditch and scaled the earthwork; but once and again they recoil from the steady front and rigid discipline of the invader, while the short stabbing sword of the Roman soldier, covered as he is by his ample shield, does fearful execution at close quarters. But still fresh assailants pour in, and the camp is carried and overrun. The young warrior rushes exulting to and fro, and the enemy falls in heaps before him. Such moments are worth whole years of peaceful life. He has reached the prætorium. He is close beneath the eagles, and he leaps wildly at them to bring them off in triumph as trophies of his victory. But a grim centurion strikes him to the earth. Wounded, faint, and bleeding, he is carried away by his comrades, the shaft of the Roman standard in his hand. They bear him to a war-chariot, they lash the wild galloping steeds, the roll of the wheels thunders in his ears as they dash tumultuously across the plain, and then ... the gentle mission is fulfilled, the doves fly down again to Proserpine, and the young, joyous, triumphant warrior of Britain wakes up a Roman slave.

[pg 6]

CHAPTER II
THE MARBLE PORCH

It was the sound of a chariot, truly enough, that roused the dreamer from his slumbers; but how different the scene on which his drowsy eyes unclosed, from that which fancy had conjured up in the shadowy realms of sleep!

A beautiful portico, supported on slender columns of smooth white marble, protected him from the rays of the morning sun, already pouring down with the intensity of Italian heat. Garlands of leaves and flowers, cool and fresh in their contrast with the snowy surface of these dainty pillars, were wreathed around their stems, and twined amongst the delicate carving of their Corinthian capitals. Large stone vases, urn-shaped and massive, stood in long array at stated intervals, bearing the orange-tree, the myrtle, and other dark-green flowering shrubs, which formed a fair perspective of retirement and repose. Shapely statues filled the niches in the wall, or stood out more prominently in the vacant spaces of the colonnade. Here cowered a marble Venus, in the shamefaced consciousness of unequalled beauty; there stood forth a bright Apollo, exulting in the perfection of godlike symmetry and grace. Rome could not finger the chisel like her instructress Greece, the mother of the Arts, but the hand that firmly grasps the sword need never want for anything skill produces, or genius creates, or gold can buy; so it is no marvel that the masterpieces and treasures of the nations she subdued found their way to the Imperial City, mistress of the world. Even where the sleeper lay reclined upon a couch of curiously-carved wood from the forests that clothe Mount Hymettus, an owl so beautifully chiseled that its very breast-plumage seemed to ruffle in the breeze, looked down upon him from a niche where it had been placed at a cost that might have bought a dozen such human chattels as himself; for it had been brought from Athens as the most successful effort of a sculptor, who had devoted it to the honour of Minerva in his zeal. Refinement, luxury, nay, profusion, [pg 7]reigned paramount even here outside the sumptuous dwelling of a Roman lady: and the very ground in her porch over which she was borne, for she seldom touched it with her feet, was fresh swept and sanded as often as it had been disturbed by the tread of her litter-bearers, or the wheels of her chariot.

Many a time was this ceremony performed in the twenty-four hours; for Valeria was a woman of noble rank, great possessions, and the highest fashion. Not a vanity of her sex, not a folly was there of her class, in which she scrupled to indulge; and then, as now, ladies were prone to rush into extremes, and frivolity, when it took the garb of a female, assumed preposterous dimensions, and a thirst for amusement, incompatible with reason or self-control.

There is always a certain hush, and, as it were, a pompous stillness, about the houses of the great, even long after inferior mortals are astir in pursuit of their pleasure or their business. To-day was Valeria’s birthday, and as such was duly observed by the hanging of garlands on the pillars of her porch; but after the completion of this graceful ceremony, silence seemed to have sunk once more upon the household, and the slave whose dream we have recorded, coming into her gates with an offering from his lord, and finding no domestics in the way, had sat him down to wait in the grateful shade, and, overcome with heat, might have slept on till noon had he not been roused by the grinding chariot-wheels, which mingled so confusedly with his dream.

It was no plebeian vehicle that now rolled into the colonnade, driven at a furious pace, and stopping so abruptly as to create considerable confusion and insubordination amongst the noble animals that drew it. The car, mounted on two wheels, was constructed of a highly-polished wood, cut from the wild fig-tree, elaborately inlaid with ivory and gold; the very spokes and felloes of the wheels were carved in patterns of vine-leaves and flowers, whilst the extremities of the pole, the axle, and the yoke, were wrought into exquisite representations of the wolf’s head, an animal, from historical reasons, ever dear to the fancy of the Roman. There was but one person besides the driver in the carriage, and so light a draught might indeed command any rate of speed, when whirled along by four such horses as now plunged and reared and bit each other’s crests in the portico of Valeria’s mansion. These were of a milky white, with dark muzzles, and a bluish tinge under the coat, denoting its soft texture, and the Eastern origin of the animals. Some[pg 8]what thick of neck and shoulders, with semicircular jowl, it was the broad and tapering head, the small quivering ear, the wide red nostril, that demonstrated the purity of their blood, and argued extraordinary powers of speed and endurance; while their short, round backs, prominent muscles, flat legs, and dainty feet, promised an amount of strength and activity only to be attained by the production of perfect symmetry. These beautiful animals were harnessed four abreast—the inner pair, somewhat in the fashion of our modern curricle, being yoked to the pole, of which the very fastening-pins were steel overlaid with gold, whilst the outer horses, drawing only from a trace attached respectively on the inner side of each to the axle of the chariot, were free to wheel their quarters outwards in every direction, and kick to their heart’s content—a liberty of which, in the present instance, they seemed well disposed to avail themselves.

The slave started to his feet as the nearest horse winced and swerved aside from his unexpected figure, snorting the while in mingled wantonness and fear. The axle grazed his tunic while it passed, and the driver, irritated at his horses’ unsteadiness, or perhaps in the mere insolence of a great man’s favourite, struck at him heavily with his whip as he went by. The Briton’s blood boiled at the indignity; but his sinewy arm was up like lightning to parry the blow, and as the lash curled round his wrist he drew the weapon quickly from the driver’s hand, and would have returned the insult with interest, had he not been deterred from his purpose by the youthful, effeminate appearance of the aggressor.

“I cannot strike a girl!” exclaimed the slave contemptuously, throwing the whip at the same time into the floor of the chariot, where it lit at the feet of the other occupant, a sumptuously-dressed nobleman, who enjoyed the discomfiture of his charioteer, with the loud frank glee of a master jeering a dependant.

“Well said, my hero!” laughed the patrician, adding in good-humoured, though haughty tones, “Not that I would give much for the chance of man or woman in a grasp like yours. By Jupiter! you’ve got the arms and shoulders of Antæus! Who owns you, my good fellow? and what do you here?”

“Nay, I would strike him again to some purpose if I were on the ground with him,” interrupted the charioteer, a handsome, petulant youth of some sixteen summers, whose long flowing curls and rich scarlet mantle denoted a pampered [pg 9]and favourite slave. “Gently, Scipio! So-ho, Jugurtha! The horses will fret for an hour now they have been scared by his ugly face.”

“Better let him alone, Automedon!” observed his master, again shaking his sides at the obvious discomfiture portrayed on the flushed face of his favourite. “Through your life keep clear of a man when he shuts his mouth like that, as you would of an ox with a wisp of hay on his horn. You silly boy! why he would swallow such a slender frame as yours at a gulp: and nobody but a fool ever strikes at a man unless he knows he can reach him, ay, and punish him too, without hurting his own knuckles in return! But what do you here, good fellow?” he repeated, addressing himself once more to the slave, who stood erect, scanning his questioner with a fearless, though respectful eye.

“My master is your friend,” was the outspoken answer. “You supped with him only the night before last. But a man need not be in the household of Licinius, not have spent his best years at Rome, to know the face of Julius Placidus, the tribune.”

A smile of gratified vanity stole over the patrician’s countenance while he listened; a smile that had the effect of imparting to its lineaments an expression at once mocking, crafty, and malicious. In repose, and such was its usual condition, the face was almost handsome, perfect in its regularity, and of a fixed, sedate composure which bordered on vacuity, but when disturbed, as it sometimes, though rarely, was, by a passing emotion, the smile that passed over it like a lurid gleam, became truly diabolical.

The slave was right. Amongst all the notorious personages who crowded and jostled each other in the streets of Rome at that stormy period, none was better known, none more courted, flattered, honoured, hated, and mistrusted, than the occupant of the gilded chariot. It was no time for men to wear their hearts in their hands—it was no time to make an additional enemy, or to lose a possible friend. Since the death of Tiberius, emperor had succeeded emperor with alarming rapidity. Nero had indeed died by his own hand, to avoid the just retribution of unexampled vices and crimes; but the poisoned mushroom had carried off his predecessor, and the old man who succeeded him fell by the weapons of the very guards he had enlisted to protect his grey head from violence. Since then another suicide had indued Vitellius with the purple; but the throne of the Cæsars was fast becoming synonymous with a scaffold, and the sword of [pg 10]Damocles quivered more menacingly, and on a slenderer hair than ever, over the diadem.

When great political convulsions agitate a State, already seething with general vice and luxury, the moral scum seems, by a law of nature, to float invariably to the surface—the characters most destitute of principle, the readiest to obey the instincts of self-aggrandisement and expediency, achieve a kind of spurious fame, a doubtful and temporary success. Under the rule of Nero, perhaps, there was but one path to Court favour, and that lay in the disgraceful attempt to vie with this emperor’s brutalities and crimes. The palace of Cæsar was then indeed a sink of foul iniquity and utter degradation. The sycophant who could most readily reduce himself to the level of a beast in gross sensuality, while he boasted a demon’s refinement of cruelty, and morbid depravity of heart, became the first favourite for the time with his imperial master. To be fat, slothful, weak, gluttonous, and effeminate, while the brow was crowned with roses, and the brain was drenched with wine, and the hands were steeped in blood—this it was to be a friend and counsellor of Cæsar. Men waited and wondered in stupefied awe when they marked the monster reeling from a debauch to some fresh feast of horrors, some ingenious exhibition of the complicated tortures that may be inflicted on a human being, some devilish experiment of all the body can bear, ere the soul takes wing from its ghastly, mutilated tenement, and this not on one, but a thousand victims. They waited and wondered what the gods were about, that divine vengeance should slumber through such provocations as these.

But retribution overtook him at last. The heart which a slaughtered mother’s spectre could not soften, which remorse for a pregnant wife’s fate, kicked to death by a brutal lord, failed to wring, quailed at the approach of a few exasperated soldiers; and the tyrant who had so often smiled to see blood flow like water in the amphitheatre, died by his own hand—died as he had lived, a coward and a murderer to the last.

Since then, the Court was a sphere in which any bold unscrupulous man might be pretty sure of attaining success. The present emperor was a good-humoured glutton, one whose faculties, originally vigorous, had been warped and deadened by excess, just as his body had become bloated, his eye dimmed, his strength palsied, and his courage destroyed by the same course. The scheming statesman, the pliant courtier, the successful soldier had but one passion [pg 11]now, one only object for the exercise of his energies, both of mind and body—to eat enormously, to drink to excess, to study every art by which fresh appetite could be stimulated when gorged to repletion—and then—to eat and drink again.

With such a patron, any man who united to a tendency for the pleasures of the table, a strong brain, a cool head, and an aptitude for business, might be sure of considerable influence. The Emperor thoroughly appreciated one who would take trouble off his hands, while at the same time he encouraged his master, by precept and example, in his swinish propensities. It was no slight service to Vitellius, to rise from a debauch and give those necessary orders in an unforeseen emergency which Cæsar’s sodden brain was powerless to originate or to understand.

Ere Placidus had been a month about the Court, he had insinuated himself thoroughly into the good graces of the Emperor. This man’s had been a strange and stirring history. Born of patrician rank, he had used his family influence to advance him in the military service, and already, whilst still in the flower of youth, had attained the grade of tribune in Vespasian’s army, then occupying Judæa under that distinguished general. Although no man yielded so willingly, or gave himself up so entirely to the indolent enjoyments of Asiatic life, Placidus possessed many of the qualities which are esteemed essential to the character of a soldier. Personal bravery, or we should rather say, insensibility to danger, was one of his peculiar advantages. Perhaps this is a quality inseparable from such an organisation as his, in which, while the system seems to contain a wealth of energy and vitality, the nerves are extremely callous to irritation, and completely under control. The tribune never came out in more favourable colours than when everyone about him was in a state of alarm and confusion. On one occasion, at the siege of Jotapata, where the Jews were defending themselves with the desperate energy of their race, Placidus won golden opinions from Vespasian by the cool dexterity with which he saved from destruction a whole company of soldiers and their centurion, under the very eye of his general.

A maniple, or, in the military language of to-day, a wing of the cohort led by Placidus was advancing to the attack, and the first centurion, with the company under his command, was already beneath the wall, bristling as it was with defenders, who hurled down on their assailants darts, [pg 12]javelins, huge stones, every description of weapon or missile, including molten lead and boiling oil. Under cover of a movable pent-house, which protected them, the head of the column had advanced their battering-ram to the very wall, and were swinging the huge engine back, by the ropes and pulleys which governed it, for an increased impulse of destruction, when the Jews, who had been watching their opportunity, succeeded in balancing an enormous mass of granite immediately above the pent-house and the materials of offence, animate and inanimate, which it contained. A Jewish warrior clad in shining armour had taken a lever in his hand, and was in the act of applying that instrument to the impending tottering mass; in another instant it must have crashed down upon their heads, and buried the whole band beneath its weight. At his appointed station by the eagle, the tribune was watching the movements of his men with his usual air of sleepy, indolent approval. And even in this critical moment his eye never brightened, his colour never deepened a shade. The voice was calm, low, and perfectly modulated in which he bade the trumpeter at his right hand sound the recall; nor, though its business-like rapidity could scarce have been exceeded by the most practised archer, was the movement the least hurried with which he snatched the bow from a dead Parthian auxiliary at his feet and fitted an arrow to its string. In the twinkling of an eye, while the granite vibrated on the very parapet, that arrow was quivering between the joints of the warrior’s harness who held the lever, and he had fallen with his head over the wall in the throes of death. Before another of the defenders could take his place the assaulting party had retired, bringing along with them, in their cool and rigid discipline, the battering-ram and wooden covering which protected it, while the tribune quietly observed, as he replaced the bow into the fallen Parthian’s hand, “A company saved is a hundred men gained. A dead barbarian is exactly worth my tallest centurion, and the smartest troop I have in the maniple!”

Vespasian was not the man to forget such an instance of cool promptitude, and Julius Placidus was marked out for promotion from that day forth. But with its courage, the tribune possessed the cunning of the tiger, not without something also of that fierce animal’s outward beauty, and much of its watchful, pitiless, and untiring nature. A brave soldier should have considered it a degradation, under any circumstances, to play a double part; but with Placidus [pg 13]every step was esteemed honourable so long as it was on the ascent. The successful winner had no scruple in deceiving all about him at Rome, by the eagerness with which he assumed the character of a mere man of pleasure, while he lost no opportunity the while of ingratiating himself with the many desperate spirits who were to be found in the Imperial City, ready and willing to assist in any enterprise which should tend to anarchy and confusion. While he rushed into every extravagance and pleasure of that luxurious Court—while he vied with Cæsar himself in his profusion, and surpassed him in his orgies—he suffered no symptoms to escape him of a higher ambition than that of excellence in trifling—of deeper projects than those which affected the winecup, the pageant, and the passing follies of the hour. Yet all the while, within that dainty reveller’s brain, schemes were forming and thoughts burning that should have withered the very roses on his brow. It might have been the strain of Greek blood which filtered through his veins, that tempered his Roman courage and endurance with the pliancy essential to conspiracy and intrigue—a strain that was apparent in his sculptured regularity of features, and general symmetry of form. His character has already been compared to the tiger’s, and his movements had all the pliant ease and stealthy freedom of that graceful animal. His stature was little above the average of his countrymen, but his frame was cast in that mould of exact proportion which promises the extreme of strength combined with agility and endurance. Had he been caught like Milo, he would have writhed himself out of the trap, with the sinuous persistency of a snake. There was something snake-like, too, in his small glittering eye, and the clear smoothness of his skin. With all its brightness no woman worthy of the name but would have winced with womanly instincts of aversion and repugnance from his glance. With all its beauty no child would have looked up frankly and confidingly in his face. Men turned, indeed, to scan him approvingly as he passed; but the brave owned no sympathy with that smooth set brow, that crafty and malicious smile, while the timid or the superstitious shuddered and shrank away, averting their own gaze from what they felt to be the influence of the evil eye. Yet, in his snowy tunic bleached to dazzling white, in his collar of linked gold, his jewelled belt, his embroidered sandals, and the ample folds of his deep violet mantle, nearly approaching purple, Julius Placidus was no unworthy representative of his time and [pg 14]his order, no mean specimen of the wealth, and foppery, and extravagance of Rome.

Such was the man who now stood up in his gilded chariot at Valeria’s door, masking with his usual expression of careless indolence, the real impatience he felt for tidings of its mistress.

[pg 15]

CHAPTER III
HERMES

It was customary with the more refined aristocracy of Rome, during the first century of the Empire, to pay great respect to Mercury, the god of invention and intrigue. Not that the qualities generally attributed to that power were calculated to inspire admiration or esteem, but simply because he had acquired a fortuitous popularity at a period when the graceful Pantheism of the nation was regulated by general opinion, and when a deity went in and out of fashion like a dress. At Valeria’s porch, in common with many other great houses, stood an exquisite statue of the god, representing him as a youth, of athletic and symmetrical proportions, poised on a winged foot in the act of running, with the broad-leaf hat on his head, and the snake-turned rod in his hand. The countenance of the statue was expressive of intellect and vivacity, while the form was wrought into the highest ideal of activity and strength. It was placed on a square pedestal of marble immediately opposite the door; and behind this pedestal, the slave retired in some confusion when a train of maidens appeared from within, to answer the summons of Julius Placidus in his chariot.

The tribune did not think it necessary to alight, but producing from the bosom of his tunic a jewelled casket, leaned one hand on the shoulder of Automedon, while with the other he proffered his gift to a damsel who seemed the chief among her fellows, and whose manners partook largely of the flippancy of the waiting-maid.

“Commend me to your mistress,” said Placidus, at the same time throwing a gold chain round her neck on her own account, and bending carelessly down to take a receipt for the same, in the shape of a caress; “bid her every good omen from the most faithful of her servants, and ask her at what hour I may hope to be received on this her birthday, which the trifle you carry to her from me will prove I have not forgotten.”

The waiting-maid tried hard to raise a blush, but with all her efforts the rich Southern colour would not deepen on her cheek; so she thought better of it, and looked him full in the face with her bold black eyes, while she replied: “You have forgotten surely, my lord, that this is the feast of Isis, and no lady that is a lady, at least here in Rome, can have leisure to-day for anything but the sacred mysteries of the goddess.”

Placidus laughed outright; and it was strange how his laugh scared those who watched it. Automedon fairly turned pale, and even the waiting-maid seemed disconcerted for a moment.

“I have heard of these mysteries,” said he, “my pretty Myrrhina, and who has not? The Roman ladies keep them somewhat jealously to themselves; and by all accounts it is well for our sex that they do so. Nevertheless there are yet some hours of sunlight to pass before the chaste rites of Egypt can possibly begin. Will not Valeria see me in the interval?”

A very quick ear might have detected the least possible tremor in the tribune’s voice as he spoke the last sentence; it was not lost upon Myrrhina, for she showed all the white teeth in her large well-formed mouth, while she enumerated with immense volubility those different pursuits which filled up the day of a fashionable Roman lady.

“Impossible!” burst out the damsel. “She has not a moment to spare from now till sunset. There’s her dinner,[1] and her fencing-lesson, and her bath, and her dressing, and the sculptor coming for her hand, and the painter for her face, and the new Greek sandals to be fitted to her feet. Then she has sent for Philogemon, the augur, to cast her horoscope, and for Galanthis, who is cleverer than ever Locusta was, and has twice the practice, to prepare a philtre. Maybe it is for you, my lord,” added the girl roguishly. “I hear the ladies are all using them just now.”

The evil smile crossed the tribune’s face once more; perhaps he too had been indebted to the potions of Galanthis, for purposes of love or hate, and he did not care to be reminded of them.

“Nay,” said he meaningly, “there is no need for that. Valeria can do more with one glance of her bright eyes, than all the potions and poisons of Galanthis put together. Say, Myrrhina—you are in my interest—does she look more favourably of late?”

“How can I tell, my lord?” answered the girl, with an [pg 17]arch expression of amusement and defiance in her face. “My mistress is but a woman after all, and they say women are more easily mastered by the strong hand, than lured by the honey lip. She is not to be won by a smooth tongue and a beardless face, I know, for I heard her say so to Paris myself, in the very spot where we are now standing. Juno! but the player slunk away somewhat crestfallen, I can tell you, when she called him ‘a mere girl in her brother’s clothes’ at the best. No; the man who wins my mistress will be a man all over, I’ll answer for it! So far, she is like the rest of us for that matter.”

And Myrrhina sighed, thinking, it may be, of some sunburnt youth the while, whose rough but not unwelcome wooing had assailed her in her early girlhood, ere she came to Rome; far away yonder amongst the blushing vines, in the bright Campanian hills.

“Say you so?” observed the tribune, obviously flattered by the implied compliment; for he was proud in his secret heart of his bodily strength. “Nay, there was a fellow standing here when I drove up, who would make an easy conquest of you, Myrrhina, if, like your Sabine grandams, you must be borne off to be wed, on your lover’s shoulders. By the body of Hercules! he would tuck you up under his arm as easily as you carry that casket, which you seem so afraid to let out of your hand. Ay, there he is! lurking behind Hermes. Stand forth, my good fellow! What! you are not afraid of Automedon, are you, and the crack of that young reprobate’s whip?”

While he spoke, the slave stepped forward from his lurking-place behind the statue, where the quick eye of Placidus had detected him, and presented to Myrrhina with a respectful gesture the offering of his lord to her mistress—a filigree basket of frosted silver, filled with a few choice fruits and flowers—

“From Caius Licinius, greeting,” said he, “in honour of Valeria’s natal day. The flowers are scarce yet dry from the spray that brawling Anio flings upon its banks; the fruits were glowing in yesterday’s sun, on the brightest slopes of Tibur. My master offers the freshest and fairest of his fruits and flowers to his kinswoman, who is fresher and fairer than them all.”

He delivered his message, which he had obviously learned by rote, in sufficiently pure and fluent Latin, scarcely tinged with the accent of a barbarian, and bowing low as he placed the basket in Myrrhina’s hand, drew himself up to his [pg 18]noble height, and looked proudly, almost defiantly, at the tribune.

The girl started and turned pale—it seemed as if the statue of Hermes had descended from its pedestal to do her homage. He stood there, that glorious specimen of manhood, in his majestic strength and symmetry, in the glow of his youth, and health, and beauty, like an impersonation of the god. Myrrhina, in common with many of her sex, was easily fascinated by external advantages, and she laughed nervously, while she accepted with shaking hands the handsome slave’s offering to his master’s kinswoman.

“Will you not enter?” said she, the colour mantling once more, and this time without an effort, in her burning cheeks. “It is not the custom to depart from Valeria’s house without breaking bread and drinking wine.”

But the slave excused himself, abruptly, almost rudely, losing, be sure, by his refusal, none of the ground he had already gained in Myrrhina’s good graces. It chafed him to remain even at the porch. The atmosphere of luxury that pervaded it, seemed to weigh upon his senses, and oppress his breath. Moreover, the insult he had sustained from Automedon, yet rankled in his heart. How he wished the boy-charioteer was nearer his match in size and strength! He would have hurled him from the chariot where he stood, turning his curls so insolently round his dainty fingers—hurled him to earth beyond his horses’ heads, and taught him the strength of a Briton’s arm and the squeeze of a Briton’s gripe. “Ay! and his master after him!” thought the slave, for already he experienced towards Placidus that unaccountable instinct of aversion which seems to warn men of a future foe, and which, to give him his due, the tribune was not unused to awaken in a brave and honest breast.

Placidus, however, scanned him once more, as he strode away, with the critical gaze of a judge of human animals. It was this man’s peculiarity to look on all he met as possible tools, that might come into use for various purposes at a future and indefinite time. If he observed more than usual courage in a soldier, superior acuteness in a freedman, nay, even uncommon beauty in a woman, he bethought himself that although he might have no immediate use for these qualities, occasions often arose on which he could turn them to his profit, and he noted, and made sure of, their amount accordingly. In the present instance, although somewhat surprised that he had never before remarked the slave’s stalwart proportions in the household of Licinius, whose [pg 19]affection for the Briton had excused him from all menial offices, and consequent contact with visitors, he determined not to lose sight of one so formed by nature to excel in the gymnasium or the amphitheatre, while there crept into his heart a cruel cold-blooded feeling of satisfaction at the possibility of witnessing so muscular and shapely a figure in the contortions of a mortal struggle, or the throes of a painful death.

Besides, there was envy, too, at the bottom—envy in the proud patrician’s breast, leaning so negligently on the cushions of his gilded chariot, with all his advantages of rank, reputation, wealth, and influence—envy of the noble bearing, the personal comeliness, and the free manly step of the slave.

“Had he struck thee, Automedon,” said his master, unable to resist taunting the petted youth who held the reins; “had he but laid a finger on thee, thou hadst never spoken again, and I had been rid of the noisiest and most useless of my household. Gently with that outside horse; dost see how he chafes upon the rein? Gently, boy, I say! and drive me back into the Forum.”

As he settled himself among the cushions and rolled swiftly away, Myrrhina came forth into the porch once more. She seemed, however, scarcely to notice the departing chariot, but looked dreamily about her, and then re-entered the house with a shake of the head, a smile, and something that was almost a sigh.

[pg 20]

CHAPTER IV
APHRODITÉ

A negro boy, the ugliest of his kind, and probably all the more prized for that reason, was shifting uneasily from knee to knee, in an attitude of constraint that showed how long and tiresome he felt his office, and how wearied he was of Valeria’s own apartment. Such a child, for the urchin seemed of the tenderest age, might be initiated without impropriety into the mysteries of a lady’s toilet; and, indeed, the office it was his duty to undertake, formed the most indispensable part of the whole performance. With a skill and steadiness beyond his years, though with a rueful face, he was propping up an enormous mirror, in which his mistress might contemplate the whole galaxy of her charms—a mirror formed of one broad plate of silver, burnished to the brightness and lucidity of glass, set in an oval frame of richly chased gold, wrought into fantastic patterns and studded with emeralds, rubies, and other precious stones. Not a speck was to be discerned on the polish of its dazzling surface; and, indeed, the time of one maiden was devoted to the task alone of preserving it from the lightest breath that might dim its brightness, and cloud the reflection of the stately form that now sat before it, undergoing, at the hands of her attendants, the pleasing tortures of an elaborate toilet.

The reflection was that of a large handsome woman in the very prime and noontide of her beauty—a woman whose every movement and gesture bespoke physical organisation of a vigorous nature and perfect health. While the strong white neck gave grace and dignity to her carriage—while the deep bosom and somewhat massive shoulders partook more of Juno’s majestic frame than Hebe’s pliant youth—while the full sweep and outline of her figure denoted maturity and completeness in every part—the long round limbs, the shapely hands and feet, might have belonged to Diana, so perfect was their symmetry; the warm flush that tinted them, the voluptuous ease of her attitude, the gentle languor of her [pg 21]whole bearing, would have done no discredit to the goddess, hanging over the mountain-tops in the golden summer nights to look down upon Endymion, and bathe her sleeping favourite in floods of light and love.

Too fastidious a critic might have objected to Valeria’s form that it expressed more of physical strength than is compatible with perfect womanly beauty, that the muscles were developed overmuch, and the whole frame, despite its flowing outlines, partook somewhat of a man’s organisation, and a man’s redundant strength. The same fault might have been found in a less degree with her countenance. There was a little too much resolution in the small aquiline nose, something of manly audacity and energy in the large well-formed mouth, with its broad white teeth that the fullest and reddest of lips could not conceal—a shade of masculine sternness on the low wide brow, smooth and white, but somewhat prominent, and scarcely softened by the arch of the marked eyebrows, or the dark sweep of the lashes that fringed the long laughing eyes.

And yet it was a face that a man, and still more a boy, could hardly have looked on without misgivings that he might too soon learn to long for its glances, its smiles, its approval, and its love. There was such a glow of health on the soft transparent skin, such a freshness and vitality in the colour of those blooming cheeks, such a sparkle in the grey eyes, that flashed so meaningly when she smiled, that gleamed so clear and bright and cold when the features resumed their natural expression, grave, scornful, almost stern in their repose; and then such womanly softness in the masses of rich nut-brown hair that showered down neck and shoulders, to form a framework for this lovely, dangerous, and too alluring picture. Even the little negro, wearied as he was, peeped at intervals from the back of the mirror he upheld, fawning like a dog for some sign of approval from his haughty, careless mistress. At length she bade him keep still, with a half-scornful smile at his antics; and the sharp white teeth gleamed from ear to ear of the dusky little face, as it grinned with pleasure, while the boy settled himself once more in an attitude of patience and steady submission.

Nor was Valeria’s apartment unworthy of the noble beauty who devoted it to the mysterious rites of dress and decoration. Everything that luxury could imagine for bodily ease, everything that science had as yet discovered for the preservation or the production of feminine attractions, was there to be found in its handsomest and costliest form. In [pg 22]one recess, shrouded by transparent curtains of the softest pink, was the bath that could be heated at will to any temperature, and the marble steps of which that shapely form was accustomed to descend twice and thrice a day. In another stood the ivory couch with its quilted crimson silks and ornamental pillars of solid gold, in which Valeria slept, and dreamed such dreams as hover round the rest of those whose life is luxury, and whose business is a ceaseless career of pleasure. On a table of cedar-wood, fashioned like a palm-leaf opening out from a pedestal that terminated in a single claw of grotesque shape, stood her silver night-lamp, exhaling odours of perfumed oil, and near it lay the waxen tablets, on which she made her memorandums, or composed her love-letters, and from which, as from an unfinished task, the sharp-pointed steel pencil had rolled away upon the shining floor. Through the whole court—for court it might be called, with its many entrances and recesses, its cool and shady nooks, its lofty ceiling and its tesselated pavement—choice vases, jewelled cups, burnished chalices, and exquisite little statues, were scattered in systematic irregularity and graceful profusion. Even the very water in the bath flowed through the mouth of a marble Cupid; and two more winged urchins wrought in bronze, supported a stand on which was set a formidable array of perfumes, essences, cosmetics, and such material for offensive and defensive warfare.

The walls, too, of this seductive arsenal, were delicately tinted of a light rose-colour, that should throw the most becoming shade over its inmates, relieved at intervals by oval wreaths wrought out in bas-relief, enclosing diverse mythological subjects, in which the figure of Venus, goddess of love and laughter, predominated. Round the cornices stretched a frieze representing, also in relief, the fabulous contests of the Amazons with every description of monster, amongst which the most conspicuous foe was the well-known gryphon, or griffin, an abnormal quadruped, with the head and neck of a bird of prey. It was curious to trace in the female warriors thus delineated, something of the imperious beauty, the vigorous symmetry, and the dauntless bearing that distinguished Valeria herself, though their energetic and spirited attitudes afforded, at the same time, a marked contrast to the pleasing languor that seemed to pervade every movement of that luxurious lady reclining before her mirror, and submitting indolently to the attentions of her maid-servants.

These were five in number, and constituted the principal slaves of her household; the most important among them [pg 23]seemed to be a tall matronly woman, considerably older than her comrades, who filled the responsible office of housekeeper in the establishment—a dignity which did not, however, exempt her from insult, and even blows, when she failed to satisfy the caprices of a somewhat exacting mistress; the others, comely laughing girls, with the sparkling eyes and white teeth of their countrywomen, seemed principally occupied with the various matters that constituted their lady’s toilet—a daily penance, in which, notwithstanding the rigour of its discipline, and the severities that were sure to follow the most trifling act of negligence, they took an inexplicable and essentially feminine delight.

Of these it was obvious that Myrrhina was the first in place as in favour. She it was who brought her mistress the warm towels for her bath; who was ready with her slippers when she emerged; who handed every article of clothing as it was required; whose taste was invariably consulted, and whose decision was considered final, on such important points as the position of a jewel, the studied negligence of a curl, or the exact adjustment of a fold.

This girl possessed, with an Italian exterior, the pliant cunning and plausible fluency of the Greek. Born a slave on one of Valeria’s estates in the country, she had been reared a mere peasant, on a simple country diet, and amidst healthful country occupations, till a freak of her mistress brought her to Rome. With a woman’s versatility—with a woman’s quickness in adapting herself to a strange phase of life and a total change of circumstances—the country girl had not been a year in her new situation, ere she became the acutest and cleverest waiting-maid in the capital, with what benefit to her own morals and character, it is needless to inquire. Who so quick as Myrrhina to prepare the unguents, the perfumes, or the cosmetics that repaired the injuries of climate, and effaced the marks of dissipation? Who so delicate a sempstress; who had such taste in colours; who could convey a note or a message with half such precision, simplicity, and tact? In short, who was ever so ready, in an emergency, with brush, crisping-iron, needle, hand, eye, or tongue? Intrigue was her native element. To lie on her mistress’s behalf, seemed as natural as on her own. He who would advance in Valeria’s goodwill, must begin by bribing her maid; and many a Roman gallant had ere this discovered that even that royal road to success was as tedious as it was costly, and might lead eventually to discomfiture and disgrace.

As she took the pouncet-box from one of the girls, and proceeded to sprinkle gold-dust in Valeria’s hair, Myrrhina’s eye was caught by the gift of Placidus, lying neglected at her feet, the casket open, the jewels scattered on the floor. Such as it was, the waiting-maid owned a conscience. It warned her that she had not as yet worked out the value of the costly chain thrown round her neck by the tribune. Showering the gold-dust liberally about her lady’s head, Myrrhina felt her way cautiously to the delicate theme.

“There’s a new fashion coming in for headgear when the weather gets cooler,” said she. “It’s truth I tell you, madam, for I heard it direct from Selina, who was told by the Empress’s first tirewoman, though even Cæsar himself cannot think Galeria looks well, with that yellow mop stuck all over her head. But it’s to be the fashion, nevertheless, and right sorry I am to hear it; nor am I the only one for that matter.”

“Why so?” asked Valeria languidly; “is it more troublesome than the present?”

Myrrhina had done with the gold-dust now, and, holding the comb in her mouth, was throwing a rich brown curl across her wrist, while she laid a plat carefully beneath it. Notwithstanding the impediment between her lips, however, she was able to reply with great volubility.

“The trouble counts for nothing, madam, when a lady has got such hair as yours. It’s a pleasure to run your hands through it, let alone dressing and crisping it, and plaiting it up into a crown that’s fit for a queen. But this new fashion will make us all alike, whether we’re as bald as old Lyce, or wear our curls down to our ankles, like Neæra. Still, to hide such hair as yours;—as my lord said, only this morning”—

“What lord? this morning!” interrupted Valeria, a dawn of interest waking on her handsome features; “not Licinius, my noble kinsman? His approval is indeed worth having.”

“Better worth than his gifts,” answered Myrrhina pertly; pointing to the filigree basket which occupied a place of honour on the toilet-table. “Such a birthday present I never saw! A few late roses and a bunch or two of figs to the richest lady in Rome! To be sure, he sent a messenger with them, who might have come direct from Jove, and the properest man I ever set eyes on.”

And Myrrhina moved to one side, that her lady might not observe the blush that rose, even to her shameless brow, as she recalled the impression made on her by the handsome slave. Valeria liked to hear of proper men; she woke up a [pg 25]little out of her languor, and flung the hair back from her face.

“Go on,” said she, as Myrrhina hesitated, half eager and half loth to pursue the pleasing topic.

But the waiting-maid felt the chain round her neck, and acknowledged in her heart the equivalent it demanded.

“It was the tribune, madam,” said she, “who spoke about your hair—Julius Placidus, who values every curl you wear, more than a whole mine of gold. Ah! there’s not a lord in Rome has such a taste in dress. Only to see him this morning, with his violet mantle and his jewels sparkling in the sun, with the handsomest chariot and the four whitest horses in the town. Well! if I was a lady, and wooed by such a man as that”—

“Man call you him?” interrupted her mistress, with a scornful smile. “Nay, when these curled, perfumed, close-shaven things are called men, ’tis time for us women to bestir ourselves, lest strength and courage die out in Rome altogether. And you, too, Myrrhina, who know Licinius and Hippias, and saw with your own eyes two hundred gladiators in the circus only yesterday, you ought to be a better judge. Man, forsooth! Why, you will be calling smooth-faced Paris a man next!”

Here maid and mistress burst out laughing, for thereby hung a tale of which Valeria was not a little proud. This Paris, a young Egyptian, of beautiful but effeminate appearance, had lately come to Italy to figure with no small success on the Roman stage. His delicate features, his symmetrical shape, and the girlish graces of his pantomimic gestures, had made sad havoc in the hearts of the Roman ladies, at all times too susceptible to histrionic charms. He lost nothing, either, of public attention, by bearing the name of Nero’s ill-fated favourite, and embarked at once, unhesitatingly, on the same brilliant and dangerous career. But although it was the fashion to be in love with Paris, Valeria alone never yielded to the mode, but treated him with all the placid indifference she felt for attractions that found no favour in her sight. Stung by such neglect, the petted actor paid devoted court to the woman who despised him, and succeeded, after much importunity, in prevailing on her to accord him an interview in her own house. Of this he had the bad taste to make no small boast in anticipation; and Myrrhina, who found out most things, lost no time in informing her mistress that her condescension was already as much misrepresented as it was misplaced. The two laid their plans accordingly; [pg 26]and when Paris, attired in the utmost splendour, arrived panting to the promised interview, he found himself seized by some half-dozen hideous old negresses, who smothered him with caresses, stripped him from head to foot, forced him into the bath, and persisted in treating him as if he were a delicate young lady, but with a quiet violence the while, that it was useless to resist. The same swarthy tirewomen then dressed him in female garments; and despite of threats, struggles, outcries, and entreaties, placed him in Valeria’s litter, and so carried him home to his own door. The ready wit of the play-actor put upon his metamorphosis the construction least favourable to the character of its originator; but he vowed a summary vengeance, we may be sure, nevertheless.

“I think Paris knows what you think of him only too well,” resumed Myrrhina; “not but that he has a fair face of his own, and a lovely shape for dancing, though, to be sure, Placidus is a finer figure of a man. Oh! if you could have seen him this morning, madam, when he lay back so graceful in his chariot, and chid that pert lad of his for striking with his whip at the tall slave, who to be sure vanished like a flash of lightning, you would have said there wasn’t such another patrician in the whole city of Rome!”

“Enough of Placidus!” interrupted her mistress impatiently; “the subject wearies me. What of this tall slave, Myrrhina, who seems to have attracted your attention? Did he look like one of the barbarians my kinsman Licinius cries up so mightily? Is he handsome enough to step with my Liburnians, think you, under the day-litter?”

The waiting-maid’s eyes sparkled as she thought how pleasant it would be to have him in the same household as herself; and any little restraint she might have experienced in running over the personal advantages that had captivated her fancy disappeared before this agreeable prospect.

“Handsome enough, madam!” she exclaimed, removing the comb from her mouth, dropping her lady’s hair, and flourishing her hands with true Italian emphasis and rapidity,—“handsome enough! why he would make the Liburnians look like bald-headed vultures beside a golden eagle! Barbarian, like enough, he may be, Cimbrian, Frisian, Ansibarian, or what not, for I caught the foreign accent tripping on his tongue, and we have few men in Rome of stature equal to his. A neck like a tower of marble; arms and shoulders like the statue of Hercules yonder in the vestibule; a face, ay, twice as beautiful as Pericles on your medallion, with the [pg 27]golden curls clustering round a forehead as white as milk and eyes”—

Here Myrrhina stopped, a little at a loss for a simile, and a good deal out of breath besides.

“Go on,” said Valeria, who had been listening in an attitude of languid attention, her eyes half closed, her lips parted, and the colour deepening on her cheek. “What were his eyes like, Myrrhina?”

“Well, they were like the blue sky of Campania in the vintage; they were like the stones round the boss of your state-mantle; they were like the sea at noonday from the long walls of Ostia. And yet they flashed into sparks of fire when he looked at poor little Automedon. I wonder the boy wasn’t frightened! I am sure I should have been; only nothing frightens those impudent young charioteers.”

“Was he my kinsman’s slave; are you sure, Myrrhina?” said her mistress, in an accent of studied unconcern, and never moving a finger from her listless and comfortable attitude.

“No doubt of it, madam,” replied the waiting-maid; and would probably have continued to enlarge on the congenial subject, had she not been interrupted by the entrance of one of the damsels who had been summoned from the apartment, and returned to announce that Hippias, the retired gladiator, was in waiting—“Would Valeria take her fencing-lesson?”

But Valeria declined at once, and sat on before her mirror, without even raising her eyes to the tempting picture it displayed. Whatever was the subject of her thoughts, it must have been very engrossing, she seemed so loth to be disturbed.

[pg 28]

CHAPTER V
ROME

Meanwhile the British slave, unconscious that he was already the object of Valeria’s interest and Myrrhina’s admiration, was threading his way through the crowded streets that adjoined the Forum, enjoying that vague sense of amusement with which a man surveys a scene of bustle and confusion that does not affect his immediate concerns. Thanks to the favour of his master, his time was nearly at his own disposal, and he had ample leisure to observe the busiest scene in the known world, and to compare it, perhaps, with the peace and simplicity of those early days, which seemed now like the memories of a dream, so completely had they passed away. The business of the Forum was over: the markets were disgorging their mingled stream of purveyors, purchasers, and idle lookers-on. The whole population of Rome was hurrying home to dinner, and a motley crowd it was. The citizens themselves, the Plebeians, properly so called, scarcely formed one half of the swarming assemblage. Slaves innumerable hurried to and fro, to speed the business or the pleasure of their lords; slaves of every colour and of every nation, from the Scandinavian giant, with blue eyes and waving yellow locks, to the sturdy Ethiopian, thick-lipped, and woolly-haired, the swarthy child of Africa, whose inheritance has been servitude from the earliest ages until now. Many a Roman born was there, too, amongst the servile crowd, aping the appearance and manner of a citizen, but who shrank from a master’s frown at home, and who, despite the acquirement of wealth, and even the attainment of power, must die a bondsman as he had lived.

Not the least characteristic feature of the state of society [pg 29]under the Empire was the troop of freedmen that everywhere accompanied the person, and swelled the retinue of each powerful patrician. These manumitted slaves were usually bound by the ties of interest as much as gratitude to the former master, who had now become their patron. Dependent on him in many cases for their daily food, doled out to them in rations at his door, they were necessarily little emancipated from his authority by their lately acquired freedom. While the relation of patron and client was productive of crying evils in the Imperial City, while the former threw the shield of his powerful protection over the crimes of the latter, and the client in return became the willing pander to his patron’s vices, it was the freedman who, more than all others, rendered himself a willing tool to his patrician employer, who yielded unhesitatingly time, affections, probity, and honour itself, to the caprices of his lord. They swarmed about the Forum now, running hither and thither with the obsequious haste of the parasite, bent on errands which in too many cases would scarce have borne the light of day.

Besides these, a vast number of foreigners, wearing the costumes of their different countries, hindered the course of traffic as they stood gaping, stupefied by the confusing scene on which they gazed. The Gaul, with his short, close-fitting garment; the Parthian, with his conical sheepskin cap; the Mede, with his loose silken trousers; the Jew, barefoot and robed in black; the stately Spaniard, the fawning Egyptian, and amongst them all, winding his way wherever the crowd was closest, with perfect ease and self-possession, the smooth and supple Greek. When some great man passed through the midst, borne aloft in his litter, or leaning on the shoulder of a favourite slave, and freedmen and clients made a passage for him with threat, and push, and blow, the latter would invariably miss the Greek to light on the pate of a humble mechanic, or the shoulders of a sturdy barbarian, while the descendant of Leonidas or Alcibiades would reply in whining sing-song tones to the verbal abuse, with some biting retort, which was sure to turn the laughter of the crowd on the aggressor.

If Rome had once overrun and conquered the dominions of her elder sister in civilisation, the invasion seemed now to be all the other way. With the turn of the tide had come such an overflow of Greek manners, Greek customs, Greek morals, and Greek artifice, that the Imperial City was already losing its natural characteristics; and the very language was so interlarded with the vocabulary of the conquered, that it [pg 30]was fast becoming less Latin than Greek. The Roman ladies, especially, delighted in those euphonious syllables, which clothed Athenian eloquence in such melodious rhythm; and their choicest terms of endearment in the language of love, were invariably whispered in Greek.

That supple nation, too, adapting itself to the degradation of slavery and the indulgence of ease, as it had risen in nobler times to the exigencies of liberty and the efforts demanded by war, had usurped the greater portion of art, science, and even power, in Rome. The most talented painters and sculptors were Greeks. The most enterprising contractors and engineers were Greeks. Rhetoric and elocution could only be learned in a Greek school, and mathematics, unless studied with Greek letters, must be esteemed confused and useless; the fashionable invalid who objected to consult a Greek physician deserved to die; and there was but one astrologer in Rome who could cast a patrician horoscope. Of course he was a Greek. In the lower walks of criminal industry; in the many iniquitous professions called into existence by the luxury of a great city, the Greeks drove a thriving and almost an exclusive trade. Whoever was in most repute, as an evil counsellor, a low buffoon, a money-lender, pimp, pander, or parasite, whatever might be his other qualifications, was sure to be a Greek. And many a scrutinising glance was cast by professors of this successful nation at the Briton’s manly form as he strode through the crowd, making his way quietly but surely from sheer weight and strength. They followed him with covetous eyes, as they speculated on the various purposes to which so much good manhood might be applied. They appraised him, so to speak, and took an inventory of his thews and sinews, his limbs, his stature, and his good looks; but they refrained from accosting him with importunate questions or insolent proposals, for there was a bold confident air about him, that bespoke the stout heart and the ready hand. The stamp of freedom had not yet faded from his brow, and he looked like one who was accustomed to take his own part in a crowd.

Suddenly a stoppage in the traffic arrested the moving stream, which swelled in continually to a struggling, eager, vociferating mass. A dray, containing huge blocks of marble, and drawn by several files of oxen, had become entangled with the chariot of a passing patrician, and another great man’s litter being checked by the obstruction, much confusion and bad language was the result. Amused with the turmoil, and in no hurry to get home, the British slave stood looking [pg 31]over the heads of the populace at the irritated and gesticulating antagonists, when a smart blow on the shoulder caused him to wheel suddenly round, prepared to return the injury with interest. At the same instant a powerful hand dragged him back by the tunic, and a grasp was laid on him, from which he could not shake himself free, while a rough good-humoured voice whispered in his ear—

“Softly, lad, softly! Keep hands off Cæsar’s lictors an’ thou be’st not mad in good earnest. These gentry give more than they take, I can promise thee!”

The speaker was a broad powerful man of middle size, with the chest of a Hercules; he held the Briton firmly pinioned in his arms while he spoke, and it was well that he did so, for the lictors were indeed forcing a passage for the Emperor himself, who was proceeding on foot, and as far as was practicable incog., to inspect the fish-market.

Vitellius shuffled along with the lagging step of an infirm and bloated old man. His face was pale and flabby, his eye dim, though sparkling at intervals with some little remnant of the ready wit and pliant humour that had made him the favourite of three emperors ere he himself attained the purple. Supported by two freedmen, preceded and followed only by a file of lictors, and attended by three or four slaves, Cæsar was taking his short walk in hopes of acquiring some little appetite for dinner: what locality so favourable for the furtherance of this object as the fish-market, where the imperial glutton could feast his eyes, if nothing else, on the choicest dainties of the deep? He was so seldom seen abroad in Rome, that the Briton could not forbear following him with his glance, while his new friend, relaxing his hold with great caution, whispered once more in his ear—

“Ay, look well at him, man, and give Jove thanks thou art not an emperor. There’s a shape for the purple! There’s a head to carry a diadem! Well, well, for all he’s so white and flabby now, like a Lucrine turbot, he could drive a chariot once, and hold his own at sword and buckler with the best of them. They say he can drink as well as ever still. Not that he was a match for Nero in his best days, even at that game. Ay, ay, they may talk as they will: we’ve never had an emperor like him before nor since. Wine, women, shows, sacrifices, wild-beast fights;—a legion of men all engaged in the circus at once! Such a friend as he was to our trade.”

“And that trade?” inquired the Briton good-humouredly enough, now his hands were free: “I think I can guess it without asking too many questions.”

“No need to guess,” replied the other. “I’m not ashamed of my trade, nor of my name neither. Maybe you have heard of Hirpinus, the gladiator? Tuscan born, free Roman citizen, and willing to match himself with any man of his weight, on foot or on horseback, blindfold or half-armed, in or out of a war-chariot, with two swords, sword and buckler, or sword or spear. Any weapon, and every weapon, always excepting the net and the noose. Those I can’t bear talking about—to my mind they are not fair fighting. But what need I tell you all about it?” he added, running his eye over the slave’s powerful frame. “I must surely have seen you before. You look as if you belonged to the Family[2] yourself!”

The slave smiled, not insensible to the compliment.

“’Tis a manlier way of getting bread than most of the employments I see practised in Rome,” was his reply, though he spoke more to himself than his companion. “A man might die a worse death than in the amphitheatre,” he added meditatively.

“A worse death!” echoed Hirpinus. “He could scarce die a better! Think of the rows of heads one upon another piled up like apples to the very awnings. Think of the patricians and senators wagering their collars and bracelets, and their sesterces in millions, on the strength of your arm, and the point of your blade. Think of your own vigour and manhood, trained till you feel as strong as an elephant, and as lithe as a panther, with an honest wooden buckler on your arm, and two feet of pliant steel in your hand, as you defile by Cæsar and bid him ‘Good-morrow, from those who have come here to die!’ Think of the tough bout with your antagonist, foot to foot, hand to hand, eye to eye, feeling his blade with your own (why a swordsman, lad, can fence as well in the dark as the daylight!), foiling his passes, drawing his attack, learning his feints, watching your opportunity; when you catch it at last, in you dash like a wild-cat, and the guard of your sword rings sharp and true against his breastbone, as he goes over backwards on the sand!”

“And if he gets the opportunity first?” asked the slave, interested in spite of himself at the enthusiasm which carried him irresistibly along with it. “If your guard is an inch too high, your return a thought too slow? If you go backwards on the sand, with the hilt at your breastbone, and the two feet of steel in your bosom? How does it feel then?”

“Faith, lad, you must cross the Styx to have that question fairly answered,” replied the other. “I have had no such experience yet. When it comes I shall know how to meet it. But this talking makes a man thirsty, and the sun is hot enough to bake a negro here. Come with me, lad! I know a shady nook, where we can pierce a skin of wine, and afterwards play a game at quoits, or have a bout of wrestling, to while away the afternoon.”

The slave was nothing loth. Besides the debt of gratitude he owed for preservation from a serious danger, there was something in his new friend’s rough, good-humoured, and athletic manhood that won on the Briton’s favour. Hirpinus, with even more than their fierce courage, had less than the usual brutality of his class, and possessed besides a sort of quaint and careless good-humour, by no means rare among the athletes of every time, which found its way at once to the natural sympathies of the slave. They started off accordingly, on the most amicable terms, in search of that refreshment which a few hours’ exposure to an Italian sun rendered very desirable; but the crowd had not yet cleared off, and their progress was necessarily somewhat slow, notwithstanding that the throng of passengers gave way readily enough before two such stalwart and athletic forms.

Hirpinus thought it incumbent on him to take the Briton, as it were, under his protection, and to point out to him the different objects of interest, and the important personages, to be seen at that hour in the streets of the capital, totally irrespective of the fact that his pupil was as well instructed on these points as himself. But the gladiator dearly loved a listener, and, truth to tell, was extremely diffuse in his narratives when he had got one to his mind. These generally turned on his own physical prowess, and his deadly exploits in the amphitheatre, which he was by no means disposed to underrate. There are some really brave men who are also boasters, and Hirpinus was one of them.

He was in the midst of a long dissertation on the beauties of an encounter fought out between naked combatants, armed only with the sword, and was explaining at great length a certain fatal thrust outside his antagonist’s guard, and over his elbow, which he affirmed to be his own invention, and irresistible by any party yet discovered, when the slave felt his gown plucked by a female hand, and turning sharply round was somewhat disconcerted to find himself face to face with Valeria’s waiting-maid.

“You are wanted,” said she unceremoniously, and with an [pg 34]imperious gesture. “You are to come to my lady this instant. Make haste, man; she cannot brook waiting.”

Myrrhina pointed while she spoke to where a closed litter borne aloft by four tall Liburnian slaves, had stopped the traffic, and already become the nucleus of a crowd. A white hand peeped through its curtains, as the slave approached, surprised and somewhat abashed at this unexpected appeal. Hirpinus looked on with grave approval the while. Arriving close beneath the litter, of which the curtain was now open, the slave paused and made a graceful obeisance; then, drawing himself up proudly, stood erect before it, looking unconsciously his best, in the pride of his youth and beauty. Valeria’s cheek was paler than usual, and her attitude more languid, but her grey eyes sparkled, and a smile played round her mouth as she addressed him.

“Myrrhina tells me that you are the man who brought a basket of flowers to my house this morning from Licinius. Why did you not wait to carry back my salutations to my kinsman?”

The colour mounted to the slave’s brow as he thought of Automedon’s insolence, but he only replied humbly, “Had I known it was your wish, lady, I had been standing in your porch till now.”

She marked his rising colour, and attributed it to the effect of her own dazzling beauty.

“Myrrhina knew you at once in the crowd,” said she graciously; “and indeed yours is a face and figure not easily mistaken in Rome. I should recognise you myself anywhere now.”

She paused, expecting a suitable reply, but the slave, albeit not insensible to the compliment, only blushed again and was silent. Valeria, meanwhile, whose motives in summoning him to her litter had been in the first instance of simple curiosity to see the stalwart barbarian who had so excited Myrrhina’s admiration, and whom that sharp-sighted damsel had recognised in an instant amongst the populace, now found herself pleased and interested by the quiet demeanour and noble bearing of this foreign slave. She had always been susceptible to manly beauty, and here she beheld it in its noblest type. She was rapacious of admiration in all quarters; and here she could not but flatter herself she gathered an undoubted tribute to the power of her charms. She owned all a woman’s interest in anything that had a spice of mystery or romance, and a woman’s unfailing instinct in discovering high birth and gentle breeding under every [pg 35]disguise; and here she found a delightful puzzle in the manner and appearance of her kinsman’s messenger, whose position seemed so at variance with his looks. She had never in her life laid the slightest restraint on her thoughts, and but little on her actions—she had never left a purpose unfulfilled, nor a wish ungratified—but a strange and new feeling, at which even her courageous nature quailed, seemed springing up in her heart while she gazed with half-closed eyes at the Briton, and hesitated to confess, even to herself, that she had never seen such a man as this in her life before. It was in a softened tone that she again addressed him, moving on her couch to show an ivory shoulder and a rounded arm to the best advantage.

“You are a confidential servant of my kinsman’s? You are attached to his person, and always to be found in his household?” she asked, more with a view of detaining him than for any fixed purpose.

“I would give my life for Licinius!” was the prompt and spirited reply.

“But you are gentle born,” she resumed, with increasing interest; “how came you in your present dress, your present station? Licinius has never mentioned you to me. I do not even know your name. What is it?”

“Esca,” answered the slave proudly, and looking the while anything but a slave.

“Esca!” she repeated, dwelling on the syllables, with a slow soft cadence; “Esca! ’Tis none of our Latin names; but that I might have known already. Who and what are you?”

There was something of defiance in the melancholy tone with which he answered—

“A prince in my own country, and a chief of ten thousand. A barbarian and a slave in Rome.”

She gave him her hand to kiss, with a gesture of pity that was almost a caress, and then, as though ashamed of her own condescension, bade the Liburnians angrily to “go on.”

Esca looked long and wistfully after the litter as it disappeared; but Hirpinus, clapping him on the back with his heavy hand, burst into a hearty laugh while he declared—

“’Tis a clear case, comrade. ‘Came, saw, and conquered,’ as the great soldier said. I have known it a hundred times, but always to men of muscle like thee and me. By Castor and Pollux! lad, thou art in luck. Ay, ay, ’tis always so. She takes thee for a gladiator, and they’ll look at nothing but a gladiator now. Come on, brother; we’ll drink a cup to every letter of her name!”

[pg 36]

CHAPTER VI
THE WORSHIP OF ISIS

It was the cool and calming hour of sunset. Esca was strolling quietly homewards after the pursuits of the day. He had emptied a wineskin with Hirpinus; and, resisting that worthy’s entreaties to mark so auspicious a meeting by a debauch, had accompanied him to the gymnasium, where the Briton’s magnificent strength and prowess raised him higher than ever in the opinion of the experienced athlete. Untiring as were the trained muscles of the professional, he found himself unable to cope with the barbarian in such exercises as demanded chiefly untaught physical power and length of limb. In running, leaping, and wrestling, Esca was more than a match for the gladiator. In hurling the quoit, and fencing with wooden foils, the latter’s constant practice gave him the advantage, and when he fastened round his wrists and hands the leathern thong or cestus, used for the same purpose as our modern boxing-glove, and proposed a round or two of that manly exercise to conclude with, he little doubted that his own science and experience would afford him an easy victory. The result, however, was far different from his expectations. His antagonist’s powers were especially adapted to this particular kind of contest; his length of limb, his quickness of eye, hand, and foot, his youthful elasticity of muscle, and his unfailing wind, rendered him an invincible combatant, and it was with something like pique that Hirpinus was compelled to confess as much to himself.

At the end of the first round he was satisfied of his mistake in underrating so formidable an opponent. Ere the second was half through, he had exhausted all the resources of his own skill without gaining the slightest advantage over his antagonist; and with the conclusion of a third, he flung away the cestus in well-feigned disgust at the heat of the weather, and proposed one more skin of wine before parting, to drink success to the profession, and speedy employ[pg 37]ment for the gladiators at the approaching games in the amphitheatre.

“Join us, man!” said Hirpinus, dropping something of the patronising air he had before affected. “Thou wert born to be a swordsman. Hippias would teach thee in a week to hold thine own against the best fencers in Rome. I myself will look to thy food, thy training, and thy private practice. Thou wouldst gain thy liberty easily, after a few victories. Think it over, man! and when thou hast decided, come to the fencing-school yonder, and ask for old Hirpinus. The steel may have a speck of rust on it, but it’s tough and true still; so fare thee well, lad. I count to hear from thee again before long!”

The gladiator accordingly rolled off with more than his usual assumption of manly independence, attributable to the measure of rough Sabine wine of which he had drunk his full share, whilst the Briton walked quietly away in the direction of his home, enjoying the cool breeze that fanned his brow, and following out a train of vague and complicated reflections, originating in the advice of his late companion.

The crimson glow of a summer evening had faded into the serene beauty of a summer night. Stars were flashing out, one by one, with mellow lustre, not glimmering faintly, as in our northern climate, but hanging like silver lamps, in the infinity of the sky. The busy turmoil of the streets had subsided to a low and drowsy hum; the few chance passengers who still paced them, went softly and at leisure, as though enjoying the soothing influence of the hour. Even here, in the great city, everything seemed to breathe of peace, and contentment, and repose. Esca walked slowly on, lost in meditation.

Suddenly, the clash of cymbals and the sound of voices struck upon his ear. A wild and fitful melody, rising and falling with strange thrilling cadence, was borne upon the breeze. Even while he stopped to listen, it swelled into a full harmonious chorus, and he recognised the chant of the worshippers of Isis, returning from the unholy celebration of her rites. Soon the glare of torches heralded its approach, and the tumultuous procession wound round the corner of the street with all the strange grotesque ceremonies of their order. Clashing their cymbals, dashing their torches together till the sparks flew up in showers, tossing their bare arms aloft with frantic gestures, the smooth-faced priests, having girt their linen garments tightly round their loins, were dancing to and fro before the image of the goddess with bacchanalian energy. [pg 38]Some were bareheaded, some crowned with garlands of the lotus-leaf, and some wore masks representing the heads of dogs and other animals; but all, though leaping wildly here and there, danced in the same step, all used the same mysterious gestures of which the meaning was only known to the initiated. The figure of the goddess herself was borne aloft on the shoulders of two sturdy priests, fat, oily, smooth, and sensual, with the odious look of their kind. It represented a stately woman crowned with the lotus, holding a four-barred lyre in her hand. Gold and silver tinsel was freely scattered over her flowing garments, and jewels of considerable value, the gifts of unusually fervent devotees, might be observed upon her bosom and around her neck and arms. Behind her were carried the different symbols by which her qualities were supposed to be typified; amongst these an image of the sacred cow, wrought in frosted silver with horns and hoofs of gold, showed the most conspicuous, borne aloft as it was by an acolyte in the wildest stage of inebriety, and wavering, with the uncertain movements of its bearer, over the heads of the throng. In the van moved the priests, bloated eunuchs clad in white; behind these came the sacred images carried by younger votaries, who, aspiring to the sacerdotal office, and already prepared for its functions, devoted themselves assiduously in the meantime to the orgies with which it was their custom to celebrate the worship of their deity. Maddened with wine, bare-limbed and with dishevelled locks, they danced frantically to and fro, darting at intervals from their ranks, and compelling the passengers whom they met to turn behind them, and help to swell the rear of the procession. This was formed of a motley crew. Rich and poor, old and young, the proud patrician and the squalid slave, were mingled together in turbulent confusion; it was difficult to distinguish those who formed a part of the original pageant from the idlers who had attached themselves to it, and, having caught the contagious excitement, vociferated as loudly, and leaped about as wildly, as the initiated themselves. Amongst these might be seen some of the fairest and proudest faces in Rome. Noble matrons reared in luxury, under the very busts of those illustrious ancestors who had been counsellors of kings, defenders of the commonwealth, senators of the empire, thought it no shame to be seen reeling about the public streets, unveiled and flushed with wine, in the company of the most notorious and profligate of their sex. A multitude of torches shed their glare on the upturned faces of the throng, and on one that looked, [pg 39]with its scornful lips and defiant brow, to have no business there.

Amongst the wildest of these revellers, Valeria’s haughty head moved on, towering above the companions, with whom she seemed to have nothing in common, save a fierce determination to set modesty and propriety at defiance. Esca caught her glance as she swept by. She blushed crimson, he observed even in the torchlight, and seemed for an instant to shrink behind the portly form of a priest who marched at her side; but, immediately recovering herself, moved on with a gradually paling cheek, and a haughtier step than before.

He had little leisure, however, to observe the scornful beauty, whose charms, to tell the truth, had made no slight impression on his imagination; for a disturbance at its head, which had now passed him some distance, had stopped the progress of the whole procession, and no small confusion was the result. The torch-bearers were hurrying to the front. The silver cow had fallen and been replaced in an upright position more than once. The goddess herself had nearly shared the same fate. The sacred chant had ceased, and instead a hundred tongues were vociferating at once, some in anger, some in expostulation, some in maudlin ribaldry and mirth. “Let her go!” cried one. “Hold her fast!” shouted another. “Bring her along with you!” reasoned a drunken acolyte. “If she be worthy she will conform to the worship of the goddess. If she be unworthy she shall experience the divine wrath of Isis!” “Mind what you are about,” interposed a more cautious votary. “She is a Roman maiden,” said one. “She’s a barbarian!” shrieked another. “A Mede!” “A Spaniard!” “A Persian!” “A Jewess! A Jewess!”

In the meantime the unfortunate cause of all this turmoil, a young girl closely veiled and dressed in black, was struggling in the arms of a large unwieldy eunuch, who had seized her as a hawk pounces on a pigeon, and despite her agonised entreaties, for the poor thing was in mortal fear, held her ruthlessly in his grasp. She had been surrounded by the lawless band, ere she was aware, as she glided quietly round the street corner, on her homeward way, had shrunk up against the wall in the desperate hope that she might remain unobserved or unmolested, and found herself, as was to be expected, an immediate object of insult to the dissolute and licentious crew. Though her dress was torn and her arms bruised from the unmanly violence to which she was subjected, with true feminine modesty she kept her veil closely [pg 40]drawn round her face, and resisted every effort for its removal, with a firm strength of which those slender wrists seemed hardly capable. As the eunuch grasped her with drunken violence, bending his huge body and bloated face over the shrinking figure of the girl, she could not suppress one piercing shriek for help, though, even while it left her lips, she felt how futile it must be, and how utterly hopeless was her situation. It was echoed by a hundred voices in tones of mockery and derision.

Little did Spado, for such was the eunuch’s name, little did Spado think how near was the aid for which his victim called; how sudden would be the reprisals that should astonish himself with their prompt and complete redress, reminding him of what he had long forgotten, the strength of a man’s blow, and the weight of a man’s arm. At the first sound of the girl’s voice, Esca had forced his way through the crowd to her assistance. In three strides he had come up with her assailant, and laid his heavy grasp on Spado’s fat shoulder, while he bade him in low determined accents to release his prey. The eunuch smiled insolently, and replied with a brutal jest.

Valeria, interested in spite of herself, could not resist an impulse to press forward and see what was going on. Long afterwards she delighted to recall the scene she now beheld with far more of exultation and excitement than alarm. It had, indeed, especial attraction for an imagination like hers. Standing out in the red glare of the torches, like the bronze statue of some demigod starting into life, towered the tall figure of Esca, defiance in his attitude, anger on his brow, and resistless strength in the quivering outline of each sculptured limb. Within arm’s length of him, the obese, ungraceful shape of Spado, with his broad fat face, expressive chiefly of gluttony and sensual enjoyment, but wearing now an ugly look of malice and apprehension. Starting back from his odious embrace to the utmost length of her outstretched arms, the veiled form of the frightened girl, her head turned from the eunuch, her hands pressed against his chest, every line of her figure denoting the extreme of horror, and aversion, and disgust. Round the three, a shifting mass of grinning faces, and tossing arms, and wild bacchanalian gestures; the whole rendered more grotesque and unnatural by the lurid, flickering light. With an unaccountable fascination Valeria watched for the result.

“Let her go!” repeated Esca, in the distinct accents with which a man speaks who is about to strike, tightening at the [pg 41]same time a gripe which went into the eunuch’s soft flesh like iron.

Spado howled in mingled rage and fear, but released the girl nevertheless, who cowered instinctively close to her protector.

“Help!” shouted the eunuch, looking round for assistance from his comrades. “Help! I say. Will ye see the priest mishandled and the goddess reviled? Down with him! down with him, comrades, and keep him down!”

There is little doubt that had Esca’s head once touched the ground it had never risen again, for the priests were crowding about him with wild yells and savage eyes, and the fierce revelry of a while ago was fast warming into a thirst for blood. Valeria thrust her way into the circle, though she never feared for the Briton—not for an instant.

It was getting dangerous, though, to remain any longer amongst this frantic crew. Esca wound one arm round the girl’s waist and opposed the other shoulder to the throng. Spado, encouraged by his comrades, struck wildly at the Briton, and made a furious effort to recover his prey. Esca drew himself together like a panther about to spring, then his long sinewy arm flew out with the force and impulse of a catapult, and the eunuch, reeling backwards, fell heavily to the ground, with a gash upon his cheek like the wound inflicted by a sword.

“Euge!” exclaimed Valeria, in a thrill of admiration and delight. “Well struck, by Hercules! Ah! these barbarians have at least the free use of their limbs. Why, the priest went down like a white ox at the Mucian Gate. Is he much hurt, think ye? Will he rise again?”

The last sentence was addressed to the throng who now crowded round the prostrate Spado, and was but the result of that pity which is never quite dormant in a woman’s breast. The fallen eunuch seemed indeed in no hurry to get upon his legs again. He rolled about in hideous discomfiture, and gave vent to his feelings in loud and pitiful moans and lamentations.

After such an example of the Briton’s prowess, none of her other votaries seemed to think it incumbent on them to vindicate the majesty of the goddess by further interference with the maiden and her protector. Supporting and almost carrying her drooping form, Esca hurried her away with swift firm strides, pausing and looking back at intervals, as though loth to leave his work half finished, and by no means unwilling to renew the contest. The last Valeria saw of him [pg 42]was the turn of his noble head bending down with a courteous and protecting gesture, to console and reassure his frightened charge. All her womanly instincts revolted at that moment from the odious throng with whom she was involved. She could have found it in her heart to envy that obscure and unknown girl hurrying away yonder through the darkening streets on the arm of her powerful protector—could have wished herself a peasant or a slave, with some one being in the world to look up to, and to love.

Valeria’s life had been that of a spoiled child from the day she left her cradle—that gilded cradle over which the nurses had repeated their customary Roman blessing with an emphasis that in her case seemed to be prophetic—

“May monarchs woo thee, darling! to their bed,

And roses blossom where thy footsteps tread!”

The metaphorical flowers of wealth, prosperity, and admiration, did indeed seem to spring up beneath her feet, and her stately beauty would have done no discredit to an imperial bride; but it must have been something more than outward pomp and show—something nobler than the purple and the diadem—that could have won its way to Valeria’s heart.

She was habituated to the beautiful, the costly, the refined, till she had learned to consider such qualities as the mere essentials of life. It seemed to her a simple matter of course that houses should be noble, and chariots luxurious, and horses swift, and men brave. The nil admirari was the maxim of the class in which she lived; and whilst their standard was thus placed at the superlative, that which came up to it received no credit for excellence, that which fell short was treated with disapproval and contempt. Valeria’s life had been one constant round of pleasure and amusement; yet she was not happy, not even contented. Day by day she felt the want of some fresh interest, some fresh excitement; and it was this craving probably, more than innate depravity, which drove her, in common with many of her companions, into such disgraceful scenes as were enacted at the worship of Juno, Isis, and the other gods and goddesses of mythology.

Lovers, it is needless to say, Valeria had won in plenty. Each new face possessed for her but the attraction of its novelty. The favourite of the hour had small cause to plume himself on his position. For the first week he interested her curiosity, for the second he pleased her fancy, after which, if he was wise, he took his leave gracefully, ere he was bidden [pg 43]to do so with a frankness that admitted of no misconception. Perhaps the only person in the world whom she respected was her kinsman Licinius; and this, none the less, that she possessed no kind of influence over his feelings or his opinions; that she well knew he viewed her proceedings often with disapprobation, and entertained for her character a kindly pity not far removed from contempt. Even Julius Placidus, who was the most persevering, as he was the craftiest, of her adorers, had made no impression on her heart. She appreciated his intellect, she was amused with his conversation, she approved of his deep schemes, his lavish extravagance, his unprincipled recklessness; but she never thought of him for an instant after he was out of her sight, and there was something in the cold-blooded ferocity of his character from which, even in his presence, she unconsciously recoiled. Perhaps she admired the person of Hippias, her fencing-master, a retired gladiator, who combined handsome regularity of features with a certain worn and warlike air, not without its charm, more than that of any man whom she had yet seen, and with all her pride and her cold exterior, Valeria was a woman to be captivated by the eye; but Hippias, from his professional reputation, was the darling of half the matrons in Rome, and it may be that she only followed the example of her friends, with whom, at this period of the Empire, it was considered a proof of the highest fashion, and the best taste, to be in love with a gladiator.

Strong in her passions, as in her physical organisation, the former were only bridled by an unbending pride, and an intensity of will more than masculine in its resolution. As under that smooth skin the muscles of the round white arm were firm and hard like marble, so beneath that fair and tranquil bosom there beat a heart that for good or evil could dare, endure, and defy the worst. Valeria was a woman whom none but a very bold or very ignorant suitor would have taken to his breast; yet it may be that the right man could have tamed, and made her gentle and patient as the dove. And now something seemed to tell her that the void in her heart was filled at last. Esca’s manly beauty had made a strong impression on her senses; the anomaly of his position had captivated her imagination; there was something very attractive in the mystery that surrounded him; there was even a wild thrill of pleasure in the shame of loving a slave. Then, when he stood forth, the champion of that poor helpless girl, brave, handsome, and victorious, the charm was complete; and Valeria’s eyes followed him as he dis[pg 44]appeared with a longing loving look, that had never glistened in them in her life before.

The Briton hurried away with his arm round the drooping figure of his companion, and for a time forbore to speak a word even of encouragement or consolation. At first the reaction of her feelings turned her sick and faint, then a burst of weeping came to her relief; ere long the tears were flowing silently; and the girl, who indeed showed no lack of courage, had recovered herself sufficiently to look up in her protector’s face, and pour out her thanks with a quiet earnestness that showed they came direct from the heart.

“I can trust you,” she said, in a voice of peculiar sweetness, though her Latin, like his own, was touched with a slightly foreign accent. “I can read a brave man’s face—none better. We have not far to go now. You will take me safe home?”

“I will guard you to your very door,” said he, in tones of the deepest respect. “But you need fear nothing now; the drunken priests and their mysterious deity are far enough off by this time. ’Tis a noble worship, truly, for such a city as this—the mistress of the world!”

“False gods! false gods!” replied the girl, very earnestly. “Oh! how can men be so blind, so degraded?” Here she stopped suddenly, and clung closer to her companion’s arm, drawing her veil tighter round her face the while. Her quick ear had caught the sound of hurrying footsteps, and she dreaded pursuit.

“’Tis nothing,” said Esca, encouraging her; “the most we have to dread now is some drunken freedman or client reeling home from his patron’s supper-table. They are a weakly race, these Roman citizens,” he added good-humouredly; “I think I can promise to stave them off if they come not more than a dozen at a time.”

The cheerful tone reassured her no less than the strong arm to which she clung. It was delightful to feel so safe after the fright she had undergone. The footsteps were indeed those of a few dissolute idlers loitering home after a debauch. They had hastened forward on espying a female figure; but there was something in the air of her protector that forbade a near approach, and they shrank to the other side of the way rather than come in contact with so powerful an opponent. The girl felt proud of her escort, and safer every minute. By this time she had guided him into a dark and narrow street, at the end of which the Tiber might be seen gleaming under the starlit sky. She stopped at a mean-looking door, let into a dead-wall, and applying her [pg 45]hand to a secret spring, it opened noiselessly to her touch. Then she turned to face her companion, and said frankly, “I have not thanked you half enough. Will you not enter our poor dwelling, and share with us a morsel of food and a cup of wine, ere you depart upon your way?”

Esca was neither hungry nor thirsty, yet he bowed his head, and followed her into the house.

[pg 46]

CHAPTER VII
TRUTH

The dwelling in which the Briton now found himself presented a strange contrast of simplicity and splendour, of wealth and frugality, of obscure poverty and costly refinement. The wall was bare and weather-stained; but a silver lamp, burning perfumed oil, was fixed against its surface on a bracket of common deal. Though the stone floor was damp and broken, it was partially covered by a soft thick carpet of brilliant colours, while shawls from the richest looms of Asia hung over the mutilated wooden seats and the crazy couch, which appeared to be the congenial furniture of the apartment. Esca could not but remark on the same inconsistency throughout all the minor details of the household. A measure of rich wine from the Lebanon was cooling in a pitcher of coarse earthenware, a draught of fair water sparkled in a cup of gold. A bundle of Eastern javelins, inlaid with ivory and of beautiful finish and workmanship, kept guard, as it were, over a plain two-edged sword devoid of ornament, and with a handle frayed and worn as though from constant use, that looked like a weapon born for work not show, some rough soldier’s rude but trusty friend. The room of which Esca thus caught a hasty glance as he passed through, opened on an inner apartment, which seemed to have been originally equally bare and dilapidated, but of which the furniture was even more rich and incongruous. It was flooded by a soft warm light, shed from a lamp burning some rare Syrian oil, that was scarcely to be procured for money in Rome. It dazzled Esca’s eyes as he followed the girl through the outer apartment into this retreat, and it was a few seconds ere he recovered his sight sufficiently to take note of the objects that surrounded him.

A venerable man with bald head and long silvery beard was sitting at the table when they entered, reading from a roll of parchment filled to the very margin with characters in the Syriac language, then generally spoken over the [pg 47]whole of Asia Minor, and sufficiently familiar at Rome. So immersed was he in his studies, that he did not seem to notice her arrival, till the girl rushed up to him, and, without unveiling, threw herself into his arms with many expressions of endearment and delight at her own return. The language in which she spoke was unknown to the Briton; but he gathered from her gestures, and the agitation which again overcame her for an instant, that she was relating her own troubles, and the part he had himself borne in the adventures of the night. Presently she turned, and drew him forward, while she said in Latin, with a little sob of agitation between every sentence—

“Behold my preserver—the youth who came in like a lion to save me from those wicked men! Thank him in my father’s name, and yours, and all my kindred and all my tribe. Bid him welcome to the best our house affords. It is not every day a daughter of Judah meets with an arm and a heart like his, when she falls into the grasp of the heathen and the oppressor!”

The old man stretched his hand to Esca with cordiality and goodwill; as he did so, the Briton could not but observe how kindly was the smile that mantled over his serene and gentle face.

“My brother will be home ere long,” said he, “and will himself thank you for preserving his daughter from insult and worse. Meantime Calchas bids you heartily welcome to Eleazar’s house. Mariamne,” he added, turning to the girl, “prepare us a morsel of food that we may eat. It is not the custom of our nation to send a stranger fasting from the door.”

The girl departed on her hospitable mission, and Esca, making light of his prowess, and of the danger incurred, gave his own version of the night’s occurrence, to which Calchas listened with grave interest and approval. When he had concluded, the old man pointed to the scroll he had been reading, which now lay rolled up on the table at his hand.

“The time will come,” said he, “when the words that are written here shall be in the mouths of all men on the surface of the known earth. Then shall there be no more strife, nor oppression, nor suffering, nor sorrow. Then shall men love each other like brothers, and live only in kindliness and goodwill. The day may seem far distant, and the means may seem poor and inadequate now, yet so it is written here, and so will it be at last.”

“You think that Rome will extend her dominions farther and farther? That she will conquer all known nations, as she has conquered us? That she means to be in fact what she proudly styles herself, the Mistress of the World? In truth, the eagle’s wings are wide and strong. His beak is very sharp, and where his talons have once fastened themselves, they never again let go their hold!”

Calchas smiled and shook his head.

“The dove will prevail against the eagle, as love is a stronger power than hate. But it is not of Rome I speak as the future influence that shall establish the great good on earth. The legions are indeed well trained, and brave even to the death; but I know of soldiers in a better service than Cæsar’s, whose warfare is harder, whose watches are longer, whose adversaries are more numerous, but whose triumph is more certain, and more glorious at the last.”

Esca looked as if he understood him not. The Briton’s thoughts were wandering back to the tramp of columns and the clash of steel, and the gallant stand made against the invader by the white-robed warriors with their long swords, amongst whom he had been one of the boldest and the best.

“It is hard to strive against Rome,” said he, with a glowing cheek and sparkling eye. “Yet I cannot but think, if we had never been provoked to an attack, if we had kept steadily on the defensive, if we had moved inland as he approached, harassing and cutting him off whenever we saw an opportunity, but never suffering him to make one for himself—trusting more to our woods and rivers, and less to our own right hands—we might have tamed the eagle and clipped his wings, and beat him back across the sea at last. But what have I to do with such matters now?” he added, while his whole countenance fell in bitter humiliation. “I, a poor barbarian captive, and a slave here in Rome!”

Calchas studied his face with a keen scrutinising glance, then he laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder, and said inquiringly—

“There is not a grey hair in your clustering locks, nor a wrinkle on your brow, yet you have known sorrow?”

“Who has not?” replied the other cheerfully; “and yet I never thought to have come to this.”

“You are a slave, and you would be free?” asked Calchas, slowly and impressively.

“I am a slave,” repeated the Briton, “and I shall be free. But not till death.”

“And after death?” proceeded the old man, in the same gentle inquiring tone.

“After death,” answered the other, “I shall be free as the elements I have been taught to worship, and into which they tell me I shall be resolved. What need I know or care more than that in death there will be neither pleasure nor pain?”

“And is not life with all its changes too sweet to lose on such terms as these?” asked the older man. “Are you content to believe that, like one walking through a quicksand, the footsteps you leave are filled up and obliterated behind you as you pass on? Can you bear to think that yesterday is indeed banished and gone for ever? That a to-morrow must come of black and endless night? Death should be really terrible if this is your conviction and your creed!”

“Death is never terrible to a brave man,” answered Esca. “A Briton need not be taught how to die sword in hand.”

“You think you are brave,” said Calchas, looking wistfully on the other’s rising colour and kindling eyes. “Ah! you have not seen my comrades die, or you would know that something better than courage is required for the service to which we belong. What think ye of weak women, tender shrinking maidens, worn with fatigue, emaciated with hunger, fainting with heat and thirst, brought out to be devoured by beasts, or to suffer long and agonising tortures, yet smiling the while in quiet calm contentment, as seeing the home to which they are hastening, the triumph but a few short hours off? What think ye of the captains under whom I served, who here at Rome, in the face of Cæsar and his power, vindicated the honour of their Lord and died without a murmur for His cause? I was with Peter, I tell you, Peter the Galilean, of whom men talk to this day, of whom men shall never cease to talk in after ages, when he opposed to Simon’s magic arts his simple faith in the Master whom he served, and I saw the magician hurled like a stricken vulture to the ground. I was present when the fiercest and the wickedest of the Cæsars, returning from the expedition to Greece, wherein his buffooneries had earned the contempt even of that subtle nation of flatterers, sentenced him to death upon the cross for that he had dared to oppose Nero’s vices, and to tell Nero the truth. I heard him petition that he might be crucified with his head downward, as not worthy to suffer in the same posture as his Lord—and I can see him now, the pale face, the noble head, the dark keen eye, the slender sinewy form, and, above all, the self-sustaining con[pg 50]fidence, the triumphant daring of the man as he walked fearlessly to death. I was with Paul, the noble Pharisee, the naturalised Roman citizen, when he, alone amongst a crowd of passengers and a century of soldiers, quailed not to look on the black waves raging round our broken ship, and bade us all be of good cheer, for that every soul, to the number of two hundred and seventy-five, should come safe to shore. I remember how trustfully we looked on that low spare form, that grave and gracious face with its kindly eyes, its bushy brows and thick beard sprinkled here and there with grey. It was the soul, we knew, that sustained and strengthened the weakly body of the man. The very barbarians where we landed acknowledged its influence, and would fain have worshipped him for a god. Nero might well fear that quiet, humble, trusting, yet energetic nature; and where the imperial monster feared, as where he admired, loved, hated, envied, or despised, the sentiment must be quenched in blood.”

“And did he too fall a victim?” inquired Esca, whose interest, notwithstanding occasional glances at the door through which Mariamne had gone out, seemed thoroughly awakened by the old man’s narrative.

“They might not crucify him,” answered Calchas, “for he was of noble lineage and a Roman citizen born; but they took him from amongst us, and they let him languish in a prison, till they released him at last and brought him out to be beheaded. Ay, Rome was a fearful sight that day; the foot was scorched as it trod the ashes of the devastated city, the eye smarted in the lurid smoke that hung like a pall upon the heavy air and would not pass away. Palaces were crumbling in ruins, the shrivelled spoils of an empire were blackening around, the dead were lying in the choked-up highways half-festering, half-consumed—orphan children were wandering about starved and shivering, with sallow faces and large shining eyes, or, worse still, playing thoughtlessly, unconscious of their doom. They said the Christians had set fire to the city, and many an innocent victim suffered for this foul and groundless slander. The Christians, forsooth! oppressed, persecuted, reviled; whose only desire was to live in brotherhood with all men, whose very creed is peace and goodwill on earth. I counted twenty of them, men, women, and children, neighbours with whom I had held kindly fellowship, friends with whom I had broken bread, lying stiff and cold in the Flaminian Way on the morning Paul was led out to die. But there was peace on the dead faces, and the rigid hands were clasped in prayer; and [pg 51]though the lacerated emaciated body, the mere shell, was grovelling there in the dust, the spirit had gone home to God who made it, to the other world of which you have not so much as heard, yet which you too must some day visit, to remain for ever. Do you understand me? not for ages, but for ever—without end!”

“Where is it?” asked Esca, on whom the idea of a spiritual existence, innate from its very organisation in every intelligent being, did not now dawn for the first time. “Is it here, or there? below, or above? in the stars, or the elements? I know the world in which I live; I can see it, can hear it, can feel it; but that other world, where is it?”

“Where is it?” repeated Calchas. “Where are the dearest wishes of your heart, the noblest thoughts of your mind? Where are your loves, your hopes, your affections, above all, your memories? Where is the whole better part of your nature? your remorse for evil, your aspirations after good, your speculations on the future, your convictions of the reality of the past? Where these are, there is that other world. You cannot see it, you cannot hear it, yet you know that it must be. Is any man’s happiness complete? is any man’s misery when it reaches him so overwhelming as it seemed at a distance? And why is it not? Because something tells him that the present life is but a small segment in the complete circle of a soul’s existence. And the circle, you have not lived in Rome without learning, is the symbol of infinity.”

Esca pondered and was silent. There are convictions which men hold unconsciously, and to which they are so accustomed that their attention can only be directed to them from without, just as they wear their skins and scarcely know it, till the familiar covering has been lacerated by injury or disease. At last he looked up with a brightening countenance, and exclaimed, “In that world, surely, all men will be free!”

“All men will be equal,” replied Calchas, “but no mortal or immortal ever can be free. Suppose a being totally divested of all necessity for effort, all responsibility to his fellows or himself, all participation in the great scheme of which government is the essential condition in its every part, and you suppose one whose own feelings would be an intolerable burden, whose own wishes would be an unendurable torture. Man is made to bear a yoke; but the Captain whom I serve has told me that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. How easy and how light, I experience every moment of my life.”

“And yet you said but now that death and degradation were the lot of those who bore arms by your side in the ranks,” observed the Briton, still intently regarding his companion.

A ray of triumphant courage and exultation flashed up into the old man’s face. For an instant Esca recognised the fierce daring of a nature essentially bold, reckless, and defiant; but it faded as it came, and was succeeded by an expression of meek, chastened humility, whilst he replied—

“Death welcome and long looked-for! Degradation that confers the highest honours in this world and the next!—at least to those who are held worthy of the great glory of martyrdom. Oh! that I might be esteemed one of that noble band! But my work will be laid to my hand, and it is enough for me to be the lowest of the low in the service of my Master.”

“And that master? Tell me of that master,” exclaimed Esca, whose interest was excited, as his feelings were roused, by converse with one who seemed so thoroughly impressed with the truth of what he spoke, who was at once so earnest, so gentle, and so brave. The old man bowed his head with unspeakable reverence, but in his face shone the deep and fervent joy of one who looks back with intense love and gratitude to the great epoch of his existence.

“I saw Him once,” said he, “on the shore of the Sea of Galilee—I that speak to you now saw Him with my own eyes—there were little children at His feet. But we will talk of this again, for you are weary and exhausted. Meat and drink are even now prepared for you. It is good to refresh the body if the mind is to be vigorous and discerning. You have done for us to-night the act of a true friend. You will henceforth be always welcome in Eleazar’s house.”

While he spoke, the girl whom Esca had rescued so opportunely entered the apartment, bearing in some food on a coarse and common trencher, with a wineskin, of which she poured the contents into a jewelled cup, and presented it to her preserver with an embarrassed but very graceful gesture, and a soft shy smile.

Mariamne had unveiled; and, if Esca’s expectations during their homeward walk had been raised by her gentle feminine manners, and the sweet tones of her voice, they were not now disappointed with what he saw. The dark eyes that looked up so timidly into his own, were full and lustrous as those of a deer. They had, moreover, the mournful pleading expression peculiar to that animal, and, [pg 53]through all their softness and intelligence, betrayed the watchful anxiety of one whose life is passed in constant vicissitudes and occasional danger. The girl’s face was habitually pale, though the warm blood mantled in her cheek as she drooped beneath Esca’s gaze of honest admiration, and her regular features were sharpened, a little more than was natural to them, by daily care and apprehension. This was especially apparent in the delicate aquiline of the nose, and a slight prominency of the cheek-bones. It was a face that in prosperity would have been rich and sparkling as a jewel, that in adversity preserved its charms from the rare and chastened beauty in which it was modelled. Her dress betrayed the same incongruity that was so remarkable in the furniture of her home. Like her veil it was black, and of a coarse and common material, but where it was looped up, the folds were fastened by one single gem of considerable value; and two or three links of a heavy gold chain were visible round her white and well-turned neck.

Moving through the room, busied with the arrangements of the meal which she must herself have prepared, Esca could not but observe the pliant grace of her form, enhanced by a certain modest dignity, very different from the vivacious gestures of the Roman maidens to whom he was accustomed, and especially pleasing to the eye of the Briton.

Calchas seemed to love the girl as a daughter; and his kind face grew kinder and gentler still, while he followed her about in her different movements, with eyes of the deepest and fondest affection.

Esca could not but observe that the board was laid for three persons, and that by one of the wooden platters stood a drinking-cup of great beauty and value. Mariamne’s glance followed his as it rested on the spare place. “For my father,” said she gently, in answer to the inquiry she read on his face. “He is later than usual to-night, and, I fear—I fear; my father is so bold, so prompt to draw steel when he is angered. To-night he has left his sword at home; and I know not whether to be most frightened or reassured at his being alone in this wicked town, unarmed.”

“He is in God’s hand, my child,” said Calchas reverently. “But I should not fear for Eleazar,” he added, with a proud and martial air, “were he surrounded by a score of such as we see prowling nightly in the streets of Rome, though they were armed to the teeth, and he with only a shepherd’s staff to keep his head.”

“Is he, then, so redoubtable a warrior?” asked Esca, on [pg 54]whom good manhood seldom failed to produce a favourable impression. While he spoke he looked from one to the other with increasing curiosity and interest.

“You shall judge for yourself,” answered Calchas, “for it cannot now be long ere he return. Nevertheless, the man who could leap down from the walls of a beleaguered city, as my brother did, naked and unarmed; who could break the head off a Roman battering-ram by main force, and render that engine useless; who could reach the wall again with his prize, covered with wounds, having fought his way through a whole maniple of Roman soldiers, and could ask but for a draught of water, ere he donned his armour, and took his place once more upon the rampart, is not likely to fear aught that can befall him from a few idlers in a common street-broil. Nevertheless, as I said before, you shall judge for yourself.”

“And here he is!” exclaimed Mariamne, while the outer door shut to, and a man’s step was heard advancing through the adjoining apartment, with a firm and measured footfall.

She had been pale enough all night in the eyes of Esca, who was watching her intently; but he thought now she seemed to turn a shade paler than before.

[pg 55]

CHAPTER VIII
THE JEW

The man who entered the apartment with the air of one to whom every nook and corner was familiar, must have been fully three-score years of age, yet his dark eye still glittered with the fire of youth, his thick curling beard and hair were but slightly sprinkled with grey, and the muscles of his square powerful frame seemed but to have acquired solidity and consistency with age. His appearance was that of a warrior, toughened, and, as it were, forged into iron, by years of strife, hardship, and unremitting toil.

If something in the line of his aquiline features resembled Calchas, no two faces could have been more different in their character and expression than those of Eleazar and his brother. The latter was all gentleness, kindliness, and peace; on the former, fiery passions, deep schemes, continual peril, and contention, had set their indelible marks. The one was that of the spectator, who is seated securely on the cliff, and marks the seething waters below with interest, indeed, and sympathy, but with feelings neither of agitation nor alarm; the other was the strong swimmer, breasting the waves fiercely, and battling with their might, striving for his life inch by inch, and stroke by stroke, conscious of his peril, confident in his strength, and never despairing for an instant of the result. At times, indeed, the influence of opposite feelings, softening the one and kindling the other, would bring out the family likeness clear and apparent upon each; but in repose no two faces could be more dissimilar, no two types of character more utterly at variance, than those of the Christian and the Jew.

As Eleazar’s warlike figure came into the light, Esca could not but remark with what a glance of mistrust his quick eye took in the presence of a stranger, how the strong fingers closed instinctively round the staff he was in the act of laying down, and the whole form seemed to gather itself in an instant as though ready for the promptest measures [pg 56]of resistance or attack. Such trifling gestures spoke volumes of the character and habits of the man.

Nevertheless Calchas rapidly explained to his brother the cause of this addition to their supper-party; and Mariamne, who seemed in considerable awe of her father, busied herself in placing food and wine before him, with even more alacrity than she had shown when serving their guest.

The Jew thanked his new friend for the kindness he had rendered his daughter, with a few brief cordial words, as one brave man expresses his gratitude to another, then fell to on the meat and drink provided, with a voracity that argued well for his physical powers, and denoted a strong constitution and a long fast. As he took breath after a deep draught of wine in which, though he pledged him not, he challenged his guest to join, Calchas asked his brother how he had sped in the affairs that kept him from home all day.

“Ill,” answered the other, shooting from under his thick eyebrows a penetrating glance at the Briton. “Ill and slowly, yet not so ill but that something has been gained, another step taken in the direction at which I aim. Yet I have been to-day in high places, have seen those bloated gluttons and drunkards who are the ministers of Cæsar’s will, have spoken with that spotted panther, Vespasian’s scheming agent forsooth! who thinks he hath the cunning, as he can doubtless boast of the treachery and the gaudy colours, of the beast of prey. Let him take care! Weaker hands than mine have ere this strangled a fiercer animal for the worth of his shining skin. Let him beware! Eleazar-Ben-Manahem is a match, and more than a match, for Julius Placidus the tribune!”

Esca glanced quickly at the speaker, as his ear caught the familiar name. The look was not lost upon his host.

“You know him?” said he, with a fierce smile that showed the strong white teeth gleaming through his bushy beard. “Then you know as cool and well-taught a soldier as ever buckled on a sword. I wish I had a few like him to officer the Sicarii[3] at home. But you know, also, a man who would not scruple to slay his own father for the worth of the clasp that fastens his gown. I have seen him in the field, and I have seen him in the council. He is bold, skilful, and he can be treacherous in both! Where met you him last?” he added, with a searching glance at Esca, while at the same [pg 57]time he desired Mariamne to fill the stranger’s cup and his own.

The latter proceeding engrossed the Briton’s whole attention. It was with the utmost carelessness that he replied to the question, by relating his interview, that very morning, with the tribune at Valeria’s door. He scarcely marked how precisely the father noted down the name in his tablets, for the daughter’s white arm was reaching over his shoulder, so close that it almost touched his cheek.

It was indeed well worth Eleazar’s while to obtain information, from whatever source, of any influence that might affect those in authority with whom he was in daily contact at Rome. His position was one which called for courage, tact, skill, and even cunning, to a great extent. Charged by the Supreme Council at Jerusalem, then in the last stage of perplexity and sorely beset by Vespasian and his legions, with a private mission to Vitellius, who much mistrusted the successful general, he represented the hopes and fears, the temporal and political prosperity, nay, the very existence of the Chosen People. Nor to all appearance could a better instrument have been selected for the purpose. Eleazar, though a bigoted and fanatical Jew of the strictest sect, was a man of keen and powerful intellect, whose obstinacy was open to no conviction, whose perseverance was to be deterred by no obstacle. A distinguished and fearless soldier, he possessed the confidence of the large and fighting portion of the nation, who looked on Roman supremacy with abhorrence, and who clung dearly to the notion of earthly dominion, wrested from the heathen with the sword. His rigid observance of its fasts, its duties, and its ceremonials, had gained him the affections of the priesthood, and the more enthusiastic followers of that religion in which outward forms were so strictly enjoined and so faithfully observed; while a certain fierce, defiant, and unbending demeanour towards all classes of men, had won for him a character of frankness which did him good service in the schemes of intrigue and dissimulation with which he was continually engaged.

Yet perhaps the man was honest too, as far as his own convictions went. He esteemed all means lawful for the furtherance of a lawful object. He was one of those who deem it the most contemptible of weakness to shrink from doing evil that good may come. Like Jephthah he would have sacrificed his daughter unflinchingly in performance of a vow; nay, had Mariamne stood between him and the [pg 58]attainment of his ambition, or even the accomplishment of his revenge, he would have walked ruthlessly over the body of his child. Versed in the traditions of his family and the history of his nation, he was steeped to the lips in that pride of pedigree which was so essential a feature of the Jewish character: he was convinced that the eventual destiny of his people was to lord it over the whole earth. He possessed more than his share of that haughty self-sufficiency which bade the Pharisee hold aloof from those of lower pretensions and humbler demeanour than himself; while he had all the fierce courage and energy of the Lion of Judah, so terrible when roused, so difficult to be appeased when victorious. In his secret heart he anticipated the time when Jerusalem should again become a sovereign city, when the Roman eagles should be scared away from Syria, and a hierarchy established once more as the government of the people chosen by Heaven. That he should be a second Judas Maccabæus, a chief commander of the armies of the faithful in the new order of things, was an ambition naturally enough entertained by the bold and skilful soldier; but, to do Eleazar justice, individual aggrandisement had but little share in his schemes, and personal interest never crossed those visions for the future, on which his dark and dangerous enthusiasm so loved to dwell.

It was a delicate matter to intrigue with Vitellius in Rome against the very general who held supreme authority, at least ostensibly, from the Emperor. It was playing a hazardous game, to receive power and instructions from the Council at Jerusalem, and to use or suppress them according to the bearer’s own political views and future intentions.

It was no easy task to hold his own against such men as Placidus, in the contest of finesse, subtlety, and double-dealing; yet the Jew entered upon his perilous career with a strenuous energy, a cool calculating audacity, that was engraved in the very character of the man.

Another draught of the rich Lebanon wine served to improve their acquaintance, and Eleazar, with considerable tact, drew from the Briton all the information he could obtain as to the habits and movements of his antagonist the tribune, while he seemed but to be carrying on the courteous conversation of a host with his guest. Esca’s answers, notwithstanding that thoughts and eyes wandered frequently towards Mariamne, were frank and open like his disposition. He, too, entertained no very cordial liking for Placidus, and experienced towards the tribune that unconscious antipathy which the honest man so often feels for the knave.

Calchas, meanwhile, had returned to the perusal of his scroll, on which his brother cast occasional glances of unfeigned contempt, notwithstanding that the reader was the person whom he most loved and respected on earth. Mariamne, moving about the apartment, looked covertly on the fair face and stately form of her preserver, approving much of what she saw; once their eyes met, and the Jewess blushed to her temples for very shame. So the time passed quickly; the night stole on, the Lebanon was nearly finished, and Esca rose to bid his entertainers farewell.

“You have done me a rare service,” said Eleazar, feeling in his breast while he spoke, and producing, from under his coarse garment, a jewel of considerable value, “a service neither thanks nor guerdon can requite; yet, I pray you, keep this trinket in remembrance of the Jew and the Jew’s daughter, who come of a people that forgive not an injury, and forget not a benefit.”

The colour mounted to Esca’s forehead, and an expression of pain, almost of anger, came into his face, while he replied—

“I have done nothing to merit either thanks or reward. It is no such matter to put a fat eunuch on his back, or to defend an unprotected woman in a town like this. Take back your jewel, I pray you. Any other man would have done as much.”

“It is not every man who could have interposed so effectually,” replied Eleazar, with a glance of hearty approval at the thews and sinews of his friend, replacing the jewel meanwhile in his vestment, without the least sign of displeasure at its being declined. He would have bestowed it freely, no doubt, but if Esca did not want it, it would serve some other purpose: precious stones and gold would always fetch their value at Rome. “At least you will let me give you a safe-conduct home,” he added; “the night is far advanced, and I should be loth that you should suffer wrong for your interposition in our behalf.”

Esca burst out laughing now. In the pride of his strength, it seemed so impossible that he should require protection or assistance from anyone. He squared his large shoulders and drew himself to his full height.

“I should wish no better pastime,” said he, “than a bout with a dozen of them! I, too, was brought up a warrior, in a land you have never heard of, many a long mile from Rome; a land fairer far than this, of green valleys and wooded hills, and noble rivers winding calmly towards the sea; a land where the oaks are lofty and the flowers are [pg 60]sweet, where the men are strong and the women fair. I have followed the chase afoot from sunrise to sunset through many a summer’s day. I have fronted the invader, sword in hand, ever since my arm was long enough to draw blade from sheath, or I had not been here now. You too are a soldier, I see it in your eye—you can believe that my limbs grow stiff, my spirits droop for lack of martial exercise. In faith, it seems to me that even a vulgar broil in the street makes my blood dance in my veins once more!”

Mariamne was listening with parted lips and shining eyes. She drank in all he said of his distant home with its woodland scenery, its forest trees, its fragrant flowers, and, above all, its lovely women. She felt so kindly towards this bold young stranger, exiled from kin and country, she attributed her interest to pity and gratitude, nor could she help wondering to find these sentiments so strong.

Calchas looked up from his studies.

“Fare thee well!” said he. “Take an old man’s warning, and strike not unless it be in self-defence. Mark well the turning from the main street to the Tiber, so shalt thou find thy way to our poor home again.”

Esca promised faithfully to return, and fully intended to redeem his promise.

“Another cup of wine,” said Eleazar, emptying the leathern bottle into a golden vessel; “the sun of Italy cannot ripen such a vintage as this.”

But the rich produce of the Lebanon was all too cloying for the healthy palate and the thirst of youth. Esca prayed for a draught of fair water, and Mariamne brought him the pitcher and gave him to drink with her own hand. For the second time to-night their eyes met, and although they were instantly averted, the Briton felt that he was drinking from a cup more intoxicating than all the wine-presses of Syria could produce—a cup that made him unconscious of the past as of the future, and only too keenly sensible of the present by its joy. He forgot that he was a barbarian, he forgot that he was a slave.

He forgot everything but Mariamne and her dark imploring trustful eyes.

[pg 61]

CHAPTER IX
THE ROMAN

It is time to give some account of Esca’s anomalous position in the capital of the world—to explain how the young British noble (for that was indeed the rank he held in his own country) found himself a slave in the streets of Rome. In order to do so it is necessary to take a glimpse at the interior of a patrician’s house about the hour of supper; perhaps also to intrude upon the reflections of its owner, as he paces up and down the colonnade in the cool air of sunset, absorbed in his own thoughts, and deep in the memories of the past.

His mansion is of stately proportion, and large size, but all its ornaments and accessories are chastened by a severe simplicity of taste. An observer might identify the man by the very nature of the objects that surround him. In his vestibule the columns are of the Ionic order, and their elaborate capitals have been wrought into the utmost degree of finish which that style will allow. In the smaller entrance-hall or lobby, which leads to the principal apartments, and which is guarded by an image of a dog, let into the pavement in mosaic, there are no florid sculptures nor carvings, nor any attempt at decoration beyond the actual beauty of the stonework and the scrupulous care with which it is kept clean. The doors themselves are of bronze, so well burnished as to need no mixture of gold or silver inlaid to enhance its brightness; whilst in the principal hall itself, the room in which friends are welcomed, clients received, and business transacted, the walls, instead of frescoes and such gaudy ornaments, are simply overlaid with entablatures of white and polished marble. The dome is very lofty, rising majestically towards the circular opening at the top, through which [pg 62]the sky is visible; and round the fountain or cistern immediately below this are ranged four colossal statues, representing the elements. These, with the busts of a long line of illustrious ancestors, are the only efforts of the sculptor’s art throughout the apartment. A large banqueting-hall, somewhat more luxuriously furnished, opens from one side of the central room, and as much as can be seen of it displays considerable attention to convenience and personal comfort. Frescoes, representing scenes of military life, adorn the walls, and at one end stands a trophy, composed of deadly weapons and defensive armour, arranged so as to form a glittering and conspicuous ornament. Large flagons and chalices of burnished gold, some of them adorned with valuable jewels, are ranged upon a sideboard; but it is evident that no guests are expected to-night, for near the couch against the wall has been drawn a small table, laid for one person only, with a clean napkin, and a cup and platter of plain silver thereon. That person is none other than the master of the house, bodily pacing up and down his own colonnade in Rome, mentally gazing on a fair expanse of wood and vale and shining river, drinking in the cool breezes, the fragrant odours, and the wild luxuriant beauty of distant Britain.

Five-and-twenty years! and yet it seems but yesterday. The brow wrinkles, the hair turns grey, strength wastes, energy fails, the brain gets torpid, and the senses dull, but the heart never grows old. Business, ambition, pleasure, dangers, duties, difficulties, and successes have filled that quarter of a century, and passed away like a dream; but the touch of a hand, the memory of a face, have outlived them all. Caius Lucius Licinius, Roman patrician, general, prætor, consul, and procurator of the Empire, is the young commander of a legion once more, with the world before him, and the woman he loves by his side. This is what he sees now, as he has seen it so often in his dreams by night, and his waking visions by day.

An old oak-tree, a mossy sward soft and level as velvet, delicate fern bending and whispering in the summer breeze, fleecy clouds drifting across the blue sky, and a graceful form, in its white robes, coming shyly up the glade, with faltering step, and sidelong glance, and timid gesture, to keep her tryst with her Roman lover. She is in his arms now. The rich brown curls are scattered over his breastplate, and the blue eyes are looking up into his own, liquid with the love-light that thrills to a man’s heart but from one pair of eyes in a lifetime. She is, indeed, no contemptible prize, in the glory [pg 63]of her beauty and the pride of her blooming womanhood. With the rounded form, the noble features, and the dazzling colour of her nation, she possesses the courage and constancy of a highborn race, and a witchery half imperious, half playful, peculiarly her own. There are women who find their way to the core of a man’s heart, who pervade it all, and saturate it, so to speak, with their influence.

“Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem[4]

Testa diu”——

The vessel that has once held this rich and rare liquid is ever after impregnated with its fragrance, and even when it has been spilt every drop, and a fresh infusion poured in, the new wine smacks strangely and wildly of the old. She is one of them; he knows it too well.

They should have nothing in common, these two, the British chieftain’s daughter and the Roman conqueror. But there is a truce between the nations; a truce in which the elements of discord are nevertheless smouldering, ready to blaze out afresh at the first opportunity, and they have seen each other accidentally, and been thrown together by circumstances, till curiosity has become interest, and interest grown into liking, and liking ripened into love. The British maiden might not be won lightly, and many a tear she wept in secret, and sore she strove against her own heart; but when it conquered her at last she gave it, as such women will, wholly and unreservedly. She would have lived for him, died for him, followed him to the end of the world. And Licinius worshipped her as a man worships the one woman who is the destiny of his life. Most men have at some time or other experienced this folly, infatuation, madness, call it what you will. They are not likely to forget it. Possibly—alas! probably—the bud they then watched opening has never expanded into bloom, at least for them. The worm may have destroyed it, or the cold wind cut it to the earth, or another’s hand may have borne it away in triumph to gladden another’s breast; but there is something in the May mornings that reminds them of the sweet flower still, and they wander round the fairest gardens of earth rather drearily to-day, because of the memory that has never faded, and the blank where she is not.

‘Licinius holds the British maiden to his breast’

Licinius holds the British maiden to his breast, and they discourse of their own happiness and revel in the sunny hour, [pg 64]and plan schemes for the future—schemes in which each is to the other all in all, and dream not that when to-day is past for them there will be no to-morrow. The woman, indeed, heaves a gentle sigh at intervals, as though in the midst of her happiness some foreboding warned her of the brooding tempest; but the man is hopeful, buoyant, and impetuous, playful in his tenderness, and joyous in his own triumphant love. They parted that evening more reluctantly than usual. They lingered round the oak, they found excuse after excuse for another loving word, another fond caress. When at last they went their several ways, how often Licinius turned to look after the receding form that carried with it all his hope and all his happiness! Little did he think how, and when, and where, he would see Guenebra again.

Ten years went heavily by. The commander of a legion was the chief of an army now. Licinius had served Rome in Gaul, in Spain, in Syria. Men said he bore a charmed life; and, indeed, while his counsels showed the forethought, the caution, and the patience of a skilful officer, his personal conduct was remarkable for a reckless disregard of danger, which would have been esteemed foolhardy in the meanest soldier. It was observed, too, that a deep and abiding melancholy had taken possession of the once light-hearted patrician. He only seemed to brighten up into his former self under the pressure of imminent danger, in the confusion of a repulse, or the excitement of a charge. At other times he was silent, depressed, preoccupied; never morose, for his kindly heart was open to the griefs of others, and the legionaries knew that their daring general was the friend of all who were in sorrow or distress. But the men talked him over, too, by their watch-fires; they marvelled, those honest old campaigners, how one who was so ready in the field could be so sparing of the winecup; how the leader who could stoop to fill his helmet from the running stream under a storm of javelins, and drink composedly with a jest and a smile, should be so backward in the revel, should show such a disinclination to those material pleasures which they esteemed the keenest joys of life.