The Count’s difficulties did not seem to diminish as the year advanced. Money grew scarcer and scarcer, till it was only by pledging his personal credit to the merchants of Londinium and other towns in Britain that he was able to find the pay for the crews of his little squadron. His credit happily was still good, a character of twenty years without a single suspicion on his integrity standing him in good stead. Then a disaster happened to one of the few ships that he had retained. After a fierce encounter with a Saxon galley, in which its crew had been much weakened, it had been caught in a storm and driven on the deadly western shore of the island, still dreaded under the name of the Needles by those who navigate the Channel. The ship became a complete wreck and only a small portion of the crew escaped with their lives, all the disabled men being lost.
But the Count’s chief perplexities were within [pg 246]rather than without. For more than twenty years he had yielded an unquestioning obedience to the authorities at home. It is true that very little had been demanded of him. He had been given a free hand, and left to do his duty with very little interference, if with very little help. But now in the news of Stilicho’s death his loyalty had received a tremendous shock. How was he to bear himself to a ruler who was capable of committing so great a crime? True, he knew enough of the Emperor to be sure that he was only a tool in the hands of others, but this did not make the matter one whit better. Such tools are often more mischievous than men who are actively wicked. What then was he to do? Should he join the usurper Constantine, of whose astonishing success in Gaul and Spain he had heard the most glowing reports? His pride forbad it—an Ælius doing homage to a man who but twelve months before had been a private soldier! The thought was impossible. Should he retire into private life? But would not that be to shirk his duty, not to mention the fact that to retire is the one thing which in troubled times a man in a conspicuous position cannot do. One thing, indeed, was evident—that a decision would have to be made speedily. His position was rapidly becoming untenable, and he would have to make up his mind, without much delay, as to the best way of getting out of it. In the end [pg 247]it happened to him as it happens to so many of us, that his mind was made up for him.
One day, towards the end of August, he was about to seek in a day’s sport a little relief from his many cares. It was still about four hours to noon, and he was sitting under a cherry tree (one of his own planting) in the villa garden, and sharing a slight meal of milk and wheaten cakes with his daughter and Carna, both of whom he had persuaded to accompany him. A young Briton stood by holding in a leash a couple of dogs very much like the greyhounds of our own times; another carried a bow and a quiver; a third had a game bag of leather, with a netted front, slung across his shoulders.
The sailing-master of one of the galleys approached and saluted.
“There is a galley,” he said, “coming up the Haven, and I thought that you should know at once, since it seems to have something of importance on board.”
“What makes you think so?” said the Count.
“I have been watching it for the last hour,” said the man. “At first I thought it was a little trading vessel; but I noticed that as soon as it entered the Haven it hoisted the Labarum.”53
“The Labarum!” exclaimed the Count; “I have [pg 248]not seen that flying from any mast but my own for a year past. Well, that ought to mean something.”
It was the etiquette to go as far as was possible to meet an Imperial messenger, just as a host receives a very distinguished guest on his door-step, and the Count, after hastily exchanging his hunting-dress for a toga, went to the little pier at which the galley would land its passenger. He had not to wait many minutes before it arrived, and a handsome young man, with a short military cloak over his traveller’s dress, leapt lightly ashore. The Count saluted. The stranger, who was for a time the representative of the Emperor, received the greeting with the dignified gesture of a superior.
“Do I address Lucius Ælius, Count of the Saxon Shore?” he asked.
“I am he,” the Count briefly replied.
“I bring the commands of Augustus,” said the messenger, producing from a pocket in his tunic a vellum roll, bound with a broad purple cord, and bearing the Imperial seal.
The Count received the missive with a profound inclination, and put it to his lips. At the same time the messenger uncovered, and changed his haughty demeanour for the behaviour usual to a young officer in the presence of his superior.
“It will be more respectful and more convenient to read his Majesty’s gracious communication in [pg 249]private. Will you please come with me to my house?”
He led the way to the villa, and introduced the visitor into the little room which he used for the transaction of business. He then cut with his dagger the purple cord which fastened the package containing the despatch, and, after again putting the document to his lips, proceeded to read it. Its contents were seemingly not agreeable, for his face darkened as he went on. He made no remark, however, beyond simply asking the messenger—
“May I presume that you have a general acquaintance with the contents of this document?”
“I have,” replied the young man.
“Then you will know that the answer is not one which can be given in a moment. But,” and he went on with a rapid change of voice and manner, “cras seria.54 I was just on the point of going out for a few hours’ hunting when your arrival was announced. Will you come with me? I have nothing very great to show you, though we have some big game here too, if we had time to look for it, but if you will condescend to anything so small as hare-hunting, I can show you some sport.”
The Imperial messenger was an Italian of the north of the Peninsula, who had been fond of fol[pg 250]lowing the chase on the slopes of the Apennines before chance had made him a courtier. He accepted the invitation with pleasure, and the party made the best of their way to the high ground now known as Arreton Downs.
“Ah!” said the Count, as he pointed northward to where the great Anderida Forest55 might be seen stretching far beyond the range of sight, “there is the place for sport; a wilder country I have never seen, no, nor finer game. There are wild boars of which I have never seen the like in Italy, no, nor in the Hercynian Wood56 itself, where I used to hunt years ago. Last year I killed one which measured six feet from snout to tail. There are wolves, too, and bears, and wild oxen; splendid fellows these last, as fierce as lions, and almost as big as elephants. But to-day we must be content with humbler sport.”
This humbler game, however, afforded plenty of amusement, and they returned with a bag of eight fine hares—a very fair burden for the carrier of the game-bag—and an excellent appetite for dinner.
The meal, to which the Count had invited the captains of his galleys and the principal persons in [pg 251]the little colony which was now gathered about the villa, passed off very well. The young Italian was loud in his praises of everything. “Your oysters,” he said, “all the world knows, but some of your other dishes are a surprise. The turbot, for instance, how incomparably superior to the flabby and tasteless things which they bring us from our own coasts. The colder water of the seas is, I suppose, the cause. The hares, too, how fine and fleshy! You seem to be amazingly well off in the way of food in this corner of the world.”
“Ah!” said the Count, with a sigh, “we should do very well, if the rest of the world would only leave us alone. But our neighbours cannot be content without a share of some of our good things, and they have a very rough and disagreeable way of asking for it.”
The speaker went on to draw for the benefit of his guest a vivid picture of the trouble which the Saxons were giving by sea and the Picts by land, till the Italian exclaimed—
“Ah! I see that you too have your disagreeables. I began to think that this was a land of peace and plenty, where one might find a pleasant refuge. But these barbarians, in one shape or another, are everywhere. We are fallen upon evil times indeed.”
“Yes,” said the Count, “evil times, and no one knows how to deal with them; and if God does [pg 252]send us a capable man, we treat him as if he were an enemy.”
When the tables had been cleared, the Count rose and proposed the toast of the Emperor’s health; but he did this without a single word of compliment, a significant omission that did not fail to attract the attention of all who were present. He then proceeded, and again without any preface, to read to the company the despatch which had been put into his hands the day before. It ran thus:
“Flavius Honorius Augustus to the faithful and valiant Lucius Ælius, Count of the Saxon Shore, greeting.
“Our Imperial care for the dominions, which by Divine Providence have been committed to our trust, bids us combine the safety of the seat of our government with the welfare of the provinces. For, seeing that these are mutually related, as are the head and the limbs in the body of man, it is manifest that neither can prosper without the other. Our well-beloved and faithful province of Britain has now for many generations been protected by our invincible legions and fleets. But even as there comes a time when the most careful fathers judge it to be not only needless but even harmful to keep their children in dependence upon themselves, so do we now judge that our province may now with great advantage, not only to us—for of this we think little—but also to itself, defend itself [pg 253]with its own resources. We charge you, therefore, our well-beloved and faithful Ælius, as having supreme command of the fleets of the said province of Britain, to withdraw them as soon as you conveniently may, but not without leaving our loyal subjects the assurance of our fatherly love and of the unfailing protection of our majesty. The Ever-Blessed Trinity keep and prosper both you and all that are committed to your charge. Given at Ravenna, the twelfth day before the Kalends of August,57 in the year of our Lord 408, and the fifteenth year of our reign.”
The reading of the despatch was followed by a dead silence. Every one had felt for some time that the present state of affairs could not last. Only a man of the vigorous character of the Count, and having long years of excellent service to fall back upon, could have maintained it so long, but it was impossible not to see that it must soon end. A solitary commander, without resources or support, could not maintain himself on the remotest borders of the Empire. Yet to know that the moment for the change had come was disturbing. The fleet, reduced as it had been to a petty squadron, was still, while it remained, the symbol of Imperial power, and seemed to be worth more in the way of protection than [pg 254]it really was. When this was withdrawn, Britain would be really left to itself; and this prospect, however it might be regarded elsewhere, was not agreeable to any one of the Count’s guests.
The Count was the first to break the silence. “This,” he said, “is manifestly a matter that calls for serious thought. Let us postpone it till to-morrow, and for the present turn ourselves to matters more suitable for a festive occasion. Perhaps my friend Claudian will give us the recitation of something with which he has already charmed the ears of our fellow-countrymen elsewhere.”
The poet, not more reluctant than his brother-countryman to exhibit his genius, at once signified his willingness to comply with this request, and gave a recitation from an unfinished poem which he had then in hand. We may give a specimen, put into the best English that we can command—
The next morning the Count invited the Imperial messenger to a private conference. His daughter and Carna were present, as was also Claudian.
“You have the latest news,” the Count began. “Pray let us have them. Here we know nothing. But tell us first how you got here. It was noticed that you did not hoist the standard till you were within the Haven. You did not, I suppose, think it a safe flag to sail under.”
“Well,” replied the messenger, “I thought it better to have no flag at all. But, to tell the truth, the Labarum is not just now exactly the best passport in the world.”
“You crossed from Gaul, I suppose?” the Count went on. “How are matters there?”
“Constantine, with the legions he brought from here, and those that have joined him since, is pretty well master of the country, and of Spain too.”
[pg 257]“And what is the Emperor doing? Did he let these provinces go without a struggle? Spain was the first province that Rome ever had, and Gaul was the second. None, I take it, have been so steadily profitable, and now we are to lose them.”
He rose from his seat, and walked up and down the room in an agitation which he could not conceal.
“And the only man who could keep the Empire together is gone; butchered, as if he were a criminal!”
The messenger said nothing to this outburst. He went on, “I believe his Majesty proposes to admit Constantine to a share of the Imperial honours, to make him Cæsar of Gaul and Spain.”
“What!” said the Count. “Do not my ears deceive me? This fellow, whom I have seen wearing the collar for the neglect of duty, recognized as his colleague by Augustus!”59
“I do not pretend to know his Majesty’s purposes, I can only say what is reported at head-quarters, and, it would seem, on good authority. But,” continued the speaker, in a voice from which he had studiously banished all kind of emphasis, and looking as he spoke at the ceiling of the room, “your lordship is aware that the honours thus unexpectedly bestowed do not always turn out to the advantage of those who receive them.”
[pg 258]“What do you mean?” asked the Count.
“I mean that what is given may be taken away—and taken away with very handsome interest for the loan—when the proper time comes. Your lordship has not forgotten the name of Carausius.”60
“Well,” said the Count, “this is not the old way Rome had of dealing with her enemies. But, ‘other times, other manners.’ Tell me now, if the Augustus has arranged or is going to arrange with Constantine, what about Alaric?”
“Oh! he will be quiet for a time, or should be, if there is any truth in a barbarian’s oath. You have heard how he marched on Rome?”
“No, indeed,” replied the Count. “I have heard nothing here, except, quite early in the year, a vague rumour that he was on the move again. But tell me—has Augustus given him, too, a share in the Empire?”
“Not exactly; but I will tell what has taken place. He marched on Rome.”
[pg 259]“Yes,” interjected the Count, “and there was no Stilicho to save it!”
“The city was almost helpless. Even the walls had not been kept in repair, and if they had, there was no proper force to man them. The only thing possible was to make peace on the best terms that they could. I happened to be in Alaric’s camp with a letter, under a flag of truce, the very day that the ambassadors came out to treat with the king, and I saw the whole affair. I don’t mind saying that it was not one to make a man feel proud of being a Roman. The barbarians, it seemed to me, had not only all the strength on their side, but the dignity also. Alaric himself is a splendid specimen of humanity, every inch a king, the tallest and handsomest man in his army, and that, too, an army of giants. It was a contrast, I can tell you, between him and the two miserable, pettifogging creatures that represented the Senate. At first they tried what a little brag could do. ‘Give us an honourable peace,’ said their spokesman, ‘or you will repent of having driven to despair a nation of warriors, a nation that has conquered the world.’ The king laughed; he knew what the Romans have come to. ‘The thicker the hay,’ he said, ‘the easier to mow.’ And then he fixed the ransom that he would take for retiring from before the walls. Brennus throwing his sword into the scales was moderation in comparison to him. ‘Give [pg 260]me,’ he said, ‘all the gold and silver, coined or uncoined, private property or public that you have, and all the other property that the envoys whom I shall send think worth taking; and hand over to me all the slaves that you have of the nations of the North, Goths, or Huns, or Vandals. You are pleased to call them barbarians, but they are more fit to be masters than you; and I will not suffer them to be in a bondage so unworthy. Your Greeks, and Africans, and Asiatics, and such like cattle you may keep.’ The ambassadors were pale with dismay. If they had taken back such an answer, the Romans had at least enough spirit left to tear them in pieces. ‘What do you leave us, then?’ they said. ‘Your lives!’ he thundered out. In the end, however, he softened somewhat. Five thousand pounds of gold and thirty thousand pounds of silver, and I don’t know how much silk, and cloth, and spices, were what he finally asked. I know the city was stripped pretty bare before the Senate could make up the sum. I am told that the treasuries of the churches had to be emptied. Well, as I said, Alaric, if he keeps his bargain, ought to be quiet for a time, but you will see that the Emperor has need of all his friends round him, and all the strength which he can bring together. That is what I have to say by way of explanation of the despatch that I brought.”
“May I ask you to leave us for a while?” said the Count to the young Italian.
[pg 261]When he had left the room the Count turned to his daughter, and said—
“And this is our country! This is Rome! The Emperor, forsooth, has need of all his friends. His friends indeed! I little thought that the day would come when I should feel ashamed of the title. But tell me, daughter; what shall we do? Shall we go?”
“What else can we do?” asked the girl.
“I have thought much about the matter since I heard the dreadful news of Stilicho’s death, and have had all kinds of wild schemes in my head. I have felt that I could not go back and touch in friendship the hands that murdered him. Sometimes I thought, while Cedric was here, that we would take him with us, and sail eastward. I have had many a hard fight with these Saxons, but at least they are men, and brave men, too, who are true to their friends, if they hate their enemies. But that is now at an end. But is there no other way to go? What say you, Claudian—have you any counsel to give us?”
“I would not advise you to sail eastward,” said the poet. “We know pretty well what lies that way; tribes of barbarians, of whom the less we see the better, with all respect to your friend Cedric, who seems to have been a fine fellow. But why not westward? You will laugh at me for believing in the Islands of the Blest. Well, I do not mean to say that there is [pg 262]a country where Achilles and the rest of the heroes are living in immortal joy and peace. If there is, it is not one which any ship, built by the art of man, can reach. But I do believe that there is a country. These old tales, depend upon it, have something more in them than mere fancy. Why, my lord, should not you be the one to find it?”
“Yes, let us go, dear father,” said Ælia, “and leave this dreadful world with all its troubles and quarrels behind us. Don’t you think so, Carna?”
Carna only smiled sadly.
“Or,” continued the poet, “there is the land beyond the north, the country of the blessed Hyperboreans, that old Herodotus talks about. Why should we not go there? Or, if that sounds too wild, there is Africa, with regions rich and fertile beyond all doubt that are waiting to be explored. These at least are no matter of legend. We know where they are. Let us search for them. Whatever world we may find, it can hardly be worse than that which we are leaving behind.”
“And what says Carna?” said the Count, turning, with an affectionate look, to his adopted daughter.
The girl thus appealed to flushed painfully. For a moment she seemed about to speak, but not a syllable passed her lips.
“Speak,” cried the Count; “you always see clearer and farther than the rest of us.”
[pg 263]“My father,” the girl went on, “I will speak from my heart, as I know you always wish me to do. Forgive me if I seem to teach when it is my part to learn and to obey. But, if you ask what I think you should do, I say, ‘Go home to Rome or Ravenna, or wherever else the Emperor bids you.’ After all, it is your country, and it never needed the help of good and brave men more than it does now.”
“By heaven! Claudian,” cried the Count, after a brief silence, “the girl is right, as she always is. These are not the times for an honest man to turn his back upon his country. If I could reach the Islands of the Blest, or the happy people who live beyond the north, as easily as I can walk across this room, I would not do it; and after all, what is the world without Rome to a Roman? What say you, Claudian?”
“I am but a poor singer, who has lost all that made him sing. I could do little in any case, and I doubt whether those who killed Stilicho will have anything but the axe for Stilicho’s friend. Still, I go with you. It is not for a Roman to say that Rome is unworthy.”
“So that is settled,” exclaimed the Count.
“Oh, Carna,” cried Ælia, throwing her arms round her sister, “shall we ever be as happy again as we have been in this dear place?”
Carna clung to her, and sobbed as if her heart would break.
[pg 264]“Does it trouble you so much to go?” asked the Count. “Surely the place is not so much to you. You can be happy, wherever you may be, with those you love.”
The girl lifted up a tear-stained face to him.
“Father,” she said—“more than father, for you have loved me without any tie of kindred—I cannot go, my home is here.”
“Nay, child, what are you saying? Your home has been with us ever since you were a babe in arms, and it is so still; or,” he added, with a smile, “are you going to leave us for a husband?”
The girl blushed crimson as she shook her head. When she could recover her speech, choked, as it was, with sobs, she said—
“You asked me just now what you should do, and I said ‘Go home to your country.’ Can I do less myself? Rome is your country, and Britain is mine. And oh, if Rome wants all her sons and daughters, how much more does this poor Britain!”
“But where will you live?” broke in the Count’s daughter; “Where will you be safe? Think of the dreadful things you have gone through within the last few months! How can you bear to face them with your friends gone? And, dearest Carna,” she went on, as she clasped her still closer, “how can I live without you?”
“My dearest sister,” sobbed the girl, “don’t make [pg 265]it harder than it is. It breaks my heart to part from you, but I cannot doubt what my duty is. And I am not without hope. There are brave men here, and men who love their country, and I cannot but trust that they will be able to do something. Of course, we shall stumble, for we have not been used to go alone, but I do hope that we shall not fall altogether.”
“But, Carna, what can you do?” said Ælia. “You seem to be sacrificing yourself for nothing.”
“Not for nothing; it is something if I can only sit at home and pray. But it must be at home that I must pray. God would not hear me if I were to put myself in some safe, comfortable place, and then pretend to care for the poor people whom I had left behind.”
She hurried from the room when she had said this, as if she could not trust herself against persuasions that touched her heart so nearly.
“Carna is right,” said the Count, when she had gone, “but I feel as if she were going to her death.”
The resolution to return to Italy once made, the Count lost no time in carrying it out. His own preparations for departure did not cost him much trouble. He began by offering freedom to all the slaves in his household. The difficulty was in inducing them to accept it. So kind a master had he been—in spite of an occasional outburst of temper—and so uncertain were the prospects of a quiet life in Britain, that very few felt any eagerness to be independent, and the boon had to be forced upon them or made acceptable by a considerable bribe. With the free population that since the departure of the legions had gathered in increasing numbers about the villa it was still more difficult to deal. Many of them were quite helpless people whom it seemed equally difficult to take and to leave behind. To all that were of Italian birth, or that had kinsfolk or friends on the Continent who might be reasonably expected to give [pg 267]them a home, the Count offered a passage. For others employment was found in Londinium and other towns. But, when all that was possible had been done, there was a helpless remnant, about whom the Count felt much as the occupants of the last boat must feel at the sight of the poor creatures whom they are forced to leave behind on a sinking ship.
Carna had quitted the villa very soon after her resolution to remain in Britain had been made. It was indeed too painful to remain there, for, though the Count had confessed that she was right, his daughter remained unconvinced, and assailed her with incessant entreaties and reproaches which went very near to breaking her heart. She made her home with the old priest whose wife was a distant kinswoman of her own, and found, as such tender hearts always will, a solace for her own sorrows in relieving the troubles of others.
About the middle of September all was ready for a start. The two serviceable ships that were left to the Count were loaded to their utmost capacity with the persons and property of the departing colony. Their sailing masters had indeed remonstrated as strongly as they dared.
“We may get safely across,” said the senior of them, “if all goes better than we have any right to expect. But if it comes on to blow we shall hardly be able to handle our ships; and if we meet with the [pg 268]pirates—well, a man might as well go into battle with his hands tied.”
The Count refused to listen to these protests. Even the suggestion that the cargo should be divided, and part left for a second voyage he scouted, “It will not do,” he said, “the poor people would fancy they were being left behind, and I am not at all sure that they would not be right. It is only too likely that if we once get to the other side we should not come back. No! we will sink or swim together.”
About an hour before noon on the fifteenth of the month, the crews were ready to weigh anchor. The Count and his daughter, who had just taken their last view of the villa which had been their home for so many years, were standing on the little jetty, ready to step into the boat that was to convey them to the ship. Carna and the old priest and his wife were with them, and the hour of farewell had come. Ælia, if she had not reconciled herself to separation from her sister, at least saw that it was inevitable, and was resolved not to make the parting bitterer than it must needs be. She affected a cheerfulness which she did not feel.
“Good-bye, Carna,” she cried, throwing her arms round the girl’s neck. “Good-bye! now we are going like swallows in the autumn, and very likely shall come back like them in the spring. Meanwhile keep the nest as warm for us as you can.”
[pg 269]“Remember, Carna,” said the Count, “that you have a home as long as either I or my daughter have a roof over our heads. You are doing your duty in staying, but there is a limit even to duty. As long as you can be of service, stop; I would not have it otherwise; but don’t sacrifice yourself and those that love you for nothing.”
Carna’s heart was too full to let her speak. She caught the Count’s hands and kissed them. Then she turned to Ælia, and taking her gold cross and chain—the only ornament that she wore—hung it round her sister’s neck. When she had succeeded in choking down her sobs, she whispered, “Take this, and, if you will give me yours, we will bear each other’s crosses, and, perhaps, they will be a little lighter. But oh, how heavy!”
“Kneel, my children,” said the old priest, and the little group knelt down, while the rowers in the boat uncovered their heads. After repeating the paternoster and a few simple words of prayer, he raised his hand and blessed them, then fell on his knees beside them. After two or three minutes of silent supplication the Count rose, and almost lifted his daughter into the boat, so broken down was she with the passion of her grief. Carna remained on her knees, her face buried in her hands. To have looked up and seen father and sister go was more than she dared to do. For the struggle that she fancied was [pg 270]over had begun again in her heart, and she could not feel sure even then that duty would prevail. The Count gently laid his hand upon her head and blessed her, then stepped into the boat. As the rowers dipped their oars in the water, a gleam of sunshine burst through the clouds, and lighted as with a glory the head of the kneeling girl.