A Christian But a Roman

As he spoke he swung himself upon his horse, and looking neither to the right nor to the left, galloped back at frantic speed to Rome.

CHAPTER IV.

One day the whole arena was strewn with gold dust, so that the dust clouds whirled aloft by the hoofs of the trampling horses glittered in the sunlight; and the quirites, whose garments were covered with it, went home actually gilded.

The next day the circus, as if by magic, was transformed into a primeval forest. Giant oaks which had been brought with their roots from the mountains, leafy palms conveyed in huge casks from the coast of Africa, had been planted in the midst of the huge space, and the staring populace, who had just seen a desert covered with gold dust, had now come to admire, in the same spot, a great forest, beneath whose shade appeared the rarest animals of the South and East, from the graceful giraffe to the shapeless hippopotamus—a perfect Paradise, with trees ripening golden fruit, in whose foliage birds carolled, amid whose branches serpents twined, and beneath which wild peacocks and tame ostrichs preened their plumage.

When the people grew weary of gazing archers came and shot the beautiful creatures. Then the forest was removed, and the next day the populace beheld in its place a sea on which whole navies fought bloody battles.

Again, in midsummer, when everyone, languishing under the scorching sunbeams, sought shelter in the shade, the people summoned to the circus saw, with surprise bordering upon terror, a winter scene.

The circus was covered with snow, which had been brought in ships and carts from the icy peaks of Noricum and Gallia, and over which hundreds of pretty sledges were gliding amid the clear ringing of little bells—a sight never before witnessed by the Romans. In the midst of the arena icebergs towered aloft, on which lay strangely formed seals, and over the surface of a round pond, where polished glass took the place of ice, skilful skaters displayed their arts. The shivering Romans wrapped their cloaks around them, wholly forgetting that drops of perspiration were trickling down their brows from the heat; and while the skaters pelted the spectators with snowballs, the audience, shouting in delight, enthusiastically cheered the Imperator who so generously provided for the amusement of his subjects.

Let us now seek Carinus in his own palace. We will walk through the enormous building, which with its extensive gardens occupies the space of a whole quarter of the city. Gilded doors lead into corridors like streets, which end in a peristyle supported by pillars. In the atrium the whole court moves to and fro, slaves playing master and grooms playing senator; and the entrance to the magnificent apartments of Carinus is guarded by a brown-skinned Thracian giant.

Happy are those who can enter there!

For here man no longer walks on earth. These magnificent oval halls allow admittance neither to the light of day nor to the season of the year. Here there is neither winter nor summer, day nor night. The apartment has no windows; lamps, perpetually burning behind transparent curtains, diffuse a light whose steady glow is midway between that of the sun and moonbeams. Here the best of every season of the year is represented: the warmth of summer, which is conducted hither by invisible pipes, the ice of winter, the flowers of spring, and the fruit of autumn. Carinus never knows whether it is dawn or twilight, whether it rains or snows—with him pleasure is eternal.

There he lies among the cushions of his couch; before him is a table laden with choice viands; around him a mob of sycophants, dancers, hetæræ, eunuchs, singing women, parrots, and poets.

His face is that of a youth satiated with every pleasure, pallid and disfigured by large red freckles; his features express the weariness of exhaustion. Only a few hairs are visible on his lips and his chin.

Two eunuchs are alternately lifting food to the Cæsar's lips, food which has already caused a violent headache, amid which a single dish has perhaps cost hundreds of thousands, yet charms the palate solely by its rarity. Carinus does not lift a finger; the corners of his mouth droop sullenly, and a motion of his eyes commands the food-bearers to eat the expensive viands themselves.

Now ideally beautiful female slaves again lift golden goblets to his mouth; but he leaves them, too, untouched till at last a Phrygian takes a sip of the spicy Cyprian wine and offers the intoxicating liquor in her rosy lips. This stirs the torpid nerves of the Cæsar, and drawing the slave toward him, he drinks from her coral mouth.

"I will marry this girl," he says, turning to one of the courtiers.

"You wedded the daughter of a proconsul yesterday, O my lord."

"I will divorce her to-day. Who is this slave's father?"

"A carpenter at the court."

"I will appoint him proconsul."

"This will be your ninth wife within four months."

Carinus drew the Phrygian down beside him and laid his head in her lap. Singing and dancing were going on around him, and Ævius, paying no heed to either, was declaiming before him. His iambics extolled with shameless flattery all the qualities which Carinus did not possess, his roseate complexion, his bold, fearless soul. He described the games with the utmost detail, and spared neither Jupiter nor Apollo, that he might laud Carinus above them.

"Alas, something oppresses and disturbs me. I don't know what it is," whined Carinus.

Instantly two or three slaves were at his side, straightening his cushions, arranging his hair, loosening his garments.

"Oh, it oppresses and disturbs me still."

"Perhaps Ævius's iambics trouble you," said Marcius, the Imperator's barber.

"Perhaps so. Stop, Ævius."

The poet bowed with an humble look, though secretly bursting with rage. The barber had interrupted his finest verses.

"What is it that disturbs me still?" groaned Carinus wrathfully. "Guess! Must I think instead of you? Something irritates, something vexes me! I should like to be angry."

"I have guessed it," said the barber. "These few hairs of your beard which disfigure your glorious face and insolently tickle your majestic nose and lips are annoying you. O Carinus, have them removed! Your face is so feminine in its beauty, and would be fairer still were it not injured by these ugly signs of manhood!"

"You may be right, Marcius," replied the youth, and allowed the hairs to be plucked out, which operation was performed by the barber with such skill that, at its close, the Cæsar appointed him prefect.

At the same moment a noise was heard outside the door. Several recognized the voice of old Mesembrius, who was trying to force his way into the imperial apartments.

Galga, the gigantic Thracian doorkeeper, held the old man back, and told him to come the next day. Carinus was asleep.

"This is the tenth time I have come here!" shouted the old man. "Once you said he was sleeping, again he was eating, the third time he was bathing, and the fourth he was not at leisure. But I will speak to him."

It cost Galga a hard struggle before he could force the aged Senator out of the atrium, and then it needed two or three slaves to push him through the door. Carinus was much pleased with Galga.

"Since you know how to guard my door so well, you deserve to be made Chancellor of Rome."

"And I? Do I deserve nothing, my lord?" asked Ævius in alarm.

"To you, Ævius, I will have a temple erected, in which every poet shall lay his verses upon your altar."

"I thank you, O Augustus, for the temple and the verses of beginners; but my Tusculum?"

"Surely you know on what condition I promised it."

"If by the power of my eloquence, the honey of my tongue, and the magic of my poetry, I induced that earthly goddess, Glyceria, to render you happy by her favor. Did I not bring her to you?"

"You brought her, doubtless; but what did it avail? After this bewitching phantom had kindled my love to the utmost by the sight of her charms, and lured my secrets from me, she suddenly laughed at me, thrust me from her, and left me, while I have longed for her possession a hundred times more."

"Did you not have the power to detain by force the fair demon who had entered the snare?"

"Ask my slaves what she did to them? When I commanded them to stop the accursed enchantress she seized a goblet filled with wine, muttered a few strange words of incantation, and smoke and flames instantly rose from the cup. Then, with a face that inspired terror, she turned to the slaves, crying in a ringing voice: 'Whoever does not throw himself on the floor, and remain there motionless, will be instantly transformed into a hog.' The dolts flung themselves down, and the bold sorceress walked over their heads to the door, where she blinded Galga so that he did not recover his sight for three days. But, O Ævius, why do you compel me to talk so much? Why do you weary my thoughts and rob my tongue of its rest?"

Ævius probably thought that his own tongue was not so valuable, and began to babble: "Glorious Carinus! That woman is not worthy of your love, but of your contempt. I have discovered a far more precious treasure, beside whom Glyceria is a pebblestone beside the diamond, a shooting star beside the sun, common wine beside nectar."

"Who is it?"

"The former is a virgin, the latter already a widow. The former has not yet loved at all; the latter has learned to hate love, and the former's beauty is still more marvellous. She is a Christian maiden, who was captured a short time ago, thrown by your order, with her companions, to the lions, and lo! the starved beasts were tamed by her glance, crouched caressingly at her feet, and licked her hands. I witnessed this with my own eyes, O Augustus, and was amazed. The guards of the animal cages took the girl from the midst of the lions, and gave her to the fiercest Illyrian legionaries. And what happened? An hour after these very soldiers were seen kneeling before her, listening with devout fervour to the words of magical power which fell from her lips; and when the tribunes attempted to take her away to deliver her to others, they defended her, and allowed themselves to be slain for her to the last man."

Carinus started from his pillows in great excitement; an unwonted fire glowed in his eyes. He pushed his last wife away from him and beckoned to Ævius:

"Let this girl be brought before me!"

The poet received the Cæsar's command with deep satisfaction, and, provided with his seal ring, hastened directly to the prison.

CHAPTER V.

She was clad in a heavy silk himation, fastened on the shoulders by diamond mounted fibulas; a costly anadem confined her wealth of curls, and the golden veil hanging below, in spite of the delicacy of its texture, completely shrouded her features. The draping of the folds of her robe showed refined taste, and the heavy pearls which held down the ends and corners indicated the high rank of the wearer.

Sophronia looked up as she heard the rustling of the silk, and seeing the stranger standing before her, asked in surprise:

"What do you seek here, Roman?"

The lady raised her veil, revealing a face which recalled the sublime goddesses of ancient times; a lofty brow, beautiful lips, cheeks in whose dimples Cupids were playing, and dark eyes with the deep, indescribable expression that seems to conceal all the enigmas of feeling, alluring charm and repellent sadness in every feature—a wonderful play of sorrow and sunshine which in the sky is called a rainbow, in the human face passion.

At the first moment Sophronia shrank back at the sight of this countenance, but she instantly held out her hand with a lovely smile, saying kindly:

"Sister Glyceria!"

"Do not give me your hand," said the lady sadly. "Do not embrace me. At the first instant of recognition you started back. You were afraid of this face, and you may be right. It is four years since we have seen each other, four years during which you have heard so many curses heaped upon me by revered lips that you did not tremble without cause when you saw my features."

"I have never ceased to love you."

"I will gladly believe it, but let us not speak of that. Your new faith teaches you to love even your enemies. Fate has taught me to renounce all whom I have loved. But that is well; we have no time to indulge in lamentations now. I have learned that the games in the circus to-morrow will be closed by the martyrdom of the Christians who are sentenced to death."

"Then let God's will be done," said Sophronia, clasping her hands on her bosom.

"No, this shall not be done! Twice already I have tried to release you, but I came too late; to-day I am in time. Change clothes with me; put on my veil. Your figure is like mine; no one will notice the difference. A trustworthy slave is waiting outside with horses. In an hour you can be clasped in the arms of your father and your lover."

Glyceria closed her eyes sadly, crushing hot tears with their lids, as if she had said: "My father, my lover!"

"And you?" asked Sophronia.

"I shall stay here."

"And the games in the circus to-morrow?"

"Will be closed with me."

"Never!" said Sophronia, filled with lofty self-sacrifice.

"Why never? Those who hate me love you, and how gladly I would give years of my life to win a smile from their lips. If one of us must die, why should it be you, whose loss will plunge them into despair? Why not rather I, whose death they would bless? You will preserve a happy life for others; I shall cast from me a wretched one."

Sophronia clasped her sister's hands in both her own, and gazed with her pure eyes deep into Glyceria's troubled, sorrowful ones.

"You were the woman who, on the night I was captured, offered me her horse to escape?"

"Why do you speak of that?"

"Do you remember my answer?"

"You said that a Christian ought not to fly from danger."

"Since then I have seen death in many forms, and I repeat it. If it is God's will that His name shall be praised by my martyrdom, let His will be done. I will accept with rapture the crown of thorns that encircled the Saviour's brow, and bless the hand which opens the door of salvation to me. Oh, death means no torture to those whose joys begin after it is over."

"But those whom you would leave behind?"

"They will see me again beyond the grave."

"To which despair will bring them. O Sophronia, listen. Two human beings who execrate me are now praying for you. If you die this terrible death, you will not meet them in the other world, for the horrors of life will hunt them down to Hades. Oh, let me die, let me be forgotten, wept by no one, blessed by no one, missed by no one. Let your grey-haired father have two joys in a single day—my death and your life."

"A heart so embittered is not fit for death, O Glyceria!"

"Do you suppose I could not look it calmly in the face?"

"But not rapturously. To the Christian death is a new world; to the unbeliever an eternal darkness."

"May this darkness embrace me. Life only oppresses me like a burden. I do not desire to live again, but wish to pass away, to be forgotten, to rest undisturbed in a silent grave. I want to leave this brilliant chaos, whose sole reality is pain. But may you lead a long and happy life."

"O Glyceria, why should your face become so gloomy?"

"Is it not true that once there was not so great a difference between us? My soul was as radiant, my face as bright as yours. We were so much alike that even our father could scarcely distinguish us. Nay, the object of our love was the same, and we did not conceal this from each other, but agreed that if he chose one, the other would silently resign him."

"Ah, if he had only taken you! Then we might both be happy."

"It was not my fate, O sister! The gods had not so decreed. Unknown, mysterious hands tangle the threads of human destiny, and guide them harshly through life. So who ought to be called to account for the soul? The man whose wife I became was a pitiful libertine, who appeared just at the time Manlius decided in your favour, and by producing a document which contained proof that our father was connected with a conspiracy against Carinus, forced me to become his wife."

"And therefore my father cursed you."

"May he never recall his curse. It has been fulfilled. This venal slave lost his head when the Cæsar saw me. From that moment my life was a perpetual warfare, whose weapons were flattery and seduction. I had to defend my father constantly. All the men who breathe here are his foes! The Cæsar hates him because he will not flatter him; the courtiers hate him because he is a man of honour; the people hate him because he is rich; every criminal hates him because here virtue is considered a conspiracy against sin. I was forced to conquer all Rome, from the Cæsar to the plebeian, that I might save the grey hairs on my father's head. I attended the Imperator's orgies. I allowed myself to be applauded in the amphitheatre by the dregs of the people, and to be flattered by base courtiers. And how often I have torn up Mesembrius's death sentence after I succeeded, half by cajolery, half by force, in wresting it from the hands of spies, demagogues, senators, lictors, and even those of the Cæsar himself!"

"And this brought you my father's curses."

"He was right. It was contemptible in the daughter of a Roman patrician. Oh, he must never know it. If he should learn that he lived at such a cost, he would kill himself."

"You also discovered that the hiding place of my fellow-believers was betrayed, and hastened there in advance of the others?"

"I informed Manlius of it two days before, but he shrank from entering my house. Now there is no other way of escape save the one I offer, and thus fate will be best satisfied. She who merits death and desires it will die, and those who enjoy life and deserve it will be happy. That is right. Return to your father and to Manlius, Sophronia, and then go far, far away from here."

CHAPTER VI.

"Hasten hence," she said, throwing her ample himation around her sister's shoulders, and fastening the golden balteus about her hips. "You can follow my slave safely. No one will notice the exchange, especially amid the noisy tumult of the circus."

"No, I cannot accept this sacrifice," cried Sophronia, struggling with her own heart. "God forbids it."

"Your God is the God of Love," said Glyceria. "If on account of this God of Love you will not save yourself, I swear that this day shall long be mentioned by the world as a day of horrors. I know all the formulas, before which the beings of darkness tremble, at whose utterance the solid earth is shaken and blazing comets dash across the sky, sending down pestilences upon the living. If you sacrifice yourself to your God, I will sacrifice Rome to mine, and will destroy it so utterly that the centuries will find only fragments of its royal purple."

The pallid girl trembled in her frowning sister's arms.

The latter now quietly fastened the anadem she had taken from her head in her sister's hair, and drew her veil over her face.

"There, now you are safe. If you are asked who rescued you, say that it was a stranger. I wish to cause no one sorrow. Never mention my name."

The weeping girl embraced her sister, from whom she could not bear to part. Glyceria herself urged her away:

"Go, hasten. Do not kiss me; it is not well to kiss me. Destruction is on my lips."

Yet Sophronia did kiss her, and at the same instant Ævius entered with the guards who accompanied him.

"We are betrayed!" shrieked Glyceria, placing herself before her sister to protect her. Then, with savage fury, she cried: "Who sent you to this place, miserable sycophant? You have made a mistake; this is a prison, not a bacchanalian revel."

"It is a golden cage, in which I find two doves instead of one."

"Put your insipid jests into rhyme, but spare me their tasteless folly. And now, go!"

"Very willingly if you will come with me; but the Augustus sent me here."

Glyceria hastily whispered to Sophronia: "Do not betray that you are my sister, or our father is lost, too."

Then she turned to the soldiers.

"Insolent knaves! Do you know me? I am the terrible Glyceria who sends down a rain of fire upon you when you are in camp, who makes the rivers overflow their banks before you, and in the midst of summer brings winter upon your bands so that you are swept away like flies? Do you no longer remember Trivius, whom in my wrath I transformed into a stag, and did not restore his human form until the hounds had torn him? Did you see before my palace the flesh-colored caryatides, who keep guard before my door and seem to follow every passer-by with their eyes? They were slaves who disobeyed me, and whom with a single breath I transformed to stone. Do you wish to be fixed to these walls as statues, or changed into wild beasts to rend one another to-morrow in the amphitheatre? Which of you dares to raise his hand; which of you will bar my way?"

The soldiers shrank back in superstitious terror. Ævius alone stepped before her.

"Divinely beautiful woman, it would be useless trouble to transform these fellows to brutes. You ought rather to change my heart into stone, that it may have no feeling for you. But now permit me to conduct this Christian maiden to the Cæsar, who will gladly see you the next time, but now desires to behold her. Though you should vouchsafe to wreak your utmost wrath upon my innocent head, I can do nothing else. My head and my heart are at your service, but Carinus has commanded my hands to bring this maiden before him."

Glyceria whispered impetuously to her pale-faced sister:

"Now a greater horror than death awaits you. But be strong. Under the balteus which I fastened around you is a sharp dagger. You are a Roman; I need say no more."

She pressed Sophronia's hand as she spoke, and without vouchsafing Ævius another glance, hastened through the ranks of the soldiers, who swiftly made way for her.

CHAPTER VII.

Drunken slaves lay on the floor, singing and touching goblets with drunken senators; men, rouged and clad in women's garments, were singing to the accompaniment of harps indecent dithyrambics, while they had twined the feminine anadem upon their heads with oak leaves, the simple ornament of civic virtue. The most prominent magistrates, consuls, prefects, tribunes, disguised as fauns and satyrs, were dancing with girls robed in transparent tissues, whose cheeks and eyes were glowing with the unholy fires of sensual passion; and in the midst of this diabolical revel lay Carinus, himself the greatest disgrace of his own imperial purple. The effect of the wine and the emotions roused by the scenes of this orgy were visible on his face; his hair was dripping with the perfumed salves that had been rubbed into it.

Sophronia shuddered at this scene, which, wherever she turned her eyes, showed the same figures; and for the first time in her life she forgot to call upon the name of God, who is always nearest when the danger is greatest. But who could think of God's presence where the devil's altars are erected?

In trembling terror the Christian maiden seized her gold balteus, as it were from instinct, without remembering her sister's hint. But no sooner did she feel the hilt of the dagger in her hand than she regained her strength of soul. In an instant she was once more the brave, resolute Roman, and without waiting to be led, she passed boldly through the circling dancers, and with her tall figure drawn up to its full height, stood proudly before Carinus.

"Is it you whom they call in Rome the Augustus?" she asked with infinite contempt.

Carinus, smiling, raised himself on his couch, and motioned to the noisy revellers to be quiet.

"Since when has the word 'Augustus' in the Roman tongue meant shame and loathsomeness?" Sophronia boldly continued, gazing defiantly at Carinus. "What accursed destiny sent you to Rome to gather around you everything that is abominable, everything that is accursed, and bring to sovereignty the sins transmitted to you from the temples of your gods? Do you not feel the trembling of the earthquake under your feet; do you not hear the muttering of heaven's thunder? Does not the roar of millions of approaching barbarians rouse you from your slumber, that you may learn that you are not the lord, but only dust upon the earth, which at a single breath of God will pass away and become the dust which buries you?"

Carinus turned to Ævius, saying:

"By Paphia, you did not deceive me. This is a wonderful creature. There, there, beautiful maiden, rage on, be wrathful; upbraiding only heightens your beauty, and the more you reproach me the more ardent my love becomes."

"You will repent some day amid eternal flames! Above you is throned an invisible God, who reads the thoughts of your heart; and as you now see laughing faces around you, you will behold on the Day of Judgment features tortured and distorted by pain, and you yourself will not be otherwise."

"By the Pantheon! This figure is still lacking in the ranks of the gods. Ævius, bring a sculptor. Build a temple, place the statue of this goddess in it, and call her Venus bellatrix."

An artist belonging to the court instantly pressed forward, seized a stylus and waxed paper, and Sophronia, with chaste indignation, perceived that while Ævius was turning her indignant words into rhyme, the sculptor was trying to catch the movements of her superb figure.

The young girl instantly stopped speaking; not another word did she utter, not a feature of her face moved.

"Hasten your work, Sextus, if you wish to sketch the Venus bellatrix," said Carinus. "In an hour this figure will be Venus victa."

As he spoke, he glided nearer to the girl like a hungry serpent, and fixed his eyes greedily upon her face.

Sophronia stood cold and motionless as a statue.

"Well, why do you not continue to rage? Be furious! It increases the rapture that fills my heart a hundredfold; rave, curse, blaspheme. I will kiss and embrace you, and be frantic with bliss."

The patrician's daughter made no reply; not a feature stirred.

"Ah, do you seek to chill me by the coldness of your face? You doubtless perceived that the flush of shame which crimsoned it, the flames of your wrath were joy to me, and now, merely to rob me of my sweetest pleasure, you choose to behave as if shame and anger had vanished from your cheeks? Slaves, tear the garments from her limbs!"

Sophronia silently drew the dagger from beneath her girdle, and looked fearlessly around the circle of faces.

Carinus remained fixed in the attitude in which this unexpected movement had surprised him. Every one stood still as if spellbound. Ævius alone did not lose his presence of mind. With a smooth smile on his false lips, he glided nearer to the maiden.

"Fairest virgin, do not forget that you are a Christian. Your God punishes sternly those who open the gates of death by force; and your religion regards it a sin to kill yourself or any other mortal, while it requires you to endure whatever God has decreed, whether it be death by torture or an hour of bliss in the arms of the Cæsar. Do not forget that you are a Christian, and that many Christian women have borne this form of martyrdom before you."

The drawn dagger trembled in Sophronia's hand.

Ævius moved a step nearer.

"Remember that you are a Christian," he said, casting a swift glance at the dagger to wrest it by a bold spring from the maiden's hand.

"But I am also a Roman!" cried Sophronia, as she recalled her sister's words; and with the speed of lightning she buried the steel in her heart.

The blow was dealt with a sure hand, and the blade pierced the strong heart to its hilt. The Roman prized her honour more than her salvation.

The next instant she sank dying on the floor, composing the folds of her garments with her last strength, that even in death she might not betray the grace of her figure to unholy eyes.

CHAPTER VIII.

"I am old and feeble, my good Pompeius. My feet will scarcely carry me, and I should not have recognised you had you not spoken to me, for my eyes are almost blind."

"But why do you not live in Rome?"

"If you should see the splendid turnips I raise in my garden, you surely would not summon me to Rome. An old man like me interests himself only in his apricot slips."

At this moment a messenger from the Capitol whispered to Pompeius:

"Carinus has laid aside the purple in favor of his brother Numerian."

Mesembrius sometimes heard so well that he caught the faintest murmur.

"What did you say?" he eagerly exclaimed. "Carinus has abdicated, and Numerian will be Imperator? Huzza! Huzza!"

"Do you know Numerian? What kind of a man is he?" asked the courtiers anxiously.

"What kind of a man? He is a hero, a Roman, under whose rule Rome's golden age will begin again and the sun of fame will again shine upon us. The glorious battles which Rome fought against half the world Numerian will continue. We will all share them. A new and radiant epoch is dawning. I will swing myself upon my charger and be where every man of honour must appear. I am not yet too old to die in battle!"

The old man, frantic with joy, was gesticulating enthusiastically, without thinking of his crutches, and recognised an acquaintance coming from the direction of the Capitol at a distance of a hundred paces. This was Quaterquartus, the augur.

"You are from the Capitol, Quaterquartus? Well! Well! What is the news?"

"What I predicted," replied the augur with dignity. "The Senate would not accept the abdication, and compelled the immortal Carinus to continue to wear the purple."

Mesembrius was obliged to lean on his crutches again.

"Oh, my poor feet! Oh, this terrible gout in my knees! Foolish old man that I am; what have I been saying? I swing myself on a horse? If I could at least sit comfortably in my wheel-chair! Such a foolish old fellow! How could I go to war when I see so badly that I cannot distinguish friend from foe? Laugh at me, my dear friends; laugh at such a silly old man. Oh, my feet——"

And, groaning painfully, he dragged himself forward. Then Manlius met him.

"Have you learned anything?" he asked.

"To-morrow I will force myself into Carinus's presence. And you?"

"I will seek Glyceria."

"That you may kill her ere she can speak."

"Have no anxiety. Even if she could use magic arts, she would die. We will meet in Carinus's atrium to-morrow. Be provided with a good sword."

Manlius went to the Pons Sacer.

Before the statue of Triton sat the old woman who had given him the ring. When she saw Manlius she rose and went to meet him.

"Have you the ring with you, my lord?" she asked.

"Look at it."

"Will you go with me?"

"That is the purpose of my coming here."

"I have waited for you four days. Why did you not appear sooner?"

"Pleasure never comes too late," replied Manlius bitterly, and allowed himself to be conducted through gardens, byways, and covered passages till his guide opened a small bronze gate, and taking him by the hand, led him through a dark corridor into a circular hall, adorned with pillars and lighted by a single round window above.

Here the old woman left him and went to summon her mistress.

Manlius looked around him. He had imagined the apartment of a Roman lady an entirely different room. He had expected to see jasper columns, garlanded with climbing plants, fountains perfumed with rose water, representations of frivolous love scenes, an atmosphere saturated with heavy fragrance, purple couches, and silver mirrors, and instead he found himself in a lofty, noble, temple-like hall, whose walls were adorned with masterly pictures of battles and heroes, while in the centre stood the marble bust of a bald-headed old man.

"Perhaps Glyceria does not even live here," he thought, and just at that moment heard his name uttered behind him. He turned. Before him stood a pale, slender woman, in a simple snow-white robe, whose folds concealed her figure up to her chin and covered her arms to the wrists. This was not the alluring costume that suited a love adventure. The face was still less seductive. Deep, despairing, consuming grief, that blight of beauty, was expressed in every feature.

Manlius recognised Glyceria. His blood rushed feverishly to his temples, and he convulsively clutched the hilt of his sword. Yet he did not wish to kill her thus. He thought that this, too, was only a new variety of the arts of temptation in which women are such adepts. When a libertine is to be attracted, the graces are called to aid; if it is a hero, Minerva must be summoned to help. Clothes, moods, will correspond with the character of the chosen individual; nay, even the features will be altered so that they will appear different to every one. He could not kill her while she looked so sad; he must await the moment when she began to speak to him of her love to thrust his sword into her heart at the first yearning smile.

Pausing with drooping head, three paces from Manlius, the lady faltered almost too low for him to hear:

"You have come late. Very late."

Manlius, with suppressed fury, answered:

"Is love a fruit that becomes overripe if it waits long?"

Glyceria looked at Manlius in horror.

"What is the matter with you that you speak to me of love?"

"Did you not summon me that we might whisper together of rapture, bliss, and sweet delights?"

"Once your words would have given me pleasure; now horror seizes me when you speak in this way."

"Are you not convinced that your beauty has such magic power that every man who beholds you forgets every woman he has ever seen?" replied Manlius, half drawing his sword from its sheath.

Glyceria looked into the youth's face as though she were gazing into impenetrable darkness, and asked:

"Even the one who is lying dead at this moment?"

Manlius started back, his breath failed, his face grew corpselike in its pallor. He strove to pronounce Sophronia's name, but his lips would not form the word, and staggering back, he was obliged to lean against a pillar.

Glyceria went toward him, her staring eyes fixed upon his face as if she wished to read his inmost soul.

"Manlius Sinister!" she said calmly. "My dreams have told me that you will kill me, and I know that the hand beneath your chlamys is clutching your sword-hilt. That will be no grief to me. My anguish is that you see in me your promised wife's murderess."

Manlius sighed heavily, and a secret shudder shook his whole frame. In a voice that seemed to come from the grave, he asked:

"How was she killed? Was she torn by wild beasts? Or did greedy flames devour her tender body? Speak, Hetæra. Tell me clearly and minutely how she was tortured to death. I will hear."

"She was not dragged to the scenes of torture, but to Carinus' orgies."

"Ah!" shrieked Manlius in unutterable fury, covering his face. Then, removing his hands, he said quietly: "Go on; omit nothing. Describe step by step the outrage, and in what way my idol was dragged through the mire. Speak!"

"Nothing of that kind happened. A Roman woman, who wished to rescue her, exchanged garments with her in the prison; and when this plan was baffled, she concealed a dagger in Sophronia's girdle and the girl killed herself before any man's hand touched her."

Tears streamed from the young soldier's eyes; his sword fell from his hand.

"Ye gods, bless that Roman woman for the sake of the dagger. Do you not know who it was?"

"She does not wish you to be told."

Manlius drew a long breath, as if relieved from a heavy burden.

"I thank you for these tidings."

There was something terrible in this gratitude.

"The danger is not yet over," Glyceria began again. "Carinus, whose pallid face was sprinkled with the martyr's blood, sank back upon his couch half fainting, and through his trembling soul flashed the thought: If a woman could die in this way, how will her father or her promised husband—kill! No one knew Sophronia; but my father's presence in Rome has already attracted attention, and although he makes no public search, people are beginning to suspect that the dead girl was his daughter. You will both be summoned before Carinus to-morrow; he will ask if you can recognise a dead woman who was found murdered in the Christians' prison, and Sophronia will be shown to you. Be hard-hearted at that moment, Manlius; let no tears fill your eyes when you behold this corpse. Say that you do not know it, wear an indifferent face; for if you betray yourself, you will lose your head."

"I am to wear an indifferent face," said Manlius, with dilated eyes, "and not recognise her when she lies dead before me? I am to say that I have never seen her?"

"Do you imagine that Carinus would suffer a man to live whose promised wife had killed herself on the Cæsar's account?"

"You are right," said the knight, bitterly. "Manlius will learn to dissimulate."

He burst into a terrible laugh.

Glyceria sank on her knees before him, and offering him her beautiful bosom, stammered, sighing:

"And now—take your sword—begin with me."

Manlius smiled.

"So your dreams have predicted that I shall kill you? You are beautiful, Glyceria; really marvellously beautiful. Is it true, as people say, that Carinus loves you ardently?"

"Still more ardently do I hate him. Why do you ask?"

"Because I should like to know whether you have ever rendered Carinus happy by your favour?"

"Never even with a smile."

"And yet he would gladly give years of his life for a single night with you."

"Ah, by Styx! If I should grant him a night, it would be an eternal one!" cried Glyceria, drawing herself to her full height while her face crimsoned.

Manlius went up to her and clasped her hand.

"Now you see, Glyceria, that your dreams deceived you, for I shall not kill you. No, I shall not kill you, but will make you my wife."

Glyceria drew back her hand in horror.

"Manlius, this is mockery, and bitterer than death."

"No, it is only love. I love you."

"Manlius, do not kill me thus, not thus. Rather with the sharp sword."

"I love you. If I loved your sister, I now see her features in your face; and when grief for her loss tortures me, I must fly to you to find consolation. I do not believe aught of all the world says of you; I will take the past from you and make you what your sister has been. I will lead you back to your father, and he will bestow upon you the blessing he gave your sister. I will endow you with everything that was her property. You will wear her simple garments and even assume her name, and I will call you my Sophronia."

Glyceria, trembling violently, escaped from the youth's arms as he drew her toward him with gentle violence, and with glowing cheeks and panting bosom, fled without answering these bewildering words.

Manlius, looking after her, muttered under his breath:

"Cannot I play the hypocrite too?"

CHAPTER IX.

Instead of his plain military costume he had donned the ample flowered silk toga worn by the fashionable dandies of the time, rubbed his hair with perfumed ointments, loaded his fingers with gems, adorned his ankles with circlets, and even ornamented his toes with rings which glittered between the thongs of his sandals, while he had scattered little red spots over his face till it looked as freckled as the Cæsar's. So, with an indolent, loitering step and a coquettish carriage of the head, he entered the vestibule of the imperial palace, which was already swarming with courtiers similarly attired, who gazed enviously at the youth's unusually magnificent costume—only they could not understand why he had painted freckles on his face. Manlius bowed to the floor before Carinus—a form of salutation which had been transplanted to Rome from the Persian court. Even Ævius was forced to admit that no one understood how to bow with so much humility as Manlius. Then, seizing a corner of the imperial mantle, he kissed it with the devout fervour which only the most pious Jews show in kissing the thora.

Carinus wished to appear stern.

"You have already been in Rome four days, and this is the first time you have come to me," he said reproachfully.

"O glorious Augustus," replied Manlius in an inimitably sweet tone; "I have already been ten times in your atrium to deliver the news I bring from Asia, but I learned as often that you were enjoying the delights envied by the gods, and I am not one of those rude soldiers who recklessly force their way in with their messages of supposed importance, and rob you of hours of bliss which can never be regained."

"Good. You are a man of worth; but what tidings do you bring from Persia?"

"There is no life anywhere in the world, O Augustus, except where you are. All the lands of the earth exist only to make the contrast between them and Rome the sharper. I will not weary you with tiresome tales of war and battles. Wars merely serve to lessen the number of dissatisfied people, so why should I disturb your repose with my descriptions?"

"You are right, Manlius. Speak of other things."

"My experiences are at your command. I saw the marvels of Barbarian lands, and always thought of you. In Africa I saw horses whose shining skins were streaked with stripes, animals whose like no Imperator has ever shown in our circus games. I left orders with the commandant of Alexandria to send several of them to you. In the Indian seas a kind of snail was discovered, which fastened itself to the rocks by means of threads as fine as a cobweb. From these threads the people there manufacture a fabric even more brilliant than sericum, and I brought a velamen of it for you, such as only the princes of that country wear."

As he spoke, Manlius gave the Imperator a superb textile which he had brought with him from India in the hope that it would be Sophronia's bridal veil.

The Cæsar was filled with admiration at the sight of the unusually brilliant, delicate texture.

"Manlius, I appoint you Senator."

The courtiers began to stare enviously at Manlius. As the barber, who was the most jealous of any sign of favour from the Cæsar, could find no fault with the velamen, he vented his anger upon Manlius' face.

"Where did you get those freckles, Manlius? You look as if the flies had played an evil trick with your features."

"You are a barber, Marcius. I painted these freckles. It is a very aristocratic fashion which I learned at the court of Persia."

"Is it the fashion there to wear freckles?" asked Carinus, whose cheeks Marcius was in the habit of painting white and pink.

"Only among the aristocrats. It is the distinguishing mark between the dignitaries of the kingdom and the common people. True, it requires a more refined taste than yours, Marcius, to appreciate this; one must understand, too, why and in what degree these freckles embellish the face. The empty, smooth face, like yours, for instance, which, when one looks at it, shows only white and pink, is the beauty of the plebeian; Apollo's countenance is freckled."

Manlius knew that Carinus liked to be called Apollo.

The courtiers were horrified at this bold assertion.

"I repeat that Apollo's face is adorned with freckles. For Apollo's image is the sun, and is not the sun itself full of spots? Is not the sky strewn with stars, and are not the stars the freckles of the sky, as freckles are the stars of the human face? Therefore, O Marcius, do not censure this magnificent taste of mine."

Carinus motioned to his barber to remove the paint from his face.

"Divine countenance!" cried Manlius rapturously. "O you profaners of the sanctuary, who conceal the freckles which the graces have scattered with lavish generosity over these features. Come, friends, let this face be the model of ours."

And the courtiers instantly sat down in turn before Marcius and had freckles painted on their faces that they might resemble Carinus.

From that moment it was the fashion in Rome to have freckles painted on the face.

"Manlius," said the Cæsar, "I appoint you Prefect of Rome."

All the imperial favourites were supplanted by the young Tribune.

Ævius was in despair.

"To what shall I henceforth compare the Cæsar in my poems, since roses and lilies are no longer beautiful?" he wailed.

"Compare him to the royal panther," Manlius advised. And the poet was content.

At this moment Mesembrius arrived, and hearing in the atrium that Manlius had already entered, hastened after him.

On the threshold he caught a glimpse of the young soldier and started back.

"Is that actor Manlius?" he asked himself, gazing at his silk toga and freckled face. "Have you seen Glyceria?" he whispered.

"Yes," replied Manlius.

"Have you killed her?"

"No."

"Then I understand the change. Hitherto only caterpillars became butterflies; in you a lion has undergone the change. I pity you."

The old Senator, as he spoke, moved forward with dignified bearing and, leaning on his crutches, stood before the Augustus.

"Augustus Carinus, I have come to bring a charge, or, if it pleases you better, to beseech a favour. I had an only daughter——"

"You have another," interrupted Ævius.

"I say I had an only daughter. She was the joy of my life, the prop of my old age. Allured by a new religion, this girl and her companions were captured at the meeting place of the Christians. I will not argue with you over matters of belief, Carinus, but I entreat you to listen to the petition of a man who has grown grey in the service of Rome, and restore my only child."

Carinus raised himself indolently from his lectisternium and whispered a few words to his eunuch. Then he turned to Mesembrius.

"Senator, we do not know whether your daughter is among the captured Christians; had we been aware of it we should have delivered her up to you long ago. She was beautiful, you said?"

"I did not say so, O Lord."

"I have so understood. But unfortunately I must inform you that a beautiful girl in this band of Christians killed herself last night in prison."

"That was not my daughter. Sophronia could not forget her grey-haired father, whom her loss would drive to despair."

"Look at the corpse, Senator, and if it is not your daughter, which from my heart I hope, I will have her brought here at once and she can then return with you."

Mesembrius was so startled by this unexpected favour that he forgot to express his thanks for it.

The eunuch returned, followed by two slaves, who bore on a bier a corpse covered with a large pall.

Ævius drew it from the body.

Mesembrius pressed his hand upon his heart; the blood rushed to his temples; his breath failed; he could not move; he stood motionless for a time, then, with a wild cry of anguish, flung himself upon the lifeless form.

"My child! My dear, dear child!"

"So I have him to fear, too," murmured Carinus.

Sobbing aloud, Mesembrius embraced the beautiful, beloved body. Death had restored to the face the repose, the supernatural loveliness which had been peculiar to it in life. It seemed as though she were sleeping and at a call would wake.

"Oh, my dear, sweet child," sobbed the old man; "why must you leave me here? If you were resolved to die, why did you not appear to me in a dream, that I might have followed you? What have I to love in this world now that you are no more? What is to become of me, an old withered tree, whose only blossoming branch has been cut off? Have you no longer one word, one smile for me? Once you were so gay, so full of cheerful converse—oh, why must I endure this?"

The father turned neither to the Cæsar nor to the courtiers; he gave free course to his tears, burying his face in his dead daughter's winding-sheet.

But gradually he seemed to realise that he was weeping alone, and his dim eyes wandered around the apartment with a vague consciousness that there must be some one else here who owed to Sophronia's manes the tribute of tears.

There stood Manlius, with a cold, unsympathising face, talking to Carinus. Not a feature betrayed the slightest sorrow.

Mesembrius indignantly grasped the youth's arm.

"And have your eyes no tears, when your bride lies murdered before you?"

Seized with suspicion Carinus suddenly looked at Manlius; the courtiers, with malicious pleasure, turned toward him.

"My bride?" asked Manlius, in a tone of astonishment. "Your mind is wandering, old Mesembrius."

"Have the Furies robbed you of your reason that you no longer remember that, but three days ago, you asked for my daughter's hand and I gave it to you?"

"Your daughter's hand, certainly," replied Manlius, with unshaken calmness. "Not this daughter's here, however, but Glyceria's."

"May you be accursed!" shouted Mesembrius, with savage fury, and without heeding the Cæsar, his dead daughter, or the danger threatening him, he rushed out of the hall like a madman.

This very thing saved him.

"Follow him, Galga!" shouted Carinus. "Seize him. This man's head must be laid at my feet."

Meanwhile Mesembrius rushed through the palace. The throng of slaves shrank back in terror at the sight of his agitated face, and allowed him to reach the open air. His frantic words instantly gathered a crowd around him, and by the time Galga, at the head of a troop of mounted prætorians, went in pursuit of him, the mob had attained threatening proportions. But the Thracian giant dashed recklessly through the masses of people. As he stretched his arm from the saddle to seize the old man's head and sever it from the trunk with a single stroke of his sword, the Roman, with strength wholly unexpected in a man of his age, dealt the brown-skinned colossus such a blow with his heavy crutch that he fell from his horse with a shattered skull. Mesembrius swung himself into the saddle at a bound, and led the infuriated populace against the armed cohort, which was scattered in a moment, and before reinforcements arrived to quell the tumult, the old patrician had disappeared and was never found.