Under the porch of one of the most luxurious houses in Rome, two men jostled in the dubious light of early morning. Exclamations of impatience were succeeded by a mutual recognition, and a hearty laugh, as Damasippus and Oarses, freedmen and staunch clients of Julius Placidus, recognised each other’s eagerness to pay court to their joint patron. They had risen from their beds while it was yet dark, and hurried hither in order to be the first to salute the tribune at his morning levée. Yet they found the great hall filling already with a bustling crowd of friends, retainers, clients, and dependants. Damasippus was a short, square, beetle-browed man, with a villainous leer; Oarses, a pale, sedate, and somewhat precise personage. But with this marked difference of exterior, an expression of unscrupulous and thorough-paced knavery was common to both. Said Damasippus to Oarses, with a shrug of affected disgust—
“It may be hours yet ere he will see us! Look at this wretched crowd of parasites and flatterers! They will follow the patron to his bath! They will besiege him in his very bed! Oh, my friend! Rome is no longer the place for an honest man.”
To which Oarses replied, in subdued and humble tones—
“The flies gather round the honey, though it is only for what they can get. But the sincerest gratitude and affection draw you and me, my dear companion, to the side of the illustrious tribune.”
“You speak truth,” returned Damasippus. “It is sad to see how few clients are uninfluenced by mean and sordid thoughts. An honest man is becoming as rare at Rome as at Athens. It was not so in the days of the republic—in the golden age—in the good old times!”
“Oh for the good old times!” exclaimed Oarses, still in the same low and unmoved voice.
“Oh for the good old times!” echoed Damasippus; and [pg 72]the two knaves, with their arms on each other’s shoulders, fell to pacing the extremity of the hall, and exchanging spiteful remarks on the concourse with which it was filled.
The tribune’s house was the most perfect of its kind in the whole city. Standing apart and surrounded by a wall and garden of its own, it combined the luxurious splendour of a palace with the comfort and seclusion of a private residence. Everything of ornament that was most costly and gorgeous, had been procured by Placidus to decorate his mansion. Everything of art that was most conspicuous and effective hung on his walls, stood in picturesque groups about his apartments, or lay scattered in rich profusion on his floor. The hangings that veiled his own sleeping-room from the public eye, were of embroidered crimson silk, woven in the looms of Asia, and probably taken by the strong hand of the successful soldier as spoils of war. The very pavement of the hall was of the richest mosaic, traced in fanciful patterns and inlaid with gold. As the morning drew on, it was trodden by a multitude of feet. No one of his rank held so numerous a levée as Julius Placidus. In the concourse that thronged it now, might be seen men of all countries, classes, characters, professions, and denominations. Unlike Licinius, who, indeed, owed his influence solely to the firm consistency and unbending rectitude of his character, the tribune let no opportunity pass of binding an additional partisan to his cause by the ties of self-interest and expectation. They were crowding in now through the wide open doors; and while the spacious hall was nearly filled, the approach to it, and the street itself outside, were choked with applicants, who had one and all, directly or indirectly, something to get, or ask, or hope for, from the tribune. Here, an artist brought his picture carefully draped in the remains of an old garment; yet not so entirely concealed but that a varnished corner might be visible, and the painter, nothing loth, might be prevailed on by earnest solicitations to reveal, bit by bit, all the beauties of his production. There, a sculptor was diligently preserving the outlines of his model, wrapped in its wet cloth, from collision with the bystanders, and assuming credit for the mysterious beauties of a work, which, perhaps, if uncovered, would have grievously disappointed the eyes that scanned it so curiously. In one corner stood a jeweller, holding in his hand a gorgeous collar of pearls and rubies, prepared by the patrician’s orders, and testifying at once to the ingenuity of the tradesman, [pg 73]and the munificence of his employer. In another, waited a common-looking slave, with a downcast eye and a bloated unwholesome face; who, nevertheless, assumed an important air that seemed to say he was sure of an early audience, as, indeed, was more than probable in consideration of his tidings, a message from venal beauty to the admirer who paid his welcome tribute in gold. Parasites and flatterers elbowed their way insolently in the midst, as though they had a right to be there, whilst honest men, brown with toil, and sighing wistfully for the fresh breezes of Tibur or Præneste, kept aloof, abashed and shrinking, though they had but come to ask for their due. Nearest the hangings that concealed the bedroom, stood a dirty slave, bespattered with the filth of the fish-market, and exhaling an odour of garlic that cleared for him an ample breathing-space even in a Roman crowd; but the knave knew the value of his intelligence, and how it would obtain him favour in the tribune’s eyes. No less important a communication than this, that a mullet had been taken the night before of nearly six pounds weight, and that so lavish a patron as Placidus should have the first offer to purchase at a thousand sesterces7 a pound. He waited with his eyes intently fastened on the curtains, and took no notice of the jabber and confusion that pervaded the hall.
Presently the crowd gave way a little, ebbing backward on either side, and forming a lane as it were for three men, who were regarded as they passed with glances of great awe and admiration. There was no mistaking the deep chest and broad shoulders of one of these, even apart from the loud frank voice in which Hirpinus the gladiator was wont to convey his observations, without much respect for persons. He was accompanied, on the present occasion, by two individuals, obviously of the same profession as himself—Hippias the fencing-master, and Euchenor the boxer. All three conversed and laughed boisterously. It was obvious that even at that early hour they had not broken their fast without a generous draught of wine.
“Talk not to me,” said Hirpinus, rolling his strong shoulders, and observing with great complacency the attention he excited—“talk not to me: I have seen them all—Dacians, Gauls, Cimbrians, Ethiopians, every barbarian that ever put on a breastplate. By Hercules, they were fools to this lad. Why, the big yellow-haired German, whom Cæsar [pg 74]gave us for the lion last summer, would not have stood up to him for a quarter of an hour. He was taller, maybe, a little, but he hadn’t the shape, man—he hadn’t the shape! You’ll hardly call me a kid that hasn’t put his horns out, will ye? Well, he gave me so much to do with the cestus, that I wouldn’t have taken it off for a flagon of cheap wine, I tell ye. What think ye of that, my little Greek? You don’t call it so bad for a beginner, I hope?”
He turned to Euchenor as he spoke, a beautifully-made young man, of extraordinary strength and symmetry, with the regular chiseled features of his country, and as evil an expression as ever lowered on a fair face. The Greek pondered awhile before he answered. Then he made the apposite inquiry—
“Were you sober, Hirpinus, when you stood up to him? or had you sucked down a skinful of wine, before you took your bellyful of boxing?”
The other burst into a loud laugh.
“Drunk or sober,” said he, “you know the stuff I am made of, just as well as I know your weight to an ounce, and your reach to an inch. Ay, and your mettle too, my lad! though it don’t take a six-foot rod to get to the bottom of that. Harkye, this Briton of mine would eat such a man as you, body and bones and all, just as I would eat a thrush, and be ready for another directly, without so much as washing his mouth out.”
A very sinister scowl passed across Euchenor’s face, who did not quite relish this low valuation of his prowess, and, above all, his courage; but he was a professional boxer, and, as such, necessarily possessed thorough command of temper, so he only glanced a little scornfully over the other’s frame, which was getting somewhat into flesh, and observed—
“There will be money to be made out of him then in the arena, if he falls into good hands, and is properly trained.”
Hitherto, the fencing-master had joined but carelessly in the conversation, and, indeed, scarcely seemed aware of its purport; but the concluding sentence arrested his attention, and turning upon Hirpinus rather angrily, and with the air of one accustomed to command, he said abruptly—
“Why did you not bring him to me at once? If you have let him slip through those great fingers of yours, it will be the worst job you have been concerned in for many a day. Have a care, Hirpinus! Better men than you have been under the net ere now, and the great games are not so far off. It needs but a word from me to send you into the arena to-morrow, a [pg 75]fair prey for a clumsy trident and a fathom or two of twine. You know that as well as I do.”
Hippias spoke truth. A retired gladiator, celebrated for his deadly swordsmanship and the number of his victories, he had been long ago invested by Nero with the wooden foil, which represented a free discharge and immunity from future services in the amphitheatre. Habituated, however, to the excitement of the fatal sport, and rejoicing in that spurious fame which so distinguished men of his class at Rome, he had set up a school for the express purpose of training swordsmen for the arena; and had won such favour, under two successive emperors, by the proficiency to which he brought his pupils, and his talent for arranging the deadly pageants in which they figured, that he had gradually become an incontrovertible authority on such matters, and the principal manager of the games in the amphitheatre. Of his reputation for gallantry, and the strange fascination such men possessed for the Roman ladies, we have already spoken; but if his smiles were courted amongst the fair spectators of their contests, his word was law with the gladiators themselves. He it was who paired the combatants, supplied them with weapons, adjusted their disputes, and, in most cases, held the balance on which their very lives depended. A threat from Hippias was more dreaded by these ruffians than the home-thrust of spear and sword.
Now, Hirpinus, although a fearless and skilful fighter, had his assailable point. On one occasion, when he had entered the circus as a secutor, that is to say, a combatant armed with sword and helmet, against the retiarius, who bore nothing but a trident and net, he had the misfortune to find himself involved in the meshes of the latter, and at the mercy of his antagonistic. The Roman crowd, though fickle in its approval, and uncertain in its antipathies, spared him in consideration of the gallant fight he had made; but Hirpinus never forgot his sensations at that moment. Bold and fierce as he was, it completely cowed him; and the boisterous, boastful prize-fighter would turn pale at the mention of a trident and a net. There was something ludicrous in the manner in which he now quailed before Hippias, eyeing him with the same sort of imploring glance that a dog casts at his master, and obviously persuaded of the speedy fulfilment of his threat.
“Patience, patron!” he growled apologetically. “I know where the lad is to be found. I can lay my hand on him at any time. I can bring him with me to the school. Why I [pg 76]talked myself well-nigh hoarse, and stayed out the drinking of two flagons of sour Sabine to boot, while I canvassed him to become one of us and join the Family forthwith. Why, you don’t think, patron, I would be so thick-witted as to let him go without finding out where he lives? He is either a freedman, or a slave of”—
“Hush, fool!” interrupted Hippias angrily, observing that Damasippus and Oarses were hovering near, and listening intently for a piece of intelligence which he had resolved should be conveyed by himself, and none other, to the tribune’s ear. “There is no occasion to publish it by the crier. Hadst thou but brains, man, in any sort of proportion to those great muscles of thine, I could tell thee why, with some hope of being understood. Enough! lose not sight of the lad; and, above all, keep thy tongue within thy teeth!”
The big gladiator nodded a sulky affirmative, puzzled, but obedient; and the two freedmen, with many courteous bows and gestures, accosted the champions with all the humility and deference to which such public characters were entitled.
“They say there will be two hundred pairs of swordsmen, matched at the same moment,” observed Damasippus, in allusion to the coming games; “and not a plate of steel allowed in the circus, save sword and helmet. But of course, my Hippias, you know best if this is true.”
“And three new lions from Libya, loose at once,” added Oarses, “with a scene representing shepherds surprised over their watch-fires; real rocks, I have been told, and a stream of running water in the amphitheatre, with a thicket of live shrubs, from which the beasts are to emerge. Your taste, illustrious Hippias, the people say, is perfect. It has obviously been consulted here.”
Hippias smiled mysteriously, and a little scornfully.
“There is a lion from Libya,” said he; “I can tell you thus much. I, myself, saw him fed only yesterday at sunset.”
“Is he large? is he strong? is he fierce?” questioned the two almost in a breath. “When did he come? is he quite full-grown? will they keep him without flesh? Of course the shepherds are not to be armed? Will they be condemned criminals, or only paid gladiators? Not that it matters much, if the lion is a pretty good one. We had a tiger, you know, last year, that killed five Ethiopian slaves, though they all set on him at once.”
“But they were unarmed,” interrupted Euchenor, whose cheek had turned a shade paler during the discussion. “Give [pg 77]me the proper weapons, and I fear no beast that walks the earth.”
“Unarmed, of course!” repeated Damasippus, “and so was the tiger. A more beautiful creature was never seen. Do you not remember, Oarses, how he waved his long tail and stroked his face with his paws, like a kitten before it begins to play? And then, when he made his spring, the first black was rolled up like a ball? I was in the fifth row, my friends, yet I heard his bones crack, distinctly, even there.”
“He was a great loss, that tiger,” observed Oarses, more sadly than usual; “they should never have pitted him against a tusked elephant. The moment I saw the ivory, I knew how the fight must end, and I wagered against the smaller animal directly. I would have lost my sesterces, I think, willingly, for it to have won; but the beautiful beast never had a chance.”
“It was the weight that did it, patrons—the weight,” observed Hirpinus. “Man or beast, I will explain to you that weight must always”—
But here the gladiator’s dissertation was broken off by the movement of the crimson hangings, and the appearance of Placidus emerging on his levée of expectants, bright and handsome, ready dressed for the day.
The tribune owned one advantage at least, which is of no small service to a man who embarks on a career demanding constant energy and watchfulness; he possessed that good digestion which is proverbially held to accompany an elastic conscience and a hard heart. Though supper the previous evening had been a luxurious and protracted meal—though the winecup had passed round very often, and the guests with singing brains had shown themselves in their own characters to their cool-headed and designing host—the latter, refreshed by a night’s rest, now appeared with the glow of health on his cheek, and its lustre in his eye. As he looked about him on the throng of clients and dependants, his snow-white gown fastened and looped up with gold, his mantle adorned with a broad violet hem, his hair and beard carefully perfumed and arranged, a murmur of applause went round the circle which, perhaps, for once was really sincere, and even the rough gladiators could not withhold their approbation from a figure that was at once so richly attired, so manly, and so refined.
“Hail, my friends!” said the tribune, pausing in the entrance, and looking graciously around him on the crowd.
[pg 78]“Hail, patron!” answered a multitude of voices, in every key, from the subdued and polished treble of Oarses to the deep hoarse voice of the gladiators.
Placidus moved from one to the other, with an easy though dignified cordiality of manner which he well knew how to assume when disposed to cultivate the favour of his inferiors. Clear-headed and discerning, in a wonderfully short space of time he had despatched the various matters which constituted the business of his morning levée. He had admired the model, declined the painting, ordered the statue, bought the jewels, answered the fair suppliant’s message, and secured the mullet by sending to the market for it at once. The honest countrymen, too, he dismissed sufficiently well pleased, considering they had received nothing more substantial than smiles; and he now turned leisurely to Hippias, as if life had no duty so engrossing as the pursuit of pleasure, and asked him eagerly after the training of his gladiators, and the prospects of the amphitheatre.
Hippias knew his own value; he conversed with the patrician as an equal; but Hirpinus and Euchenor, appreciating the worth of a rich patron, gazed on Placidus with intense respect and admiration. The latter, especially, watched the tribune with his bright cunning eye, as if prepared to plant a blow on the first unguarded place.
“But your swordsmen are all too well known,” urged the patrician on the fencing-master. “Here is old Hirpinus covers his whole body with two feet of steel as if it were a complete suit of armour, and never takes his point off his adversary’s heart the while. The others are nearly as wary; if they encounter ordinary fencers they are sure to conquer; if we match them against each other and the people would see blood drawn, they must fight blindfolded,8 and it becomes a matter of mere chance. No, what we want is a new man—one whom we can train without his being discovered, and bring out as an unknown competitor to try for the Emperor’s prize. What say you, Hippias? ’Tis the only chance for a winning game now.”
“I have heard of such a one,” answered Hippias. “I think I can lay my hand on an untried blade, that a few weeks’ training will polish up into the keenest weapon we have sharpened yet; at least, so Hirpinus informs me. What say’st thou, old Trojan? Tell the patron how thou camest to light on thy match at last.”
Thus adjured, the veteran gladiator related at considerable [pg 79]length, interrupted by many exclamations of wonder from Damasippus and Oarses, his chance meeting with Esca in the Forum, and subsequent trial of strength and skill at the gymnasium. Somewhat verbose, as we have seen, when he could secure an audience, Hirpinus waxed eloquent on so congenial a theme as the beauty and stature of his new friend. “As strong as an ox, patron,” said he, “and as lithe as a panther! Hand, and foot, and eye, all keeping time together like a dancing girl’s. The spring of a wild-cat, and the light footfall of a deer. Then he would look so well in the arena, with his fair young face, set on his towering neck, like that of the son of Peleus. Indeed, if he should be vanquished, the women would save him every time. Why, one of the fairest and the noblest ladies in Rome stopped her litter in the crowded street while we walked together, and bade him come and speak to her from sheer goodwill. In faith, he was as tall, and twice as handsome, as the very Liburnians who carried her on their shoulders.”
The tribune was laughing heartily at the athlete’s eloquence; but Damasippus, who never took his eyes off his patron’s face, thought the evil laugh was more malicious than usual at the mention of the Liburnians, and there was a false ring in the mirthful tones with which he asked for more information as to this young Apollo, and the dame on whom his appearance seemed to have made such an impression.
“I know most of the great ladies pretty well by sight,” answered the honest swordsman. “Faith, a man does not easily forget the faces he sees turned on him in the arena, when he has his point at his adversary’s throat, and they bid him drive it merrily home, and never spare. But of all the faces I see under the awning, there’s not one looks down so calm and beautiful on a death-struggle as that of the noble Valeria.”
“Like the moon on the torrent of Anio,” observed Damasippus.
“Like the stars on the stormy Egean,” echoed Oarses.
“Like nothing but herself,” continued Hirpinus, who esteemed his own judgment incontrovertible on all matters relating to physical beauty, whether male or female. “The handsomest face and the finest form in Rome. It was not likely I could be mistaken, though I only caught a glimpse of her neck and arm for a moment, as she drew back the curtains of her litter, like”—and here Hirpinus paused for a simile, concluding with infinite relish,—“like a blade half drawn, and returned with a clash into the sheath.”
[pg 80]Again Damasippus thought he perceived a quiver on his patron’s face. Again there was something jarring in the tribune’s voice, as he said to Hippias—
“We must not let this new Achilles escape us! See to it, Hippias. Who knows? He may make a worthy successor, even for thee, thou artist in slaughter, when he has worked his way up, step by step, and victory by victory, to the topmost branch of the tree.”
Hippias laughed good-humouredly, turning at the same time his right thumb outward, and pointing with it to the roof. It was the gesture with which the Roman crowd in the amphitheatre refused quarter to the combatant who was down.
The broken column of one of the buildings destroyed in the great fire of Rome, and not yet restored, was glowing crimson in the setting sun. Beneath its base, the Tiber was gliding gently on towards the sea. There was a subdued hum even in the streets of the Imperial City that denoted how the burden and heat of the day were now past; and the languor of the hour seemed to pervade even those who were compelled to toil on in the struggle for bread, and who could only in imagination abandon themselves to repose. On a fragment of the ruin sat Esca, gazing intently on the water as it stole by. To all appearance his listless and dreamy mood was unconscious of surrounding objects, yet his attitude was that of one prepared to start into action at a moment’s notice; and though his arms were folded and his head bent down, his ear was watching eagerly to catch the faintest sound.
It is a patience-wearing process, that same waiting for a woman; and under the most favourable circumstances is productive of much irritation, disappointment, and disgust. In the first place a man is invariably too soon, and this knowingly and as it were with malice prepense. Taking time thus by the forelock, delays his flight considerably, and indeed reduces his pace to the slowest possible crawl; so that when the appointed moment does arrive, it seems to the watcher that it has been past a considerable period, and that his vigil should be already over, when in reality it is only just begun. Then, as the minutes steal on, come the different misgivings and suspicions which only arise on such occasions, and which in his right senses the self-torturer would be incapable of harbouring. Circumstances which, when the appointment was made, seemed expressly adapted to further his designs, now change to insurmountable difficulties, or take their place as links in a chain of deception which he persuades himself has been forged with unheard-of duplicity, [pg 82]expressly for his discomfiture. He thinks badly of everyone, worst of all of her, whose unpardonable fault is that she is now some fifty seconds late. Then comes a revulsion of feeling, and his heart leaps to his mouth, for yonder, emerging on the long perspective, is a female figure obviously advancing this way. The expected object is tall, slim, pliant, and walks with the firm free step of a deer on the heather. The advancing shape is short, fat, awkward, and waddles in its gait; nevertheless, it is not till it has reached within arm’s length that he will allow himself to be convinced of his disappointment. If its ears are pretty quick, the unoffending figure may well be shocked at the deep and startling execration which its presence calls forth. Then begins another phase of despondency, humiliation, and bitter self-contempt, through all which pleasant changes of feeling the old feverish longing remains as strong as ever. At last she comes round the corner in good earnest, with the well-known smile in her eyes, the well-known greeting on her lips, and he forgets in an instant, as if they had never been, his anxiety, his anger, his reproaches, all but the presence that brings light to his life and gladness to his heart once more.
Esca rose impatiently at intervals, walked a few paces to and fro, sat down again, and threw small fragments of the ruin into the water. Presently a figure, draped in black and closely veiled, moved down to the river’s side near where the Briton sat, and began filling a pitcher from the stream. It could hardly have passed the column without seeing him, yet did it seem unconscious of his presence; and who could tell how the heart might be beating within the bosom, or the cheek blushing behind the veil? That veil was lifted, however, with an exclamation of surprise, when Esca stooped over her to take the pitcher from her hand, and Mariamne’s cheek turned paler now than it had been even on the memorable night when he rescued her from the grasp of Spado and his fellow-bacchanals. He, too, murmured some vague words of astonishment at finding her here. If they were honest, for whom could he have been waiting so impatiently? and it is possible, besides, Mariamne might have been a little disappointed had she been allowed to fill her pitcher from the Tiber for herself.
The Jewess had been thinking about him a good deal more than she intended, a good deal more than she knew, for the last two days. It is strange how very insensibly such thoughts gain growth and strength without care or culture. There are plants we prune and water every day which never [pg 83]reach more than a sickly and stunted vitality after all, and there are others that we trample down, cut over, tear up by the very roots, which nevertheless attain such vigour and luxuriance that our walls are covered by their tendrils, and our dwellings pervaded by their fragrance.
Mariamne was no bigoted daughter of Judah, for whom the stranger was an outcast because a heathen. Her constant intercourse with Calchas had taught her nobler truths than she had derived from the traditions of her fathers. And with all her pride of race and national predilections, she had imbibed those principles of charity and toleration which formed the groundwork of a new religion, destined to shed its light upon all the nations of the earth.
It was not precisely as a brother, though, that Mariamne had yet brought herself to regard the handsome British slave. They were soon conversing happily together. The embarrassment of meeting had disappeared with the first affectation of surprise. It was not long before he told her how tired he had been of watching by the broken column at the riverside.
“How could you know I should come here?” asked the girl with a look of infinite simplicity and candour, though she must have remembered all the time, that she had not scrupled to hint at the daily practice in course of conversation with Calchas, on the night when Esca brought her safely home.
“I hoped it,” he replied, with a smile. “I have been a hunter, you know, and have learned that the shyest and wildest of animals seek the waterside at sunset. I was here yesterday, and waited two long hours in vain.”
She glanced quickly at him, but withdrew her eyes immediately, while the blood mounted to her pale face.
“Did you expect to see me?” she asked in a trembling voice; “and I never left the house the whole of yesterday! Oh, how I wish I had known it!”
Then she stopped in painful embarrassment, as having said too much. He appeared not to notice her confusion. He seemed to have some confession to make on his own part—something he hardly dared to tell her, yet which his honest nature could not consent should be withheld. At last he said with an effort—
“You know what I am! My time is not my own, my very limbs belong to another. It matters not that the master is kind, good, and considerate. Mariamne, I am a slave!”
[pg 84]“I know it,” she answered, very gently, with a loving pity beaming in her dark eyes. “My kinsman Calchas told me as much after you went away.”
He drew a long breath as if relieved.
“And yet you wished to see me again?” he asked, while a gleam of happiness brightened his face.
“Why not?” she replied, with a kind smile. “Though that hand is a slave’s, it struck my enemy down with the force of a hundred warriors; though that arm is a slave’s, it bore me home with the care and tenderness of a woman. Ah! tell me not of slavery when the limbs are strong, and the heart is brave and pure. Though the body be chained with iron fetters, what matter so long as the spirit is free? Esca, you do not believe I think the worse of you because you are a heathen and a slave?”
Her voice was very soft and low while she spoke his name. No voice had ever sounded so sweetly in his ears before. A new, strange sense of happiness seemed to pervade his whole being, yet he had never felt his situation so galling and unendurable as now.
“I would not have you think the worse of me,” he answered eagerly, “upon any account. Listen, Mariamne. I was taken captive in war and brought here with a hundred others to Rome. We were set up like cattle in the slave-market. Like cattle also we were purchased, one by one, by those who esteemed themselves practised judges of such human wares. I was bought by Caius Lucius Licinius at the price of a yoke of oxen, or a couple of chariot-horses. Bought and sold like a beast of the field, and driven home to my new master!”
He spoke with a scorn all the more bitter from having been repressed so long. Yet he kept back and smothered the indignation rising within him. This was the first ear that had ever been open to his wrongs, and the temptation was strong to pour them freely forth to so interested and partial a listener. To do him justice, he refrained from the indulgence. He had been taught from childhood that it was weak and womanish to complain; and the man had not forgotten the lessons of the boy.
Her gentle voice again interposed in soothing and consoling accents.
“But he is kind,” she said, “kind and considerate—you told me so yourself. I could not bear to think him otherwise. Indeed, Esca, it would make me very unhappy to know that you”—
[pg 85]Here she broke off suddenly, and snatched up the pitcher he had been filling for her with such haste as to spill half its contents over his dress and her own.
“There is someone watching us! Farewell!” she whispered in a breathless, frightened voice, and hurried away, turning her head once, however, to cast a glance over her shoulder, and then hastened home faster than before. Esca looked after her while she continued in sight, either unconscious of their vicinity, or at all events not noticing a pair of bold black eyes that were fixed upon him with an expression of arch and ludicrous surprise. He turned angrily, however, upon the intruder, when the black eyes had gazed their fill, and their owner burst out into a loud, merry, and mocking laugh.
Myrrhina’s voice was at all times pitched in a high key; her accents were very distinct and shrill, admirably adapted for the expression of derision or the conveyance of sarcastic remarks.
“So I have run you into a corner at last,” she said, “and a pretty hunt you have given me. ’Tis to draw water, of course, that you come down to the Tiber-side, just at sunset; and you met her quite by accident, I daresay, that slip of a girl in her wisp of black clothes, who flitted away just now like a ghost going back again to Proserpine. Ah! you gape like a calf when they put the garland on him for sacrifice, and the poor thing munches the very flower-buds that deck him for destruction. Well, you at least are reserved for a nobler altar, and a worthier fate than to give your last gasp to a sorceress in the suburbs. Jupiter! how you stare, and how handsome you look, you great, strong barbarian, when you are thoroughly surprised!”
She put her face so close up to his, to laugh at him, that the gesture almost amounted to a caress. Myrrhina had no slight inclination to make love to the stalwart Briton on her own account, pending the conclusion of certain negotiations she felt bound to carry out on her mistress’s. These were the result of a conversation held that morning while the maid was as usual combing out her lady’s long and beautiful hair.
Valeria’s sleep had been broken and restless. She tossed and turned upon her pillow, and put back the hair from her fevered cheeks and throbbing temples in vain. It was weary work to lie gazing with eyes wide open at the flickering shadows cast by the night-lamp on the opposite wall. It was still less productive of sleep to shut them tight and abandon herself to the vision thus created, which stood out in life-like colours and refused to be dispelled. Do what she would to forget him, and conjure up some other object, there was the [pg 87]young barbarian, towering like a demigod over the mean effeminate throng; there were the waving linen garments, and the reeling symbols, and the tossing hands, and the scowling faces of the priests of Isis; there was the dark-clad girl with her graceful pliant form; and there, yes, always there, in his maddening beauty, was the tall brave figure, gathering itself in act to strike. She could not analyse her feelings; she believed herself bewitched. Valeria had not reached the prime of her womanhood, without having sounded, as she thought, every chord of feeling, tasted of every cup that promised gratification or excitement. She had been flattered by brave, courted by handsome, and admired by clever men. Some she fancied, some she liked, some she laughed at, and some she told herself she loved. But this was a new sensation altogether. This intense and passionate longing she had never felt before. But for its novelty it would have been absolutely painful. A timid girl might have been frightened at it; but Valeria was no timid girl. She was a woman, on the contrary, who, with all the eagerness and impetuosity of her sex, possessed the tenacity of purpose and the resolution of a man. Obviously, as she could not conquer the sentiment, it was her nature to indulge it.
“I have a message to Licinius,” said she, turning at the same time from the mirror, and suffering her long brown hair to fall over her face like a veil; “a message that I do not care to write, lest it should be seen by other eyes. Tell me, Myrrhina, how can I best convey it to my kinsman?”
The waiting-maid was far too astute to suggest the obvious arrangement of a private interview, than which nothing could have been easier, or to offer her own services, as an emissary who had already proved herself trustworthy in many a well-conducted intrigue; for Myrrhina knew her business too well to hesitate in playing into the hands of her mistress. So she assumed a look of perplexity and deep reflection while, finger on forehead, as the result of profound thought, she made the following reply—
“It would be safest, madam, would it not, to trust the matter to some confidential slave?”
Valeria’s heart was beating fast, and the fair cheek was pale again now, while she answered, with studied carelessness—
“Perhaps it would, if I could think of one. You know his household, Myrrhina. Can I safely confide in any of them?”
“Those barbarians are generally faithful,” observed the maid, with the most unconscious air. “I know Licinius has [pg 88]a British slave in whom he places considerable trust. You have seen him yourself, madam.”
“Have I?” answered Valeria, moving restlessly into a more comfortable attitude. “Should I know him again? What is he like?”
The blood had once more mounted to her forehead, beneath the long hair. Myrrhina, who was behind her, saw the crimson mantling even on her neck. She was a slave, and a waiting-maid, but she was also a woman, and she could not resist the temptation; so she answered maliciously—
“He is a big awkward-looking youth, of lofty stature, madam, and with light curly hair. Stupid doubtless, and as trusty, probably, as he is thick-witted.”
It is not safe to jest with a tigress unless you are outside the bars of her cage. Valeria made a quick impatient movement that warned the speaker she had gone too far. The latter was not wanting in readiness of resource.
“I could bring him here, madam,” she added demurely, “within six hours.”
Her lady smiled pleasantly enough.
“This evening, Myrrhina,” she said; “I shall scarcely be ready before. By the way, I am tired of those plain gold bracelets. Take them away, and don’t let me see them again. This evening, you said. I suppose I had better leave it entirely to you.”
Both maid and mistress knew what this meant well. It implied full powers and handsome remuneration on one side, successful manœuvring and judicious blindness on the other. Valeria disposed herself for a long day’s dreaming: stretched indeed in bodily repose, but agitating her mind with all the harassing alternations of anticipation, and hope, and doubt, and fear—not without a considerable leavening of triumph, and a slight tinge of shame: while Myrrhina set herself energetically to work on the task she had undertaken; which, indeed, appeared to possess its difficulties, when she had ascertained at the first place she sought, namely, the house of Licinius, that Esca was abroad, and no one knew in what direction he was likely to be found.
A woman’s wit, however, usually derives fresh stimulus from opposition. Myrrhina was not without a large circle of acquaintances; and amongst others owned a staunch friend, and occasional admirer, in the person of Hirpinus, the gladiator. That worthy took a sufficient interest in the athletic Briton to observe his movements, and was aware that Esca had spent some two or three hours by the Tiber-side on the [pg 89]previous evening—a fact which he imparted to Myrrhina, on cross-examination by the latter, readily enough, professing at the same time his own inability to account for it, inasmuch as there was neither wineshop nor quoit-ground in the vicinity. Not so his intriguing little questioner. “A man does not wait two or three hours in one spot,” thought Myrrhina, “for anything but a woman. Also, the woman, if she comes at all, is never so far behind her time. The probability then is, that she disappointed him; and the conclusion, that he will be there again about sunset the following day.”
Thus arguing, she resolved to attend at the trysting-place, and make a third in the interview, whether welcome or not; killing the intervening time, which might otherwise have hung heavily on her hands, by a series of experiments on the susceptibility of Hirpinus—an amusing pastime, but wanting in excitement from its harmlessness; for the gladiator had arrived at that period of life when outward charms, at least, are esteemed at their real value, and a woman must possess something more than a merry eye and a saucy lip if she would hope to rival the attraction of an easy couch and a flagon of old wine. Nevertheless, she laughed, and jested, and ogled, keeping her hand in, as it were, for practice against worthier occasions, till it was time to depart on her errand, when she made her escape from her sluggish admirer, with an excuse as false and as plausible as the smile on her lip.
Hirpinus looked after her as she flitted away, laughed, shook his head, and strode heavily off to the wineshop, with an arch expression of amusement on his brave, good-humoured, and somewhat stupid face. Myrrhina, drawing a veil about her head and shoulders so as effectually to conceal her features, proceeded to thread her way through the labyrinth of impoverished streets that led to the riverside, as if familiar with their intricacies. When she reached her destination at last, she easily hid herself in a convenient lurking-place, from which she took care not to emerge till she had learned all she wished to know about Esca and his companion.
“What do you want with me?” asked the Briton, a little disturbed by this saucy apparition, and not much pleased with the waiting-maid’s familiar and malicious air.
“I am unwelcome, doubtless,” answered the girl, with another peal of laughter; “nevertheless you must come with me whether you will or no. We Roman maidens take no denial, young man; we are not like your tall, pale, frozen women of the north.”
[pg 90]Subscribing readily to this opinion, Esca felt indignant at the same time to be so completely taken possession of. “I have no leisure,” said he, “to attend upon your fancies. I must homeward; it is already nearly supper time.”
“And you are a slave, I know,” retorted Myrrhina with a gesture of supreme and provoking contempt. “A slave! You, with your strength, and stature, and courage, cannot call an hour of this fine cool evening your own.”
“I know it,” said he, bowing his head to conceal the flush of indignation that had risen to his brow. “I know it. A slave must clean his master’s platter, and fill his cup to drink.”
She could see that her thrust had pierced home; but with all her predilections for his handsome person, she cared not how she wounded the manly heart within.
“And being a slave,” she resumed, “you may be loaded and goaded like a mule! You may be kicked and beaten like a dog! You cannot even resent it with hoofs and fangs as the dumb animal does when his treatment is harsher than he deserves! You are a man, you know, though a barbarian! You must cringe, and whine, and bite your lips, and be patient!”
Every syllable from that sharp tongue seemed to sting him like a wasp: his whole frame quivered with anger at her taunts; but he scorned to show it, and putting a strong constraint upon his feelings, he only asked quietly—
“What would you with me? It was not to tell me this that you watched and tracked me here.”
Myrrhina thought she had now brought the metal to a sufficiently high temperature for fusion. She proceeded to mould it accordingly.
“I tracked you here,” she said, “because I wanted you. I wanted you, because it is in my power to render you a great service. Listen, Esca; you must come with me. It is not every man in Rome would require so much persuasion to follow the steps of a pretty girl.”
She looked very arch and tempting while she spoke, but her attractions were sadly wasted on the preoccupied Briton; and if she expected to win from him any overt act of admiration or encouragement, she was wofully disappointed.
“I cannot follow yours,” said he; “my way lies in another direction. You have yourself reminded me that I am not my own master.”
“That is the very reason,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands exultingly. “I can show you the way to freedom. [pg 91]No one else can help you but Myrrhina; and if you attend to her directions you can obtain your liberty without delay.”
“And why should you be disposed to confer on me such a benefit?” he asked, with instinctive caution, for the impulsive nature that jumps so hastily to conclusions, and walks open-eyed into a trap, is rarely born north of the Alps. “I am a barbarian, a stranger, almost an enemy. What have you and I in common?”
“Perhaps I have fallen in love with you myself,” she laughed out; “perhaps you may be able to serve me in return. Come, you are as cold as the icy climate in which you were bred. You shall take your choice of the two reasons; only waste no more time, but gird yourself and follow me.”
Though it had never been dormant, the desire for liberty had, within the last two days, acquired a painful intensity in Esca’s breast. He had not indeed yet confessed to himself that he cherished an ardent attachment for Mariamne; but he was conscious that her society possessed for him an undefinable attraction, and that without her neither liberty nor anything else would be worth having. This new sensation made his position more galling than it had ever been before. He could not ignore the fact, that it was absurd for one whose existence was not his own, to devote that existence to another; and the degradation of slavery, which his lord’s kindness had veiled from him as much as possible while in his household, now appeared in all its naked deformity. He felt that no effort would be too desperate, no sacrifice too costly, to make for liberty; and that he would readily risk life itself, and lose it, to be free, if only for a week.
“You have seen my mistress,” resumed Myrrhina, as they hurried on through the now darkening streets; “the fairest lady and the most powerful in Rome; a near kinswoman, too, of your master. It needs but a word from her to make of you what she pleases. But she is wilful, you must know, and imperious, and cannot bear to be contradicted. Few women can.”
Esca had yet to learn this peculiarity of the sex; but he heard Myrrhina mention her mistress with vague misgivings, and forebodings of evil far different from the unmixed feelings of interest such a communication would have called forth a while ago.
“Did she send for me expressly?” he asked, with some anxiety of tone. “And how did you know where to find me in such a town as this?”
“I know a great many things,” replied the laughing [pg 92]damsel; “but I do not choose everyone to be as wise as myself. I will answer both your questions, though, if you will answer one of mine in return. Valeria did not mention you by name, and yet I think there is no other man in Rome would serve her turn but yourself; and I knew that I should find you by Tiber-side, because you cannot keep a goose from the water, nor a fool from his fate. Will you answer my question as frankly? Do you love the dark pale girl that fled away so hastily when I discovered you together?”
This was exactly what he had been asking himself the whole evening, with no very conclusive result; it was not likely, therefore, that Myrrhina should elicit a satisfactory reply. The Briton coloured a little, hesitated, and gave an evasive answer.
“Like tends to like,” said he. “What is there in common between two strangers, from the two farthest extremities of the empire?”
Myrrhina clapped her hands in triumph.
“Like tends to like, say you?” she exclaimed exultingly. “You will tell another tale ere an hour be past. Hush! be silent now, and step softly; but follow close behind me. It is very dark in here, under the trees.”
Thus cautioning him, she led Esca through a narrow door out of the by-street, into which they had diverged, and stepped briskly on, with a confidence born of local knowledge that he imitated with difficulty. They were now in a thickly planted shrubbery which effectually excluded the rays of a rising moon, and in which it was scarce possible to distinguish even Myrrhina’s white dress. Presently they emerged upon a smooth and level lawn, shut in by a black group of cedars, through the lower branches of which peeped the crescent moon that had not long left the horizon, and turning the corner of a colonnade, under a ghostly-looking statue, traversed another door, which opened softly to Myrrhina’s touch, and admitted them into a long carpeted passage, with a lamp at the farther end.
“Stay here while I fetch a light,” whispered the damsel; and, gliding away for that purpose, returned presently to conduct Esca through a large dark hall into another passage; where she stopped abruptly, and lifting some silken hangings, that served for the door of an apartment, simply observed, “You will find food and wine there,” and pushed him in.
Floods of soft and mellow light dazzled his eyes at first; but he soon realised the luxurious beauty of the retreat into which he had been forced. It was obvious that all the [pg 93]resources of wealth had been applied to its decoration with a lavish hand, guided by a woman’s sensibility and a woman’s taste. The walls were painted in frescoes of the richest colouring, and represented the most alluring scenes. Here the three jealous goddesses flashed upon bewildered Paris, in all the lustre of their immortal charms. A living envy sat on Juno’s brow; a living scorn was stamped on Minerva’s pale, proud face; and the living smile that won her the golden apple, shone in Aphrodité’s winning eyes. There glowed imperial Circé in her magic splendour; and the very victims of her spell seemed yet to crave, with fiery glances and with thirsty lips, for one more draught from the tempting, luscious, and degrading cup. A shapely Endymion lay stretched in dreams of love. A frightened Leda shrank while she caressed. Here fair Adonis bled to death, ripped by the monster in the forest glade; there, where the broad-leaved lilies lay sleeping on the shady pool, bent fond Narcissus, to look and long his life away; an infant Bacchus rolled amongst the grapes, in bronze; a little Cupid mourned his broken bow, in marble. Around the cornices a circle of nymphs and satyrs, in bas-relief, danced hand-in-hand—wild woodland creatures, exulting in all the luxuriance of beauty, all the redundancy of strength; and yonder, just where the lamp cast its softest light on her attractions, stood the likeness of Valeria herself, depicted by the cunning painter in a loose flowing robe that enhanced, without concealing, the stately proportions of her figure, and in an attitude essentially her own—an attitude expressive of dormant passion, lulled by the languid insolence of power, and tinged with an imperious coquetry that she had found to be the most alluring of her charms.
It was bad enough to sit in that voluptuous room, under that mellow light, drinking the daintiest produce of Falernian vineyards, and gazing on such an image as Valeria’s—an image of one who, beyond all women, was calculated to madden a heated brain, whose beauty could scarcely fail to captivate the outward senses, and take the heart by storm. It was bad enough to press the very couch of which the cushions still retained the print of her form—to see the shawl thrown across it, and trailing on the floor as though but now flung off—to touch the open bracelet hastily unclasped, yet warm from its contact with her arm. All this was bad enough, but worse was still to come.
Esca was in the act of setting down the goblet he had drained, and his eye was resting with an expression of [pg 94]admiration, not to be mistaken, on the picture opposite, when the rustling of the hangings caused him to turn his head. There was no more attraction now in bounding nymph or brilliant enchantress; haughty Juno, wise Minerva, and laughing Venus with her sparkling girdle, had passed into the shade. Valeria’s likeness was no longer the masterpiece of the apartment, for there in the doorway appeared the figure of Valeria herself. Esca sprang to his feet, and thus they stood, that noble pair, confronting each other in the radiant light. The hostess and her guest—the lady and the slave—the assailant and the assailed.