The Lion's Brood

by Duffield Osborne

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

THE QUEEN OF THE WAYS.

There was much bustle and confusion throughout the little inn at Sinuessa. August was just closing, and the midday summer sun beat down too fiercely to permit of comfortable travel save toward morning or night. The inn-keeper had hurried out and stood in the roadway, bowing and wreathing his face with smiles of welcome, while, behind him, were grouped his servants, each bearing some implement of his or her calling—a muster well calculated to impress the wayfarer with the assurance of comfort and good cheer.

The occasion of all this demonstration was a party that had halted, apparently for refreshment and the customary traveller's siesta; a rheda or four-wheeled travelling carriage, closely covered and drawn by three powerful horses yoked abreast. Two armed outriders, one apparently a freedman and the other a slave, made up the company, the former of whom, a stout, elderly man with gray hair and beard, had reined in his horse before the obsequious host, while the other remained by the carriage wheel, as if to aid the driver in guarding the rheda's occupants from intrusion.

The innkeeper, short and fat, was breathing hard from the haste in which he had sallied out, but his words came volubly:—

"Let the gentlemen alight and enter—or, if they be ladies, so much the better. They shall make trial of the best inn along the whole length of the Queen of Ways. Such couches as they have never seen, save, doubtless, in their magnificent homes, fit for the gods to lie upon!—such dishes!—such cooking! guinea-hens fed and fattened under my own eye, mullet fresh from the water with all greens of the season, and such wine as only the Massic Mount can grow—"

Here, however, he paused to take breath, and the freedman succeeded in interrupting the flow of words.

"By the gods! will you be silent?" he said. "Perhaps we shall try your fare, if you do not take up the whole day in telling us about it. First, however, it is necessary for us to learn certain things. How many miles is it to Capua?"

The innkeeper's face took on a grieved look in place of the beaming smile of a moment since, but he answered promptly and humbly:—

"The matter of twenty-five miles, my master."

"At what hour do they close the gates?"

The innkeeper glanced back at the group of domestics with a frightened expression.

"That is a military question," he said. "How can I answer it in these times? It is dangerous to talk about such things."

"Not dangerous for you," insisted the other, rather scornfully. "Since you Campanians have become pulse-eaters, not the wildest Numidian would dare disturb you. The cruel one is very tender of you all—now; but wait till Rome shall fall, then you will know what his tenderness is worth—when you are all busy grinding corn for Carthage—"

"By all the gods! speak lower—if you must say such words," whispered the innkeeper, white with terror. "If one of my servants should betray me! Like enough the gate is closed at all times. It is said that Hannibal enters the town to-night."

"Hannibal in Capua to-night!" came a voice from the rheda—a woman's voice, softly and delicately modulated, yet deep and rich in its tones. At the same moment the curtains were drawn aside, and she looked out, beckoning imperiously to the would-be host. "Come near, my good man, I wish to speak with you more closely."

The innkeeper stood as one dazed, with open mouth and bulging eyes. He had looked upon great and beautiful ladies before, for many such travelled by the Appian Way, but the beauty and the nobility of this face seemed to him more than mortal. With all the grace, all the freshness, all the radiant charm of the girl Marcia, were now joined the calm and deep-eyed crown of womanhood. The perfect lines that could so perfectly respond to playful or tender emotions were still unmarred, and yet sorrow that had left no other trace had endowed them with new possibilities of devotion and high resolve.

"Come," repeated Marcia, and the little inn-keeper trotted up to the rheda and stood watching her with an expression of canine wonder and subservience in his big, dull eyes.

"Did I not hear you say that Hannibal was to be in Capua to-night? Have these false Campanians indeed carried out the treachery rumoured of them?"

The man had forgotten all his fears of a few moments since, nor did the slur upon his race rouse aught of indignation. Held fast under the spell of the dark eyes before him, he made haste to answer:—

"The rumour, madam, that a traveller left with me some hours since is that Marius Blossius, praetor of Campania, has led all Capua out to meet Hannibal, who is to feast to-night at the house of the Ninii Celeres, Stenius and Pacuvius—"

"But how was this done?" she interrupted. "It was said at Rome that some few evil spirits, like Vibius Virrius and Pacuvius Calavius, were ill-disposed, but surely the senators of Capua are faithful?"

"I do not know as to that," said the fellow, with the stubborn dulness of a peasant; "but I know it is hard to see your property and goods destroyed and to hold fast to allies who do not protect you—and a Roman garrison at Casilinum all the time. They say this African is kind to his friends, and then, too, he sent home my son without ransom when the young man was prisoner in the north—some battle by some lake that I forget the name of—"

"Such talk is well enough for the poor-spirited rabble," cried Marcia, impetuously; "but was there none of noble blood in the city? None who could compel duty?"

A look of cunning crossed his face as he answered:—

"Pacuvius Calavius took care of that. He cooped up the senate in the senate-house, by telling them the people sought their lives. Then he went out and spoke against them to that same people, and offered to surrender them for death, one by one; and then, when they had given up hope, he made a clever turn and persuaded us to forego their just punishment. So it is said in Capua that Pacuvius Calavius bought the senators for his slaves, and not one but runs to do his bidding. Senators, you see, do not like the rods and axe any better than humbler people like the sword and the torch."

Marcia eyed him with disgust. Then her brow cleared. "What could be expected from such a man," she thought. "Surely not exalted patriotism or high ideals—especially when the class question had been brought into play against public faith and public honour. Mere stupidity would yoke him to the side that seemed to promise the most immediate exemptions or rewards. It was possible, though, that the situation might not be as bad as it was painted; that there might still be faithful men in the second city of Italy—men who, while at present held down by the skilful plotting of their enemies or the hopelessness of open resistance, were yet waiting, vigilant to seize upon the first promising opportunity to recover the lost ground. On the other hand, innkeepers were apt to be a well-informed class, as to public happenings, and this man told his tale with parrot-like precision. At any rate, there was nothing to do but reach Capua as soon as possible; for, the Carthaginian commander once within the walls, no one could tell what precautions and scrutiny might be established at the gates."

She turned to the freedman.

"There is no time for resting and refreshment, Ligurius. We must not lose the chance of entering the city before nightfall;" and to the man who rode at the wheel: "Come, Caipor. A little weariness will not hurt us."

The driver's whip curled about the horses' flanks, and they started forward; but the disappointed innkeeper laid hold of one of the poles that supported the covering of the rheda and gasped and sputtered as he ran:—

"What now! Would you die of the heat? Am I to lose my custom because I am good-natured and tell the news?"

Caipor turned in his seat and raised the thong used to urge on his animal; but Marcia, hearing the clamour, thrust the curtain aside again and, motioning the slave to restrain himself, threw several denarii to her would-be host. At the same moment, the horses suddenly quickened their gait, and the pursuer, keeping his hold, was jerked flat upon his face.

"Be cautious!" shouted Caipor. "There is silver in the dust you are swallowing," and they hurried on, unable to distinguish whether the half-choked ejaculations that followed them were thanks or curses.

There was a short silence punctuated by the cracking of the whip, the clatter of hoofs, and the crunching of wheels along the pavement; then the curtains once more parted slightly, and Caipor, watchful to serve, saw Marcia's beckoning hand and drew closer to the rheda.

"Bend down," she said, and, as he obeyed, she whispered:—

"You were my brother's servant, Caipor, and you bear his name. Will you help me to avenge him?"

The slave's eyes flashed, and he straightened himself on his horse. Then he lowered his head to hear more.

"Ligurius," she continued, "will be brave and faithful to my family in all things. I want one who will be faithful to what is greater and to what is less—to Rome and to me. I seek safety for the Republic; and I seek revenge for those who are dead. Will you help me when Ligurius halts?"

"The cross itself will not daunt me," he said simply. "Whatever you shall do, lady, I will be faithful to the death."

"For me, perhaps, to the death, Caipor," she answered; "but for you, if the gods favour me, to life and to freedom."

His cheek flushed with the rich blood of his Samnite ancestors, and, as Ligurius glanced back from his post at the head of the party, the young man made his horse bound forward, lest his attitude and perturbation might bring some suspicion of a secret conference to the mind of the old freedman.

So they descended within the hemicycle of hills. The heights of Mount Tifata began to fall away on the left, the rough, precipitous line of crags, sweeping around toward the east, seemed to dwindle into the distance, even as they drew nearer, while the low jumble of Neapolitan hills, beyond which towered Vesuvius with its fluttering pennon of vapour, rose higher and higher upon the southern horizon. A turn of the road, a temporary makeshift, led them around Casilinum, whose little garrison lay close, nor opened their gates to friend or foe. There, at last, in the midst of the level plain that stretched down to the sea, lay Capua, gleaming white and radiant beneath the brush of the now descending sun.

Gradually the great sweep of city walls grew lowering and massive. It still lacked an hour of sunset, and the travellers had not urged themselves unduly through the midday course. The foam, yellowed and darkened by dust, had dried upon the horses' flanks save only where the chafing of the harness kept it fresh and white. Marcia leaned far out of the rheda and gazed eagerly at the nearing town, Caipor seemed scarcely able to restrain his eagerness to dash forward, while Ligurius shaded his eyes with his hand and viewed the spectacle like a general counting the power of his approaching foe. Even at this distance they saw, or began to imagine they saw, some indescribable change,—not a flurry of motion or excitement,—they were too far away to note that, had such been present. It was as though above, around every tower and battlement hung an atmosphere of hostility and defiance; yet this was the friend of Rome through days of weal and days of woe,—the second city of Italy.

Nearer and nearer they drew. The horses threw their heads in the air, and, presaging rest and provender, quickened their pace, without urging. Suddenly an exclamation burst from the lips of Ligurius.

"Look!" he cried. "It is true. They are indeed here." Marcia and Caipor strove to follow his hand. "My northern eyes, old though they be, are better than yours of the south. Do you not see them—one, two, three! Gods! They are thick on the walls."

"What? in the name of Jove!" exclaimed Marcia, impatiently, and then Caipor started.

"I see! I see now," he cried. "Ah! mistress, they are the standards of Carthage; the horses' heads, yellow, with red manes. Gods, how they glitter! Gold and blood—gold and blood!"

"Drive on," said Marcia, for they had all drawn rein, half unconsciously, and she lay back, behind the curtains of the rheda.

II.

THE GATE.

A harsh cry of command or warning rang out ahead, and the rheda stopped short with a jolt. Ligurius had thrown his horse upon his haunches and then backed him so as to take post at that side of the vehicle unprotected by Caipor; but, a moment later, the rush of a dozen tall figures thrust them both away, the curtains were torn aside, and Marcia looked out into savage faces and great, staring, blue eyes. Three or four overlapping circlets of iron just above the hips seemed the limit of these men's defensive armour, and the skin of some animal was thrown about the brawny shoulders of such as had not replaced their barbaric mantles with the Roman military cloak; the hair of each, black or red, but always long and indescribably filthy, was caught up in a knot at the top of the head, whence it streamed away, loose or matted, like the tail of an unkempt horse; their feet were bare, and their legs were covered by linen breeches bound close with leathern thongs. It needed not the great broad-swords slung about their shoulders to tell them for Hannibal's Gauls—creatures scarcely half human, whose name brought terror to the Roman maiden of the days of Cannae, as the sight of them had carried death or slavery to her less-favoured sister of the blacker days of the Allia.

But Marcia showed little of womanish weakness. To the jargon of a dozen voices—a jargon that sounded like the yelping and barking of a pack of dogs—she opposed a cold and dignified silence. A dozen hands reached out to touch her, as they would touch something strange and admirable; but she drew back, and the rude hands and staring, blue eyes fell before the flash of her indignation.

At that instant, a man strode forward, hurling the soldiers from his path to right and left, or striking them fiercely with his staff. Taller by almost half a head than the others, his richer vesture and arms, but, above all, the gold collar about his neck and the gold bracelets upon his arms, marked the chief. Standing by the rheda, he met Marcia's look of proud defiance, for a moment; then his eyes shifted and seemed to wander; but, cloaking with martial sternness the embarrassment of the barbarian, he spoke in Gallic:—

"Who are you?"

Unable to understand the question, much less to answer it, she turned away and ignored both the man and his words. Again the look of indecision and embarrassment returned to his face; but, glancing round, he saw Ligurius struggling in the hands of his captors, and caught some words of Gallic in his half-throttled remonstrances.

"Bring him," he said shortly, with a motion of his staff, and the freedman, who had been roughly pulled from his horse, was thrust forward, his clothes hanging in tatters, and his face bruised and bleeding from his efforts to break loose and guard his mistress from intrusion or insult.

"Who is she, and who are you?" asked the chief, sternly; for his eyes, now that they looked into those of a man and an inferior, had regained all their wild fierceness.

Ligurius hesitated, partly from lack of wind and partly from a doubt as to how much or what it would be wise to tell.

"Speak!" cried the other, impatiently.

Marcia threw aside the curtains which had been allowed to fall back in their place, and leaned out. The scene looked critical; the Gaul's face was working with nervous irritation, while his followers, scarcely recovered from his sudden onslaught, stood around in a ring, some fingering their swords, and with expressions whose wonder and stupidity seemed fast giving place to the lust of blood and plunder. Caipor had been knocked senseless at the beginning, and the driver was in the hands of several soldiers.

Ligurius looked inquiringly at his mistress.

"He asks who we are," he said. "What shall I say?"

"Ah! you plot to deceive me," cried the Gaul, losing control of his temper, and, before Marcia could answer, he struck the freedman down with his staff. One of his followers shifted his sword belt, and, half drawing the great weapon, stepped forward; but Marcia had sprung from the rheda, and stood, with clenched hands and flashing eyes, above her prostrate attendant.

"Bandits! Murderers!" she cried. "Does your general permit you to rob and kill travellers that seek to enter a friendly city?"

Understanding the act rather than the words, the soldier halted, and the chief's eyes began again to shift nervously; but soon an expression of mingled lust and cunning came into them.

"You are beautiful," he said. "You shall not die, you shall dwell in my hut."

Marcia shuddered at the glance and change of tone. He reached out his arms, tattooed in blue designs, and made as if to advance. She drew a dagger from her girdle. Infuriated by the sight of what he took to be a hostile weapon, the barbarian's sword was out in an instant. Then he perceived that the dagger was directed not at his breast, but at the woman's. The point of the great sword, already half raised, dropped slowly to the ground, and a new look of embarrassed amazement took the place of the momentary glare of savage fury.

How it would have ended never transpired, for a commotion at the gate attracted the attention of all. A small detachment of soldiers was advancing, at a leisurely pace, headed by a young officer whose arms blazed with gold and silver. No Hannibalian veterans these. As they came near, even Marcia could note the sleek, soft look of the men, and their listless, muscleless gait; while their leader's hair and person literally reeked with perfumes. His eyes turned slowly from the huge Gaul to the woman; then a flash of animation lent them light.

"How is this?" he asked. "Why this tumult? Who are these people?"

The Gaul shook his head defiantly, as if ignorant of the speech of his interrogator, while his followers began to nudge each other, pointing out the round limbs and fresh complexions of the Capuans, and laughing scornfully.

The young officer flushed, and, turning to Marcia, repeated the question.

"I am a Roman. Do you not understand my tongue?" she said.

He glanced fearfully at the Gauls. Then, reassured by their evident failure to comprehend, he regained his assurance and answered:—

"Surely, lady, an educated Capuan cannot fail to understand all languages, civilized or barbarous. I speak the Greek, the Roman—all; only permit me to beg you to be less frank in naming your city: 'Roman' is a dangerous word to use here. What has led one so beautiful and so accomplished to run the risk of such a journey? Do you not know that Hannibal and his men are in Capua? That is why these beasts have been able to disturb you; but fear not," he continued, as she was about to speak, "I also am here to protect you," and he accompanied the words, with a glance that left the nature of the protection offered more than equivocal.

Suppressing her mingled feelings of disgust and amusement, Marcia answered haughtily:—

"May Jove favour you for your offer; but has it come that the expected guest of Pacuvius Calavius needs protection at the gate of Capua?"

Amazement and deference were at once apparent in his changed manner.

"Ah!" he said slowly, as if trying to gather his wits; "that is different—very different. It is a double regret that these vermin have troubled you; but you are safe now."

Marcia found herself wondering whether he would allude to the Gauls so scornfully had they been able to understand his words.

The Capuan turned to the Gallic chief, who, together with his followers, had drawn nearer.

"Make way!" he cried. "Loose the slave that drives." Then to his own men, "Raise up the two that are hurt;" and to Marcia, "And you, lady; will it please you to return to your carriage?"

But the Gauls, although evidently understanding the nature of his orders, showed no disposition to obey them. On the contrary, at a few words from their chief, they pushed closer yet, and some of them even began to jostle the soldiers of the Capuan guard. A light blow or a sharp word bade fair to precipitate a conflict that, despite the numerical equality, could hardly be doubtful in its outcome, when a sharp, commanding voice rang out behind.

All swung around, as if to meet a blow, and the press opened. A rider, glittering in arms of simple but rich design, and mounted upon a black horse, was advancing from the gate. Two Spaniards, who rode several spear lengths behind him, were his sole escort; but, alone or at the head of a legion, it was all the same: no eye of Gaul or Capuan saw aught but the one horseman; and yet it was not easy to tell wherein the force lay. He was a young man, probably twenty—possibly twenty-five, for life advanced quickly under the sun of Africa. His figure was slender and boyish, his face thinly bearded, a lack which was accentuated by the beard being divided into two points. Yes, now they, saw; it was his eyes that had dispelled the boast and swagger of the Gaul, the superciliousness of the Capuan, and whatever of brawling boldness had been in either. These eyes were black and large and flashing with courage and energy and the pride of noble birth. No detail of the scene seemed to escape their first glance, and he asked no question, as he rode into the crowd.

"Ardix," he said, addressing the Gaul in his own tongue, "back to your gate! and you," turning to the Capuan officer and changing his language with ready ease, "it would be wise for you to consider the unwisdom of quarrelling with our veterans."

There was just enough of contempt in the inference of the last word to check the flow of explanation and complaint that was rising to the lips of the young exquisite. The newcomer had turned his back. The Capuan saw his followers slinking away with Ardix and his Gauls. It was hard to lose a chance of talking with a great man, and surely a few of the words he could choose and speak so well would compel the Carthaginian to value him at his worth. Still, there was something that impressed upon him the unwisdom of speech, and, after a moment of embarrassed indecision, he turned and strode away after the rest, seeking to conceal the humiliation of his retreat by the swagger of his gait and the fierceness of his expression—which there was no one to see.

While this little comedy was passing, he, whose advent had been its occasion, was regarding Marcia fixedly; but he now looked into eyes that neither quailed nor wandered before his own. At last he spoke, and in Latin:—

"I am Mago, the son of Hamilcar. What brings a Roman woman to Capua in these days?"

This youth, then, was the famous brother of Hannibal; the commander of the ambush at the Trebia. His voice was cold, harsh, and metallic, and in his eyes there was none of the rude lust of the Gaul or the polished licentiousness of the Capuan. They burned only with the fires that light the souls of patriots and leaders of men.

"I come," said Marcia, slowly, "for several reasons, and believing that Carthage does not make war upon women."

The eyes lost nothing of their cold scrutiny at the implied compliment or the covert reproach.

"And what reasons?" he asked sharply.

"For the one," replied Marcia, and she was conscious of an effort in holding her voice to its steady inflection; "that my house is bound in hospitality to that of Pacuvius Calavius—"

Mago's brow cleared for an instant.

"Our friend," he said. "He is married to one of your Claudians." Then it darkened again as he continued: "Well, and you seek him for what? To tempt him back to Rome?"

"I seek him," said Marcia, boldly, "because I am wise. Have I not seen the narrowing of Rome's resources? the quarrels of the factions? I have come from there, and I tell you that, if Hannibal have patience until the spring, it is Rome that will beg him to take her. What part has a woman with a man who cannot protect himself! Let her look for a new defender, if she be wise."

An odd look had come into the Carthaginian's face as she spoke, a look more scornful but less threatening.

"You speak true woman's philosophy," he said. "That is the philosophy of these times. I am convinced that there were days, and women—but pah! now it is only glory that is worthy to be a man's bride. Come, I will lead you to the house of Calavius."

Ligurius had recovered sufficiently to remount his horse, while Mago's attendants had laid the still senseless Caipor in the rheda to which their master now assisted Marcia. Then he rode on, by the wheel of the carriage.

As for the daughter of Torquatus, not even the consciousness of her purpose, and of the high and bitter motives that had shaped it, could drive the touch of shame from her cheeks. It galled her when she considered how she must appear to this man—a mere youth and a Carthaginian, and it galled her the more that she should care for his opinion. That she had inspired only his contempt, was quite evident; and she, whose glances had always gone straight as the arrows of Love to the hearts of men, now found herself more annoyed by the indifference of an enemy than she had been by the dangers from which he had rescued her. She was not certain whether it was with a desire to gain in his sight, or only in the pursuance of her plans, that she spoke again.

"Does my lord think worse of me for what I have said?"

"I thought you a woman; now I know you for one," he replied, carelessly.

"Ah! but my lord did not ask as to my other reasons for seeking the camp of Carthage."

"That is a matter for Calavius to look to. If you come as an enemy—so much the worse for him."

"And if I come as a woman who would escape a hated marriage—to seek a lover who has won her heart afar off?—"

"Calavius?" laughed Mago, the boy in him suddenly flashing out. "They say even the old men here are hunters of women. Have a care of the Claudian, though. She may bite."

Marcia flushed crimson. Mago was not an easy subject for female influence. Besides, she began to realize that the respect she could not help feeling for the attitude of the young soldier might hamper whatever efforts she could put forth to ensnare and control him. His closeness to Hannibal, however, would make his conquest as advantageous as it seemed difficult, and it was some such thought as this that prompted her next words.

"Happy the leader and brother that has so single and so firm a counsellor!"

She spoke as if half unconsciously, but Mago shot a sharp glance straight into her eyes. Then he answered, carelessly:—

"My brother is the captain-general of Carthage, and I am only a young soldier. Doubtless he is wise to ignore my opinions; and yet, had he harkened to Maharbal and myself at the close of the day of Cannae—had he let us press on with the cavalry and followed, with such speed as the gods could grant,—I am convinced that within five days he had supped in the Capitol."

His tone changed, as he spoke, to one of fierce enthusiasm, and his listener shuddered. Then, sinking his voice, he went on, as if speaking to himself:—

"Even now—even now—before the winter closes in, there might be a chance. Later, they will recover strength and courage, and we—we shall become—Capuans."

Marcia hid her agitation behind the curtains of the rheda. She was terrified by his vehemence and by the justice of his reasoning. Here was the man whose whole influence would be pitted against the purpose of her journey; and her woman's intuition told her that no argument or allurement could turn his mind. It was with a feeling of relief that the halting of the vehicle before the porch of a stately house checked the unwise retort that trembled on her lips. Later, she could oppose him better than if, yielding now to an impulse to controvert his views, she had aroused suspicion.

III.

PACUVIUS CALAVIUS.

The house of Pacuvius Calavius was well situated, near the centre of the town, accessible to the Forum, and upon a street of considerable width. The porch of the ostium was supported by four columns delicately fluted and painted, the lower half in dull crimson, the upper in ochre. A porter, in costume much richer than those worn by most free Romans, lounged on a stool set upon the mosaic pavement, and roused himself lazily to shuffle down and inquire why the rheda had halted before his door.

"Ah! It was a lady"—and he smirked with insolent meaning—"who desired to see his master?" He threw out his hands with a deprecatory gesture. "The gods were, in truth, very friendly to Pacuvius Calavius; but then he was very old—a complaint which few could guard against. Oh!—"

Mago had signalled to one of his horsemen, and the soldier's lash whistled and wound itself about the slave's neck. All the fellow's laziness and insolence vanished, and he fell upon the pavement, writhing and whimpering.

"Lash the hound till he does his office," said Mago, quietly; and the short hand-thong rose again.

But before it descended a second time, the porter had rolled and scrambled to his feet, and was rushing to open the door. He vanished with wonderful speed, and, a moment later, there appeared a man somewhat above middle age, with a close-curling, white beard, and clad in a robe so heavily embroidered with gold as to leave the ground colour a matter of conjecture. With keen eyes that shifted nervously, he hurried down toward the rheda. Then, noting Mago, and that he was a Carthaginian of rank, he paused, uncertain, and his salutation savoured somewhat of over-respect.

"A lady?" he said hesitatingly;—"a lady who desires to see me?"

Marcia parted the curtains and leaned out, smiling. The newcomer stopped short and gasped in astonishment.

Mago glanced sharply from one to the other, and his lip curled. He signed to his attendants, and, with an obeisance that had in it haughtiness rather than courtesy, he rode away.

Glancing cautiously up and down the street, Calavius approached the rheda.

"And is it the lady Marcia who is to honour my house?" he began, in words that carried more welcome than did the tone. "A dangerous journey, in these days, and a dangerous destination. Surely you are welcome—and who was the young man that rode with you? Did he know anything of your name and birth? I trust you were cautious?—"

Marcia laughed.

"Do not fear, father;" Calavius frowned slightly at the venerable title, and shook out his robe that the odours might permeate the air. "Do not fear but that I was as cunning as your Campanians. I told him I was a Roman—wherefore not? For the matter of that, he divined it. He is Mago, the brother of Hannibal—"

"And he brought you here?" cried Calavius, trembling now in good earnest. "Surely it was done to ruin me; but whose plot?—whose plot?"

"It is not necessary I should be your guest," said Marcia, with well-feigned indifference. "Doubtless there are inns; but he guided me here because I asked for your house, imagining that my father's friend would have a welcome for my father's daughter."

Calavius instantly recovered his composure.

"Ah! dear lady," he began, in a voice from which all the tremor had vanished, "and do you dream for a moment that you should taste of other hospitality than mine? Will you not descend—nay, I will help you—and let us enter quickly. These are indeed troublous days, and every door creaks a warning; troublous days, with each man's hand against his neighbour, plotting by necessity, often, rather than by preference. What! your attendants are hurt?" Again his voice shook. "A brawl? that is bad; but come within. It is there you shall tell me of it all."

So speaking, he assisted Marcia to descend, and, summoning his servants, gave the rheda and its guardians into their care. Then he led the way into his house, carefully fastening the street door behind them, for the porter evidently had not halted in his flight, short of the slaves' apartments upstairs.

Marcia followed, wondering at the magnificence of the decorations. She passed through passages lighted by hanging-lamps of gold and silver and bronze; past walls rich with frescoes in black and yellow and red; panels and pictures such as Caius Fabius Pictor could never have dreamed when he ornamented the Temple of Safety; frescoes that so far surpassed the work of Damophilus and Gorgasus upon the walls of Ceres, as these had surpassed the art of Pictor himself. Then came courts surrounded by rows of fluted columns, set with fountains that threw light sprays of scented water over the flowers and the garments of the passers; then more passages, with paintings of even greater merit and delicacy of execution, mingled, here and there, with scenes where the delicacy was of the execution alone, and that brought hot blushes to her cheek. Amid all, were scattered richly carved pedestals bearing beautiful statues done in marble or bronze, or great vases, black or terra-cotta, with intricately composed groups of figures in the opposite tint. It came like a veritable revelation to one who had known nothing but the crude art of the Etruscans and the cruder handicraft of her own people, tempered, as they were, by the taste of such Greek artists as fell so far short of their native ideals as to be willing to waste their skill upon barbarians. She had heard of the wealth and luxury of the Capuans, but it had never entered her mind to imagine that the luxury of Capua could demand, or the wealth of Campania purchase, pictures whose distance and proportions were true to life itself, and statues that seemed veritably to live and breathe. Her eyes were big with wonder and admiration, when her guide and host turned sharply to the right and ushered her into a small room that looked out through a row of slender pillars into a portico beyond, and thence into a garden that seemed a very forest of small rose trees. Around the walls ran a shelf upon which were set a number of circular boxes, while lying upon the table were several bulky rolls of papyrus, in parchment wrappers stained yellow or purple.

"My library," said Calavius, in a careless tone, but with a wave of his arm that showed his pride in its possession. "Three hundred and eighty-nine works—the best, and of the most excellent authors:—poets, philosophers, historians, rhetoricians—all that is worth reading. No man in Capua has a better show of literature—unless, perhaps, it be Decius Magius," and his voice sank, as if the name had brought him back to a realization of circumstances. "Here I can read without disturbance, and here we can talk without fear of interruption or listening ears. There are slaves always stationed at both ends of the portico, to insure quiet."

"And you are the man who has dared to turn Capua over to the enemies of Rome! Truly, I cannot understand."

Marcia could not restrain the words, and Calavius flushed.

"Do not condemn me for timidity," he said quickly. "These are dangerous seas for a man of mark to steer his craft upon. Carthaginians and other barbarians are not citizens of Capua—no refinement—no civilization. Much has happened to disturb me—to unsettle my nerves. Decius Magius has been parading in the Forum, defying our friends,—and who with him but my own son, Perolla, casting discredit on my plans, and danger on himself! It was with the utmost difficulty I could drag him away—and then, what does the Carthaginian do but fly into a rage, and demand an audience of the senate, with a view to punishing Decius. Nothing but my influence and that of Virrius and the Ninii have persuaded him to forego his purpose for the time; and that, only, by pleading the joy of this day, and that it should be given to nothing save festivity and feasting. Truly, my mind misgives me. Still, they have sworn that no Carthaginian shall have any power over a Campanian, and—was not that a noise in the portico?"

He rose and, gliding out to the row of pillars, looked up and down. Marcia regarded him with contempt and pity.

"And yet," she said, "it is for this terror and distrust that you have betrayed Rome. Were there none of our soldiers and citizens in the town?"

"Do not speak of it," whispered Calavius, growing even paler;—"a most frightful misfortune! They were taken in arms, or at their business—what matters it which?—and confined in the baths for safe-keeping."

"And then?" said Marcia, for he paused.

"And then some evil-disposed persons turned on the vapour."

"They were killed?" she cried.

"Not so loud!—not so loud! for the love of all the gods! It was a mistake, a terrible mistake!"

"Ah! guest-friend of my father," said Marcia, sadly; "I fear it is a mistake that Rome will exact a heavy price for. You say truly that it matters not how they were taken."

"But I swear it was no will of mine!" he cried, and then, fearing lest he had committed himself too deeply, he went on. "In fact, lady, they say too much, who set this revolution at my door; who say that I was the mover of all. Was it not Vibius Virrius who first suggested it? Was it not Marius Blossius, the praetor, who led out the people to meet the Carthaginians?—and see how my son is still with Rome! No, by Bacchus! there are many here a thousand times more guilty—if it be guilt, and on whom the rods and axes must fall first if there be justice under the gods. You can bear witness at Rome to that."

"There will be rods and axes enough for all," said Marcia, grimly, filled with horror and disgust for the deeds told of, and with contempt for this garrulous, timid plotter of treachery and murder. Then, suddenly, she noted a sinister glitter in his eye, and, at the same time, remembering her mission, she checked her words and went on, "Rods and axes enough for all who are so feeble as not to take the sovereignty of Italy when it lies within their grasp."

"What—what is that you say?" he said eagerly, and the threat fled from his face. "The sovereignty of Italy? Ah! it is a great prize! Who shall deny it to us? Are we not the second city? Have we not allies the strongest in the world?—a general the greatest? and when all is over, who so fitting to rule as the first man of the first city?—for Rome will be no more. Ah! I will deal with them gently, though; I will conciliate—unless I be opposed too obstinately. You shall tell them that. Are they meditating surrender? Do they not see that we must prevail?—but," and his tone changed again to distrust, "I have forgotten to ask, amid my anxiety about matters of state, why you have come to Capua—a Roman—at such times?"

Marcia laughed. She was ready for her part now, and this adversary, at least, she despised,—perhaps too much, for he was a cunning man, in his way, and when the matter demanded only chicanery against other cowards.

"Ah! my Pacuvius, a politician like you asks me that?" she exclaimed gayly. "Is it for a woman to remain in a ship buffeted and rocking in the storm? a ship that must founder soon, if it be but left to itself?"

"Is that truth?" he asked eagerly, but with a tinge of suspicion in his voice.

"Surely, it is truth: as it is truth that I, with many other women, have gone out to such cities where there are friends of our houses—cities friendly to the new powers, friends strong enough to give us shelter and protection. It is my happy fortune to have found a city and a friend the strongest of all."

Calavius smiled complacently and stroked his beard.

"Yes, you have done well," he said slowly. "I am not without interest with the captain-general of Carthage, and there may be yet greater things in store for me. I will go now and send female attendants to you, that you may seek the bath and your room, and have such refreshment as you desire. I will talk with you again later, but to-night there is the banquet at the house of the Ninii. Ah! it will be the greatest feast that Capua has seen—a banquet to Hannibal and the Carthaginian leaders. Farewell."

He turned to go, but she rose quickly and laid her hand upon his robe.

"You have not heard all, yet," she said, casting down her eyes and speaking in halting phrases. "Do you truly believe that it is only a woman's fears that have brought me to Capua? You have not questioned me closely. That is not worthy of your wisdom. It is hard for a woman to tell all things unless they be drawn from her."

He stared with eyes full of wonder.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Then, throwing her head to one side, she laughed, so that Sergius himself would scarcely have known it from the laugh of the free-hearted, jesting Marcia of other days.

"Oh, my father, you a Capuan and a man learned in the ways of women! It is pitiful—this littleness of your knowledge. Come, tell me now, as to a pedagogue, what is it that leads a woman to all places, through all dangers?"

"Surely, my child, it is love," said Calavius, vacantly. Then his face took on an expression, first of furrowed surprise and then of gratified vanity, an expression that brought the hot blush to Marcia's cheek, even while she struggled to restrain her contemptuous mirth. His manner changed at once to one of insinuating gallantry, which she hastened to check before he should commit himself.

"What is it," she went on again, glancing down that he might not see and read her eyes; "what is it that makes women love men? What, if not strength and courage? I am a Roman, my father; but Roman men are no longer fit mates for Roman women. Where but in the camp of Carthage shall I find one worthy of my beauty? It is there I seek my lover."

Disappointment lowered on the face of Calavius. He had noted her beauty, long before she had referred to it; but now he noted it with a more distinct desire, and the words, "my father," which she had used, though but a customary term of respect, grated the more harshly upon his ears. Still, controlling himself, he asked:—

"And which man of our allies has the lady Marcia chosen to bless with the love that is too high for an humble Italian?"

She looked the siren herself, as she answered:—

"Surely, my father would not learn the secret of his daughter!" Calavius winced. "Believe, only, that he who has been loved at a distance is noble and powerful. However, if so be that my lord would learn the truth, let him take her to this banquet. I have heard often that much liberty is allowed to the women of Capua; why not, then, to the guest of the noblest of the Capuans?"

The mind of Calavius had been divided. With the first rebuff to his rising passion had come the impulse to avail himself of his power and of the helpless position of his guest to gratify his spite or his pleasure as she might choose to make it. Then, at the suggestion that she loved and had come to seek a Carthaginian of rank, he thought of the disfavour—even peril he might incur by such a course should an enemy or a slave learn the facts and expose him; and, finally, he fell into a cunning casting up of the influence he might gain over the lover, whoever he was, to whom he should be instrumental in surrendering such perfect beauty. Again he winced at the thought, but then, what more likely than that her silly, woman's vanity aspired to the captain-general himself? and he, Pacuvius Calavius, might hope to be the confidential go-between. What profit and influence might not be found in such a relation!—so personal, so beneficent! After all, there were many beautiful women—even among his slaves, and what was the difference between woman and woman compared to the dream of Italian sovereignty that hovered before his eyes! He knew well that no wife or daughter of a Capuan would be present at that banquet—only the most beautiful of the city's hetairai—but what of that? This girl was a Roman—an enemy; the claims of hospitality between his people and hers would be shivered in the coming crash of arms. What mattered it if to gain a point—a great point—he wrenched loose his personal obligations a few days sooner? Yes, Marcia should go to the banquet, and, if Hannibal desired her, then he, Pacuvius Calavius, would surrender her into his arms. He knit his brows and spoke:—

"What you ask, my daughter, is truly difficult to compass, nor do I know that any women or of what class will be present. Trust, however, that all my power shall be at your service to gain any wish of your heart,—and, as you know, I am not powerless,—only remember that it is your will that I am doing. I will send a servant who shall lead you to your chamber. Rest, prepare, and expect my return before the third hour. Farewell."

Marcia did not detain him. She noticed the wealth of odours that his fluttering gown had left behind, and her contempt and disgust deepened.

IV.

THE HOUSE OF THE NINII CELERES.

The rustle of garments aroused Marcia from a sleep wherein had been more of bitter revery than of rest; and, glancing up, she saw, at the entrance of her apartment, two girls, evidently slaves. They had knelt, with arms crossed upon their breasts and downcast eyes.

"Will my mistress be pleased to place herself in the hands of her servants, that she may receive refreshment and whatsoever she desires?"

The girl's voice was soft and musical. Marcia rose, and, with a slight inclination of the head, indicated her acquiescence; then she followed her new guides through new halls and rooms, around and through the colonnade, to a part of the house beyond the garden. Here were the apartments of the bath, and, under the skilful hands of her attendants, she felt the fatigue and blights of the journey passing from her. No such artists of luxury were known at Rome as were these slave women of Capua; new refinements were revealed at every step—refinements that seemed to culminate when the hair-dresser began her work. First came the anointing with the richest odours deftly combined from a dozen vials of ivory or fine glass; then the crimping and curling with hot irons, the touch of which served also, as the attendant explained, to consume whatever coarseness clung to the perfumes and to bring out their finest and most delicate effects. Meanwhile the Roman simplicity of Marcia's wardrobe and jewel-case had been thoroughly explored, not without some scornful side glances on the part of the Capuan women, and she who was in charge of the tiring announced their contents to be quite inadequate to dress a lady for a banquet of state—an announcement which brought more smiles than blushes to Marcia's face. Still, despite her half-veiled contempt, there was nothing to do but resign herself absolutely into the hands of such competent authorities, and, besides, she could not say that she found the process altogether displeasing.

The elaborate structure of curls and frizzes had now been confined in place by a net of fine gold thread, in which were set, at regular intervals, pearls remarkable for their colour and perfect spherical form; then a dozen long pins with carved gold heads were passed through the net, and above and around all was bound a diadem of thin-beaten gold ornamented with intricate open-work tracery. Finally, the hairdresser, having bade Marcia behold herself in the polished silver mirror which she held up, retired with an expression of serene self-approbation upon her face, and gave way to other attendants.

One of these bound the smallest of jewelled sandals upon feet that were too small, even for them; another produced a long palla or sleeveless tunic of apple tint ornamented with feather patterns, and fastened it with amethyst brooches at the shoulders. Last, the head tirewoman herself came to perform what was, after the hair-dressing, the most delicate of all these operations—the adjustment of the cyclas or over-robe, a garment of the finest texture and of a shade known as wax-colour, through which the tint and ornamentation of the palla produced an effect of inimitable beauty. A slender, vine-work design, embroidered in gold, bordered the cyclas, and it was in arranging so that the course of this would form harmonious lines, wherein the skill and difficulty of the task mainly lay.

A final appeal to the mirror followed, and then, with Marcia's approval, the work was over. She was robed, indeed, for a Capuan banquet, and in a manner her simple Roman taste had never dreamed of.

As yet Calavius had not returned. She sat in the portico of the garden, awaiting him, and time was now afforded her to think of her plans, the risk she ran, and the objects to be gained. Not since the resolve had first found place in her mind had she wavered and feared as now, and an intolerable repugnance began to possess her.

Darkness had veiled the city for several hours, but it was the darkness of a southern night and of a city in festal mood. The stars seemed to stand out from the blue-gray vault above, as if reaching down to the earth—whether in pity or anger, she could not tell. Around the city itself hung the luminous aura of its lights; the cries of revellers sounded from the neighbouring streets,—even the rush of feet,—while, to the eastward, the glow of the Carthaginian watch-fires seemed to reach upward to meet the rays of the stars. Yes, these were hostile to the invaders! She knew it now. They were the glittering points of Roman pila descending upon the foe—pila driven by the hands that mouldered amid the red mire of Cannae. Surely those men approved of what she was about to do! Was not Sergius among them, and would he not will her to make good, by her beauty, what the sacrifice of his own strength had failed to accomplish? What interest had he, now, in her as a woman, as a mistress, as a wife? Greater thoughts must inspire the shade that was once her lover: their common city, its life and power, the destiny of the world that depended upon the preservation of both of these; and still she could not banish the feeling of doubt, of disapproval. Perhaps Calavius would not return, or perhaps he might not be able to gain for her permission to attend the banquet?

A commotion at the street entrance, the sound of approaching footsteps, and the rustle of a gown seemed about to answer her question. The next moment, her host stood before her and surveyed with astonished approval the appearance she presented.

"You are very beautiful," he said slowly and as if thinking with regret that he was surrendering such perfection for mere influence and power. "I have spoken of you and your wish, and Stenius and Pacuvius—the Ninii Celeres—consent to your presence. The litters await us in the vestibule, and it is time that we set out."

Marcia rose, and he led her back through the halls and courts.

"Who will be there?" she asked, as they approached the street door.

"All of especial note, except Vibius Virrius and Marius Blossius. They are away, busied about matters of state. Mago also has just departed on a mission to Carthage. There will be no Campanians save our hosts, myself, my son, Perolla, and Jubellius Taurea, the bravest of our horsemen. Of our good allies, you shall see Hasdrubal, Maharbal, Hannibal-the-Fighter, Silenus the Sicilian, who is to write the history of the wars, Iddilcar the priest of Melkarth, and the great captain-general himself—"

"Come, let us hasten," said Marcia, quickly, as if fearful lest her resolution might forsake her while there was yet chance to withdraw.

A moment later and Calavius had assisted her into a gorgeously caparisoned litter. She hardly noticed the rabble that thronged round the door as she passed out, and whom the slaves of her host seemed to keep back with difficulty. Still, she was conscious of nudgings, looks, and gestures that made her blush, though the words that accompanied them were unintelligible. Calavius was furious and paused, as if to give orders for harsher repression. Then a voice called out in coarse jargon—half Latin, half Campanian:—

"She is pretty, my Pacuvius! Venus grant her to restore your youth!"

With an effort, he twisted his features into a smile.

"May the gods favour your wish, my friend!" he said. Then, plunging into his litter, he clapped his hands, for the bearers to proceed, and, lying back among the cushions, ground his teeth in rage.

"Ah! I must play to them—now. Later I shall remember and know how to avenge. The lump of filth! Who knows, though, but that he spoke wisdom? Perhaps I am truly giving up the hope of my youth to others."

Meanwhile the bearers were running swiftly through the streets; that is, as swiftly as the crowds and their condition and humour permitted. Torches gleamed everywhere, and, from time to time as the curtains parted slightly, Marcia caught glimpses of the scene. The city had abandoned itself to the wildest debauchery—a debauchery that had about it more of the desire to drown unpleasant thoughts and haunting fears than of spontaneous exultation or mirth; and their drunkenness seemed but a garment, thrown over the head to shut out the approaching spectre of Roman retribution. All Capua presented to her the spectacular results of a turbulent democracy exalted to power; for the vagaries of the Roman plebeians seemed as nothing beside the unbridled insolence of this populace. Here was Pacuvius Calavius, who had triumphed by their aid over a senate more than half in sympathy with Rome; and now, recognizing his litter, they thronged around it, calling out familiar greetings, or even sheer vulgarities, pulling the curtains aside, kissing their hands to him, and, from time to time, compelling his bearers to pause while they slobbered drunken kisses upon his garments and person. No sign of true respect greeted their leader; it seemed as if the mob recognized him only as the creature of its whim, to be upheld as a facile puppet or cast down by the first savage gust of discontent.

As for Calavius himself, he, too, fell readily into the part assigned him. His face was wreathed in a constant smile, his lips spoke only compliments, his hands waved greetings, until, at last, Marcia lay back, and, closing her eyes, refused to see more of her host's degradation.

Suddenly the litter-bearers paused and set down their burdens. In distance the journey had been short, but the many enforced halts had made it seem as if the whole city had been traversed. They were now before the porch of a house that was, if possible, even more magnificent than that of Calavius. Every column was twined with garlands, flowers hung in festoons from the architrave, incense steamed up from brazen tripods set on either side of the entrance. In front and around the entire insula, the streets were packed dense with a seething crowd, save only for a small space before the vestibule, where was stationed a guard of Africans equipped in the manner of Roman legionaries. These were rude, wiry soldiers, scornful of civilians and their fancied rights, but, above all, contemptuous of the soft Campanian mob that arrogated so much and could command so little. At first the populace had tried to browbeat and play with them, and the soldiers had sallied out into the street and killed a couple of the most talkative, wounding half a dozen more. Now the cowardly Capuans stood back in awe, giving passage whenever the strangers called for it, and hardly daring to whisper among themselves as to what manner of rule they had invited to destroy them. Were it not for this summary treatment it is doubtful whether any of the guests would have been able to gain the entrance—least of all Calavius, who was looked upon as their peculiar creation and mouthpiece, and at whom a hundred complaints were volleyed (in low voices, be it said) as he made his slow way through the press.

Glad to escape at last from a position at once embarrassing and dangerous, he now made haste to escort Marcia between the files of foreign guards, into the atrium, where the Ninii Celeres—smiling hosts—had stationed themselves to receive the guests that had been bidden to so important a festivity. Thence he led her, muffled as she was, to a vestiarium opening to the left side, where were already some half-dozen women, whose attendants were adding the finishing graces to toilets disarranged in the litters. One of these latter was assigned to Marcia's aid, but a few touches to her hair and a slight readjustment of the cyclas were all that was needed.

Meanwhile, the Roman was watching, with deep interest, the group in the court of the atrium. She had taken a position from which she could have an unobstructed view through the doorway, and her attendant had evidently informed herself as to the identity of the strangers, and was anxious to win approval by communicating her knowledge.

"That is he, most beautiful lady; the one with the long, white tunic, at the right of my masters. Is he not poorly dressed for so great a man? Who would imagine him of any consequence at all?"

While the girl spoke, Marcia was regarding earnestly, and for the first time, the chief of Carthage, the conqueror of Trebia and Trasimenus and Cannae—of Sempronius and Flaminius and Varro. She saw a man slightly above the middle height, well built, with strong, aquiline features and thick, black, curling beard and hair, though the latter was worn away at the temples by constant pressure of the helmet. It was a face that combined deep thought, immeasurable pride, and absolute self-poise and inscrutability—a face that would have been handsome but for the disfiguring effect of the eye lost in the marshes of the Arnus. Perhaps it was this that lent it something of its prevailing expression of sadness; perhaps it was a realization of responsibilities met and to be met and a premonition of the inevitable end. His dress was, as the maid had so scornfully commented, plain in the extreme—a striking contrast to the celebrated magnificence of his armour and military equipment. Now, a simple, white, tunic-like garment, relieved by a narrow border of gold, descended to his feet, while a slender gold fillet was his sole ornament in addition to the seal finger-ring and heavy earrings, which he wore in common with his companions.

The latter formed a group hardly less interesting than their leader, and the girl pointed them out, one by one, and made her approving or slurring comments. There was Hasdrubal, coarse-featured, middle-sized, and corpulent, whose garments gleamed with purple and gold, and whose ears, fingers, and neck glittered with a profusion of jewels. Him Marcia's informant evidently regarded with admiration approaching to awe, although his skill as manager of the commissariat, and his exploits as a soldier when occasion demanded, were probably unknown to her.

Maharbal, slight and agile, with plain, dark robe and few jewels, with hair dressed high, diadem of plumes, and beard worn forked in the Numidian fashion, attracted but passing comment. He was doubtless a savage from the desert and of little wealth. Another of the generals, however, seemed to arouse more positive sentiments: a giant in size, with scarlet tunic, and loaded with gold chains and rings and gems, his dark, ferocious face towered above the heads of his companions. The woman's voice sank to a whisper as she said:—

"That is the one they call Hannibal-the-Fighter. They say he never spares an enemy, and that he eats the flesh of those he kills. May the gods grant that my masters shall wean him to-night from the love of such hideous, barbaric fare!"—and yet, with all her horror, Marcia almost smiled to note how the girl looked upon this brute with more of woman's feeling for man than she bestowed upon any of his better favoured and more famous compatriots.

From these four the Roman's eyes wandered to a fifth Carthaginian, who seemed to complete the tale of guests of that nationality. Her informant had passed him by in silence, and had gone on to point out Jubellius Taurea, Pacuvius Calavius, and his son, Perolla—the only Campanians present besides the hosts of the occasion. When the category was completed, however, she called the maid's attention to the omission.

"He?" said the latter, lightly; "the man in the violet tunic? He is nothing—a priest of one of their gods whom they call Melkarth."

He was a tall, gaunt man, and he stood directly behind Hannibal, and kept his eyes fixed upon the pavement, as if studying the intricacies of its mosaic pattern.

Silenus, the Greek rhetor, made the last of the group.

And now, at a signal from the hosts, the company turned and followed them in single file toward the rear of the house.

"They will send for you when they have reclined," said the attendant, in answer to a glance of inquiry from Marcia; and, a moment later, the summons came.

Walls, floors, ceilings, every part of the house through which they passed, seemed covered with roses clustered, festooned, and superlaid. Suddenly they found themselves at the entrance of the great banquet hall, where two triclinia were set facing each other, with room for the servants to pass between and minister to the wants of the feasters.

At the table to the east—that of honour—reclined Stenius Ninius, in the middle place of the middle couch, with Hannibal himself at his right, the place of honour above all. Marcia was led to the head of the lowest couch, next to the Carthaginian leader, where she found Pacuvius Calavius reclining below her, as the phrase went; while on the couch directly opposite lay the priest of Melkarth in the lowest place, and Perolla in the highest. The other places, below Pacuvius, between Stenius and the priest, and between the priest and Perolla, were assigned to the women, while the other table, over which Pacuvius Ninius presided, was arranged in similar fashion.

V.

THE BANQUET.

Marcia had felt an instinctive shrinking when she saw that the women, also, were to recline, after the manner of the dissolute Greeks, instead of sitting, as she had been taught to consider the only decent posture for a Roman maid or matron. Then the thought of her mission brought the blush surging to her cheeks, whence it receded, leaving them pale with a sterner resolve. Was not love of country the greatest virtue? It was time to school herself, to shrink at nothing in that cause. As she took her place, she noticed that the priest of Melkarth, who lay directly opposite, had been regarding her fixedly.

She could see his face now, and it was not a pleasing one. The Semitic features, fine and noble in their best form, but capable of greater depths of degeneration than those of any other type, were in his case exaggerated to an extreme degree of coarseness. The mouth was large and badly formed, the forehead low, the small eyes peered out snakelike from under heavy, puffy lids. The nose alone was cut with any measure of fineness, and that projected, wide-nostrilled, and aquiline as the beak of a bird of prey. It would have been difficult to imagine a face more gross and sensual in its lines, and the look of low admiration and eagerness which it now wore, was well calculated to bring out the sensuality in its most repulsive form. Marcia felt her cheeks burning under the fixedness of the man's gaze, and, looking down, she struggled to compose herself by a close study of the gorgeous coverlid of the couch,—a fine Campanian texture, dyed scarlet, and heavily embroidered with figures of birds and beasts and flowers, worked into an elaborate design.

Even then, his eyes seemed to burn through her hair, through her brain, down into her heart, and she found her will revolting more violently than ever against the possibilities involved in her mission.

The voice of Hannibal, addressing some conventional compliment to Stenius upon the perfection of the arrangements, came as an intense relief, for the others all turned toward the speaker, and, a moment later, the slaves passed around with silver basins and ewers, pouring scented water upon the hands of the guests and drying them with dainty flickings of filmy napkins. Vessels of gold and silver and fine earthenware burdened the tables, while at each end of the garden stood a butler in charge of several large amphorae. Those at the north end were half buried amid imitation mountains, peaked with real snow wherewith the wine was to be cooled, while those at the south were surrounded by more than tropical verdure, with the braziers and vessels of hot water beside them, ready for mixing the warm draughts.

And now the slaves hurried hither and thither, bearing costly dishes with elaborately dressed viands: dormice strewed with honey and poppy seeds; beccaficoes surrounded by yolks of eggs, seasoned with pepper and made to resemble peafowls' eggs in a nest whereon the stuffed bird was sitting; fish floating in rich gravies that spouted from the mouths of four tritons at the corners of the dish; crammed fowls, hares fitted with wings to resemble Pegasus, thrushes in pastry stuffed with raisins and nuts, oysters, scallops, snails on silver gridirons, boar stuffed with fieldfares, with baskets of figs and dates hanging from his tusks, sweetmeats, cold tarts with Spanish honey—these and a hundred other dishes, strange or costly, followed each other in quick succession, and, all the while, the carvers flourished their knives in time with music, now of instruments, again of choruses of boys and girls. The butlers, too, had not been idle, and the cups were constantly replenished, first with the warm and, later, with the cold mixtures.

Yet, though both men and women ate greedily and drank deeply, a gloom seemed to hang over the feast. The Carthaginians, whether influenced by native dignity or by a real or simulated contempt for their hosts, were reserved and silent, while the Capuans seemed, at one moment, forcing themselves into strained merriment, and, at another, cowering before the cold eyes that watched their efforts with scarcely veiled indifference. With fear on the one side and distrust upon the other, the chances for hilarity and good fellowship looked scanty enough, and yet Stenius Ninius was too much a man of the world to yield readily to untoward social conditions.

Clapping his hands, he cried out, as the head butler bowed before him:—

"Now, my good Cappadox, let us have no more of these native vintages. Good though they were, they but serve to cultivate the taste for the wines that cement friendships such as ours. Henceforth pour for us only the Coan, Leucadian, and Thasian, and see that you select those amphorae whose contents are toothless with age."

A rough laugh rolled up from the other table, and the voice of Hannibal-the-Fighter broke out with:—

"It is well said, host. Truly I was wondering if we had been drinking from the famous cellars of Capua. We washed our horses with better wine in the north."

Stenius flushed. Then he smiled.

"And, Cappadox," he went on, in an unruffled voice, "do you send what remains in my cellar of the vintages we have been drinking, to the horse of my worthy guest."

At the giant's discourteous words, Hannibal himself had started from the mood of thought in which he had seemed well-nigh buried. A quick glance shot from his eye, and his brow furrowed. Then the courtly answer of Stenius relieved the situation, and he turned to his host.

"You must pardon rough words to rough soldiers, my friend. We of Carthage have had but slender chances to avail ourselves of Greek culture and urbanity. We are mere merchants and warriors—not men of letters or of social manners."

The hulking savage grew purple and trembled under the rebuke of his chief. Twice he essayed to speak and then discreetly gulped down the words, for Hannibal's face, though calm and courtly, showed a hardening of its lines which meant much to those who knew him.

As for the Campanian, he raised his hands in voluble deprecation of the apology.

Did he not realize that but for soldiers and merchants, letters and social manners would never have come into being? It was the privilege of so brave a warrior as Hannibal-the-Fighter to say what he pleased, and when and where. Ordinary rules were only for little men. Besides, the best of Campanian wines were truly all too poor for heroes whose souls were already attasted to the nectar of the gods.

The suppressed fury and shame of the offender melted away under the balm of these honeyed words, and, laughing loudly but with some constraint, he tossed off to his host a cup of the wine last brought.

And now Hannibal seemed to shake himself loose from the bonds of silence and thought, though his conversation still showed the trend of his mind. He turned to Calavius.

"Thirty thousand foot and four thousand horse form an excellent array, and yet I should imagine that the second city in Italy could do even better—in case of need."

The attention of hosts and guests became tense at once, though Marcia could note that the motives were diverse.

Calavius seemed nervous and flustered.

"There was a time when that was undoubtedly so, my Lord," he said hastily; "but, now, many of our young men have fallen in the wars, and many are serving with the enemy, unable to escape and doubtless in serious danger—"

"Three hundred horsemen," interrupted Hannibal, dryly, "and my spies inform me that they are likely to continue serving Rome—by choice, as would doubtless many of your well-born at home—like this fellow, Magius," and his brow darkened ominously.

The Campanians moved uneasily on the couches.

"Magius is a traitor and will be dealt with in due season," said Stenius. "It is friends and festivities first with us, and enemies and punishments later."

"Yes, Magius shall be dealt with," echoed Hannibal; but the acquiescence brought no relief to his hearers. Why should he feel it necessary to supplement their assurance so significantly? Did not the treaty between Carthage and Capua provide that Capuan laws and magistrates should still govern all Capuans? Why should he speak so markedly of their military power? Did not the treaty expressly state that no Capuan was to be called upon for military duty except by his own rulers?

Calavius had been signalling vigorously to his son, Perolla, who had reclined silent and gloomy, but who now seemed about to speak. Disregarding his father's warning, the young man broke in:—

"It is idle to deny that the Campanian horse serve willingly with Rome and will continue so to serve. As for Decius Magius, there are many good men here who hold with him, but who lack his boldness."

For an instant every one held his breath in terror of the coming outburst, but those whose angry or frightened eyes first ventured to glance toward the captain-general saw his face wreathed in smiles, and his wine cup raised toward the daring speaker.

"Happiness to you, flower of Campanian youth! and know that there are two things that Hannibal prizes most among men: a friend who was once an enemy, and a friend who dares to speak the truth."

Calavius had recovered his composure during this speech.

"I would not have you imagine, my Lord," he began, "but that my son speaks as he believes and in order that you may have full information; yet, he is ill to-day in body and mind, and, even were it not so, I am older than he and know more of men. That Decius Magius has sympathizers, it is vain to deny; but that they are many or influential, I, who know the Capuans, aver is not the case. As for our horsemen, it is easy to see that their safety demands an apparent friendship for Rome. It is not wise for three hundred to revile thirty thousand."

Hannibal had continued to keep his gaze upon Perolla, scarcely listening to his father's words. In the young man's face something of surprise had mingled with his half-defiant, half-moody expression.

"I do not ask of you, my son," pursued the general, "that you whose heart was but lately with our enemies, should love and trust us at once. That were the part of a hypocrite, and I honour you, both for the filial piety that threw down your preference before your father's will, and for the slowness with which your heart follows your act. Grant me but this: that you judge us fairly by our deeds, and if we prove not better friends than Rome, return to them in peace and safety. Meanwhile there is a horse with crimson mane and feet that shall be led from my stable to yours in the morning. Ride him, and remember that Hannibal honours courage, filial obedience, and truth—all in like measure."

Subdued applause from both tables followed these words, but the face of Perolla lost but little of its stubborn hostility. Hannibal turned away, and Calavius and Ninius sought to cover by eager talking the young man's ungracious reception of such signal favour. The faces of the Carthaginians remained for the most part impassive; only their dark eyes seemed to sparkle, either with wine or suppressed passion. Marcia still felt that one pair was trying to look through her, and she was conscious that Silenus, the Sicilian Greek, was making eager and indecorous love to one of the women at the other table. Another of the latter had just ventured on some light badinage with the chief guest, in whose face smiles had chased away all the abstraction of the earlier hours. He answered her as lightly, but with indifference, and turned to Marcia.

"And what says our Roman beauty?" he asked. "She has come boldly and far to see her enemies. Who knows but she has a boon to beg."

Again Marcia noted disturbance under Calavius' smile. He was wondering at the general's knowledge. Then he realized that Mago's report must be its basis, and his face cleared.

"Yes, truly, I have a boon to ask," replied Marcia, fixing her great eyes upon the bearded front, stern through its smiles. "It is that you will spare one house in Italy from ravage and destruction."

"And where may this house be?" he asked in bantering tones. "We shall leave many standing, but this one most surely of all."

"It is upon the brow of the Palatine Hill—" she began, and then a burst of applause gave notice that the compliment had struck home. "It is my father's," she concluded, blushing.

Calavius was in ecstasy over the graceful tact of his protégé. No Capuan or Greek could have done better. Hannibal eyed her with a curious expression, half admiring, half doubtful.

"I grant the boon—freely," he said. Then, fixing her with his gaze, he went on, "And when will you claim it?"

"The son of Hamilcar knows best," replied Marcia, casting down her eyes, and again she felt the approval of her host and his friends.

That Hannibal was pleased and flattered was evident, and yet there was a certain reserve in his manner. Possibly he suspected that she wished to provoke an announcement of his plans; perhaps an even deeper insight led him near to a fuller conception of her purpose.

"Yes, it is truly for us to say," he said loudly, glancing around the board; then, turning quickly to Marcia: "I understand that you counselled delay until spring to my brother, Mago. Why?"

So frank a question, so different from all that had been told of the more than Oriental craft of the Carthaginians, and one that went so straight to the motive of her presence, threw Marcia into some confusion. Calavius noticed it, and, fearing lest she might say something to do away with the impression of her former tact, he came to the rescue.

"Surely we shall not insult my Lord Bacchus by a council of war in his presence?" but Hannibal waved his hand toward him and looked fixedly at Marcia.

"Goddesses may speak on all subjects, at all times; and the gods smile."

"That my words," she began, with eyes still cast down, "were deemed worthy to be borne to my Lord, is too much honour. That he should deem them worthy of thought, is beyond the dream of mere woman." Then, glancing up and smiling wistfully into his face, she went on: "Know, that whatever of judgment born of knowledge of the place and the men has come to me, a girl,—that and more is for the service of the great general of Carthage,—the benignant liberator of Italy."

"Why do you advise delay?" asked Hannibal again, and the eyes of Maharbal glittered, as he leaned over from the other table. "There are those who say I have delayed too long already."

"For this," replied Marcia, boldly; "that you may save your soldiers and your allies; that they may lie in rest and luxury, and that, ere springtime, the cities of the Latin Name, yes, truly, and the very rabble of Rome, shall come to you on their knees for leave to bear the horseheads along the Sacred Way, up the Capitoline slope—"

"If in the spring, why not now?"

Maharbal and Hannibal-the-Fighter made a clucking sound of assent; Hasdrubal and the other guests seemed indifferent, but the Capuans were hanging on Marcia's words.

"Because the time is not ripe—" she began.

"Words!" cried her questioner, cutting off her speech; "I asked, why?"

Frightened at his vehemence, but put to it of necessity, she answered:—

"Because there are strifes and bickerings—at Rome—throughout the Latin Name—that must soon bear fruit of civil strife. The nobles grind and hold to their privileges; the commons serve and starve and look to Carthage for aid. How shall these things grow better, while you hold the garden of Italy—while the Greeks of the south and the Samnites and the men of the soil gather behind you on one side, and the Gauls and Etruscans muster in the north? The water is eating at the mole; soon the waves will lash up and sweep it from its foundations."

Hannibal eyed her closely for a moment. Then he said: "There are those at Rome and among the Latin Name who tell me otherwise. They are good men, and they know. Perhaps I have been even too cautious. You are young and beautiful. Hold fast to matters suited to youth and beauty, and leave the conduct of wars and statecraft to men." Turning to Stenius, he went on, "If this Leucadian wine of yours, my Stenius, were let into the veins of those who lie dead at Cannae, they would be fit to rise and do battle again."

Stenius bowed and smiled; Marcia grew red and then pale with shame and vexation, seeing how her plots were like to fall and crush her; but, at this moment, the voice of Hannibal-the-Fighter rose from the other table. Flushed with wine, he was boasting of his slain. "Four at Trebia," he cried out, "seven at Trasimenus, eighteen at Cannae—but all men. It is better to slay the wolves' whelps, if only to teach women that it is no longer wise to bring forth Romans. I—I who speak have already killed eleven boys—ah! but you must wait till we enter Rome. Then will be the day when they shall build new cities in Hades!"

The Carthaginians heard him with indifference; the Capuans, all save Perolla, applauded nervously; and Marcia grew sick at heart and mad with a rage that could almost have strangled the giant as he reclined.

"And now," began Ninius, mildly, when there was a moment's silence, "that we may the better enjoy what is to come, there are baths and attendants; and the red feather will make way for new feastings at the end of two hours."

Slaves had run in to assist the diners from their couches; the Capuans, with dreams of relief, refreshment, and re-repletion; the Carthaginians, bored, but striving to be polite and to follow the customs of their entertainers. Even Hannibal, while his smile was half a frown, permitted himself to be led away.

Filled with disgust and despair, Marcia felt herself all unfit to begin a new revel—one that was to be made possible by loathsome practices, as yet unknown at Rome, and which bade fair to end in aimless and hideous debauchery. The women were but warming to their part, when the summons of Stenius Ninius had proclaimed a truce with Bacchus and Venus—a truce with promise of more deadly battle to be joined. She had seen glances hot with wine and lust, claspings of hands, loosened cyclas, and more lascivious reclinings. The gloomy Perolla had yielded a little to the soft influences, and even Hannibal seemed to force himself to toying, if only in the name of courtesy; while, through it all, and more and more as the light of day advanced, Marcia felt the eyes of Iddilcar, priest of Melkarth, burning into her soul. He at least gave no heed to nearer blandishments, and terror and loathing filled her in equal measure.

A faintness—a sudden weakness born of her recent journey—served for excuse, which Calavius seemed not unwilling to voice, and, surrounded by a guard of slaves, her litter bore her back to his house, through streets littered with drunken men and fluctuant with the figured robes of courtesans.

VI.

ALLIES.

Night had come again, before Marcia could arouse herself from the deep sleep with which exhaustion of mind and body had overwhelmed her. She remembered the scenes of the banquet as the phantasms of a dream—strange and terrible; for her thoughts were slow to gather the threads and weave the woof. Only a feeling of failure, of fruitless abasement, was ever present. Hannibal had admired her, but, proof against any controlling attraction, he had put her words aside with little short of contempt. A dread, even, lest the strange acumen of this wonderful man had pierced her mask, and that her very motive and mission were already suspected, was not lacking to add dismay to discouragement. Such thoughts were but wretched company, and they brought with them a vague conception of her own vain egotism in imagining the possibility of other outcome. She tried to sleep again, but could not. What mattered it though, by some shifting of hours, her day had become night and her night day! She must arise and talk with some one, if it were only the host whom she so heartily despised.

Attendants entered at her summons, and the refreshment of the bath and the labour of the toilet were once more passed through. Then, dismissing the slaves, she walked out alone into the garden and sat down on a softly cushioned seat of carved marble. A fountain plashed soothingly in the foliage near by, the stars were shining again, while, from without, the jarring sounds of the city came to her ears.

How long she sat, awake yet thinking of nothing, dull and dazed, she could not tell. Then she was aroused by a sandalled step upon the pavement. A man was standing before her, whose face, despite its youthful contours, was deep-lined and melancholy. He was short of stature and slenderly though gracefully built, and his black curls clustered over brow and eyes that seemed rather those of a poet or a dreamer than of a man of action. In the sombre, dark blue garments of mourning, without ornaments or jewels, so different from the gay banqueting robes in which she had last seen him, Marcia gazed a moment, before she recognized Perolla, the son of Pacuvius.

"You are not pretty to-night, Scylla," he said tauntingly, "though you left us early. There are dark circles under the eyes that looked kindly at the enemy of your country."

Marcia flushed crimson, and he went on: "Yes; I watched you smiling and ogling, but it will take greater traitors than you to snare him. He is like Minos, in that he did not reach out to take from your hands the purple lock shorn from your father's head: he is not like him otherwise: he is not just, and he will not give honourable terms."

"You, at least, are faithful to Rome?" said Marcia, slowly, and ignoring his insults.

"Can you ask?" he answered; "is it that you wish to betray me? Well, then, know truly that I have betrayed myself to your heart's content. Do you not see the mourning garments I wear for my city's faithlessness and for her coming ruin? Have you not heard how my father dragged me from the side of Decius Magius in the market place that I might attend the banquet?—ah! but you have not heard how I had planned to startle them all."

Marcia began to wonder whether she was talking with a madman.

"Shall I tell?"

She made a sign of assent.

"It was toward evening—they have but just risen from the tables now. Then, it was to seek the red feathers for the third time; but I led my father back among the rose bushes and showed him a sword which I had girt to my side, beneath my tunic. 'This,' said I, 'shall win us pardon from Rome. Look you, when we return, I will plunge it into the Carthaginian's breast.'"

Marcia bent forward eagerly.

"And then," he went on, "my father bound my arms to my sides, with his own around me, and wept and talked of our recent pledges to these foreigners. 'Can they outweigh our ancient pledges to Rome?' I answered. So he pleaded how the attendants would surely cut me down, and mentioned Hannibal's look, which he affirmed I would not be able to confront; but I laughed and made little of these things. Then he spoke of the hospitable board, which I admitted had something of reason; and, finally, when he had declared that the sword must reach Hannibal only through his own breast, then, at last, from filial duty, mark you, I threw the weapon from me, telling him that he had betrayed his country thrice: in revolting from Rome, in allying with foreigners, and, now, in turning aside the instrument of escape. Then we returned to the banquet, but my father trembled, and ate and drank no more. There, now, is a story to tell your city's destroyer. If you betray me, perhaps he may yet love you."

Marcia viewed him sternly.

"Truly your father was right, when he said you were ill in mind."

"Yes, ill in mind and in heart."

"How, then, do you not recognize one whose heart is sicker than your own?"

Perolla looked at her inquiringly, and she went on:—

"You have a city that has been false to itself, and is in danger of punishment—a father, too, if you will. My city has already suffered every evil but destruction: my brother and he to whom Juno was about to lead me have been killed by these pulse-eaters. Are such things the benefits that go to make friendship and love for the slayers? Say, rather, hate and the craving for revenge."

"Yes," said Perolla, moodily; "they are indeed evils, but less than mine, in that they are passed—"

"And is Rome safe, do you think?" she asked quickly.

"Rome will conquer," he said doggedly, "unless there be many more traitors like you."

"Fool!" she cried, grasping his wrist. "Can you not see—you who claim to be a philosopher and to have Greek blood?—you, at least, should have understood my words."

He gazed at her vacantly, and she began to regret her vehemence. It came to her mind that this was not altogether a safe man to trust with her secret. Faithful he was, no doubt; but a fool might be even more dangerous than a traitor. Still, she had said too much to be silent, and she felt the need of some ally to whom she could talk—upon whom she could at least pretend to lean when the weight of her burden was heaviest.

"I have told you what I have lost—what I dread to lose. Now learn what I am here to gain. For many days after the black news of Cannae, I heard them talking in my father's house—talking of the advance of the insolent victors and of the paltry defence we could oppose, the certain destruction that awaited us. Still they were brave—old men and boys. The soldiers were dead, but we set to work training new—shaping them alike out of youth and age and bondmen; and the slayers of our citizens delayed, and we gained strength and courage. In every temple of the twelve gods it was the same prayer by day and night: 'Grant us delay. Grant us that the winter may find him in the south!' At last came the news that he was advancing to Capua, and rumours of a Carthaginian party in the city. From Capua, seized with all its engines of war, was but a few days to Rome. Then I took a resolve and made a vow: tell me, am I beautiful?"

"Beautiful as Venus."

"Know, then, that I have dedicated this beauty to her, that she may guard Rome and avenge me upon Rome's enemies."

He shook his head stupidly.

"Minerva does not favour me, lady," he replied; "for I do not understand your words."

"Listen!" she went on, with the earnestness of desperation, "He shall love me—he or one who can sway him—and they shall play the laggards here, until the winter gives us time—and time brings safety."

He understood her now, but still he shook his head.

"If you speak truth," he said slowly, "you speak foolishness as well. Hannibal will love no mistress but Carthage, and there is no man living who shall sway him by a hair's breadth. Now I see why you spoke to him of plots at Rome and of the wisdom of delay. Ah! a woman to make game of him!" and he threw back his head and laughed. "Do you imagine he has not divined your plot? Give him your beauty if you will. He will take it, doubtless, if he have time, and march north forthwith, after you have confessed your little plottings beneath the hot tweezers. Only one thing shall stay him—steel,—and in the hands of man—not blandishments in the mouth of a girl."

Marcia was in despair.

"And is there no help," she cried, "for me, a Roman woman, from you, a friend of Rome? Surely we shall be stronger together, even if our plots are different. Two plans are better than one."

Before he could frame his answer they heard footsteps coming toward them, and then a man, enveloped in the brown cloak of a slave, pushed aside the foliage and glided out into the moonlight. Perolla, wheeling about, had half drawn his sword, while Marcia shrunk back into the shadow.

"Put up your sword, my Perolla," said the newcomer, speaking in low tones and throwing aside his mantle.

"Decius Magius, by all the gods!" cried the young man; "but why are you disguised?"

"Because, my friend," said Magius, slowly "Capua is no longer free; because spies of the Carthaginian and of our senate are watching my house, making ready to seize me. Decius Magius can no longer walk in his own city, clad in his own gown, and to-morrow, doubtless, he cannot walk at all. Therefore I wish to speak with you, and I have put on this disguise in order that I might gain your house unobserved, and that your father might not die of fright, learning me to be here."

"But how did you enter? how find me?"

"I entered, my Perolla, because your porter, like every slave in Capua, is drunk to-night, and because the boy whom he left to keep the gate was only enough awake to mumble that you were in the garden."

Perolla frowned. Then, suddenly, he remembered Marcia, concerning whom his suspicions were not yet entirely removed, and he raised his hand in warning.

"There is a woman here—a Roman woman, who tells a strange story," he whispered. "It is better to be discreet."

"The time for discretion is past for Decius Magius," said the other, wearily. "Let him at least speak freely upon his last night of freedom."

Marcia came forward.

"Is it permitted a Roman maid to honour a Campanian who is true to his city's faith?"

"Assuredly, daughter," replied Magius, quietly. She could not see his face except that it was stern and gray-bearded; but, kneeling down beside him, she took his hand and poured out the story of her life, her sorrow, her resolve, and its prosecution. Here, at least, was a man upon whose faith and judgment she could rely, and his manner grew more gentle as she made an end of speaking.

"So you doubted her truth, my Perolla," he said softly. "That is because you have not felt her hand tremble, and because you are too young and too much of a philosopher to judge of the honesty of a woman's face. The same instinct that tells me, doubtless warned Hannibal also that this was not a courtesan, much less an immodest woman well born, and, least of all, a coward who would flee her city, or a traitress who would betray it. You will know more of such things, my Perolla, when you learn to study them less." Then, turning to Marcia, he went on: "What you have designed, my daughter, is noble and worthy of your race—and yet, while I commend, I am slow to encourage. Are you strong to carry your sacrifice to the uttermost?"

Marcia shuddered.

"Yes, if there be need," she said, in a low voice; "I look to no marriage now. Is not the Republic worthy of our best?"

"It is a hard thing," he said, doubtfully, "for a woman well born and modest to belong to a man she hates."

"But it is easy to die, my father, as died Lucretia."

Decius Magius looked at her. Several times his lips moved as if about to speak, and, once, he turned away sharply for a moment, as if to gaze up into the night.

"Tell me, my father," she said earnestly, "do you give me no hope? Is not my beauty worth the purchase of a few paltry months? And then comes the winter, bringing safety."

Still Magius said nothing for several minutes, and when he spoke, it was in harsh, quick tones.

"Yes, it is all possible, as you say it."

"Hannibal to surrender his plans for a woman?" cried Perolla, scornfully. "Surely, my Decius, you jest. Do you not know him—that only the gods can turn him from his purpose?"

Marcia had wheeled about with flashing eyes and faced the last speaker.

"You have shown me the way," she cried. "It is the gods who shall delay him."

Perolla gazed at her in astonishment, as at one gone mad, but Magius nodded and frowned.

"It is the best chance," he said slowly, "the only one."

"Still Minerva does not favour me," said Perolla, shaking his head; but Marcia went on in a high, nervous voice and with a gayety that made the older man draw his cloak up to his face in pity:—

"Come, my philosopher, you are indeed stupid to-night. If you did not observe it at the house of the Ninii, you should have heard me just now when I told the story of the banquet to my lord Decius. It is Iddilcar, the priest of Melkarth, who shall bring his god to be my ally—Rome's ally: Iddilcar, who could not so much as take his eyes from me, through all their feasting. There is the man who will prefer my beauty, even to his god's favour; and surely your Hannibal will not wage war against the auspices."

The face of Magius was still shaded by his cloak, and he said nothing; but over the features of the younger man came strange expressions: first amazement, then horror, then a look which had something of horror but more of yearning. He held out his hands in supplication.

"No—no," he cried. "You shall not do it. You are too beautiful. First I hated you, when I dreamed you to be but a courtesan traitress. Now—now—O gods favour me! Listen! you shall not do it. It is I who will kill him—yes, and you also first," and, turning suddenly away, he staggered. Then, as Magius raised his hand to support him, he shook himself free and ran furiously into the house.

Marcia turned to Magius in astonishment, and he smiled sadly.

"Even philosophers are not proof," he said; "and you are very beautiful—and he is young—and half a Greek." She blushed, and the grim senator took her hand. "May the gods grant, my daughter, that your sacrifice be not for nothing. You have spoken wisdom; but he—he is a madman. As for me, I am as one who is dead. Farewell."

He dropped her hand, and she felt, rather than heard or saw him go; only her voice would not obey her when she strove to detain him, if but for a moment: the only man in Capua whom she could honour—upon whom she could rely. Surely he would not desert her thus?—yes, truly, he was gone.

Then she ran several steps in the direction he had taken, and called, though she dared not call his name, until a female attendant came hurrying to answer her.

"My lord, Perolla," said the girl, "had but just rushed out into the street, as if possessed of a daimon. As for a strange slave, she had observed no one; but if such there was, doubtless he had slipped by the porter's boy—who was worthless."

Marcia groped her way to her sleeping apartment, harshly brushing aside an offer of aid. Once alone, she threw herself down upon the couch and burst into a torrent of moans and sobs.

The girl, who had followed hesitatingly, listened in the hallway, nodding her head with conscious satisfaction. "And so the Roman women loved, for all they were said to be so grand and stern. What a fool this one was, though, to prefer the son to the father, who was much richer, and who, being old, would doubtless realize the necessity of being more generous."

And she went back to the slaves' apartments, laughing softly to herself.

VII.

"FREEDOM."

The morning air of the Seplasia reeked with perfumes, more, even, than was its wont; for Carthaginian and Capuan revellers had been carousing there, and several of the shops had been broken open. The gutters streamed wine with which were mingled all the essences of India and Asia. Flowers, withered and soaked with coarser odours than their own, floated on the pools and drifted down the rivulets. Inert bodies, drunk to repletion, lay scattered about, helpless, unable to drink consciously, but absorbing the wasted liquor through every pore. A dead citizen, his head crushed in by a single blow, sprawled hideously in the middle of the street; while his murderer, a gigantic Gaul, was embracing the corpse with maudlin affection and whispering in its ear to arise and guide him back to camp. Those who passed, from time to time, paused to join the soldier's comrades in laughter and rude jests and suggestions of new methods of awakening his friend.

And now, down the street, extending from wall to wall, came a line of young men, their faces flushed, their garments disordered or cast aside, and their brows crowned with what had once been chaplets of roses. Three or four courtesans, with gowns and tunics torn from their white shoulders, were being dragged along, half laughing, half resisting, and wholly possessed by Bacchic frenzy.

In front of the company marched a slender youth with dark, curling hair and delicate features. In his hand was a thyrsis, and his eyes blazed with the madness of the wine.

"Evoe! evoe!" he shouted. "Comrades! Bacchantes! there is no water in Capua to mix with wine. Equal mixture for poets and fools; undiluted wine for victors and lovers!"

"Perolla is a good Carthaginian to-day," shouted one of his fellows. "Behold how Bacchus has answered our prayers! Kiss him, Cluvia, for a reward."

Pushed forward, the courtesan fell upon the young man's neck, almost bearing him to the street and overwhelming him with drunken caresses. A moment later he freed himself from her arms.

"What is Roman beauty to our Capuan?" he hiccoughed. "Marcia—Cluvia—all are one. All are women, and we are Capuans; braver than Romans, wiser than Carthaginians. Listen, friends! when my father rules Italy, you shall all be kings and queens. Evoe! evoe!"

Shouts and shrieks of drunken joy greeted his words. Several sought to embrace him, and, staggering back, he stumbled over the Gaul and the dead Capuan where they sprawled in the street. Mingled laughter and curses rose all around. Blows and kisses were given and received, and the mad company rolled on through the Seplasia and into the Forum.

Here, too, were intoxication and debauchery, but they were restrained within some manner of bounds. The fact that grave events were taking place, seemed to exert a sobering influence on the populace, and they gathered in a dense throng around the Senate House, whence ominous rumours pursued each other in quick succession.

"The Senate was in session. Hannibal was before them. Decius Magius had been arrested at his demand." So ran the talk.

Guards of Carthaginian soldiery were posted at several points, but especially at all the entrances to the chamber in which the fathers of the city discussed—or obeyed; and against these lines the waves of the rabble surged and broke and receded. Men offered the soldiers money for free passage or news; women offered them kisses for money; and the soldiers took both and gave nothing but jeers and blows.

Perolla and his drunken company had but just poured out to swell the tide of this ocean of popular passion, when a commotion of a different character began at the other end of the Forum. The closed door of the Senate House swung open, and a man in the garb of a senator, but chained and shackled, issued forth and stood on the steps, beneath the porch. Surrounded by a guard of Africans, it was fully a moment, before the mob recognized Decius Magius, the partisan, of Rome. Then a chorus of howls and curses rose up. Insults were hurled,—the grossest that the minds of a licentious rabble could suggest, fists were shaken, women spat toward the prisoner,—even a few stones were cast, and when one of these happened to strike an African of the guard, he turned quietly and cut down the nearest citizen. Then, with their heavy javelins so held as to be used either as spears or clubs, the soldiers descended into the Forum, and, with the captive in their midst, began their progress toward the street and gate that led to the Carthaginian camp. There was no weak delay in this progress, no requests for passage; the escort clove through the mass of the people, as a war galley dashes through the breakers of a turbulent sea. A spray of human beings that strove to escape but could not, boiled up about the prow; a wake of bodies, writhing or senseless, fell behind the stern, while, at either side, the stout javelins rose and fell like the strokes of oars, splashing up blood for foam.

The taunts and threats that had assailed the prisoner died away amid shrieks of terror or pain and the deep rumble of the mob. Stupid with drink, drunk with the exultation of ungoverned power, they wondered vaguely, as they crushed back, why their new friends should strike, merely because they,—the Capuan people,—allies of Carthage, strove to punish a traitor and a common enemy. The prisoner's lips were seen moving, as his captors hurried him along; but no speech from them could be heard, until the Forum had been nearly traversed. Then, on the hush born of surprise and efforts to escape blows, the words of Magius were audible, at least to those nearest.

He was protesting against this violation of the treaty. He was speaking of himself; a Capuan, than whom no one was of higher rank, being dragged in chains to the camp of an ally who had sworn that no Carthaginian should have power over a citizen of Capua. At the mention of his rank, malice and envy lent to some of the cowed rabble courage to jeer once more. Then he had asked, how they expected that an ally so careless of recently sworn obligations would respect his vow that no Capuan would be compelled to do military service against his will; whereupon, some of those who heard looked serious, for this seemed reasonable, and brought the possibility of evil unpleasantly home to them. Finally, he congratulated them upon this marvellous, new-found freedom which the Carthaginian alliance had brought, and which they had been celebrating so earnestly.

Perolla and his companions had found themselves crushed against the portico of the temple of Hercules, in which, only the day before, had been established, also, the worship of the Tyrian Melkarth, out of compliment to the new alliance.

At first they had realized but little of what was going on before and around them. They had listened vacantly to crazy rumours of how the statue of Jupiter in the Senate House had bowed to Hannibal as he entered, and how the Senate had forthwith saluted him as a god and declared him the patron and protector of the city; and, again, to other rumours even more wild of how the wives of all the Capuans had been decreed to be given to the Carthaginians, in return for which the women of Rome were to be surrendered to the Capuans by their victorious allies.

When Decius Magius was led out in custody of the soldiers, Perolla was trying to think whether, after all, he would not prefer Marcia to Cluvia. Then followed the passage through the crowded Forum, straight toward the exit beside the temple of Hercules, and Perolla found himself within a spear's length of his captive friend, whose words of protest and warning fell upon his ears like molten lead, and whose reproachful eyes gazed into his own, piercing through them to his brain and dissipating the fumes of intoxication as sunlight melts the fog. Decius had not spoken to him, for he was mindful that such speech might bring suspicion upon the younger man, but his look had said all that his tongue refrained from saying, and Perolla realized his degradation and his shame.

He started forward and cried out:—

"I was mad, my father; mad! do you hear? It was because I knew suddenly that I loved her, and that she would never love me! and then I rushed out and met others who were drinking, and we feasted and drank until I knew nothing. Pardon! pardon!"

Suddenly he became conscious that Decius and his guards were gone. Had he heard his plea? Surely yes, for did not he, Perolla, now hear his friend's eyes saying to him that he was but a fool who had added to folly, philosophy, and to both, weakness, and to all, madness? He looked around at his companions. Some were gaping at him vacantly, some were laughing. Cluvia tried to grasp his arm, and he shook her off and saw her stumble and roll down the steps that led up to the portico; then a new commotion arose in the direction of the Senate House, and the attention of the bystanders was diverted. More Carthaginian soldiers were forming and marching through the mob that now opened to give passage of double width; and, as the escort came nearer, Perolla saw Hannibal, clad in the gown of a Capuan senator, moving calmly in their midst.

A new frenzy came to his brain to take the place of the fumes of wine: perhaps it was one compounded of that and of shame and horror and revenge. He groped under his torn tunic and found his dagger; then, brandishing it, he burst down through the crowd, uttering incoherent words, and threw himself, like a wild beast, upon the guards.

He had stabbed one through the throat and another in the shoulder, before he was beaten down by a blow from the staff of a javelin. A moment later, the first soldier to recover from the surprise of the incident bent over him with drawn sword.

A sharp exclamation from behind checked the descending thrust, and the soldier turned quickly. Hannibal stood beside him, with a thoughtful smile upon his lips.

"Would you kill a citizen of Capua? a man of our allies?" he said quietly.

The African looked around stupidly. That he should not crush the Italian vermin forthwith was beyond his comprehension, but evidently such was not the schalischim's wish. Grumbling, he slipped his sword slowly back into its sheath, and, at that moment, several of the Capuan senators in Hannibal's train gathered round him with protestations and expressions of regret. The general looked at them and frowned.

"I have been with you scarcely two days," he said, "and now you try to murder me."

The senators fell upon their knees, kissing his gown and hands, in a frenzy of horror at the thought.

"Who is this fellow?" asked Hannibal, turning Perolla over with his foot. Then, recognizing the son of Pacuvius Calavius, he went on: "Some one of no consequence, doubtless; dust of the street that stings when the wind drives it," and he glared around at the prostrate senators.

They glanced at the senseless figure, as if hardly daring so much. Some knew him, more did not; but all united in protesting their ignorance.

Hannibal viewed them with drooping lids, and the smile returned to his lips. Perolla stirred slightly.

Again he addressed the Capuans, raising his voice somewhat, so that the crowd might hear.

"What is your law for the punishment of such a crime?"

Those who had not recognized the assassin, cried out, "Death." Others, divided between the more powerful enmity of Hannibal and the slower revenge of Calavius, made their lips move but were silent, hoping to escape notice in the shout of the others. A few of these were envious of the young man's father; more feared him.

Hannibal noted their confusion and came to their relief.

"But perhaps so wicked a man is not a Capuan, after all. It is difficult to believe that the gods would suffer such impiety to lurk in a city so beloved as yours; and, if no one knows him—"

A chorus of disclaimers snatched at the proffered evasion, and the smile on Hannibal's lips grew more subtle, as he said:—

"In that case, the treaty does not stand, and you, my fathers, are relieved from the burden of his trial and punishment. I am still free to condemn an ally of Rome. Let your rods and axe do their office."

The senators were standing now, and several of them winced and looked frightened at the swift result of their complaisance. One, even, gathered courage to say:—

"When is it my lord's will that punishment fall?"

Hannibal eyed him closely for a moment.

"Here, in your forum, and now," he said, "provided you would give prompt warning to such vermin."

The Capuan shifted uneasily and looked down. Several of the soldiers had already lifted Perolla to his feet, and, holding him upright, had torn away what remained of his garments; others sent for the executioners, and, in a moment, these appeared with the instruments of their calling.

It was doubtful whether the prisoner had recovered full consciousness when the first rod fell upon his shoulders, but he groaned and writhed slightly in the grasp of the four soldiers who held him extended upon the pavement.

Then Hannibal turned away, ordering one of his officers to remain and see the end. He signed to the Capuans to follow him.

"Such jackals, my fathers, are not worthy that men of rank and wealth should watch them die," he said lightly. "The rabble will provide him with sufficient audience."

And the senators, with awed and thoughtful faces, followed in the train of the captain-general of Carthage.

VIII.

DIPLOMACY.

Pacuvius Calavius sat in the atrium of his house. Black robed from head to foot, with hair and beard untrimmed and uncombed, and face and hands foul with dirt, he rocked to and fro and groaned. From time to time he ran his fingers through beard and hair, and uttered the measured cry of the Greek mourners.

An hour before, one of the senators had stolen furtively in, and, having hurriedly related the grewsome scene just enacted in the Forum, had sneaked out again as if he were a spy passing through hostile lines. None other of the friends of the afflicted father had ventured to bear or send a message of condolence. It was as if the house of the once acknowledged leader had been marked for the pestilence—and no pestilence was more to be shunned than the deadly blight of broken power. Even the slaves shifted about in embarrassed silence, offered little service, and obeyed as if conscious that obedience was something of an indiscretion, and was liable at any moment to become a crime. Some had slipped away to their quarters, and had begun to discuss the relative possibilities of freedom, wholesale execution, or a new master, when the coming blow should fall upon this one.

To Marcia, on the other hand, had been born a feeling of sympathy for her host, that, for the present, overcame the contempt with which he had inspired her—a contempt scarcely lessened by the repulsive ostentation of his mourning. She alone ventured to minister to his wants and to beg him to partake of food and drink. Perhaps her attitude was due in a measure to the horror with which she herself had listened to the morning's news. To be sure, she had not admired the character of Perolla. It had in it too much of the weakness and puerility engendered by the bastard Greek culture fashionable in lower Italy, and which naturally attained its most offensive form in the towns of Italian origin. Still, he had been faithful to Rome, and there was something within that told her his madness and ruin were not entirely disconnected with her own personality. Word, too, had just been brought her that both Ligurius and Caipor had died of their injuries. They had seemed on the road to recovery when she visited them on the previous day, and this sudden misfortune filled her with new forebodings, mingled with a suspicion too horrible to dwell upon. As for Decius Magius, she had barely seen him, yet she had felt him to be one of all others upon whom she could rely—an Italian uncorrupted by Capuan luxury, a worthy descendant of the rugged Samnite stock, a Roman in all but name; and now he was snatched away, a prisoner in the hands of enemies who knew nothing of mercy. Still, he had approved of her design; had seen in it the possibility of success; and there was at least a consolation in the thought that, without friends or allies, no one but herself would now be cognizant of the fulfilment of her impending degradation.

Another hour had passed; into Marcia's mind had come the calmness of a fixed resolve. Calavius still moaned and cried out his measured "Aêi! aêi!"

Suddenly a tumult of noises sounded from the street: the approaching murmur of a multitude, the footsteps of men, shouts of applause, cries of wonder or warning, and sharp words of command.

Ah! the end was near, now. Calavius began to imagine himself stretching out his neck to the sword, and he sought, by proclaiming his willingness and welcome, to stay the chilling of his blood, the trembling of his lips and hands.

Staves were beating upon the outer door; the hum of voices in the street rose and fell and rose again.

"Open the door, Phoenix," mumbled Calavius, as he rocked and swayed. "Open the door and let them enter. I am an old man. My son is dead. What matters a few years of life? I pray to the gods that the barbarians may not hack me. You shall see how easy I will make it—if they have but a sharp sword." Suddenly he sprang to his feet and grasped Marcia's arm. "They will not scourge me? Surely they will not scourge me? I am a senator and the friend of Carthage!—will the door hold? Hasten, my daughter; run and tell me whether they are guarding the street in the rear—before the tradesmen's gate."

The beating upon the door still continued, with short intermissions, and Marcia surmised that the porter was probably skulking in the attic with his fellow-slaves. Calavius had turned suddenly from the depths of despair and the height of resignation to a keen desire for life. He had hurried away to seek for some unguarded exit, heedless, for the moment, of what even Marcia fully realized: the utter impossibility of a man so well known escaping unaided through a hostile city and without a friendly land whereto to turn his flight. He had left her standing in the court, to be a first prey of the assailants, whether Capuans or Carthaginians, and she reasoned that it would be better, or at least quicker, to unbar the door before it should be broken in: she was wondering, in fact, at the forbearance that had preserved it thus far from more violent assault. Calavius had been gone some time. Doubtless he had escaped or, recognizing the uselessness of his attempt, was hiding somewhere, and, in either event, nothing would be lost by judicious parleying.

Arranging her robe, she walked slowly through the hall, slid back the bolts one by one, and let the door swing out into the street; then she stood, dazed and frightened, for the sight that met her eyes was Hannibal himself reclining in a litter borne by four Nubians. The curtains were thrown back, and he was leaning out, evidently giving some directions to the attendants whose summons had thus far failed to obtain an answer. Beside the litter stood the priest, Iddilcar, with folded arms and look bent upon the ground. Around them were ranged a strong guard of Africans, and, back through the streets, as far as she could see, the Capuan rabble were thronging forward, curious or bloodthirsty.

All this was visible in a moment, and then the general, attracted by the creaking of the door and the exclamation of the crowd, looked up and saw Marcia standing upon the threshold.

The litter was set down at an imperceptible signal, and he stepped out, robed in a loose gown of black, entirely without ornaments, and with hair and beard uncombed and sprinkled lightly with ashes. Marcia stared in wonder. Surely this could not be the Carthaginian method of announcing judgment or execution! She caught a flash of subtle lightning from the eyes of Iddilcar, though these had not seemed to neglect for a moment their close scrutiny of the pavement. Then Hannibal stood before her, bowing low and speaking in suppressed tones:—

"The gods be with you and dwell within this house! I have come to look upon the face of my father, and, if may be, to console him. Praise be to Tanis for the omen that you have opened to us, rather than one whose servile duty it was. So shall our entrance be free and our going joyful."

He had cast a rapid glance around, as he spoke, and Marcia knew that he divined why the service of tending the door had been left to her—a free woman and a guest; yet he was pleased to ignore all inferences, and to attribute her act to some divine will. His words, too, were more than friendly, and, if they covered no snare of Punic faith, augured safety and continued favour.

"I have come," he continued, "that I might mingle my tears with those of my father who mourns the death of a son."

Marcia stood amazed. Had they not been told how this man had himself ordered the execution of Perolla? How, then, could even a Carthaginian show such effrontery! Still, it was necessary to think quickly, and her woman's wit told her that, in any event, Calavius' best chance of safety was to seem to accept the visit in the spirit which cloaked it. So thinking, she led the visitors into the peristyle,—Hannibal, Iddilcar, and some twenty soldiers who followed as if by previous orders; while the rest mounted guard before the vestibule. Murmuring some word of apology, she hurried back through the garden to the tradesmen's door.

It was still closed and barred, facts which, together with the rumble of the crowd without, showed that Calavius' plan of escape had proven impracticable. Then she began a careful search, becoming more agitated, with each moment, about the difficulty of explaining the delay. At last she found him, hidden away under a couch in one of the slaves' apartments, so senseless with terror that several minutes passed, before he could grasp her tale of Hannibal's presence, and of the chance of safety it offered. When, however, he understood that there was yet room for diplomacy,—that the visitors were not mere executioners with orders to obey,—he drew himself out from his hiding-place, alert and active. The need of haste, in view of the time already lost, was apparent; but, nevertheless, he paused in the garden to wallow a moment in the mould and plunge his hands into its depth.

Marcia saw with disgust, but she led on until they reached the peristyle; when, slipping aside into one of the cells, she watched the playing of the game.

Calavius paused a moment at the entrance. Then, groaning deeply to attract attention, he shambled forward, and, throwing himself at full length before Hannibal, seized the hem of his robe and pressed it eagerly to his lips.

"Ah, my master!" he cried. "Slay me, slay me at once or with tortures. Surely that man is not fit to live whose loins have engendered such a monster of wickedness. Only by death can I hope to expiate my offence and retain the favour of the gods."

"Rise, my father," said the captain-general, and to Marcia's ears his voice rang true with sympathy. He reached out his hand to help Calavius. "Do you not see that I also wear mourning for this melancholy error?"

"Never shall I rise or face you," cried Calavius, "until you give me your oath that I shall have your forgiveness before I die. Ah, the monster! the parricide! who would slay, at one stroke, both him who had brought him up to better deeds, and him who is indeed the father of his country. Ah, gods! the shame of it! Give orders, lord, quickly—only vow first that you forgive me."

Hannibal's tones were low and deep with sorrow, and, by an imperceptible effort of what must have been prodigious strength, he raised the unwilling Calavius to his feet.

"Listen, my father," he said. "Have they not told you how I knew not the young man? He was stained and dishevelled with revellings in honour of our alliance—in honour of me, unhappy one. Perchance the Lord Bacchus, whom you worship, willed to have him for his own, for surely it was he that raised the young man's hand against me. Ah! my father, did I not know how this son of thine was most beautiful, best, and bravest of the Capuan youth? Had I not marked him out for signal honour—only less than yours, my father and his? See, now, how the gods confuse the affairs of men. It was at the banquet that I learned his worth, and determined that he should love me and find in me a friend."

"Truly yes," interrupted Calavius, "and you had won his heart, for, walking in the garden, he told me as much, only adding that he must appear to turn to you slowly—for the honour of his name among the partisans of Rome, whom may the gods confound as they have done."

Hannibal smiled softly, as he took up the words:—

"All this I knew well, being somewhat learned in men, my father; and now the gods have smitten my brother with madness that he should try to slay me, and myself with blindness that I should, unknowingly, order the death of one I loved most. Look, my father, I join you in your mourning, with black robes and ashes; I come to weep with you at the feet of Fate—you whose love for me has lost you a son, and to offer you myself to be a son in his place."

Calavius embraced him, mumbling prayers and vows and endearments in the sudden joy of escaped death. Iddilcar raised his eyes from the study of the mosaics and turned aside, shaking as if with some strong emotion, and Hannibal spoke again.

"One thing more, my father, I would speak to you of, though for my best interests I should hold my peace nor make dissensions among allies. There were those with me when this evil happened—men of your Capuan Senate—who knew this youth better than I, and who I am convinced suspected the truth; yet they spoke not—"

"Ah!" cried Calavius, "and you have their names writ down for me? We shall slay them!"

Hannibal's face wore an expression strangely inscrutable as he answered:—

"Yes, my father, I have their names whom I suspect; and they shall surely die. Grant it to me, though, that I alone keep them and expiate my own fault by avenging your wrong. This I swear by Baal-Melkarth and Baal-Moloch to accomplish at the season best for our plans. Therefore I tell you the fact, but without names, that you may know that you have enemies and walk warily, while I, your son, shall, under the gods, be your reliance for protection and revenge."

Another thought seemed to be struggling for utterance in the bosom of Calavius—a wish prompted by religion but checked by prudence. Twice he raised his head as if to speak, and twice his eyes wandered. Then Hannibal spoke again, as if reading the other's thoughts:—

"I have also, my father, given orders that funeral honours be paid to my brother; a pyre rich with woven fabrics and wine and oil and spices, and, from my own share of the Etruscan spoils, I have chosen a vase boldly pictured with a combat of heroes."

Tears gushed anew from the eyes of Calavius at this added evidence of thoughtful friendship, and once again he embraced his benefactor, but with somewhat more of dignity, now that the fear of death was removed.

Suddenly Marcia became conscious of an intruding presence beside her, and, turning, her eyes fell upon the repulsive features of Iddilcar, that seemed to sneer through the semi-gloom. She shuddered and drew back against the wall. Iddilcar held out his arms which the broad sleeves of his robe left bare to elbow. An expression of eager lust made his face even more hideous than did the sneer of a moment past.

"Come, little bird," he said, "and I will charm you. Moon of Tanis! Lamp of Proserpine! Essence of all the Heavens! do you not see I love you?—I, Iddilcar, priest of Melkarth. Behold, my robe is dark. It mourns—not for the fool who died, but because you have not loved me. Love, and it will gleam again in violet, and all the bracelets that hung from my arms at the banquet shall be yours."

She pressed her hands to her face; she felt herself swaying upon her trembling knees; only the support of the wall saved her from sinking down.

After a moment's silence he began again:—

"What is an old man, and weak—a sport of foreigners—to me who am young and strong, and by whose word even the schalischim of Carthage must march or halt? I, the favoured one of Melkarth, beseech you, a Roman, for favour, because Adonis wills it. See how I come to you, unpermitted, from those who cajole each other, and I show you my heart. Love me! love me! leave this keeper, who is but an old woman, and you shall be a priestess in Carthage, and the people shall swarm around and cast their jewels and wealth before you, for the deity—that shall be you alone; and we shall feast and love and love and feast again in such splendour as not even Carthage has ever known—"

She could restrain her feelings no longer; all her resolves seemed to slip from her in the presence of this man; she thrust out her hands and turned her head away with a shiver of utter disgust. Her movement was vague in the dim light, but he saw it, and his face darkened.

"What is this house?" he exclaimed harshly. "How long will it stand against me? Shall I not crush its root, even as its branch was torn off to-day? Filth! vermin! dust! Shall not its flower lie in my bosom to bloom forever, if she wills—or to bloom for a moment and wither and be cast away, if she wills not?"

He strode forward and caught her wrist; his hot breath steamed in her face.

"No! no! I hate you! Go!" The words sprang from her lips, without power to hold them back, and she struggled frantically in his grasp; she heard his teeth grinding, as, mad with passion, he strove to bind her arms to her sides. At that moment a rattling of weapons from the peristyle seemed to bring him to a consciousness of his surroundings. Releasing her, he half turned, and she sank down in the corner of the cell. The visit was evidently over, and Hannibal, about to take his leave, was glancing around, evidently in search of the missing priest.

Iddilcar spoke low and rapidly:—

"I will return at once. Wait me till I come, or I will have you given to a syntagma of Africans."

He was out in the peristyle now, bowing low before the captain-general. Then he whispered in his ear—probably some explanation of his absence, of how he had been keeping watch against treachery; for Hannibal nodded several times, and, again embracing Calavius, accepted his escort to the door, giving his arm to steady the steps of the older man.

IX.

THE BAIT.

Marcia crouched, huddled in the farthest corner of the cell, and listened to the receding footsteps of the visitors. Then she heard new sounds echoing through the house: the rushing feet of slaves descending from their quarters, striving to gain their stations unobserved; the sharp tongue of Calavius now loosed from the bonds of terror, and rating them soundly for their unfaithfulness and cowardice; the patter of excuses and protestations. In a few moments the quarters above resounded with the shrieks and groans of those condemned to the lash; for the wrath and indignation of Calavius, generally the mildest of masters, were spurred to vindictive bitterness by a consciousness of his late terror and abasement. "They were guilty of all crimes, and, worst of all, of the rankest ingratitude. Let them learn that their master was still strong enough to punish." So the scourges fell, and the victims screamed and writhed.

All these things Marcia heard, but they meant little to a mind so full of internal conflict as was hers. What was she to believe of herself? Had she not marked out a course of self-devotion and sacrifice which was to gain respite and safety for her country, revenge upon its enemies? Had not others, notably Decius Magius, been forced unwillingly to admit the possible efficiency of her plan? Yet now, when the gods had shown her favour beyond all anticipation—had brought the chosen quarry into her net—she had thrown all aside and yielded to her womanly weakness, her instinct of modesty, her sense of personal repulsion. What right had she to think of herself as a woman! He, for whose love her sex had been dear to her, was gone—a pallid shade who could no longer be sensitive to her beauty, a vague being sent far hence into the land of the four rivers by these very men whom she had devoted to destruction. What though the virtues that had beaten down her resolves had been good once—good for Marcia the woman? They were evil for that Marcia who had resolved to be a heroine, and who was now learning how hard it is for the female to seek the latter crown without losing the former. Again and again she struggled with herself, swayed back and forth by the counter-currents of conflicting shames, until the thought of death, as a final possibility, revived to steel her purpose. The sacrifice and the shame would be short, and, in the consciousness of her work accomplished, she could die, going before the lady Proserpine with a pure heart that need not fear to meet the eyes of Sergius when they should ask its secret.

Rising quickly, she hastened to her chamber by passages where she would not be likely to meet her host. Whatever intentions he might have entertained toward her had been effectually suspended, if not obliterated, by the course of events, and now he was much too busy setting in order his demoralized household to think of her presence. Therefore, she reached her apartment unnoticed, and, summoning her tirewomen, surrendered herself to the tedious process of adornment according to the accepted taste of Magna Graecia.

The afternoon was spent, ere all had been finished. Then she ate hurriedly and with little appetite, drinking deeply of the Lesbian wine till her cheeks flushed through the rouge, and her eyes sparkled. Calavius had gone out, busy about affairs of state, and eager to collect the strained threads of his influence—threads that might be strengthened by their very straining, in the hands of a politician who realized how men were ready to grant every complaisance to one whom they had deserved ill of and whose vengeance they feared. Marcia found herself wondering whether Iddilcar would indeed return as he had said. Perhaps her attitude had seemed to him so unfavourable that he would strike first;—but when and how? Perhaps affairs of state detained him also. Perhaps, even, this man, Hannibal, whose eye pierced through all subterfuges, had already divined the danger and set himself to nullify it. Perhaps—and then, as she was reclining in the larger dining hall, one of the slaves entered and whispered in her ear. She rose quickly.

"Tell my lord that she whom he favours awaits him at the hemicycle in the garden, and guide him to me."

She spoke, marvelling at her steady tones, and, turning, walked, with drooping head, to the semicircular, marble seat;—not the single seat, back amongst the foliage, where she had met Perolla; "the philosopher's chair," as Calavius had called it laughingly, where his son retired to commune with thoughts too great for men. Sinking down at one end of the hemicycle, she studied the carved lion's head that ornamented the arm-rest, and the paw, thrusting out from the side-support, upon the pavement beneath. It troubled her that such wonderful handicraft had not considered that the head was entirely out of proportion with the paw; and yet, if the former were larger or the latter smaller, surely they would not fit well in the places they were intended to ornament. What a provoking dilemma, to be sure—and at such a time, for, glancing suddenly up, she saw Iddilcar's dark, repulsive features bent upon her with a terrible intentness. All her former loathing surged back over her heart with tenfold force, sickening her with its suffocating weight.

"Light of the two eyes of Baal," he murmured softly. "Look kindly upon thy servant. Smile upon his love, that thy light and his worship may be eternal. Behold! for thee I cast aside the worship of the lord Melkarth!"

He tore apart his long, violet tunic, showing his throat and bosom hung with necklaces. His arms, bare to the shoulders, glittered with heavy bracelets.

"Lo! the spoils of Italy assigned to my Lord I give to thee,"; and, taking off necklace and bracelet, he knelt and piled them at her feet, raising and parting his arms in the attitude of oblation.

Charmed as by a serpent, Marcia watched him with horrible disgust, yet unable to turn her eyes aside.

"What is Tanis to thee!" he went on. "What, Ceres! What, Proserpine! Ashera! Derceto!—goddesses afar from men—goddesses whom, not seeing, we worship faintly with sacrifice and ceremony. But thou—thou shalt dwell forever in the temple upon the Square of Melkarth. Come!"

Again, and in spite of every resolve, Marcia felt the overmastering sense of woman's loathing that stood so obstinately between herself and the rôle she had marked out. It was too much. She could not—could not suffer this man for a moment, even with the release of swiftly hastening death before her eyes. She struggled to her feet, groping about, turning, and, with a stifled scream, she sought to fly; but her strength refused her even this service.

In an instant, he was up and beside her; his hand had roughly grasped her shoulder, half tearing away the cyclas; his little eyes blazed with vindictive fury; his nostrils dilated; his coarse lips writhed in hungry passion.

"Ah, slave! You would escape? Where? where? In this house? Ah, fool! Could you not measure the comedy of this morning? Do you think this old imbecile, this man condemned to follow his mouse-killing son, can protect you from the meanest Nubian in the army? Do you think—ah!" and he raised his hand, as if to strike.

Wrenching herself loose by a quick movement, Marcia turned and faced him with all the blood of the Torquati flushing in her cheeks, all their fire blazing in her eyes.

"Dog of a pulse-eater!" she cried, and he shrank back before the vehemence of her tone. "Do I care what you do? Break your alliance with these people if you wish—an alliance of fools with fools, knaves with knaves! Break it, before it be cloven asunder for you by the sword of Rome. Doubtless your chief will sacrifice all his plans to your cowardly lust. Kill my protector, tear down his house, and—kill me!—me, for whom there is neither sowing nor reaping in this matter."

All his arrogance and violence had vanished, cowed and crushed by her outbreak; but, even as he cringed before her, the gleam of Oriental cunning had taken its place.

"Ah! now, indeed, art thou more beautiful than the lady Tanis," he muttered, clasping and unclasping his hands, as if in ecstasy. "Now, indeed, do I love thee." His voice sank to a whisper, and he glanced about timorously. "And so it is neither sowing nor reaping with you, my pretty?" he went on. "Fools we may be, but not the fools to be blind to your sowing—not the fools who shall not root up your seed before the day of reaping. Did not you, a Roman, counsel Mago to delay? Did you not, foolish one, even give such counsel at the banquet of welcome to the schalischim, until I laughed in my cup to see a silly girl who would cajole men of government and of war?"

Marcia stood, rigid and pale. All her plans seemed shivering about her. She was doomed to fail then—fail after all, through the cunning of these vermin. Still she struggled to retain her composure.

"Liar!" she said. "Do I not know that if you spoke truth I would already be buried under hurdles weighted with stones?"

He laughed softly. "Why?" he asked. "What can you avail, coining lead for us who perceive its falseness? Nay, you are even of use to Hannibal, for, by your very eagerness, he has come to Maharbal's thinking, that all must be done speedily, if we would take Rome. Even now Capuans work night and day building our engines. Soon they will set them up before your gates. We shall winter in Rome, as the guests of the lady Marcia who has invited us. Therefore Hannibal grants you life and to be a comfort to his friend and father, Pacuvius Calavius, in his declining years;" and he laughed again, but harshly and sneeringly.

Marcia could scarcely keep her feet under the crushing force of these blows. In what vain manner had she, an inexperienced girl, blind to all but a noble purpose, contended with men whose cunning had sufficed to snare the chiefs of her people! Worse even, she had herself forged the weapons for the destruction of all she had hoped to save. Iddilcar watched her from under half-closed lids, noting every line of her face, and reading its struggle and its despair.

"And so it is wisdom for us to march north at once?" he said softly.

"How do I know?—a woman?"

He smiled subtly and ignored the change of front he had wrested from her.

"Love me, and I swear by the crown of Melkarth that Hannibal shall winter in Capua."

She started, as if from the touch of fire. Had her ears heard words of his, or was it only a belated thought coursing from her brain to her heart?

He stepped nearer and spoke again:—

"Love me, pretty one, and Hannibal shall winter in Capua,—yea, though he hangs on the cross for it,—though all the armies of Carthage become food for dogs."

At first she had been dreaming of new snares; but these last words and the vehemence of his tone brought her to an intuitive realization that this man was indeed prepared to give up god, country, general, friends,—all, so only that he might gratify his overmastering passion. The gods were indeed with her, after all,—were guiding her aright; and the knowledge steadied her self-control and strengthened her resolve. What omen of favour could be more potent than this snatching of victory out of the very hands of ruin—this moulding of ruin into a source of victory?

So she spoke, calmly and evenly:—

"Perhaps you tell the truth, perhaps folly. How shall I know, any more than I know of this power to command commanders, of which you make such silly boast?"

"Not I—-not I, lady," he protested eagerly. "Listen! It is the lord Melkarth that has always loved the colonies of Phoenicia, first among which is Carthage. It is he that has guided and guarded us through the perils of the deep and of the desert, of the skies and of the earth, of hunger and thirst, of beasts and men. What god equals him in our city! What god receives such gifts, such incense, such sacrifices! What though we fear Baal Moloch! Is it not the lord Melkarth whom we love? It is he who goes before our armies, that he may tell them when to attack, when to await the foe. I am his priest. Do you understand? I have spoken his words many times. Now he shall speak mine."

Marcia could hardly fail to understand the nature of the power which this man now proposed to lay at her feet; yet it all seemed horribly impossible that he, a priest, could dare such sacrilege for such end. Had she been Fabius, Paullus, or even Sergius,—men who were already groping amid the Greek schools of doubt, and were coming to regard the religion of the state more as an invaluable means of curbing the vices of the low and ignorant than as a divine light for the learned,—had she been such as these, this proposal of Iddilcar would have seemed incredible only on account of its treason to his country. And yet, in one sense, she was better fitted than they to understand the Carthaginian. True scepticism had found little room under the mantle of the gloomy, the terrible cult that swayed the destinies of the Chanaanitish races. Even the priests, while they were ready enough to use the people's faith to minister to their own ends, trembled before their savage gods. Low, brutish, full of inconsistent wiles their faith might be, but such faith it was as an educated Roman could with difficulty comprehend. On the other hand, the minds of the women of Rome had not as yet swerved from unquestioning belief in the gods consulting and the gods apart, and the Torquati were most conservative among all the great houses. From childhood up—and in years she was scarcely more than a child—all these had been very real to her. Pomona wandered through every orchard beside her beloved Vertumnus; Pan and his sylvan brood sported behind the foliage of every copse. She would as soon have thought of questioning their presence as of doubting her own being. Marcia believed; the average Roman patrician affected to believe and indulged in his polite, Hellenic doubts; the Carthaginian priest, while he believed, with all Marcia's fervour, in a theology to which Marcia's was tender as the divine fellowship of the Phaeacians, yet conceived that it was entirely legitimate to play tricks upon his fiend-gods—to pit his cunning against theirs. If they caught him, perhaps they would laugh, perhaps consume him in the flames of their wrath. It depended on their mood—whether they had dined well, perhaps; and he would take his chances. He stood, now, toward his deities, just where the heroes of Homer had stood centuries before. He was a living evidence of the Asiatic birth of Greek theology—only, in the Asian races, religious feeling was not religious thought, did not arise from the mind or change, like the cults of Europe, as the mind that evolved or adopted them developed and outgrew its offspring.

So it was that, while Marcia, but for her instinctive realization of the truth, might have been utterly unable to credit the sincerity of such prodigious wickedness, yet, armed with this intuition as a starting-point, she sought for and found reasons to support it. The purity of her own faith came to her aid. Perhaps the Punic gods were mere demons, as they seemed to be, and Iddilcar knew it and relied for protection upon the mightier gods of Rome. In a sense, she reasoned on false premises, but her conclusion was, none the less, more accurate than would have been that of either Paullus or Sergius. For the time, at least, Iddilcar was entirely sincere. To be sure, if he could gain his end by mere promises, he preferred to deceive Marcia rather than Melkarth, but his plotting had not gotten so far as that yet. Now, his fierce, Oriental nature was consuming with that passion which, in it, took the place of all love. This Roman woman had aroused desires that he had never known in the gardens of Ashera; her face was to the faces of the courtesans who thronged the sacred woods on feast days, as the glory of the crescent moon was to the sputter of the rancid oil in the lamp that illumined the cell of Fancula Cluvia. Cunning beyond his race, learned in the strange learning of the East that had come to a few in Egypt and to fewer yet in Phoenicia, Iddilcar read the struggle that was taking place in the girl's mind.

"What do I care for Hannibal!" he cried; "for the Great Council! for Carthage! I would give them all to you for one kiss. To him who has learned all secret knowledge, the mind alone is God and city and home and friends,—everything, everything save love," and his voice, harsh, and strident, sank to a whisper in which was compassed all the fierceness of ungoverned and ungovernable desire.

Marcia knew, now, that he was speaking the truth; that he would indeed stop at nothing; and, with the certainty, there came to her a strange mingling of exultation, terror, and calm. She saw this man, powerful with the power of the conqueror, learned with the learning of the student and of the ascetic, grovelling here at her feet—slave to a force against which no power, no philosophy could avail. She saw him crawl to her and press her robe to his lips; she heard him mumbling and whining like some animal, and she despised him and grew stronger in the light of her growing self-esteem. At last she spoke.

"It is well. I have listened and determined. Yes, you are right. I have wished that the army should not march north; I have wished that it should winter in Campania. I am a Roman; why should I not wish it? You say you can accomplish this. Do so, and you shall have your reward."

Iddilcar sprang to his feet and threw out his arms to draw her to him; the breath came from his chest in short gasps; his eyes were suffused with tears through which he saw something glitter; and his hands, clutching and unclutching, caught only air. Then his arms fell to his sides; he paused and looked stupidly at her. She had sprung back and was facing him defiantly with a short dagger raised to strike.

"Not so soon, slave," she said, and her voice rang in his ears like steel. "He who would reap must first sow."

"You do not love me," he said sheepishly, gnashing his teeth because he knew the foolishness of his words, and yet could say no others.

She laughed; then her face grew sober.

"No," she said; "I do not love you. Why should I? We love those who serve us well—"

"Ah! but I have promised," he broke in. "I am giving you everything."

"I want but one thing," she said, while the lines of her mouth hardened; "and, for that, I take no promise."

He lowered his head to avoid the straight flash of her eyes.

"It is I, then, who must trust—always I," he muttered. "How do I know you will give yourself when I earn you?—how do I know you will not kill yourself with that dagger? for you hate me," and then, with sudden fierceness; "why should I not take my own? What hinders me?"

"This," said Marcia, touching the point with her finger.

Iddilcar shuddered.

"Listen now," she began, "and be reasonable. I have named my price, and you have said it is not too much. Why speak of love or hate? Earn me and take me."

"Yes," he echoed; for he was braver when his eyes studied the pavement; "why speak of love or hate? It is you I want—your kisses, your embraces. Who shall say that hatred may not flavour them better even than love?" and he sneered. "Ah! but how shall I know?"

"I am a Roman, and I have promised. Fulfil your Punic word as well, and I swear you shall have your pay, so surely,"—and then the memory of another day, happier, but oh! so bitterly regretted, came to her mind,—"so surely as Orcus sends not the dead back from Acheron. Now go."

He drew back, step by step, still facing her, longing to rebel, yet not daring, cringing, skulking like a whipped cur. He reached the end of the path; the entrance to the garden was behind him. He raised his clenched hand to the heavens. "Ah, Melkarth!" burst from his lips, and, turning, he plunged into the house, running.

Marcia listened eagerly to the fall of his sandals. They died away, and the distant door creaked. Tears filled her eyes, and, shivering in every muscle, she sank down upon the seat and buried her face in her hands.

X.

MELKARTH.

Two moons had waxed and waned; Pacuvius Calavius had dined in his winter triclinium for the first time this year, and Marcia was rejoicing at the omen. She watched her host, as he lay back upon his couch, and noted with pity the change that had come over him. When he had greeted her coming, he had seemed not very much past middle age—a brisk man, well preserved in mind and body. Now he was old—very old—and the pallor and wrinkles were prominent through the flush of the wine and the paint with which he strove to hide them. Even his ambition was dead; he hardly sought the Senate House, but, stopping within doors, maundered querulously and unceasingly to Marcia, to his servants, to any one who would listen to him, of the blunders that were being made, and of how war and negotiations should be conducted, speaking always as a man for whom such things had no personal interest. The diadem of Italy that had once blinded his eyes to good faith and oaths of alliance, had melted away in the flames of the pyre that consumed his son. As for Marcia, she had come to regard him with something of that indulgent consideration which we feel for the aged and infirm. His former attitude toward herself, which had filled her with contempt and disgust, had vanished utterly, and, in its place, was a fatherly kindness that had now no nearer object upon which to lavish itself. As for the household, what little discipline had once pertained, was gone. The slaves were no longer punished, and, slavelike, they presumed upon their master's gentleness or indifference. They pilfered right and left; they neglected duties and orders; until, at last, a large measure of the care of her host and his house devolved upon Marcia alone; and Marcia, also, had softened and grown kindlier, and was as slow to ask for punishments as was Calavius to decree them. They seemed like two who were awaiting death, and would not add to the measure of human misery, knowing, from their own, how great this was.

"Let them enjoy a false freedom for a few days longer," said Calavius. "Soon we shall be gone, and then—who knows? I have no heirs, and the state may not deal so kindly with them." Strangely enough, he seemed always to assume Marcia's coming death along with his own; and when she gazed into her mirror, its story moulded well with that reflected in the mirror of her thoughts.

She had grown thin—very thin—and pale, and her eyes burned, large and luminous, as with the fires of fever. Her lips, too, were redder even than when the blood had tinted them with hues of more perfect vigour.

Hannibal had continued to preserve the attitude of respectful consideration which had marked his demeanour on that day of which they never spoke. He still greeted Calavius as, "father," when he came to ask about his health, and on the days when he did not come, he sent some Carthaginian of rank, generally Iddilcar, to make courteous inquiries in his stead.

Calavius, on the other hand, complained continuously of the schalischim's delay, and Hannibal listened with downcast face, frowning to himself, and made no answer except that he was the servant of the gods. Marcia's presence he entirely ignored. Still, he spent little of his time in Capua, and of this Calavius was now speaking.

"Truly did you note the news we have received to-day, my daughter? Two of the new engines destroyed before Casilinum!—Casilinum, forsooth!—a paltry village, against which the Capuan children would hardly deign to march! It is Rome—Rome—Rome that calls—and this great general, this conqueror, sits down before Nuceria, Acerrae, Nola, Casilinum. Soon, mark me," and his eyes gleamed prophetic, "Rome will sit down before Capua: and then, receive thou me, O Death, who art my friend and well-wisher!"

Marcia wondered at this vehemence, so different from his manner through all these weeks.

"But the omens, my father," she said, after a moment's pause. "I have heard that the gods of Carthage forbid the march north. Perhaps they fear to contend with the gods of Rome at the foot of their own hills."

"Tush! girl," exclaimed Calavius, impatiently. "Who does not know that the gods say such words as their thievish priests filch from them. Mark now this fellow that comes from the captain-general. Do you not see how the fingers of his left hand clutch and unclutch? Were Hannibal to crucify him and a few like, his gods might utter more favouring responses. Meanwhile, our engines that should thunder at your Capenian Gate are consumed before mud heaps; and who knows but all the time some tree grows stouter that it may bear the weight of this Hannibal, the slave of gods that should be taught their place and their duties."

Marcia, despite her complicity, listened, shuddering, to these sacrilegious words; and, mingled with her shrinking from a philosophy that dared to talk of the immortals as mere means to be used or cast aside as human ends might dictate, was a terror lest similar reasoning should at last find place in Hannibal's mind and thus bring to naught her aims and her sacrifices. It was easy to see how the general chafed at the unwonted delay, and with what willingness he listened when another spoke the words which he himself dared not utter.

Calavius had but just finished his tirade when they both turned at a slight noise and saw Iddilcar standing in the entrance of the room. How long he had been there—what he had heard, neither knew, but his face wore the subtle smile which, though well-nigh native to its lines, yet seemed always to bear some hidden import.

"The favour of Melkarth and of the Baalim be with you!" he said softly. "Your servants, my Pacuvius, are not over-well trained. There was no offer to bear word of my coming—no offer of attendance. The porter hardly deigned to swing the door for me."

Marcia, knowing Iddilcar as she did, was prompt to take this speech in the light of an explanation of his eavesdropping; but the once sharp intelligence of Calavius had been too much deadened to search for secondary meanings.

"I am an old man, priest," he said querulously. "Why should I leave stripes and crying behind me?"

Iddilcar shrugged his shoulders. "That may be," he replied, "but if we had such servants as yours in Carthage we should send their shades ahead of us."

He had indeed deftly parried any attack or inquiry. Then, suddenly, and of his own accord, he turned back to strike.

"And so you have been condemning the piety of the schalischim? the integrity of the college of priests? the truth of the gods themselves, for aught I know? Have a care!"—he was lashing himself into a fury—"I have listened to your words. If I reported them, how long before you would both be sent to Carthage to keep comradeship with that terrible fellow, Decius Magius? Have care! have care lest the gods strike through me, their servant. Nevertheless the gods are merciful to those who bring offerings—peace-offerings of gold and jewels and raiment and spices. Come, what will you give me that I smother their wrath—I, Iddilcar, your friend, whom you speak ill of behind his back—whom you hate—-yes, both of you;" and his eyes flashed at Marcia with a strange recklessness that she had never seen in them.

Wondering and terrified, she listened to his outburst of rage, but Calavius heard it calmly, and answered, without troubling himself to probe its import.

"You shall have a talent of silver and such jewels as you choose," he said, rising. "I will go and give the orders."

"Orders!" sneered the other; but to Marcia it seemed that the word and look covered suspicion at the ready acquiescence of the Capuan.

"Then I will go with you and see that these orders are obeyed. Come; ah!—" and he turned to Marcia; "and will you be here when I return? I wish to speak with you."

She inclined her head, still wondering, and when they had left the room her wonder deepened. Surely a change had taken place. A Carthaginian was always said to love money, but for Iddilcar to seek to obtain it by such crude and violent means, from a man whom his general professed to honour and protect, seemed to augur something of which she knew not. Either Hannibal's protection was to be, for some reason, withdrawn, or else?—but what else could embolden the priest to such license? The look, too, with which he had regarded herself! She had restrained him with some difficulty during the past months, but now she felt instinctively that her control had vanished. Even violence seemed near; for that Iddilcar could be fool enough to dream that his mere repetition of the words he had listened to, would enrage Hannibal, she did not for a moment believe. The general had heard the same from Calavius, face to face, and had only frowned and bit his lips behind his beard, as if feeling their justice. What, then, could have happened?

"Ah! you are still here."

She looked up quickly, and saw that the priest had returned alone. He went on, speaking quickly and nervously, but in low tones:—

"The time has come. And so you were thinking, thinking of what? Was it rejoicing that Tanis was to give you to me so soon?" and he showed his teeth, like a dog. "Listen: they suspect me. I have done all as you wished, but there was a council to-day in the camp before Casilinum, and Maharbal fell on his knees, as he did after Cannae, and begged to march north,—not with the cavalry alone, as then; he knew it was too late for that: and the schalischim knit his brows and frowned. Then Hasdrubal and Karthalo added their prayers and pleadings, gathering around him, and then he turned his sombre face to me, and asked if it was permitted; but, before I could answer, for my mind was disturbed, that animal whom they call, 'The Fighter' had drawn his sword and held it over my head, crying out: 'Yes, friends, it is permitted—see! It is permitted;' and then I felt myself grow pale, and I heard the great beast laugh. A moment later and Hannibal had ordered him to put up his sword, and I saw Maharbal whispering quick words in the general's ear, among which it seemed to me that his lips formed your name. Again, Hannibal asked: 'Is it permitted, Iddilcar? or what sacrifice will your lord have from us? Have we not served him faithfully? Is there aught he wishes?' and I felt all their eyes on me; but, above all, were yours that were soon to smile. Therefore I took courage, which the lord Melkarth granted, and spoke boldly, explaining that I had as yet been able to win no favour, though I had prayed long and fasted and lashed myself with thongs, whereupon Hannibal-the-Fighter made as if to tear off my mantle, laughing in his beard; and when I saw they did not believe me, my terror came back. Then it was that Melkarth shed wisdom upon his servant, and, after a moment's thought, I spoke up, thus:—

"'Listen, lords,' I said; 'I am a native Carthaginian, like you all, and I reverence the gods. Howbeit it may chance that here, beyond the sea, it is not so easy to win their favour, so that they shall go before us. New and strange sacrifices and pleadings wherein I am untaught may be needed to pierce the denser ether of this land. Truly, lords, as ye have not failed in piety, neither have I erred in divination, for Melkarth has spoken many times, telling me of the unnumbered woes that would overwhelm the army if it marched upon Rome unbidden, and he hath spoken truth, and I have saved you to revile me for it—only I would learn if there be yet speech better fitted to his ear.' I paused, and they were silent, wondering. Then I spoke on: 'Grant me, lords, three days, that I may journey to Cumae; for I have heard that a woman dwells there, wise in the ways of the gods, and, if I bear her rich presents, it may happen that she will teach me the words that shall pierce this dull air, even to where Baal-Melkarth sits enthroned in Mappalia, that he may grant all your wishes.' So I crossed my arms upon my breast, and, bowing my head, listened. 'At Cumae?' growled Jubellius Taurea, who sat near me, 'say, rather, at the house of Pacuvius Calavius,' and I felt myself trembling, for then I knew surely that I had heard Maharbal aright, and that I was suspected. Still, I stood fast, and at last Hannibal spoke: 'Go to Cumae for three days,' he said sternly. 'Take what you wish—one talent, two, three; only bring back the words that shall win favour;' and Hasdrubal added: 'And harken! lord; if you win not favour, we shall yet march, and peradventure you shall come with us—if they drive not the nails too deep;' but there was an outcry at this, for they trembled lest Melkarth should smite them, and Hasdrubal spoke again, grumbling: 'Ah, masters, you have not seen soldiers as I have seen them, becoming bloated with wine and food, and soft in the arms of courtesans;' but Hannibal interrupted him, crying out to me again: 'Go!—go! There is little time for the march, and it may be we are already too late. Go and do all things so that the lord, Baal-Melkarth, shall favour us.' So I went out, and, having taken their talents, I am here. This old sheep has disgorged another talent together with gems. Therefore come now and we shall escape hence."

Marcia saw a dimness before her, amid which his jewels and bracelets and earrings seemed to mingle strange glancings with the fires that burned in his eyes. At last she faltered:—

"But your work?—it is not finished. How shall I know?—if I go with you?—"

The rings on his hand were sinking deep into her wrist; his lips were close to her ear.

"Ah! you will not go? You will play with me—deceive me? Listen now. To-morrow I shall be here with horses and money—in the morning—very early—before light; and you will go like a little bird that is tamed. These days will give us time to gain more, if more be needed. Look! I have hazarded all. Shall I lose my reward now because my work be unfinished by ever so little? It may be that, having gone, I shall not return. Do you think I will leave you here to laugh at me? You will go, or, to-morrow, Baal-Melkarth shall speak the word, and, before midday, Hannibal shall give orders to march to Rome. Why do you think I have gathered this wealth? Look! I have risked all for it, and you shall not escape."

Exhausted by his rapid vehemence, he stood back, breathing hard and trying to smile.

"Ah! moon of Tanis, you will come," he murmured, holding out his arms. "We shall escape to Sicily—to Greece—to Egypt—to the far East. We shall be rich with the spoils of fools—"

A slight scraping noise came to their ears, and both started. Iddilcar sprang swiftly to the entrance of the room, but the lamp in the hall had gone out, and his eyes saw nothing in the darkness. Uncertain what to do, he looked back to where Marcia stood, pale and rigid. His voice and hands trembled as he repeated in a loud whisper:—

"You will come? You will be ready?"

"Yes," she said, "I will come;" but she did not look at him, as she spoke, only she caught the triumphant gleam of his eyes; a thousand weird lights seemed to whirl around her, and she felt herself sinking. It seemed, for a moment, as if a slave in a gray tunic was supporting her, and then all consciousness fled.

XI.

THE SLAVE.

It was an hour past midnight, when Marcia first knew the agony of returning reason. The gong in the Forum had just struck. Where was she? Surely in her own apartment! How had she come there? Then, slowly, the memory of yesterday grew clear—the awful duty of to-morrow. With eyelids fast shut, as if dreading to open them to the darkness, she buried her throbbing temples beneath the rich Campanian coverlid. She could still see the eyes of Iddilcar gleaming wolfish amid his jewels; could see him standing in the doorway, as he turned from that startled rush in pursuit of what had been, doubtless, only a whisper of their imaginations. He had said he would come for her—before daybreak—and she must be ready. Later, she could approach death with suppliant hands, but now she must be ready. Her life was not her own yet. It was her country's. Later, the shade of Lucius would beckon. Surely he would forgive her for having avenged him. But how had she reached her room? Had it been Calavius or the slaves who had found her? did they suspect? Then she remembered the man who had seemed to catch her as she fell. Where could Iddilcar have been then? Had he hurried away? probably enough. Again a slight scratching noise, as of some one softly changing his position,—like the sound which had startled the priest, came to her ears. Ah, protecting gods! what was true, and what but dreams? Her whole life was passing before her, phantasmagorial and unreal. Surely some one was present! She felt it. Had Iddilcar come already? The horror of the thought gave her courage, and, thrusting down the coverlid, she opened her eyes defiantly and tried to pierce the darkness. Nothing was visible, but she knew she was not alone, and, leaning upon one elbow, she reached out, groping.

Suddenly a hand grasped hers, a strong, bony hand, gripping it tightly, and by its very energy commanding silence. It seemed strange to her that she did not scream, but then she had known that she would find some one, and had the hand been Iddilcar's, she would certainly have realized it by the loathing in her soul. For her, now, all other men had become friends. Therefore she was not frightened, did not cry out—rather it was a soothing sense of companionship that came to her—almost of reliance. Why had this man come?—perhaps to help her; surely not to injure. Who was he? man or god? Gods had appeared to those of olden times, when the Republic was young, and Romans worshipped, believing. She felt very brave—fearless.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

"I am a slave," answered a voice. "I brought you here, and I am watching."

It was a voice that, while it rang hard, yet had in it an assurance of protection—even of power, and it thrilled her as with some familiar memory. Nevertheless she could not place its owner in the household. Calavius had many slaves; a few of them had been free-born, and some, perhaps, might even have known a measure of social standing, before the turn of war or of financial fortunes had lost them to home and position.

"Who are you?" she asked again.

"I am a new servant," said the other. "Pacuvius Calavius bought me yesterday in the Street of the Whitened Feet."

She was silent a moment, trying hard to think; she felt the man's hand trembling, and then, suddenly realizing, she drew her own away.

"And yet you are going to-morrow with this beast—this animal!" said the voice, bitterly.

Startled again by the tone and accent, no less than by the words, she burst out:—

"Ah! why do you say that?—but you do not know, and I cannot tell you. Yes, you are right. I am going away to-morrow. I am—a courtesan. What then?"

"By the gods! no!" he cried, and she heard him spring to his feet. Then, lowering his voice, "If I thought that, I would kill you."

"You would only forestall my own blow," she said quietly, and there was new silence.

At last he spoke again.

"Tell me all of this matter. You are safe. I am a Roman."

"A Roman—and a slave?"

"And a slave. Tell me the truth quickly."

The voice sounded weak and hollow now, but still strangely familiar. She began her story, speaking in a low monotone.

"I am Marcia, daughter of Titus Manlius Torquatus. I loved, and yet I drove my lover from me, and he was killed on the black day of Cannae. Then the Senate feared lest the enemy should advance to Rome—prayed for the winter—for time. And I was beautiful, and I had no love, save for the king, Orcus. So the thought came to me that by my blandishments I might win power with these people, and, by power, delay, and, by delay, safety for Rome—and revenge for my lord, Lucius. Therefore I journeyed to Capua. You see that I have played my part—that I have won? Tomorrow I go to pay the price. What matters it? Then I can die."

He had listened in silence; only she heard his breath coming hard, and, a moment after she had finished, he spoke:—

"No—you cannot die—not thus. I have died—once, yet I live. Listen! I, like the lover you tell of, was slain at Cannae, pierced through by javelins, and I lay with the dead heaped above me—ah! so many hours—days, perhaps—I do not know; until the slave-dealers, passing among the corpses, found me breathing, and wondered at my strength, auguring a good value. Therefore they took me, and when I was well of my wounds they brought me here—to Capua, and sold me to Pacuvius Calavius—to whom may the gods give the death of a traitor! Lo! now, let it be for a warning that Orcus does indeed send back the dead from Acheron."

He leaned forward, as he spoke the words, and there came to Marcia a sudden memory of two occasions when she had used the ancient saying—the colloquial "never" of Rome. Once it had bound her to Iddilcar, and once, far back, in happier times, it had parted her forever from Sergius. Tears rolled down her cheeks. A dim light seemed to be creeping into the room—very dim, but as her eyes grew dry again, she could begin to trace the outlines of her companion sitting on a low stool beside her couch. Surely those were footsteps in the hall—yes, footsteps—and the approaching light of a lamp.

Marcia's heart stood still. The slave had started from his seat and drawn far back in the darkest corner of the room; then the curtains were pushed cautiously aside, and the tall form of Iddilcar stood revealed by the light of the small, silver lamp he bore in his hand. A long, dark mantle enveloped him from head to foot.

"Come," he said, speaking sharply but in low tones; and, holding the lamp above his head, he tried to peer into the apartment. "Come; it will soon be light. Ah! you have not arisen? No matter; I have another cloak, and we must not delay. The slaves are well bribed, and Calavius sleeps soundly—forever. My horses, good horses, are in the street; a few moments and we gain the gate. The schalischim's own ring is on my finger, and the seal of the Great Council shall win us egress. You are my slave: that is how you shall go with me—and I accept the omen."

He laughed low and harshly, and Marcia shuddered, thinking of her host lying slain—by his false slaves?—by the order of Hannibal?—no, rather by the hand or plotting of this wretch who now called her, "slave."

"Come, come quickly, Romanus," he said, mimicking the Latin nomenclature of foreign slaves. At the same time he took a step forward into the room and let the curtains fall behind him. "Come, or I shall have to order the rods to those white shoulders. That would be—"

And then a shadow seemed to glide forward from the corner half behind him. For a moment a stream of lamplight fell upon a white, set face behind the Carthaginian's shoulder—a face that was indeed from the land of the four rivers; an arm was lashed around the priest's neck, and, while Marcia stared spellbound at the shade that had come back to save her, the lamp fell from Iddilcar's hand,—and then she lay still and listened to the furious struggle that ensued, the scuffling of feet upon the marble floor, the breathing that came and went in short, quick gasps. Now it seemed that both fell together; but not in victory or defeat, for the noises told of continuing combat; no words, only the horrible sound of writhing and of hard-drawn breath.

Breaking at last from the bonds of dazed wonder, she glided from the couch, groping for the fallen lamp. She must see. She must know. Then she remembered the room-lamp that stood on a stand by the bed, and began to feel her way toward it. The grating of metal against metal came to her ears, followed by a low exclamation and a sharp "Ah!" gasped exultantly; then came the sound of two fierce blows.

She had found the lamp now, and was trying to strike a light. The victory was still undecided, though the combatants seemed to groan with each breath they drew. At last the wick caught the spark, and the mellow light and the odour of perfumed oil began slowly to fill the room. A statuette or vase came crashing to the floor, and, raising the lamp high above her head, she threw its light upon the struggling men. For a moment she could make out nothing except a dark mass at her feet. Then she caught the glitter of a weapon, and at last her eyes grasped something of the situation.

Iddilcar was undermost. She could see his black, curling beard that seemed matted and ragged now, while the Roman—the man who bore the face of the dead Sergius—was extended upon him, grasping, with both hands, the Carthaginian's wrists. It was the latter who held the blade that had glittered—a long Numidian dagger, but the hold upon his wrists prevented his using it, and the Roman dared not release either hand to wrench it away. There were bruises, too, on Iddilcar's face—the blows of fists; but the blood on the floor told of some other wound, doubtless the Roman's, inflicted before he could restrain the hand that dealt it. Now, neither seemed able to accomplish further injury, until the strength of one should fail; and if it was her protector's blood that was flowing?—the thought was ominous. Neither dared to cry out, for the aid that might come was too doubtful, and, besides, they needed to husband all the air their lungs could gain.

Marcia saw these things and thought them clearly, quickly, and in order. Her mind seemed to grow as strangely calm as if busied in selecting some shade of wool for her distaff. She reached down and, by a quick movement, twisted the dagger from the stiffened, weary fingers of the Carthaginian. A cry burst from him—the first since the triumphant "Ah!" that had doubtless come from his lips when he used the weapon, a few moments since. He writhed furiously, and Marcia stood, holding the dagger in her hand, hesitating rather through dread of injuring this new Sergius that had arisen to aid her.

The Roman, however, seeing himself freed from the necessity of guarding against the sharp point that had menaced him, now suddenly released the wrists of his adversary, and, grasping him by the throat, he lifted his head several times, and struck it violently against the pavement. The Carthaginian groaned, and his hold relaxed for a moment. Then, tearing himself free, and with one hand still gripping the throat of the prostrate man, the Roman raised his body, and, turning toward Marcia, reached out for the dagger. With eyes fixed wonderingly on his, she gave it to him, as if only half conscious of her act.

Again the scene changed. Less helpless than he had seemed, and with staring eyes, before which death danced, Iddilcar gathered all his remaining strength for one last, despairing effort, wrenched himself loose, and staggered to his feet.

Then Marcia saw Sergius, for she knew now it was indeed he, saw him throw himself forward on his knees, and, catching Iddilcar about the hips, plunge the blade into his side.

The priest shrieked once, as he felt the point, and struggled furiously to escape, raining blows upon the other's head and shoulders. Again the long dagger rose and fell, piercing the man's entrails. Gods! would he never fall?—and still he maintained his footing, but now his hands beat only the air, and his struggles became agonized writhings. Sergius' grip about his hips had never loosened, and the dagger rose and fell a third time. Iddilcar groaned long and deeply and sank down in a heap, carrying his slayer with him.

XII.

FLIGHT.

Slowly Sergius disengaged himself from the death grip that entangled him, and, rising, turned to where Marcia stood. Still holding the lighted lamp above her head and peering forward, she gazed into his eyes with a look wherein wonder and terror were mingled with awakening joy.

"Who are you?" she faltered at last; "you who come as a slave, bearing the face of a shade?"

"I am a shade," he answered; "one sent back by Orcus—by the hand of Mercury, to save a Roman woman from dishonour."

"Oh, my lord Lucius!" she cried, falling upon her knees and holding out her hands toward him. "Truly it was not dishonour to avenge you, to save the Republic; but if it were, then may your manes pity and forgive me. There, now, is the dagger. Take it and use it, so that I, too, may be your companion when you return to the land that owns you. I love you, Lucius; the laughter of the old days has passed. Surely a woman who is about to die may say to the dead words which a girl might not say to her lover for the shame of them. I love you—I love you. Take me before the maiden, Proserpine, that she may show us favour—to your land—"

The lamp fell from her hand; she felt herself raised suddenly from the pavement, and strained hard against a bosom that rose and fell with all the pulsations of life and love. Frightened, wondering, she struggled faintly, while kisses warm and human fell upon her brow, her eyes, her lips.

"Marcia, little bird, dearest, purest, best," murmured a voice close to her ear; "yes, you shall go with me to my land, and that land is Rome."

Still she trembled in his arms, not daring to believe.

"Wait," he said. Then, releasing her for a moment, he regained the fallen lamp, relighted it and placed it in its niche, facing her again with arms outspread.

"Look well; am I not indeed Lucius Sergius—once pierced and worn with wounds, but now well and strong to fight or love? The tale I told you was true. It was my tale—the saving of one Roman from the slaughter of her legions."

She drew closer and looked again into his eyes.

"Yes," she said, and in her voice the joy began to sweep away all other feelings; "yes, you are indeed Lucius Sergius Fidenas—man, not shade—"

But, taking her hand, he interrupted:—

"Do you not remember the omen, my Marcia? how you said you would love me when Orcus should send back the dead from Acheron? how I accepted it? how the gods have brought all about, as was most to their honour and my joy?—for now you have indeed said that you love me."

She placed her free hand upon his shoulder saying:—

"And that which I, Marcia, daughter of Titus Manlius Torquatus, have said unto the shade, that say I to the living Lucius Sergius. Take me, love; for where thou art Caius, there shall I be Caia."

Once again he took her in his arms and kissed her upon the lips, long and tenderly. Then she drew herself back.

"You are wounded?" she said anxiously. "Forgive me that I forgot. Truly I forget all things, now—in this wonder and joy."

Sergius laughed.

"He pricked me—in the thigh, I think, but not deeply. The gods have brought me so close to the shades that I am enough akin to them not to heed little hurts."

But she had seized the lamp and was examining his injury—a flesh wound that, while it had bled freely, yet seemed to have avoided the larger muscles and blood-vessels.

"Did I not tell you?" he said reassuringly, as she rose from her knee. "A close bandage so that it will not bleed—that is all we shall want, for my strength must remain with me yet a little while, if we would truly go to Rome and not to the realms of the dead."

She said nothing, but, tearing strips from her stole, proceeded deftly to bind them around the leg.

"Agathocles himself could not do better—nay, I doubt Aesculapius—" but she rose again quickly and placed her finger upon his lips.

"It is the gods who have saved us to each other. Do not make them angry, lest they withdraw their favour. I am ready to follow you, my lord Lucius."

Standing erect, he raised both hands in invocation.

"A shrine to Venus the Preserver!—to Apollo the Healer!"

Then, stooping quickly, he drew the long, dark robe of Iddilcar from where it lay entangled about the legs of the corpse. Fortunately it had slipped down from the Carthaginian's shoulders early in the struggle; perhaps he had tried to free himself from it; perhaps it had been partly torn away; but, in either event, it had fallen where it must have hampered his movements even more seriously, and where it was less stained with his blood than might have been expected.

Sergius threw it over his own tattered, blood-stained garments, striving to hide the rents, and raising it high about his neck so as to conceal his face as much as possible. Meanwhile, Marcia, having bound on her sandals, had of her own accord donned the mantle Iddilcar had brought for her, and which had fallen by the door of the apartment. Then, gathering up her long, thick hair, she confined it close above her head, drawing down upon it the hat that lay beside the cloak—a broad-brimmed Greek petasus, admirably adapted for concealment as well as protection.

"I am ready," she said eagerly. "Let us make haste."

Sergius was stooping over the dead man, searching for something.

"It is the ring," he said; "the ring with the seal of the Great Council of which he spoke. How else should we pass the guard at the gate?"

A moment later he rose, and, going to the light, examined carefully the several rings taken from the priest's-fingers.

One by one they dropped and rolled away over the floor. The last only remained, and Marcia, looking over his shoulder, saw a heavy, gold signet bearing the device of a horse under a palm tree.

"Come now," he said, taking her hand. He had thrust the long knife of Iddilcar into the girdle of his tunic, and this was their only weapon. So, leading Marcia, he quickly traversed the halls and courts and gained the door, which hung ajar and unattended. Outside, a company of five men were gathered, all mounted. Two were apparently soldiers, a sort of guard; the rest were servants. Heavy looking packages were bound, behind them, on their horses' backs, doubtless the money which Iddilcar had gotten, while two extra animals, saddled and bridled, were held in waiting.

The heart of Sergius leaped as he noted the fine, small heads and slender, muscular legs that marked the Asian stock of their mounts. Iddilcar had provided well for all emergencies; but Sergius felt some anxiety lest a chance glimpse of his face might lead to detection. The sky in the east was already beginning to lighten, and there were more men of the escort than he had anticipated. Speech would be fatal; therefore he strode quickly out, took the bridle of one of the horses from the man who held it, and swung himself upon its back. To assist Marcia could not be done without exciting suspicion, and he ground his teeth when she tried to follow his example, and one of the servants laughed and pushed her roughly into the saddle. Then they rode on, and the others followed, whispering together.

He had muffled his face a trifle too closely, perhaps, and he had mounted the horse standing, whereas all knew that the Cappadocians were trained to kneel at the word. Therefore the men of the escort wondered, though they hardly ventured to suspect.

Marcia felt, rather than noted, their attitude, and Sergius, glancing toward her, saw that she was trembling. He urged his horse faster toward the gate that opened upon the Appian Way; boldness and speed were all that could save them. Suddenly the gate loomed up, gray and massive, in the mist of the early morning. Several soldiers lounged forward from the guardhouse, whence came the rattle of dice and the shrill laughter of a woman. Sergius showed his ring and said nothing, while Marcia came close to him, shivering, for the morning air was chill and biting. Their followers had drawn rein, and were gathered in a little clump several spear-lengths behind.

Meanwhile the soldiers, Spaniards they seemed, were gazing stupidly at the device on the seal and making irrelevant comments. It was evident that their night had been spent among the wineskins, and that a new danger menaced.

Summoning what Punic he knew, Sergius leaned forward and asked in a low but stern voice to see their officer. Fortunately his own followers were too far away to hear his words, and drunken Iberians would not be critical as to a faulty Punic accent.

Still they hesitated, chattered together, and stared, but at last one who seemed more sober than the rest reeled away to the guard-house, and, after some delay and evident persuasion, emerged again with a young officer whose moist, hanging lips and filmy eyes showed that he, too, had been dragged from the pursuit of pleasure. Helmetless and with loosened corselet, every detail of his appearance told the story of relaxed discipline.

"What do you want? at this hour?" he said thickly, ambling forward and leaning heavily upon the shoulder of his scarcely more steady guide.

Again Sergius held out the ring, and the man, being a native Carthaginian, recognized it through the mist of his intoxication, and, throwing himself at full length, touched the earth with his forehead.

"What do you wish?" he said, rising and standing, somewhat sobered by the presence of such authority.

"Open the gate. I ride under orders of the schalischim," said the Roman, again speaking low and rapidly.

The officer turned and shouted to his men, and several ran to unbar the gate with such speed as their condition warranted. The other occupants of the guard-house were now grouped at the door, five men, half armed, and two dishevelled women with painted faces and flower-embroidered pallas.

The gate swung slowly on its hinges.

"The light of the Baals be with you, friend!" exclaimed Sergius, and he and Marcia rode through, with hearts beating madly. Voices raised in discussion made them turn in their saddles. In his drunken stupidity, the Carthaginian officer was trying to detain their escort and servants. "The master had said nothing about them. How did he know they belonged to the same party?" Then all began gesticulating and shouting to Sergius for help and explanation.

Here was an unforeseen incident, and the mind of the young Roman viewed it rapidly in all its lights. On the one side, he would be relieved of an awkward following that might at any moment begin to suspect him; on the other hand to leave these in the lurch would be to invite prompt suspicion. Still, they were fifty yards or more in advance, their horses were good, and more space would be gained before the tangle at the gate could be straightened out; therefore he waved his arm, as if making some signal, and, turning again in his saddle, rode on, but without increasing his speed.

Louder shouts followed him, for, as he had intended, his gesture had proved unintelligible. Then, when they saw he did not stop, the cries ceased suddenly and an animated chattering came to his ears. Here was suspicion trying to make itself understood and, at last, succeeding, for, as Sergius glanced back once more to note how the matter progressed, the young captain of the gate sprang forward and shouted for him to halt.

"A third altar—to Mercury the hastener!" exclaimed Sergius. "Quick now! with the knees!" and, pressing the flanks of his Cappadocian, both animals bounded forward into a headlong gallop.

XIII.

WINTER QUARTERS.

The beat of hoofs upon the great blocks of basalt rang through the morning air in measured cadence, and soon an answering echo came up from the south. Open flight had at last dispelled all doubt and given the signal for pursuit.

First came the two Africans of the original escort, released and bidden to ride for life or death; a short distance behind was the Carthaginian captain on his own horse which had probably been haltered behind the guard-house; and, last of all, three of the Spanish guard, who had thrown the servants and baggage from the animals that bore them, and appropriated such speed as these afforded for the business in hand.

That the officer was pretty well sobered seemed apparent. A fugitive bearing the ring of the schalischim—the seal of the Great Council—must be a man of importance, or else the possession of such a talisman augured the commission of some terrible crime. Already he saw himself stretched writhing upon the cross; the crowd, reviling or gibing, seemed surging about his feet; and his howls of anguish found voice in a storm of guttural objurgations to men and horses, mingled with prayers and vows to the gods of Carthage.

He had overtaken the two Africans now, for his animal was better than theirs, but the three others laboured hopelessly behind: the Cappadocians flew rather than galloped far in advance. Already nearly three hundred yards separated them from their pursuers, and the gap was widening slowly but surely. Only the officer held his own, for he was now forging ahead of the Africans.

"Ah, cowards! slime! filth!" he shouted to his struggling men. "The cross! the cross! that for you unless we catch them! that for me!—for all! Ah, Eschmoun! Ah, Khamon!—Melkarth!—gifts!—gold, gems, robes, spices!—my first-born to the Baals! to the Baals! Help! speed!"

The man was mad—mad indeed with terror and newly dispelled drunkenness; and his horse, a great African, coal-black save for one white hoof, seemed to partake of his master's frenzy. With ears lying flat along his head, and eyes that burned into those of Sergius, when he ventured to glance behind him,—glaring sheer through distance and dust like the very eyes of those demons his rider invoked,—the beast thundered on, equalling the speed of the light Asiatic chargers by the force of strength alone.

From time to time the fugitives turned their heads to measure the distance, and the sight of this unwearied pursuer appeared to fascinate them as by some weird power. The rest were beaten out,—the Spaniards lost to sight, the Africans visible only by the dust that hung over them far behind.

The mountains to the eastward seemed to be dancing away in a mad chase toward the south, a chase which Tifata itself was urging on. The glimmer of white in the north told of the morning sun striking upon houses. Still they rode on, pursuers and pursued.

Suddenly a sound, half-trumpet note, half bellow, swelled up ahead. Then another answered it, and another and another took up the refrain.

Sergius' face blanched, and, with a sudden effort, he threw his animal almost upon its haunches. Marcia was carried several spear-lengths farther before she could check her speed. Wonder and the dread of some accident drove the blood to her heart. A hoarse shout of triumph came from their pursuer, as she turned to ride back.

She asked no questions. Surely Sergius knew what was best. She saw Iddilcar's long dagger in his hand, and that he was about to fight.

"Back!—back! and to one side," he called, as she rode up. "Did you not hear the elephants? That is Casilinum, and they are besieging it. We should have remembered."

He darted forward to meet the Carthaginian, fearful that he, too, would draw rein and await the coming of his followers. Then indeed all would be lost. Six soldiers on the one side and a camp full on the other were hopeless odds against a wounded man armed only with a Numidian dagger.

But it was Bacchus that fought for Rome that day—Bacchus, to whom no altar had been vowed. A night of debauchery and the sudden terror of its awakening had effectually blurred whatever judgment the officer may have had, and his one thought was to kill or capture his quarry.

So they came together, Sergius swerving his Cappadocian as they met. The officer struck blindly, but the good lord Bacchus put out his hand and turned the blow aside. Then, as they parted, a strange thing happened. Marcia had wondered dimly why Sergius struggled with the long, girdleless garment of Iddilcar, tearing it off as he rode. Now, when the two horses sprang apart, she saw that he had thrown it dexterously over the Carthaginian, blinding his blow and tangling him in its heavy folds.

Prompt to respond to knee and rein, the Cappadocian wheeled, almost as soon as he ran clear, but the African thundered on, while its rider cursed in blind terror and tried to check his horse and to free his face and sword-arm. A moment, and he had succeeded, but he succeeded too late. The Roman was at his back, and Marcia saw the long dagger rise and fall in a swift thrust. She could not see how the point took its victim just at the nape; but she saw him pitch forward like an ox under the axe.

Almost before she could grasp what had happened, Sergius was beside the fallen man, had resumed the priest's tunic, red with new blood stains, and was on his horse again. His brow lay in deep lines as he rode toward her.

"Come," he said. "The gods favouring us, we must pass their camp before the rest come up. Grant that those may linger by the corpse, and that we meet no check."

Again they were galloping toward the lines that lay about Casilinum. All had happened so quickly that even now they could scarcely see the plume in the distant dust cloud that told where the pursuers straggled on. They had turned into the new side-road without meeting a man. Then a small foraging party halted them, and Sergius showed the seal and spoke in Gallic to its Numidian leader. A little farther on was stationed another band, and here the delay was longer ere his halting Punic convinced the Spanish piquet, and they again rode forward unsuspected. All had bowed low to the horse and the palm tree, and no one dared question what weighty mission urged on the man in the torn and blood-stained tunic and the slender youth, his companion.

Now they were back again upon the pavement of the Appian; the last line was passed, and the beleaguered town with its stout-hearted garrison lay well behind. Perhaps that sudden uproar told of the arrival of their pursuers; perhaps those glittering points amid distant dust clouds meant a new pursuit. Surely none but Mercury had winged the feet of the Cappadocians! Unwearied, like springs of steel, the stout muscles drove them on—on over the marshland with the glint of the sea before them—on, up the rising ground.

Again and again Sergius turned in his saddle scanning the road behind, feeling the presence of pursuers whom he could not see. The good horses were weakening fast. No flesh and blood could stand that strain, and naught but the spirit of the breed kept them afoot. Marcia's was limping painfully; the one Sergius rode was wavering in its stride, like the Carthaginian captain when he came out of the guard-house by the gate.

"Gods! What were those shrill sounds—half whistle, half scream?"

Too well he remembered how the Numidians urged on their bridleless chargers. Yes, there they were now—scarce half a milestone behind and coming up like the wind that blew through their dishevelled manes—fifty at least. Death, then, was decreed, after all, and he glanced toward Marcia, measuring the time when he might kiss her and kill her ere he sold his own life to the javelins.

Suddenly he heard her cry out.

"Look!" she called, and, following her finger, he gazed eagerly ahead.

A clump of horsemen, heavy armed with helmet and corselet, crowned the knoll of rising ground over which the road led, and, above them, fluttering in the breeze, he saw the square vexillum of the cavalry of the legion.

He was among them now, lifting Marcia from her horse and dimly conscious of many words being spoken around.

"See, lord, they have halted," said a voice. "Is it your will that we pursue?"

Then, as an answering voice replied in the negative, he kissed Marcia and made her drink wine that some one brought. Barbarous cries that she must not hear or understand came to his ears, and he knew that their pursuers were wheeling in discomfited flight. The circle of soldiers stood back. Something cold and feathery fell upon his upturned face and turned to moisture. He saw a tall man with features of wonderful beauty regarding them kindly and in silence; his white paludamentum was heavily fringed with purple, and Sergius recognized him now,—Marcus Marcellus, the new dictator. Another drop, feathery, cold, and moist, fell upon Marcia's hand, and she roused herself at the touch, peering up into her lover's face and then quickly at the heavens.

"Look!" she cried. "Up! not into my eyes."

He turned, for an instant, to see the blue vault of a few moments since overcast with gray and filled with a swirl of snowy flakes.

"See, now, Lucius, lord of my life; here are the messengers of winter. Winter quarters! he is in winter quarters! See! have we not prevailed?"

It was the voice of the dictator that answered:—

"Yes, truly; and there shall soon be prepared for him eternal summer quarters in Phlegethon—if the Greek tales be true."

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