Five days later Agias was back in Rome. He had succeeded in reaching Baiæ, and introducing Artemisia into the familia of the villa of the Lentuli, as a new waiting-maid from Rome sent by Claudia to her daughter. For the present at least there was practically no chance of Pratinas recovering his lost property. And indeed, when Agias reached Rome once more, all fears in that direction were completely set at rest. The fashionable circle in which Claudia and Herennia were enmeshed was in a flutter and a chatter over no ordinary scandal. Valeria, wife of Calatinus, and Pratinas, the "charming" Epicurean philosopher, had both fled Rome two days before, and rumour had it that they had embarked together at Ostia on a ship leaving direct for Egypt. Of course Calatinus was receiving all the sympathy, and was a much abused man; and so the tongues ran on.
To Agias this great event brought a considerable gain in peace of mind, and some little loss. Valeria had taken with her her two maids, Agias's good friends, and also Iasus. Pisander ignominiously had been left behind. Calatinus had no use for the man of learning, and Agias was fain to take him before Drusus, who had returned from Ravenna, and induce his patron to give Pisander sufficient capital to start afresh a public school of philosophy, although the chances of acquiring opulence in that profession were sufficiently meagre.
Cornelia was at Baiæ, the famous watering-place, upon the classic Neapolitan bay,—which was the Brighton or Newport of the Roman. Here was the haunt of the sybarites, whose gay barks skimmed the shallow waters of the Lucrine lake; and not far off slumbered in its volcanic hollow that other lake, Avernus, renowned in legend and poetry, through whose caverns, fable had it, lay the entrance to the world of the dead. The whole country about was one city of stately villas, of cool groves, of bright gardens; a huge pleasure world, where freedom too often became license; where the dregs of the nectar cup too often meant physical ruin and moral death.
Cornelia had lost all desire to die now. She no longer thought of suicide. Lentulus's freedmen held her in close surveillance, but she was very happy. Drusus lived, was safe, would do great things, would win a name and a fame in the world of politics and arms. For herself she had but one ambition—to hear men say, "This woman is the wife of the great Quintus Drusus." That would have been Elysium indeed. Cornelia, in fact, was building around her a world of sweet fantasy, that grew so real, so tangible, that the stern realities of life, realities that had hitherto worn out her very soul, became less galling. The reaction following the collapse of the plot against Drusus had thrown her into an unnatural cheerfulness. For the time the one thought when she arose in the morning, the one thought when she fell asleep at night, was, "One day," or "One night more is gone, of the time that severs me from Quintus." It was a strained, an unhealthy cheerfulness; but while it lasted it made all the world fair for Cornelia. Indeed, she had no right—from one way of thinking—not to enjoy herself, unless it be that she had no congenial companions. The villa of the Lentuli was one of the newest and finest at Baiæ. It rested on a sort of breakwater built out into the sea, so that the waves actually beat against the embankment at the foot of Cornelia's chamber. The building rose in several stories, each smaller than the one below it, an ornamental cupola highest of all. On the successive terraces were formally plotted, but luxuriant, gardens. Cornelia, from her room in the second story, could command a broad vista of the bay. Puteoli was only two miles distant. Vesuvius was ten times as far; but the eye swept clear down the verdant coast toward Surrentum to the southward. At her feet was the sea,—the Italian, Neapolitan sea,—dancing, sparkling, dimpling from the first flush of morning to the last glint of the fading western clouds at eve. The azure above glowed with living brightness, and by night the stars and planets burned and twinkled down from a crystalline void, through which the unfettered soul might soar and soar, swimming onward through the sweet darkness of the infinite.
And there were pleasures enough for Cornelia if she would join therein. Lentulus had ordered his freedmen not to deny her amusements; anything, in fact, that would divert her from her morbid infatuation for Drusus. The consul-designate had indeed reached the conclusion that his niece was suffering some serious mental derangement, or she would not thus continue to pursue a profitless passion, obviously impossible of fulfilment. So Cornelia had every chance to make herself a centre to those gay pleasure-seekers who were still at Baiæ; for the summer season was a little past, and all but confirmed or fashionable invalids and professional vacationers were drifting back to Rome. For a time all went merrily enough. Just sufficient of the Lucius Ahenobarbus affair had come to the Baiæans to make Cornelia the object of a great amount of curiosity. When she invited a select number of the pleasure-seekers to her dinner parties, she had the adulation and plaudits of every guest, and plenty of return favours. Lucius Ahenobarbus soon had a score of hot rivals; and Cornelia's pretty face was chipped on more than one admirer's seal ring. But presently it began to be said that the niece of the consul-designate was an extremely stoical and peculiar woman; she did not enjoy freedom which the very air of Baiæ seemed to render inevitable. She never lacked wit and vivacity, but there was around her an air of restraint and cold modesty that was admirable in every way—only it would never do in Baiæ. And so Cornelia, without ceasing to be admired, became less courted; and presently, quite tiring of the butterfly life, was thrown back more and more on herself and on her books. This did not disturb her. A levee or a banquet had never given her perfect pleasure; and it was no delight to know that half the women of Baiæ hated her with a perfect jealousy. Cornelia read and studied, now Greek, now Latin; and sometimes caught herself half wishing to be a man and able to expound a cosmogony, or to decide the fate of empires by words flung down from the rostrum. Then finally Agias came bringing Artemisia, who, as has been related, was introduced—by means of some little contriving—into the familia as a new serving-maid. Such Artemisia was in name; but Cornelia, whose gratitude to Agias had known no bounds, took the little thing into her heart, and determined to devote herself to instructing an innocence that must not continue too long, despite its charming naiveté.
Thus the days had passed for Cornelia. But only a little while after Agias left for Rome,—with a very large packet of letters for Drusus,—the pleasant, self-created world of fantasy, that had given Cornelia some portion of happiness, vanished. Like a clap of thunder from a cloudless sky Lucius Ahenobarbus suddenly arrived in Baiæ. He was tired of Rome, which was still very hot and uncomfortable. He loathed politics, they were stupid. He had lost a boon companion when Publius Gabinius was driven into outlawry. Marcus Læca was too deeply in debt to give any more dinners. Pratinas was fled to Egypt. And so he had come to Baiæ, to harass Cornelia by his presence; to gibe at her; and assure her that her uncle was more determined than ever that she should marry him—say and do what she might.
Ahenobarbus quartered himself in the Lentulan villa as the prospective nephew-in-law of its owner. He brought with him his customary train of underlings, and had travelled in appropriate state, in a litter with eight picked bearers, lolling on a cushion stuffed with rose-leaves, and covered with Maltese gauze, one garland on his head, another round his neck, and holding to his nose a smelling-bag of small-meshed linen filled with roses.
With all his effeminacy, he was beyond the least doubt desperately determined to possess himself of Cornelia. His passion was purely animal and unrefined, but none could doubt it. Cornelia feared to have him near her, and knew peace neither day nor night. He assumed all a master's rights over the slaves and freedmen, sending them hither and yon to do his bidding. He had recovered from the fear Cornelia had struck into him, in her first defiance, and met her threats and hauteur with open scorn.
"You are a most adorable actress!" was his constant sneer. And his every action told that he did not intend to let Cornelia play with him a second time. With all his profligacy and moral worthlessness, he had a tenacity of purpose and an energy in this matter that showed that either Cornelia must in the end bow to his will, or their contest would end in something very like a tragedy.
And if a tragedy, so be it, was the desperate resolve of Cornelia; whose eyes were too stern for tears when she saw that Lucius was still the former creature of appetite; full of intrigue, sweethearts, seashore revels, carouses, singing, and music parties and water excursions with creatures of his choice from morning until midnight. She could not altogether shun him, though she successfully resisted his half blandishments, half coercion, to make her join in his wild frivolities. One revenge she found she could take on him—a revenge that she enjoyed because it proclaimed her own intellectual superiority, and made Ahenobarbus writhe with impotent vexation—she had him at her mercy when they played at checkers;[133] and at last Lucius lost so much money and temper at this game of wit, not chance, that he would sulkily decline a challenge. But this was poor consolation to Cornelia. The time was drifting on. Before many days Lentulus Crus and Caius Clodius Marcellus would be consuls, and the anti-Cæsarians would be ready to work their great opponent's undoing, or be themselves forever undone. Where was Drusus? What was he doing? What part would he play in the struggle, perhaps of arms, about to begin? O for one sight of him, for one word! And the hunger in Cornelia's breast grew and grew.
Many are our wishes. Some flit through our hearts like birds darting under the foliage of trees, then out again, lost in the sunshine; others linger awhile and we nestle them in our bosoms until we forget that they are there, and the noble desire, the craving for something dear, for something that bears for us as it were a divine image, is gone—we are the poorer that we no longer wish to wish it. But some things there are—some things too high or too deep for speech, too secret for really conscious thought, too holy to call from the innermost shrines of the heart; and there they linger and hover, demanding to be satisfied, and until they are satisfied there is void and dreariness within, be the sunshine never so bright without. And so Cornelia was a-hungered. She could fight against herself to save Drusus's life no longer; she could build around herself her dream castles no more; she must see him face to face, must hold his hand in hers, must feel his breath on her cheek.
Is it but a tale that is told, that soul can communicate to distant soul? That through two sundered hearts without visible communication can spring up, unforewarned, a single desire, a single purpose? Is there no magnetism subtle beyond all thought, that bounds from spirit to spirit, defying every bond, every space? We may not say; but if Cornelia longed, she longed not utterly in vain. One morning, as she was dressing, Cassandra, who was moving around the room aiding her mistress, let fall a very tiny slip of papyrus into Cornelia's lap, and with it a whisper, "Don't look; but keep it carefully." The injunction was needed, for several other serving-women were in the room, and Cornelia more than suspected that they were ready to spy on her to prevent unauthorized correspondence with Drusus. When she was dressed, and could walk alone on the terrace overlooking the sea, she unrolled the papyrus and read:—
"Delectissima, I have come from Rome to Puteoli. I cannot live longer without seeing you. Great things are stirring, and it may well be that ere long, if your uncle and his friends have their way, I may be a proscribed fugitive from Italy, or a dead man. But I must talk with your dear self first. Agias was known by the familia, and had no difficulty in seeing you quietly; but I have no such facility. I cannot remain long. Plan how we may meet and not be interrupted. I have taken Cassandra into my pay, and believe that she can be trusted. Vale."
There was no name of the sender; but Cornelia did not need to question. Cassandra, who evidently knew that her mistress would require her services, came carelessly strolling out on to the terrace.
"Cassandra," said Cornelia, "the last time I saw Quintus, you betrayed us to my uncle; will you be more faithful now?"
The woman hung down her head.
"A! domina, your uncle threatened me terribly. I did not intentionally betray you! Did I not receive my beating? And then Master Drusus is such a handsome and generous young gentleman."
"I can rely on you alone," replied Cornelia. "You must arrange everything. If you are untrue, be sure that it is not I who will in the end punish, but Master Drusus, whose memory is long. You have more schemes than I, now that Agias is not here to devise for me. You must make up any stories that are necessary to save us from interruption, and see that no one discovers anything or grows suspicious. My hands are tied. I cannot see to plan. I will go to the library, and leave everything to you."
And with this stoical resolve to bear with equanimity whatever the Fates flung in her way for good or ill, Cornelia tried to bury herself in her Lucretius. Vain resolution! What care for the atomic theory when in a day, an hour, a moment, she might be straining to her heart another heart that was reaching out toward hers, as hers did toward it. It was useless to read; useless to try to admire the varying shades of blue on the sea, tones of green, and tones of deep cerulean, deepening and deepening, as her eye drifted off toward the horizon, like the blendings of a chromatic series. And so Cornelia passed the morning in a mood of joyful discontent. Lucius Ahenobarbus, who came to have his usual passage of arms with her, found her so extremely affable, yet half-preoccupied, that he was puzzled, yet on the whole delighted. "She must be yielding," he mentally commented; and when they played at draughts, Cornelia actually allowed herself to be beaten. Ahenobarbus started off for Puteoli in an excellent humour. His litter had barely swung down the road from the villa before Cassandra was knocking at her mistress's chamber door.
"Io! domina," was her joyful exclamation, "I think I have got every eavesdropper out of the way. Ahenobarbus is off for Puteoli. I have cooked up a story to keep the freedmen and other busybodies off. You have a desperate headache, and cannot leave the room, nor see any one. But remember the terrace over the water, where the colonnade shuts it in on all sides but toward the sea. This afternoon, if a boat with two strange-looking fishermen passes under the embankment, don't be surprised."
And having imparted this precious bit of information, the woman was off. Drusus's gold pieces had made her the most successful of schemers.
Cornelia feigned her headache, and succeeded in making herself so thoroughly petulant and exacting to all her maids, that when she ordered them out of the room, and told them on no account to disturb her in any respect for the rest of the day, they "rejoiced with trembling," and had no anxiety to thrust their attentions upon so unreasonable a mistress. And a little while later a visit of a strolling juggler—whose call had perhaps been prompted by Cassandra—made their respite from duty doubly welcome.
Cornelia was left to herself, and spent the next hour in a division of labour before her silver wall-mirror, dressing—something which was sufficiently troublesome for her, accustomed to the services of a bevy of maids—and at the window, gazing toward Puteoli for the fishing-boat that seemed never in sight. At last the toilet was completed to her satisfaction. Cornelia surveyed herself in her best silken purple flounced stola, thrust the last pin into her hair, and confined it all in a net of golden thread. Roman maidens were not as a rule taught to be modest about their charms, and Cornelia, with perfect frankness, said aloud to herself, "You are so beautiful that Drusus can't help loving you;" and with this candid confession, she was again on the terrace, straining her eyes toward Puteoli. Boats came, boats went, but there was none that approached the villa; and Cornelia began to harbour dark thoughts against Cassandra.
"If the wretched woman had played false to her mistress again—" but the threat was never formulated. There was a chink and click of a pair of oars moving on their thole-pins. For an instant a skiff was visible at the foot of the embankment; two occupants were in it. The boat disappeared under the friendly cover of the protecting sea-wall of the lower terrace. There was a little landing-place here, with a few steps leading upward, where now and then a yacht was moored. The embankment shut off this tiny wharf from view on either side. Cornelia dared not leave the upper terrace. Her heart beat faster and faster. Below she heard the slap, slap, of the waves on the sea-wall, and a rattle of rings and ropes as some skiff was being made fast. An instant more and Drusus was coming, with quick, athletic bounds, up the stairway to the second terrace. It was he! she saw him! In her eyes he was everything in physique and virile beauty that a maiden of the Republic could desire! The bitterness and waiting of months were worth the blessedness of the instant. Cornelia never knew what Drusus said to her, or what she said to him. She only knew that he was holding her in his strong arms and gazing into her eyes; while the hearts of both talked to one another so fast that they had neither time nor need for words. They were happy, happy! Long it was before their utterance passed beyond the merest words of endearment; longer still before they were composed enough for Cornelia to listen to Drusus while he gave his own account of Mamercus's heroic resistance to Dumnorix's gang at Præneste; and told of his own visit to Ravenna, of his intense admiration for the proconsul of the two Gauls; and of how he had come to Puteoli and opened communications with Cassandra, through Cappadox, the trusty body-servant who in the guise of a fisherman was waiting in the boat below.
"And as Homer puts it, so with us," cried Cornelia, at length: "'And so the pair had joy in happy love, and joyed in talking too, and each relating; she, the royal lady, what she had endured at home, watching the wasteful throng of suitors; and he, high-born Odysseus, what miseries he brought on other men, and bore himself in anguish;—all he told, and she was glad to hear.'"
So laughed Cornelia when all their stories were finished, likening their reunion to that of the son of Laërtes and the long-faithful Penelope.
"How long were Penelope and Odysseus asunder?" quoth Drusus.
"Twenty years."
"Vah! We have not been sundered twenty months or one-third as many. How shall we make the time fly more rapidly?"
"I know not," said Cornelia, for the first time looking down and sighing, "a lifetime seems very long; but lifetimes will pass. I shall be an old woman in a few years; and my hair will be all grey, and you won't love me."
"Eho," cried Drusus, "do you think I love you for your hair?"
"I don't know," replied Cornelia, shaking her head, "I am afraid so. What is there in me more than any other woman that you should love; except—" and here she raised her face half-seriously, half in play—"I am very beautiful? Ah! if I were a man, I would have something else to be loved for; I would have eloquence, or strength, or power of command, or wisdom in philosophy. But no, I can be loved for only two things; an ignoble or a poor man would take me if I were hideous as Atropos, for I am noble, and, if my uncle were an honest guardian, rich. But you need not regard these at all, so—" and she brushed her face across Drusus's cheek, touching it with her hair.
"O Cornelia," cried the young man, out of the fulness of his heart, "we must not waste this precious time asking why we love each other. Love each other we do as long as we view the sun. O carissima! we cannot trust ourselves to look too deeply into the whys and wherefores of things. We men and women are so ignorant! We know nothing. What is all our philosophy—words! What is all our state religion—empty form! What is all our life—a dream, mostly evil, that comes out of the eternal unconscious sleep and into that unconscious sleep will return! And yet not all a dream; for when I feel your hands in mine I know that I am not dreaming—for dreamers feel nothing so delicious as this! Not long ago I recalled what old Artabanus said to King Xerxes when the millions of Persia passed in review before their lord at Abydos, 'Short as our time is, death, through the wretchedness of our life, is the most sweet refuge of our race; and God, who gives us tastes that we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in His very gift, to be envious.' And I thought, 'How wise was the Persian!' And then I thought, 'No, though to live were to drag one's days in torture and in woe, if only love come once into life, an eternity of misery is endurable; yes, to be chained forever, as Prometheus, on drearest mountain crag, if only the fire which is stolen be that which kindles soul by soul.'"
"Ah!" cried Cornelia, "if only these were to be real souls! But what can we say? See my Lucretius here; read: 'I have shown the soul to be formed fine and to be of minute bodies and made up of much smaller first-beginnings than the liquid air, or mist, or smoke. As you see water, when the vessels are shattered, flow away on every side, and as mist and smoke vanish away into the air, believe that the soul, too, is shed abroad, and perishes much more quickly and dissolves sooner into its first bodies, when once it has been taken out of the limbs of a man and has withdrawn.' O Quintus, is the thing within me that loves you lighter, more fragile, than smoke? Shall I blow away, and vanish into nothingness? It is that which affrights me!"
And Drusus tried as best he might to comfort her, telling her there was no danger that she or he would be dissipated speedily, and that she must not fret her dear head with things that set the sagest greybeards a-wrangling. Then he told her about the political world, and how in a month at most either every cloud would have cleared away, and Lentulus be in no position to resist the legal claims which Drusus had on the hand of his niece; or, if war came, if fortune but favoured Cæsar, Cornelia's waiting for deliverance would not be for long. Drusus did not dwell on the alternative presented if civic strife came to arms; he only knew that, come what might, Cornelia could never be driven to become the bride of Lucius Ahenobarbus; and he had no need to exact a new pledge of her faithful devotion.
So at last, like everything terrestrial that is sweet and lovely, the slowly advancing afternoon warned Drusus that for this day, at least, they must separate.
"I will come again to-morrow, or the next day, if Cassandra can so arrange," said he, tearing himself away. "But part to-night we must, nor will it make amends to imitate Carbo, who, when he was being led to execution, was suddenly seized with a pain in the stomach, and begged not to be beheaded until he should feel a little better."
He kissed her, strained her to his breast, and stepped toward the landing-place. Cappadox had taken the boat out from the moorings to minimize a chance of discovery by some one in the house. Drusus was just turning for a last embrace, when many voices and the plash of oars sounded below. Cornelia staggered with dread.
"It's Ahenobarbus," she gasped, in a deathly whisper; "he sometimes comes back from Puteoli by boat. He will murder you when he finds you here!"
"Can't I escape through the house?"
The words, however, were no sooner out of Drusus's mouth, than Lucius Ahenobarbus, dressed in the most fashionably cut scarlet lacerna, perfumed and coiffured to a nicety, appeared on the terrace. Some evil genius had led him straight up without the least delay.
It was the first time that the two enemies had met face to face since Drusus had declined the invitation to Marcus Læca's supper. Be it said to Lucius's credit that he sensed the situation with only the minimum of confusion, and instantly realized all of Cornelia's worst fears. Drusus had drawn back from the steps to the lower terrace, and stood with stern brow and knotted fist, trapped by a blunder that could hardly have been guarded against, no submissive victim to what fate had in store. Cornelia, for once quite distraught with terror, cowered on a bench, unable to scream through sheer fright.
"Salve! amice," was the satirical salutation of Ahenobarbus. "How excellently well met. Heus! Phaon, bring your boatmen, quick! Not an instant to lose!"
"Pity! mercy!" gasped Cornelia, "I will do anything for you, but spare him;" and she made as if to fall on her knees before Ahenobarbus.
"Girl!" Drusus had never spoken in that way to her before; his tones were cold as ice. "Go into the house! Your place is not here. If Lucius Ahenobarbus intends to murder me—"
The boatmen and two or three other slaves that were always at Ahenobarbus's heels were crowding up on to the terrace ready to do their master's bidding.
"Throw me that fellow over the balcony," ordered Lucius, his sense of triumph and opportunity mastering every fear that Flaccus would execute his threat of prosecution. "See that he does not float!"
Cornelia found her voice. She screamed, screamed shrilly, and ran into the house. Already the familia was alarmed. Two or three freedmen of Lentulus were rushing toward the terrace. They were murdering Quintus! He was resisting, resisting with all the powers of a wild animal driven to its last lair. Outside, on the terrace, where but an instant before she and her lover were cooing in delicious ecstasy, there were oaths, blows, and the sharp pants and howls of mortal struggle. And she could do nothing—nothing! And it was through his love for her that Drusus was to go down to his untimely grave! The seconds of struggle and anguish moved on leaden feet. Every breath was agony, every sound maddening. And she could do nothing—nothing. Still they were fighting. Phaon—she knew his voice—was crying out as if in grievous pain. And now the voice of Lucius Ahenobarbus sounded again: "One thousand denarii if you fling him into the sea!" and she could do nothing—nothing! She tore down the purple tapestries around her bed, and dashed from its tripod a costly bowl of opal Alexandrian glass—all in the mere rage of impotence. And still they were fighting. What was that ornament hanging on the wall, half hid behind the torn tapestry? A scabbard—a sword, some relic of ancient wars! And all the combatants were unarmed! The antique weapon was held by stout thongs to the wall; she plucked it from its fastenings with the strength of a Titaness. The rusty blade resisted an instant; she dragged it forth. Then out on to the terrace. Really only a moment had elapsed since she left it. One of the slaves was lying dead, or stunned, prone on the turf. Phaon was writhing and howling beside him, nursing a broken jaw. The other assailants had sunk back in temporary repulse and were preparing for a second rush. Drusus was still standing. He half leaned upon the stone pedestal of an heroic-sized Athena, who seemed to be spreading her protecting ægis above him. His garments were rent to the veriest shreds. His features were hidden behind streaming blood, his arms and neck were bruised and bleeding; but clearly his adversaries could not yet congratulate themselves that the lion's strength was too sapped to be no longer dreaded.
"Come, you," was his hot challenge to Lucius Ahenobarbus, who stood, half delighted, half afraid, shivering and laughing spasmodically, as he surveyed the struggle from a safe distance. "Come, you, and have your share in the villany!"
And again, for it was all the affair of the veriest moment, the slaves rushed once more on their indocile victim. "Freedom to the man who pulls him down!" was the incentive of Ahenobarbus.
But again Drusus, who, to tell the truth, had to contend with only the flabby, soft-handed, unskilful underlings of Lucius, struck out so furiously that another of his attackers fell backward with a groan and a gasp. All this Cornelia saw while, sword in hand, she flew toward the knot of writhing men. She pushed aside the slaves by sheer force. She asked no civilities, received none.
"Pull her away!" shouted Lucius, and started himself to accomplish his purpose. A rude hand smote her in the face; she staggered, fell; but as she fell a hand snatched the sword out of her grasp. She released her hold gladly, for did she not know that hand? When she rose to her feet there were shrieks of fear and pain on every side. The slaves were cringing in dread before him. Drusus was standing under the Athena, with the keen steel in his hand—its blade dyed crimson; and at his feet lay Ahenobarbus's favourite valet—the wretch literally disembowelled by one deadly stroke.
"Fly, fly!" she implored; "they will bring arms! They will never let you escape."
"I'll pay you for letting him kill Croesus," howled Lucius, facing himself resolutely toward his enemy. "How can he fly when the house is full of servants, and his boat is away from the landing? You give yourself trouble for no purpose, my lady! Lentulus's people will be here with swords in a moment!"
But as he spoke a blow of some unseen giant dashed him prostrate, and upon the terrace from below came Cappadox, foaming with anxious rage, his brow blacker than night, his brawny arms swinging a heavy paddle with which he clubbed the cowering slaves right and left.
"Have they killed him! Have the gods spared him!" These two demands came bounding in a breath from the honest servant's lips. And when he saw Drusus, bleeding, but still standing, he rushed forward to fling his arms about his master's neck.
"Fly! fly!" urged Cornelia, and out of the building, armed now with swords and staves, came flocking the freedmen of the house and as many slaves as they could muster.
"Salve! carissima," and Drusus, who never at the instant gave thought to the blood all over him, pressed her in one last kiss. He gained the terrace steps by a single bound ahead of his armed attackers. Cappadox smote down the foremost freedman with a buffet of the oar. Ahenobarbus staggered to his feet as Drusus sprang over him, and the latter tore a packet of tablets from his hand, never stopping in his own flight.
Then down on to the little landing-place pursuers and pursued tumbled. The large six-oared boat of Ahenobarbus was moored close beside Cappadox's skiff.
Drusus was into the skiff and casting loose before Lucius could descend from the upper terrace. The young Domitian was in a terrible distress.
"The letters! The letters! Freedom to you all if you save them! Cast off! Chase! Sink the skiff!"
But before any of the unskilful assailants could execute the order, Cappadox had driven the butt of his paddle clean through the bottom planking of the larger boat, and she was filling rapidly. The paddle shivered, but it was madness to embark on the stoven craft.
The skiff shot away from the landing as though an intelligent soul, rising equal to the needs of the crisis. The blue dancing water lapped between her gunwale and the shore. Drusus stood erect in the boat, brushed back the blood that was still streaming over his eyes, and looked landward. The slaves and freedmen were still on the landing, gazing blankly after their escaped prey. Ahenobarbus was pouring out upon their inefficiency a torrent of wrathful malediction, that promised employment for the "whipper" for some time to come. But Drusus gave heed to none of these things. Standing on the upper terrace, her hair now dishevelled and blowing in tresses upon the wind, was Cornelia, and on her all her lover's gaze was fixed.
"Safe?" and the melodious shout drifted out over the widening stretch of water.
"Safe! to live and to love!" And Drusus thought, with his keen lover's eye, he could see the dimming face brighten, and the hands go up in a gesture of thanksgiving.
It was all that was said. Another boat might be procured at any time by Lucius Ahenobarbus; and with only one paddle Cappadox could make but slow headway. Stiff and bruised, the young man flung himself on the bottom of the skiff, and panted and nursed himself after his mortal struggle. Now that the combat was over he felt weak and sore enough, and was quite content to let Cappadox adjust such improvised bandages as were available, and scull him toward Puteoli. Fortunately none of the bruises was caused by any harder weapons than fists, and, though his body was black and blue, he had sustained no serious hurt. And so he rested his head on a wrap, and closed his eyes, and called up before his mind the vision of Cornelia. How beautiful she had been when he met her! How much more beautiful when she thrust her way through the fighting slaves and put the sword in his hand, at that moment of mortal combat, which he expected to be his last! Did he only love her because her face was sweet, her voice was sweet, and the touch of her hair was sweet? Happy was he, her lover;—he could say "no," and have never a fear that his sincerity would be tested. And Lucius Ahenobarbus? He hated him with a perfect hatred. A Roman who was no Roman! A womanish man whom every true woman must despise! A serpent who had not even the bright scales of a serpent! What would he do to Cornelia? Drusus's face grew hard. Had he, Drusus, yet done any injury worth mentioning to his enemy? Why had he not used the moment when Lucius lay prostrate, and run the sword through his body? Ill-timed, thoughtless mercy! But the letters, the packet he had wrenched from Ahenobarbus's hand? Why was it so precious? Drusus had flung it into the boat. He took up the packet. Doubtless some billet-doux. Why should he degrade his mind by giving an instant's thought to any of his enemy's foul intrigues? He could only open his eyes with difficulty, but a curiosity that did not add to his self-esteem overmastered him. The seal! Could he believe his senses—the imprint of three trophies of victory? It was the seal of Pompeius! The instinct of the partisan and politician conquered every infirmity. He broke the wax, untied the thread, and opened. The letters were in cipher, and at first sight illegible. But this did not present any insuperable difficulty. Most classic ciphers were sufficiently simple to be solved without very much trouble. Drusus knew that in all Cæsar's correspondence a cipher had been used which consisted merely of substituting for each letter the fourth letter beyond it, as D for A; and a little examination showed that the present cryptogram was made on the same rude method. After a few guesses he struck the proper substitutions, and was able to read.
"Pompeius Magnus, Imperator, to the most excellent Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Rome, tenth day before the Calends of January. If it is well with you, it is well; I am well.[134] I write to warn you that we are told that Quintus Drusus, your personal enemy and the friend of our own foes, is in Campania. We need not add more, for we trust to you to see to it that he stirs up no faction in favour of his master in those parts. Be assured that you will not be long troubled by this enemy. He is marked out as one of the earliest of those to pay with their lives for their conspiracy against the Republic. If possible see that Drusus is seized for some alleged offence, and lodged in prison until the new consuls come into office. After that time he can work little or no mischief. Use the uttermost endeavours in this matter; check him and his schemes at all hazards. I trust your energy and prudence, which your father and Lentulus Crus assure me will not fail. Vale!"
Drusus lay back in the bottom of the boat, and looked up into the blue dome. It was the same azure as ever, but a strange feeling of disenchantment seemed to have come over him. For the first time he realized the deadly stakes for which he and his party were playing their game. What fate had been treasured up for him in the impending chaos of civil war? If he perished in battle or by the executioner's axe, what awaited Cornelia? But he had chosen his road; he would follow it to the end. The battle spirit mounted in him.
The sky was darkening when the boat drew up to one of the busy quays of Puteoli. Stars had begun to twinkle. Cappadox aided his bruised and stiffened master to disembark.
"To-night rest," cried Drusus, forgetting all his wounds. "To-morrow away to Rome. And at Rome—the war of the Gods and the Giants!"
It had come—the great crisis that by crooked ways or straight was to set right all the follies and crimes of many a generation. On the Calends of January Lentulus Crus and Caius Clodius Marcellus were inaugurated consuls. In solemn procession with Senate, priesthoods, and people, they had gone up to the Capitol and sacrificed chosen white steers to Jupiter, "Best and Greatest,"[135] and invoked his blessing upon the Roman State. And so began the last consulship of the Free Republic.
Rome was in a ferment. All knew the intention of the consuls to move the recall of Cæsar from his government. All knew that Curio had brought a letter from Ravenna, the contents whereof he carefully guarded. That same afternoon the consuls convened the Senate in the Temple of Capitoline Jove, and every man knew to what purpose. All Rome swept in the direction of the Capitol. Drusus accompanied his friend, the tribune Antonius, as the latter's viator, for there was need of a trusty guard.
The excitement in the streets ran even higher than when Catilina's great plot was exposed. The streets were jammed with crowds,—not of the idle and base born, but of equites and noble ladies, and young patricians not old enough to step into their fathers' places. They were howling and cheering for Pompeius and Lentulus, and cursing the absent proconsul. As Drusus passed along at the side of Antonius, he could not fail to hear the execrations and vile epithets flung from every side at him and his friend. He had always supposed the masses were on Cæsar's side, but now every man's hand seemed turned against the conqueror of the Gauls. Was there to be but a repetition of the same old tragedy of the Gracchi and of Marcus Drusus? A brave man standing out for the people, and the people deserting him in his hour of need?
They reached the Temple. The Senate was already nearly ready for business; every toothless consular who had been in public service for perquisites only, and who for years had been wasting his life enjoying the pickings of an unfortunate province—all such were in their seats on the front row of benches. Behind them were the prætorii and the ædilicii,[136] a full session of that great body which had matched its tireless wisdom and tenacity against Pyrrhus, Hannibal, and Antiochus the Great, and been victorious. Drusus ran his eye over the seats. There they sat, even in the midst of the general excitement, a body of calm, dignified elders, severe and immaculate in their long white togas and purple-edged tunics. The multitudes without were howling and jeering; within the temple, reigned silence—the silence that gathered about the most august and powerful assembly the world has ever seen.
The Temple was built of cool, grey stone; the assembly hall was quite apart from the shrine. The Senate had convened in a spacious semicircular vaulted chamber, cut off from the vulgar world by a row of close, low Doric columns. From the shade of these pillars one could command a sweeping view of the Forum, packed with a turbulent multitude. Drusus stood on the Temple steps and looked out and in. Without, confusion; within, order; without, a leaderless mob; within, an assembly almost every member of which had been invested with some high command. For a moment the young man revived courage; after all, the Roman Senate was left as a bulwark against passion and popular wrath; and for the time being, as he looked on those motionless, venerable faces, his confidence in this court of final appeal was restored. Then he began to scan the features of the consulars, and his heart sank. There was Lucius Calpurnius Piso, with the visage of a philosopher, but within mere moral turpitude. There was Favonius; there were the two sanguinary Marcelli, consuls respectively for the two preceding years; there was Domitius; there was Cato, his hard face illumined doubtless by the near realization of unholy hopes; there was Faustus Sulla, another bitter oligarch. Drusus saw them all, and knew that the Cæsarian cause had been doomed without a hearing. Caius Marcellus, the new consul, sat in his separate seat, in all the splendid dignity of his embroidered toga. Around him stood his twelve lictors. But Lentulus, at whose behest the Senate had been convened, and who was to act as its president, had not come. Drusus followed Antonius over to the farther side of the house, where on a long, low bench[137] the other tribunes of the plebs were seated. Quintus Cassius was already there. The other tribunes darted angry glances at their newly arrived colleague. Drusus remained standing behind Antonius, ready to act as a body-guard, as much as to serve in mere official capacity. Even as they entered he had noticed a buzz and rustle pass along the tiers of seats, and whisper pass on whisper, "There come the Cæsarians!" "What treason is in that letter!" "We must have an end of their impudence!" And Drusus ran his eye over the whole company, and sought for one friendly look; but he met with only stony glances or dark frowns. There was justice neither in the people nor in the Senate. Their hearts were drunk with a sense of revenge and self-willed passion; and Justice literally weighed out her bounty with blinded eyes.
There was another hum and rustle. And into the hall swept Lentulus Crus, in robes of office, with Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompeius, at his side. Before him strode his twelve lictors bearing their fasces erect. Not a word was spoken while Lentulus Crus seated himself in the ivory curule chair of office. No sign marked the extreme gravity of the occasion.
"Let the sacred chickens be brought," said Lentulus.
Never a lip twitched or curled in all that august multitude while several public attendants brought in a wooden cage containing three or four rather skinny specimens of poultry. Not even Drusus saw anything really ridiculous when Lentulus arose, took grain from an attendant, and scattered a quantity of it before the coop. Close at his elbow stood the augur, to interpret the omen,—a weazened, bald-headed old senator, who wore a purple-striped tunic,[138] and carried in his hand a long stick,[139] curved at its head into a spiral. Drusus knew perfectly well that the fowls had been kept without food all that day; but it would have seemed treason to all the traditions of his native land to cry out against this pompous farce. The hungry chickens pecked up the grain. The augur muttered formula after formula, and Lentulus took pains to repeat the meaningless jargon after him. Presently the augur ceased his chatter and nodded to the consul. Lentulus turned toward the Senate.
"There is no evil sight or sound!"[140] was his announcement, meaning that business could be transacted.
Whereupon up from his seat sprang Marcus Antonius, flourishing in his hand a packet. Loudly Lentulus bade him hold his peace; loudly the tribunes who sided with the Senate party forbade him to read. But a rustle and stir of eager curiosity ran along all the benches, and first one voice, then many, cried out that the letter must be made public. With very ill grace the consul declared that Antonius should be allowed to read the communication from Cæsar.
Antonius read, and all were astonished at the moderation of the much-maligned proconsul. Cæsar made it clear that he would stand on his rights as to the second consulship; but to withdraw possibilities of seeming to issue a threat, he would disband his entire army if Pompeius would only do the same, or, if preferred, he would retain simply Cisalpine Gaul and Illyria with two legions, until the consular elections were over. In either event it would be out of his power to menace the constitution, and the public tranquillity would remain quite undisturbed.
But before the murmur of approbation at this unexpected docility wore away, Lentulus burst forth into a fiery invective. All knew why the Senate had been convened, nor would he allow a few smooth promises to bring the state into danger. The law provided that a proconsul should leave his province at a certain time; and if Cæsar thought that a special law exempted him from this requirement, it were well he were disabused of the notion. The Senate had been convened because the presiding consul felt that the continuance of Cæsar in his governorship was a menace to the safety of the Republic. Let the Conscript Fathers express themselves boldly, and he, Lentulus, would not desert them; let them waver and try to court the favour of Cæsar as in former times, and the consul would have to look to his own safety—and he could make his own terms with Cæsar.
Lentulus had started out with studied moderation. His harangue ended with a stinging menace. A low mutter, difficult to interpret, ran through the Senate. Again Antonius leaped to his feet.
"Conscript Fathers, will you not consider the mild offers of Cæsar? Do not reject them without debate."
"I ask the opinion of the Senate on my own proposition," broke in Lentulus. "Metellus Scipio, declare what is your judgment."
"I protest at this unseemly haste," cried Antonius; "let us consider the letter first!"
"And I protest against this boisterous and unlawful interruption," retorted the consul, fiercely. "Rise, Metellus Scipio!"
Antonius flushed with rage, but sank into his seat. Drusus leaned over his friend's shoulder and whispered "Veto." Antonius shook his head.
"They must speak. We should be foolish to shoot away our best arrow before the battle had really begun."
Scipio arose. He was not the "chief senator,"[141] usually entitled to speak first; but everybody knew that his words were the mere expressions of his son-in-law, the mighty Pompeius. His oratory and physical presence were wretched, but all the Senate hung upon his words.
"Pompeius did not intend to abandon the Republic, if the Senate would support him; but let them act with energy, for otherwise in the future they might need his aid never so much, and yet implore it in vain."
"You want to destroy the Republic!" cried Quintus Cassius, half leaping from his seat.
"We want to destroy you!" retorted Domitius, savagely.
But all men were not so blinded by fury, hate, and greed of power and revenge. To the dismay of his party Caius Marcellus, the second consul, counselled a certain kind of moderation. There was no love lost by the noble "Optimates" upon Pompeius, and Marcellus hinted this plainly when he said that all Italy must be put under arms, and with such an army at the disposal of the Senate, it could act as it saw fit,—to get rid of a troublesome protector, he implied, no less than an open enemy. And close after him followed Marcus Calidius and Marcus Rufus, two senators, who had at least the sagacity to perceive that it would not free the Commonwealth to crush Cæsar, by flinging themselves into the arms of Pompeius. "Let Pompeius go off to his Spanish province, to which he was accredited proconsul; it was but natural Cæsar should think himself ill treated, seeing that two legions had been taken from him for Eastern service, and Pompeius was keeping these very troops close to Rome."
For one moment it seemed to Drusus that wisdom and justice had not deserted the Senate of his native state. The consuls were divided; two influential men were counselling moderation. Surely the Senate would not push to extremities. But he had not reckoned on the spell which the malevolent spirit of Lentulus had cast over the assembly. In bitter words the presiding consul refused to put Calidius's proposal to a vote, and then, turning directly upon his colleague before the face of the whole multitude, he poured out reproof and vituperation. Marcellus turned red and then black in the face with rage. Drusus's heart was beating rapidly with hope. So long as the consuls were at enmity, little would be done! Suddenly Scipio started as if to leave the assembly. "He's going to call in Pompeius's cohorts!" belched Lentulus. Marcellus turned pale. Drusus saw Calidius's friends whispering with him, evidently warning and remonstrating. Senators cast uneasy glances toward the doorways, as if expecting to see a century of legionaries march in to enforce the decrees of Pompeius's spokesmen. Marcellus staggered to his feet. He was cowed, and evidently felt himself in personal danger.
"Conscript Fathers," he stammered, "I—I withdraw my motion to delay action for considering the recall of Cæsar."
"You have done well!" shouted Lentulus, triumphing savagely. Scipio ostentatiously settled back on his seat, while Cato called with warning, yet exultation:—
"Take care what you do. Cæsar is the only sober man among all those engaged in the plot to overturn the government. Remember with whom you must deal, and act!"
Then Scipio arose once more. Every one knew that his fiat was law. "Conscript Fathers," he began, "Marcus Cato speaks well. Consider the power of Cæsar. He has trained up bands of gladiators whom his friends, both senators and knights, are drilling for him. He is doubling his soldiers' pay, giving them extra corn, slaves, attendants, and land grants. A great part of the Senate,—yes, Cicero even, they say,—owes him money, at low and favourable rates of interest; he has actually made presents to freedmen and influential slaves. All young prodigals in debt are in his pay. He has made presents to win the favour of cities and princes, or been lending them troops without vote of the Senate. In Italy, Gaul, and Spain,—yes, in Greece, too, and Asia, he is winning the good-will of communities by erecting splendid public buildings. So great is his present power! What he will do in a second consulship I dare not say. I dare not assign bounds to his ambition. Conscript Fathers, shall we vote ourselves freemen or slaves? What more can I add to the words of the consul? I vote to ratify the proposition of Lucius Lentulus, that Cæsar either disband his army on a fixed day, or be declared a public enemy!"
"And what is your opinion, Lucius Domitius?" demanded Lentulus, while never a voice was raised to oppose Scipio.
"Let the Senate remember," replied Domitius, "that Cæsar will justify the meaning of his name—the 'hard-hitter,' and let us strike the first and telling blow."
A ripple of applause swept down the Senate. The anti-Cæsarians had completely recovered from their first discomfiture, and were carrying all sentiment before them. Already there were cries of "A vote! a vote! Divide the Senate! A vote!"
"Conscript Fathers," said Lentulus, "in days of great emergency like this, when your minds seem so happily united in favour of doing that which is for the manifest safety of the Republic, I will not ask for the opinions of each senator in turn. Let the Senate divide; let all who favour the recall of the proconsul of the Gauls pass to the right, those against to the left. And so may it be well and prosperous for the Commonwealth."
But Antonius was again on his feet; and at his side stood Quintus Cassius.
"Lucius Lentulus," he thundered, "I forbid the division. Veto!"
"Veto!" shouted Cassius.
Domitius, too, had risen. "Conscript Fathers, let the consuls remonstrate with the tribunes to withdraw their prohibition. And, if they do not succeed, let them lay before the Senate that order which is the safeguard of the Republic."
Everybody knew what Domitius meant. If Antonius would not give way, martial law was to be declared. Hot and furious raged the debate. More and more passionate the expressions of party hatred. More and more menacing the gestures directed upon the two Cæsarian tribunes. But even the impetuous fierceness of Lentulus, Cato, Scipio, and Domitius combined could not drive the browbeaten Senate to cast loose from its last mooring that night. Domitius's measure went over. It was late—the stars were shining outside. Lamps had been brought in, and threw their ruddy glare over the long tiers of seats and their august occupants. Finally the angry debate ended, because it was a physical impossibility to continue longer. Senators went away with dark frowns or care-knit foreheads. Out in the Forum bands of young "Optimates" were shouting for Pompeius, and cursing Cæsar and his followers. Drusus, following Antonius, felt that he was the adherent of a lost cause, the member of a routed army that was defending its last stronghold, which overwhelming numbers must take, be the defence never so valiant. And when very late he lay down on his bed that night, the howls of the fashionable mob were still ringing in his ears.
That night the most old-fashioned and sober Roman went to bed at an advanced hour. Men were gathered in little knots along the streets, in the forums, in the porticos and basilicas, arguing, gesticulating, wrangling. Military tribunes and centurions in armour of Pompeius's legions were parading on the comitium.[142] Veterans of that leader were jostling about in the crowd, clanking their newly furbished armour and shouting for their old general. If a man spoke for Cæsar, a crowd of bystanders was ready to hoot him down. Staid householders locked up their dwellings and stationed trusty slaves at the doors to see that the crowds did not take to riot and pillage. The sailors from the wharves had been drinking heavily in all the taverns, and now roved up and down the crowded streets, seeking opportunity for brawls. Thieves and cutpurses were plying their most successful work; but no officials had time to direct the efforts of the harassed and slender police corps. To Pompeius's palace, without the gates, every man whose voice or vote seemed worth the winning had been summoned. All the senators had streamed out thither; and there the Magnus had brought them under the spell of his martial authority and made them as wax in his hand. And all "that majesty that doth hedge about a king," or about a victorious general, exerted its full influence. The senators came into the palace of Pompeius as into the palace of their despot. He stood before them in his largest hall, wearing the embroidered robe of a triumphator, with the laurel crown of his victories upon his head. At his right hand, as first vizir of his state, stood Lentulus Crus; at his left Lucius Domitius. The senators came to him and bowed low, and said their "Aves" and "Salves" as though cringing before a Mithridates or Tigranes of the East; and Pompeius, by the cordiality or coolness of his response, indicated which of his vassals had or had not fallen under his disfavour.
Yes, despotism had come at last for Rome. The oligarchy had by its corrupt incapacity made a tyranny inevitable. They could make choice of masters, but a master they must have. Many were the proud Fabii, Claudii, and Valerii present that night—men whose lines of curule ancestors were as long as the duration of the Republic—who ground their teeth with shame and inward rage the very moment they cried, "Salve, Magne!" Yet the recipient of all this adulation was in no enviable frame of mind. He looked harassed and weary, despite the splendour of his dress and crown. And many were the whispered conversations that passed between him and his ministers, or rather custodians, Lentulus and Domitius.
"Ah! poor Julia," sighed Pompeius, whose mind ever reverted to his dead wife, "what misery would have been yours if you had seen this day. Poor Julia; how I loved her; and Cæsar, her father, loved her too; and now—"
"Be yourself, Magnus," expostulated the consul at his side; "remember that for the good of the Republic every personal affection is to be put away. Recall Brutus, who put his own sons to death because they committed treason. Remember what Scipio Æmilianus said when he learned that Tiberius Gracchus, his dear brother-in-law, had been put to death for sedition. He quoted Homer's line:—
"'So perish all who do the like again!'"
"And must I trample down every tie, every affection?" complained wretched Pompeius, who never ceased hoping against hope that something would avert the catastrophe.
"There is no tie, no affection, Magnus," said Domitius, sternly, "that binds you to Cæsar. Cast his friendship from your breast as you would a viper. Think only of being justly hailed with Romulus, Camillus, and Marius as the fourth founder of Rome. Strike, and win immortal glory."
And so to the last hour these confederates wrought upon their supple instrument, and bent him to their will; and their tool in turn had all else at his mercy. Pompeius addressed the senators, and, well trained by his guardians, spoke with brutal frankness to those who had dared to advise moderation.
"You, Rufus," he said, pointing a menacing finger, before which that senator cowered in dread, "have been advising the Republic to tolerate the chief of its enemies. You bid me to disarm or withdraw from Italy, as though the lives and property of any good men would be safe the moment Cæsar was left unopposed to pour his cohorts of barbarous Gauls and Germans into the country. You, Calidius, have given the same untimely advice. Beware lest you repent the hour when you counselled that I should disarm or quit the neighbourhood of Rome." The two-edged suggestion contained in this last warning was too marked for the reproved men not to turn pale with dread, and slink away trembling behind their associates.
"But," continued Pompeius, "I have praise as well as blame; Marcus Cato has not deserted the Republic. He has advised, and advised well, that the proconsul of the Gauls be stripped of his legions." It was Cato's turn now to bite his lips with mortification, for in times past he had foretold that through Pompeius great miseries would come to the state, and in his prætorship had declared that Pompeius ought to go to his province, and not stay at home to stir up tumults and anarchy from which he could emerge as monarch. And such praise from the Magnus's lips, under the present circumstances, was gall and wormwood to his haughty soul.
"And," continued Pompeius, "I shall not forget to applaud the energetic counsels of Domitius and Lentulus Crus. Let those who wish to preserve life and property," he added, with a menacing significance, "see to it that they do as these gentlemen advise."
And thereupon there was a great shout of applause from all the more rabid senators, in which the rest thought it safer to join, with simulated heartiness. But Pompeius did not stop here. He brought before the senators tribunes from the two legions taken from Cæsar, and these tribunes loudly declaimed—having learned their lesson well—that their troops were ill-affected toward their former commander, and would follow Pompeius to the last. And the Magnus produced veteran officers of his old campaigns, whom hope of reward and promotion had induced to come and declare for their former commander. Late, very late, the informal session of the Senate broke up. The "Fathers of the Republic" went each man to his own dwelling; but there was no longer any doubt as to what was to come of the doings of the day.
Flaccus, the banker, had of course no access to the conference; but he had waited outside the gate of the palace, to learn the issue from an acquaintance in the Senate. His patience was at last rewarded.
"Tell me, friend," was his question, "what will be the outcome of this; shall I risk any loans to-morrow?"
The friendly senator seemed doubtful.
"Cæsar is a ruined man. Who imagines his legions will fight? We know Labienus is with Pompeius."
"You are wrong," said Flaccus.
"Wrong? I?" replied the senator. "I know whereof I speak."
"Phy!" cried the banker, "not Cæsar, but you are ruined. The legions will fight."
"Don't prophesy," sneered the acquaintance, "seeing that you brokers always keep out of politics."
"You politicians are blind," retorted Flaccus.
The debate raged on. But by law the Senate could not convene on the third and fourth of the month, and the question of setting aside the tribunician veto went over until the fifth. It was the last lull before the outbreak of the great tempest. The little group of Cæsarians put forth their final efforts. Drusus went in person to call on Cicero, the great orator, and plead with him to come out from his residence in the suburbs and argue for peace. The destroyer of Catilina had declared that he would not forfeit his rights to a triumph for his Cilician victories by appearing prematurely in the Senate. Besides, he could never antagonize Pompeius. Curio smiled grimly when his colleague reported his fruitless embassy.
"I think, my friends," said the politician, "we shall soon prove the old saying, 'Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.'"
The rapid march of events that week had taken Drusus out of himself, and made him forgetful of personal consequences; but it sobered him when he heard Curio and Cælius, his associates, telling Balbus where their wills would be found deposited if anything calamitous were to befall them. After all, life was very sweet to the young Livian. He could not at heart desire to drift off into nothingness—to stop breathing, thinking, feeling. And for the last time he reviewed his position; told himself that it was not an unworthy cause for which he was contending; that it was not treason, but patriotism, to wish to overthrow the great oligarchy of noble families, who by their federated influence had pulled the wires to every electoral assembly, so that hardly a man not of their own coterie had been elected to high office for many a long year; while the officials themselves had grown full and wanton on the revenues wrung from the score of unfortunate provinces.
The feeling against the Cæsarians was very bitter in the city. Cæsar had always been the friend and darling of the populace; but, now that his star seemed setting, hardly a voice was raised, save to cry up the patriotism and determination of the consuls and Pompeius Magnus. Soldiers of the latter's legions were everywhere. The Senate was to convene the afternoon of the seventh, in the Curia of Pompeius, in the Campus Martius. Lentulus Crus was dragging forth every obscure senator, every retired politician, whose feet almost touched the grave, to swell his majority. All knew that the tribunes' vetoes were to be set aside, and arbitrary power decreed to the consuls. Drusus began to realize that the personal peril was pressing.
"Won't his head look pretty for the crows to pick at?" commented Marcus Læca to a friend, as the two swept past Drusus on the street. The Livian heard the loudly muttered words and trembled. It was easy to laud the Decii who calmly sacrificed their lives for the Republic, and many another martyr to patriotism; it was quite another thing to feel the mortal fear of death coursing in one's veins, to reflect that soon perhaps the dogs might be tearing this body which guarded that strange thing one calls self; to reflect that all which soon will be left of one is a bleaching skull, fixed high in some public place, at which the heartless mob would point and gibber, saying, "That is the head of Quintus Livius Drusus, the rebel!"
Drusus wandered on—on to the only place in Rome where he could gain the moral courage to carry him undaunted through that which was before him—to the Atrium of Vesta. He entered the house of the Vestals and sent for his aunt. Fabia came quickly enough, for her heart had been with her nephew all these days that tried men's souls. The noble woman put her arms around the youth—for he was still hardly more—and pressed him to her breast.
"Aunt Fabia," said Drusus, growing very weak and pale, now that he felt her warm, loving caress, "do you know that in two or three days you will have as nephew a proscribed insurgent, perhaps with a price on his head, who perhaps is speedily to die by the executioner, like the most ignoble felon?"
"Yes," said Fabia, also very pale, yet smiling with a sweet, grave smile—the smile of a goddess who grieves at the miseries of mortal men, yet with divine omniscience glances beyond, and sees the happiness evolved from pain. "Yes, I have heard of all that is passing in the Senate. And I know, too, that my Quintus will prove himself a Fabian and a Livian, to whom the right cause and the good of the Republic are all—and the fear of shame and death is nothing." And then she sat down with him upon a couch, and took his head in her lap, and stroked him as if she were his mother. "Ah! my Quintus," she said, "you are still very young, and it is easy for one like you to enlist with all your ardour in a cause that seems righteous; yes, and in the heat of the moment to make any sacrifice for it; but it is not so easy for you or any other man calmly to face shame and annihilation, when the actual shadow of danger can be seen creeping up hour by hour. I know that neither you nor many another man wise and good believes that there are any gods. And I—I am only a silly old woman, with little or no wisdom and wit—"
"Not silly and not old, carissima!" interrupted Drusus, smiling at her self-depreciation.
"We won't argue," said Fabia, in a bit lighter vein. "But—as I would say—I believe in gods, and that they order all things well."
"Why, then," protested the young man, "do we suffer wrong or grief? If gods there are, they are indifferent; or, far worse, malevolent, who love to work us woe."
Again Fabia shook her head.
"If we were gods," said she, "we would all be wise, and could see the good to come out of every seeming evil. There! I am, as I said, silly and old, and little enough comfort can words of mine bring a bright young man whose head is crammed with all the learned lore of the schools of Athens. But know this, Quintus, so long as I live, you shall live in my heart—living or dead though you be. And believe me, the pleasure of life is but a very little thing; it is sweet, but how quickly it passes! And the curses or praises of men—these, too, only a few mouldy rolls of books keep for decay! What profits it to Miltiades this hour, that a few marks on a papyrus sheet ascribe to him renown; or how much is the joy of Sextus Tarquinius darkened because a group of other marks cast reproach upon his name? If so be death is a sleep, how much better to feel at the end, 'I die, but I die self-approved, and justified by self!' And if death is not all a sleep; if, as Socrates tells us, there are hopes that we but pass from a base life to another with less of dross, then how do pleasures and glories, griefs and dishonours, of this present life touch upon a man whose happiness or woe will be found all within?"
And so the good woman talked, giving to Drusus her own pure faith and hope and courage; and when the intellectual philosopher within him revolted at some of her simple premises and guileless sophistries, against his will he was persuaded by them, and was fain to own to himself that the heart of a good woman is past finding out; that its impulses are more genuine, its intuitions truer, its promptings surer, than all the fine-spun intellectuality of the most subtle metaphysician. When at last Drusus rose to leave his aunt, his face was glowing with a healthy colour, his step was elastic, his voice resonant with a noble courage. Fabia embraced him again and again. "Remember, whatever befalls," were her parting words, "I shall still love you." And when Drusus went out of the house he saw the dignified figure of the Vestal gazing after him. A few minutes later he passed no less a personage than the consular Lucius Domitius on his way to some political conference. He did not know what that dignitary muttered as he swept past in spotless toga, but the gloomy ferocity of his brow needed no interpreter. Drusus, however, never for a moment gave himself disquietude. He was fortified for the best and the worst, not by any dumb resignation, not by any cant of philosophy, but by an inward monitor which told him that some power in some way would lead him forth out of all dangers in a manner whereof man could neither ask nor think.
On the sixth of January the debate, as already said, drew toward its end. All measures of conciliation had been voted down; the crisis was close at hand. On the seventh, after his interview with Fabia, Drusus went back to his own lodgings, made a few revisions in his will, and in the presence of two or three friends declared Cappadox manumitted,[143] lest he, by some chance, fall into the clutches of a brutal master. The young man next wrote a long letter to Cornelia for Agias to forward to Baiæ, and put in it such hope as he could glean from the dark words of the philosophers; that even if destruction now overtook him, death perhaps did not end all; that perhaps they would meet beyond the grave. Then he took leave of his weeping freedmen and slaves, and strolled out into the city, and wandered about the Forum and the Sacred Way, to enjoy, perchance, a last view of the sites that were to the Roman so dear. Then finally he turned toward the Campus Martius, and was strolling down under the long marble-paved colonnade of the Portico of Pompeius. Lost in a deep reverie, he was forgetful of all present events, until he was roused by a quick twitch at the elbow; he looked around and found Agias before him.
"A! domine," cried the young Greek, "I have friends in the house of Lentulus. I have just been told by them that the consul has sworn that he will begin to play Sulla this very day. Neither you, nor Antonius, Cassius, Curio, nor the other supporters of Cæsar will be alive to-night. Do not go into the Curia. Get away, quickly! Warn your friends, and leave Rome, or to-night you will all be strangled in the Tullianum!"
The Tullianum! Drusus knew no other term to conjure up a like abode of horrors—the ancient prison of the city, a mere chamber sunk in the ground, and beneath that a dungeon, accessible only by an opening in the floor above—where the luckless Jugurtha had perished of cold and starvation, and where Lentulus Sura, Cethegus, and the other lieutenants of Catilina had been garroted, in defiance of all their legal rights, by the arbitrary decree of a rancorous Senate! So at last the danger had come! Drusus felt himself quiver at every fibre. He endured a sensation the like of which he had never felt before—one of utter moral faintness. But he steadied himself quickly. Shame at his own recurring cowardice overmastered him. "I am an unworthy Livian, indeed," he muttered, not perhaps realizing that it is far more heroic consciously to confront and receive the full terrors of a peril, and put them by, than to have them harmlessly roll off on some self-acting mental armour.
"Escape! There is yet time!" urged Agias, pulling his toga. Drusus shook his head.
"Not until the Senate has set aside the veto of the tribunes," he replied quietly.
"But the danger will then be imminent!"
"A good soldier does not leave his post, my excellent Agias," said the Roman, "until duty orders him away. Our duty is in the Senate until we can by our presence and voice do no more. When that task is over, we go to Cæsar as fast as horse may bear us; but not until then."
"Then I have warned you all in vain!" cried Agias.
"Not at all. You may still be of the greatest service. Arrange so that we can leave Rome the instant we quit the Curia."