CHAPTER XXXIX
THE TULLIANUM
Gloomy as is the upper cell of the Mamertine Prison there is light enough there for my eyes to have been utterly blinded by it as I was lowered into the black pit beneath. I saw nothing in the brief period while I was being let down, while the ropes were being drawn up, while the trap-door was shut down and fitted into place. Then I was in the pitchest darkness, into which no ray, no glimmer of light could penetrate. I saw nothing whatever, yet I seemed to feel a presence, seemed to hear a faint footfall, seemed to be aware of another human being standing close to me. Then I heard a deep, resonant, healthy, pleasant-sounding voice ask:
"Brother in misfortune, who are you?"
I was past any impulse towards dissimulation or any belief in its utility.
"I am Andivius Hedulio."
"You are?" the big, cheerful male voice exclaimed. "You really are? You amaze me! I am Galvius Crispinillus, lately and for many a year King of the Highwaymen! Give me your hand!"
Now, whatever distaste I felt for giving my hand to such a criminal, however great was my repugnance, however utterly I felt myself lost, however certain I was of the inevitable doom hanging over me, however short a respite I anticipated before my inescapable death, I was not fool enough to antagonize my companion in misery, presumably a powerful and ferocious brute. I held out my hand. His grasped it. Mine returned the grip.
"Come this way!" he said. "This pit is damp and chilly, but even here a bed of stale straw is better than the rock floor or the patches of mud on it or the heaps of filth. I know every inch of this hole and I know the least uncomfortable place to sit. Come along!"
He guided me in the utter blackness to a pile of damp straw. On it we sat down, half reclining.
"If you are thirsty," he said, "I can guide you to the well. There is a spring in here and plenty of good water."
"I thank you," I said. "I shall be thirsty enough before long. Just now I am far more interested to hear how you came here. Nobody believed that you would ever be caught."
"No more did I!" he ejaculated. "I had so easily defied the utmost efforts of the government and officials under Aurelius, of the incompetents under Commodus, of his vaunted Highway Constabulary; had so prospered, had so come and gone as I pleased and robbed whom I pleased from the Po to the Straits, that I thought no man could lay for me any snare I could not foresee, thought myself impeccably wary and prescient, though I had always taken and would always take all necessary precautions.
"But I was a fool. I comprehended Aurelius and Commodus and their magistrates and officials and constabulary; I was right in fearing nothing from Pertinax and Julianus; but I was an ass to think I could cope with Septimius Severus. That man is deeper than the deepest abyss of mid-ocean!
"I thought I was certain of months of disorder, confusion and laxity in which I could go where I pleased, act as I pleased, garner a rich harvest and escape unscathed. Do you know, before he had left Aquileia, perhaps before he had passed the Alps, possibly before he had set out from Sabaria, that man had despatched not one but a dozen detachments to ascertain my whereabouts, consider how best to take me unawares, lie in wait for me, nab me and hunt down my bands. I believe he had thought out, far back in that head of his, long before Pertinax was murdered, perhaps even long before Commodus died, every measure he would initiate if he became Emperor, down to the smallest detail. He had all his plans framed and thought out, I'll wager!
"His emissaries were no fools! They, first among those despatched against me, knew their business. I was trapped near Sentinum, on the Kalends of this month. Never mind how; even in this plight I'm ashamed of it. They just missed nabbing Felix Bulla along with me. But he got away that time. And I prophesy that now he is warned of his danger and knows the cleverness of the men on his trail, he'll show himself yet cleverer. He is a marvel, is Felix Bulla, and promises to outdo even my record."
He broke off, breathing audibly.
"By the way," he went on, "are you hungry? I have part of a loaf of bread in here, not yet stale and no damper than it must get in this foul air. It hasn't fallen on the floor. It's eatable."
"I'll be hungry enough before long," I replied, "but I am not hungry now.
I had eaten all I wanted and of the best just before I was haled here."
"Speak when you want any," he said. "It will be share and share alike here for us till they come to finish us.
"And now, tell me about yourself. I have always been curious about you. I heard all about you when you first got into trouble and I was told that the official report of your death was fictitious, invented by underlings too clumsy to capture you and fearful of the consequences of their incompetence. Also I heard unimpeachable testimony that you were alive later and had been seen in Rome with Maternus and outside Rome, the next summer, with the mutineers from Britain. I have often wondered how you got into such company. Tell me how you came to be with Maternus."
I saw no utility in any further dissimulation of anything or in any reticence; I began with our springtime stay at the farm in the mountains, and told my story in detail, from that hour.
When I came to my visit, along with Maternus, to the Temple of Mercury and mentioned how Maternus had warned me that we were being watched, and how I had shot one glance towards the watchers and had recognized one of them, he interrupted me and, without enquiring where I had seen him before, asked for a description of the watcher I had recognized. I gave it as well as I could and he said:
"That was my brother, Marcus Galvius Crispinillus, now dead. It was he who told me that he had seen you with Maternus. Go on."
Again, when I spoke of recognizing Crispinillus by the wayside as I passed with the mutineers he interjected:
"Yes, he told me he saw you there."
And later, when I spoke of being found with Agathemer after the massacre, separated from him and led off to the ergastulum at Nuceria he remarked:
"I can't conceive how my brother missed you. Nor could he. He looked for you among the corpses and went over the survivors twice in search of you."
"I did not see him after the massacre," I declared.
"Mercury protected you," was his comment.
When I finished the story of my giving warning of the plot in the ergastulum at Nuceria I paused.
"Go on, lad!" he urged. "You have had adventures and you narrate them tellingly."
I hesitated and then, utterly reckless, I blurted out:
"If I am to go on with my story you might as well know right now, that I am not only Andivius Hedulio, but also Felix the Horse-Wrangler."
He swore a great oath.
"Boy!" he cried, "I love you! I have admired you since I listened to Bulla's account of his one failure. At first I was furious at your having spoiled the best plan I ever laid and the most brilliant chance I ever had, at your preventing me from making the biggest haul of booty I ever had hopes of. But, as years passed, my resentment has abated and my admiration has warmed. I bear you no grudge. I have often thought I should like to meet you and find out why on earth you desired to thwart me and how you managed to do it. Go on! Tell me the rest."
I resumed my tale.
When I came to my outlook from the crag and explained my former acquaintance with Vedia he interrupted.
"Of course, if you knew the lady and she was an old flame of yours, I don't wonder that you intervened to save her. My lads were so rough and fierce-looking that they had a worse reputation than they deserved. When they captured prisoners rich enough to pay any profitable ransom they treated them with the most scrupulous deference. Business is business and we were not brigands for fun, but for profit. Also they all dreaded me and my orders were explicit and emphatic. Your sweetheart would have been as respected with them as in her own home. But, of course, you couldn't feel that way. Go on with your story."
I demurred, asserting that I felt sleepy. He assented and we composed ourselves on the straw. How long I slept or when I wakened I do not know: I was roused by the opening of the trap-door and by the light which entered from above. Food was lowered to us; pork-stew, still warm, in a two-handled, wide-mouthed jug; bread; olives, not wholly spoiled; and a small kidskin of thin, sour wine. Galvius received the dole and safeguarded the containers: the ropes were drawn up, the trap-door reset and we were again in utter darkness.
To my astonishment I felt entirely myself and very hungry. We drank and ate deliberately and again drank. Galvius was a careful husbander of the wine, and we drank mostly water from the spring.
Afterwards, nestled in the not unendurably damp straw, chilly, but not shivering, we sat or lay side by side and he urged me to continue my story. I began where I had left off, and, going into the smallest details, brought my history down to the hour of my consignment to our dungeon.
When I paused he sighed, but not gloomily.
"You have had marvellous adventures," he said, "and marvellous luck, both good and bad. I knew that Marcia had belonged to your uncle. I was informed of the existence of Ducconius Furfur, of his likeness to Commodus, of his presence in the Palace, of his utilization as a dummy Emperor, to set Commodus free to masquerade as Palus, and I heard that he had been your neighbor.
"Now go back, begin your tale at the beginning. Tell me of your getting into trouble at the first, of how you escaped in the first place. I have often wondered how you managed it."
"Give me a respite," I demurred, "my voice is tired. It is your turn to talk. Tell me how you learned about Ducconius Furfur and about Commodus masquerading as Palus and about Marcia."
"Why," he said, "I had friends in one or more towns when I first took to the woods. They gave me tips that helped me to make fine hauls on the highways. As I prospered I made more friends; they helped me and my growing success gained more, till I had friends in every town in Italy and in Rome itself and an organized service of road-messengers. Why, Imperial couriers often carried letters and packets, destined for me, from one town to another, or even carried onward letters from me to distant friends or parcels of my booty.
"In Rome itself I had many agents and chiefly my sister, Galvia Crispinilla, a professional procuress and poisoner, who knew the worst secrets of the lives of all Rome's wealthy and noble debauchees, and our brother, Marcus Galvius Crispinillus, a professional informer and a valued member of the Imperial Secret Service. I never knew why he had a spite against you, but he had and it was false information given by him that caused your proscription and ruin and thrust you into your years of misery. I always felt that you did not deserve what you have suffered, but his grudges were none of my business.
"He is dead, as is Galvia, for she kept poison about her and gave a supply to him and to me to use in case of capture. I was caught without mine, for I was certain that no danger threatened me. He and she took the poison when they saw capture inevitable, as it will be for most evil-doers all over the Empire under the sway of such a man as Septimius Severus."
He paused and I meditated awhile, puzzling as to how I could have incurred the vindictive rancor of any secret-service agent.
Presently I said:
"Tell me how you came to be King of the Highwaymen."
"My boy," he said, "my case is far different from yours. You had an honorable origin and an honorable past. Nor were any of your adventures discreditable to you, even if some situations you have been in were distressing then and are humiliating to remember. You have nothing to be ashamed of unless it be such a trifling peccadillo as impersonating Salsonius Salinator.
"My origin I shall never disclose, not even to a brother in misfortune. My life has been one long series of perjuries, murders, robberies, debaucheries and ruthless cruelties. I have been deaf to all considerations of decency, pity and mercy; as unmoved by such feelings as will be the savage beasts which spared you but will rend me to shreds. I am at the end of my crimes; let me hide them. My doom is at hand. Why should I defile your ears with the tale of my atrocities? Let them remain untold."
"You slander yourself," I demurred. "You cannot make me believe that a man capable of condoning my balking of your great coup on the Flaminian Highway, capable of guiding me to this bed of straw and of offering me a share of his bit of stale bread can be all bad. There must be much in your past life less dark than you indicate."
He ruminated.
"Frankly," he said, "I cannot recall anything I ever did at which a man like you would not shudder. I have been a good sport, that is why I could not but chuckle, after my first wrath cooled, at your spoiling my great coup, as you call it. But, all my life, I have gloried in my treacheries and cruelties. I have hated all mankind and been merciless to foes, if they came into my power, and have pretended friendliness I did not feel so as to make use of those who thought me friendly.
"I can well recall only one human being I really loved: my wife. She had her weak points, for she was a despiser of the gods, mocking all religion and addicted to some contemptible Syrian cult of superstition and puerilities. But I loved her in spite of that failing, for, in every other way, she was a paragon. She is dead now and spared the agonies she would have suffered at my capture and fate. Our two daughters are safe; both healthy, both with the full status of citizens of the Republic, both well provided with possessions, each married to a good, reliable husband, though the younger is almost too young to be a wife. I feel at peace about them.
"I really loved my wife and in a way, her two girls. But, except for them,
I have cheated, ensnared, robbed and killed without pity or remorse."
"You have no regrets?" I queried.
"No remorse," he corrected me. "I should do it all over again if I were back as I was when I took to brigandage.
"Of course, while my wife was alive and I hoped for an old age with her, I had a dream of investing my savings in a house in some out-of-the-way town and in an estate near it and living at ease on the proceeds of my robberies. But that was always far off in the future; I laid up a hoard to make it possible, but I was never anywhere near ready to make use of that hoard. Now it has been divided between my daughters, for, after their mother's death, I realized that no life but brigandage was possible for me. If I had not been captured I should have gone on as I was, I should go on now, could I escape and resume my old life. I feel no remorse.
"But I confess to one regret. I have, all my life, requited every helper and paid off every grudge. But one benefactor, my greatest benefactor, I have not repaid, although, when I learned of his inestimable service to me, I swore a great oath to requite him, if it ever was in my power. I have never been able to learn who he was, or even whether he is yet living. If he is, I hate to die without requiting him as he deserves, in so far as I might.
"And I own that I was and am keenly curious to learn who he was. The mere curiosity gnaws at me. Perhaps you understand."
"I do," I said. "I also am extremely curious about a mystery I encountered in the earlier part of my adventures. That memory urges me to comply with your request for the former half of my story."
And, beginning with my uncle's death, I narrated all my earlier adventures. When I told of the cloaked and hatted horseman by the roadside in the rain, the day of the brawl in Vediamnum and the affray near Villa Satronia, he cut in with:
"That was my brother, Marcus. He was detailed to report on your local feud. Whether he knew of you before that, whether his queer spite against you originated then or earlier, I don't know. He took dislikes and likes without any traceable reasons."
Similarly, when I told of seeing Marcus Crispinillus peer through the postern door of Nemestronia's water-garden he interjected some remarks.
He uttered admiring ejaculations as I told of wrestling with the leopard on the terrace at Nemestronia's and of how Agathemer and I crawled through the drain at Villa Andivia, also at my tale of my branding and scourging and of the loyalty of Chryseros Philargyrus.
But, when I came to our discovery of the hut in the mountains, he stirred uneasily in the rustling straw and muttered in his throat. As I described our winter at the hut he became more and more excited, uttering ejaculations, half suppressed at first, as if not to interrupt my narrative, later louder and louder.
When I told of our killing the five ruffians he sprang up.
"Say no more!" he cried. "Come to my arms. Let me embrace you! Let me clasp you close! You are he! You are my benefactor! The man who tells that story in such detail cannot have heard it from another, he must have lived it! To think that you are Felix the Horse-Master and also Andivius Hedulio and that you saved my Nona! My gratitude cannot be expressed, any more than your service to me can be requited. But I shall do all I can. The gems you took were but a trifle and you were welcome to them. In fact, I never missed them. In any case they were but an installment on what you deserved and now deserve. It is not yet too late for me to save you. I can cause your speedy release and probably your complete rehabilitation. They have been keeping me here in the hope of extorting from me information which would enable them to ferret out my confederates in the towns and cities. They have wheedled and threatened, but have hesitated to torture me, since no one doubts that I was, by origin, a freeman. I have held out and should have held out, even if tortured. Now I'll make a voluntary confession, enough to delight the magistrates. Chiefly I'll emphasize your complete innocence and my brother's malignity. I'll have to save some others along with you and I shall. But, to a certainty, I'll save you!
"It seems to me there is a poplar-pole somewhere in this dungeon."
He felt about and presently I heard a dull thumping, on the trap-door, in a sort of rhythm, like the foot-beating of spectators at Oscan dances. After no long interval the trapdoor was lifted; Crispinillus called up:
"Tell them I have changed my mind. I'll confess. I'll make a full confession. I'll tell the whole story!"
The trap-door was replaced and we were again in complete darkness.
He settled himself beside me in the straw.
"No need to husband our provisions now," he said. "Neither of us will be left long in this hole. Let's comfort ourselves with food and wine."
I felt inclined the same way and we munched and passed the kidskin back and forth.
"Tell me," I said, "how it was that your thumping brought such a quick response."
"I signalled in the code of knocking known to all jailers," he said.
I expressed my amazement and incredulity.
"Don't you fool yourself," he said. "There is a certain sort of mutual understanding between executioners and jailers on the one hand and criminals on the other. There must be a give and take in all trades, even between man-hunters and hunted men. They were on the watch for any signal I might give, if it really meant anything. They were pleased to hear. You'll see the results promptly."
In fact, after no long interval, the trap-door was lifted again and a rope lowered, up which Crispinillus was bidden to climb.
He embraced me time after time, saying that we should never set eyes on each other again and that, confession or no confession, he knew his doom was not far off; but he wanted me, as long as I lived, to remember the gratitude of Nona's husband, his thankfulness for my treatment of his family and his efforts to requite the service.
"Keep up a good heart, lad," he said. "You won't be long here alone in the dark, and you'll soon be as coddled and pampered as a man can be. Long life to you and good luck and may you be soon married and raise a fine family. Peace of mind and prosperity to you and yours and a green old age to you!"
And he climbed the rope, hand over hand, like the best sailor on Libo's yacht.