Domitia

by S. Baring-Gould

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.
AN APPEAL.

“What can I do for thee, Domitia?” asked Titus, who was pacing the room; he halted before the young wife of his brother, who was kneeling on the mosaic floor.

She had taken advantage of her introduction into the Imperial palace to make an appeal to Titus, now Emperor. She had not been allowed to appear there during the reign of Vespasian.

Titus was a tall, solidly built man, with the neck of a bull; he had the same vulgarity of aspect that characterized both his father and brother, and which was also conspicuous in his daughter Julia. The whole Flavian family looked, what it was, of ignoble origin,—there was none of the splendid beauty that belonged to Augustus, and to the Claudian family that succeeded. Their features were fleshy and coarse, their movements without grace, their address without dignity.

If they attempted to be gracious, they spoiled the graciousness by clumsiness in the act; if they did a generous thing, it carried its shadow of meanness trailing behind it.

Titus had not borne a good character before his elevation to the purple. He had indulged in coarse vices, had shown himself callous toward human suffering. Yet there was in his muddy nature a spark of good feeling, a desire to do what was right, a rough sense of justice and much family affection.

It was a disappointment to him that he had but one child, a daughter, a gaunt, stupid girl, big-boned, amiable and ugly.

He knew that Domitian, his younger brother, would in all probability succeed him, but he also was childless. Next to him, the nearest of male kin, were the sons of that Flavius Sabinus, who had been butchered by the Vitellians, and their names were Sabinus and Clemens.

The former was much liked by the people, he was an upright grave man. The second was regarded with distrust, as a Christian. It was not the fact of his following a strange religion that gave offence. To that Romans were supremely indifferent, but that which they could not understand and allow was a man withdrawing himself from the public service, the noblest avocation of a man, because he scrupled to worship the image of the Emperor, and to swear by his genius. They regarded this as a mere excuse to cover inertness of character, and ignobility of mind.

For the like reason, Christians could not attend public banquets or go to private entertainments as the homage done to the gods, and the idolatrous offerings associated with them, stood in their way. The profession of Christianity, accordingly, not only debarred from the public service, but interfered with social amenities. Such withdrawal from public social life the Romans could not understand, and they attributed this conduct to a morbid hatred entertained by the Christians for their fellow-men.

The public shows were either brutal or licentious. The Christians equally refused to be present at the gladiato rial combats and at the coarse theatrical representations of broad comedy and low buffoonery. This also was considered as indicative of a gloomy and unamiable spirit.

There were indeed heathen men who loathed the frightful butchery in the arena, such was the Emperor Tiberius,—and Pliny in his letters shows us that to some men of his time they were disgusting, but nevertheless they attended these exhibitions, as a public duty, and contented themselves with expressing objection to them privately. The objection was founded on taste, not principle, and therefore called for no public expression of reprobation.

Clemens was quite out of the question as a successor. If he was too full of scruple to take a prætorship, he was certainly unfit to be an emperor. Not so Flavius Sabinus his elder brother. Him accordingly, Domitian looked upon with jealousy.

“What can I do for thee?” again asked Titus, and his heavy face assumed a kindly expression; “my child, I know that thou hast had trouble and art mated to a fellow with a gloomy, uncertain humor; but what has been done cannot be undone——”

“Pardon me,” interrupted Domitia, “it is that I desire; let me be separated from him. I never, never desired to leave my true husband, Lamia, I was snatched away by violence—let me go back.”

“What! to Lamia! That will hardly do. Would he have thee?”

“Tainted by union with Domitian, perhaps not!” exclaimed Domitia fiercely. “Right indeed—he would not.”

“Nay, nay,” said Titus, his brow clouding, “such a word as that is impious, and in another would be trea son. Domitia, you have a bitter tongue. I have heard my brother say as much. But I cannot think that Lamia would dare to receive thee again after having been the wife of a Flavian prince.”

Domitia’s lip curled, but she said nothing. These upstart Flavians made a brag of their consequence.

“Then,” said she, “let me go to my old home at Gabii. I have lived in seclusion enough at Albanum to find Gabii in the current of life—and my mother and her many friends will come there anon. Let me go. Let there be a divorce—and I will go home and paddle on the lake and pick flowers and seek to be heard of no more.”

“It would not do for you and Lamia to be married again. It would be a political error; it might be dangerous to us Flavians.”

“I should have supposed, in your brand-new divinity that a poor mouse like myself could not have scratched away any of the newly-laid-on gold leaf.”

“Domitia,” said Titus, who had resumed his walk, “be careful how you let that tongue act—it is a file, it has already removed some of the gilding.”

A smile broke out on his face at first inclined to darken.

“There! There!” said he, laughing; “I am not a fool. I know well enough what we were, as I feel what we have become. Caligula threw mud, the mud of Rome, into the lap of my grandfather, because he had not seen to the efficient scouring of the streets. It was ominous—the soil of Rome has been taken away from the divine race of Julius—and has been cast into the lap of us money-lenders, pettyfogging attorneys of Reate. Well! the Gods willed it, Domitia—it is necessary for us to make a display.”

“Push, as my mother would say.”

“Well—push—as you will it. But, understand, Domitia, though I am not ignorant of all this, I don’t like to have it thrown in my teeth; and my brother is more sensitive to this than myself. Domitia, I will do this for you. I will send for him, and see if I can induce him to part from you. I mistrust me,”—Titus smiled, looked at Domitia, with one finger stroked her cheek, and said,—“By the Gods! I do not wonder at it. I would be torn by wild horses myself rather than abandon you, had I been so fortunate——”

“Sire, so wicked——”

“Well, well! you must excuse Domitian. Love, they say, rules even the Gods, and is stronger than wine to turn men’s heads.”

He clapped his hands. A slave appeared. “Send hither the Cæsar,” he ordered. The slave bowed and withdrew.

Domitian entered next moment. He must have been waiting in an adjoining apartment.

“Come hither, brother,” said Titus. “I have a suppliant at my feet, and what suppose you has been her petition?”

Domitian looked down. He had a pouting disdainful lip, a dogged brow, and eyes in which never did a sparkle flash; but his face flushed readily, not with modesty, but shyness or anger.

“Brother,” said Domitian, “I know well enough at what she drives. From the moment, the first moment I knew her, she has treated me to quip and jibe and has sought to keep me at a distance. I know not whether she use a love-philtre so as to hold me? I know not if it be her very treatment of me which makes me love her the more. Love her! It is but the turning of a hair whether I love or hate her most. I know what is her petition without being told, and I say—I refuse consent.”

“Listen to what I have to propose,” said Titus, “and do not blurt out your family quarrels before I speak about them. It is not I only, but all Rome, that knows that your life together is not that of Venus’s doves. It is unpleasant to me, it detracts from the dignity of the Flavian family”—he glanced aside at his sister-in-law, and his lips quivered, “that this cat-and-dog existence should become the gossip of every noble house, and a matter of tittle-tattle in every wine-shop. Make an end to it and repudiate her.”

Domitian kept his eyes on the floor. Domitia looked at him for his answer with eagerness. He turned on her with a vulgar laugh and said:—

“Vixen! I see thee—naught would give thee greater joy than for me to assent. I should see thee skip for gladness of heart, as I have never seen thee move thy little feet since thou hast been with me! I should hear thee laugh—and I have heard no sound save flout from thee as yet. I should see a sun dance in thine eyes, that perpetually lower or are veiled in tears. Is it not so?”—He paused and looked at her with truculence in his face—“and therefore, for that alone, I will not consent.”

“Listen further to me, Domitian,” said Titus; “I have a proposition to make. Separate from Domitia, send her back——”

“What, into the arms of Lamia?”

“No, to Gabii. She shall be guarded there, she shall not remarry Lamia.”

“I shall take good heed to that.”

“Hear me out, Domitian. I have but one child, Julia. The voice of the people has proclaimed itself well pleased with our house. We have given to Rome peace and prosperity at home, and victory abroad. I believe that there are few who regard me unfavorably. But it is not so with thee. Thy folly, thy disorders, thy violence, before our father came to Rome, have not been forgotten or forgiven, and Senate and people look on thee with mistrust. I will give thee Julia to wife. It is true she is thy niece—but since Claudius took Agrippina——”

“Thanks, Titus, I have no appetite for mushrooms.”[8]

“Tut! you know Julia, a good-hearted jade.”

“I will not consent,” said Domitian surlily.

“Hear me out, brother, before making thy decision. If thou wilt not take Julia, then I shall give her to another——”

“To whom?” asked Domitian looking up. He at once perceived that a danger to himself lurked behind this proposal. The husband of Julia might contest his claims to the throne, should the popularity of Titus grow with years, and his own decline.

“I shall give her to our cousin, Flavius Sabinus.”

Domitian was silent, and moved his hands and feet uneasily.

Looking furtively out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a flash of hope in those of Domitia.

He held up his head, and looking with leaden eyes at his brother, said:—

“Still I refuse.”

“The consequences—have you considered them?”

Domitian turned about, and made a tiger-like leap at Domitia and catching her by her shoulders said:—

“I hate her. I will risk all, rather than let her go free.”

“I HATE HER!” Page 221.

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CHAPTER II.
THE FISH.

Domitian had been accorded by his brother a portion of the palace of Tiberius on the Palatine Hill, that was crowded with imperial residences; and Domitia had been brought there from Albanum.

She was one day on the terrace. The hilltop was too much encumbered with buildings to afford much space for gardens, but there were platforms on which grew cypresses, and about the balustrades roses twined and poured over in curtains of flower. Citrons and oleanders also stood in tubs, and against the walls glistened the burnished leaves of the pomegranate; the scarlet flowers bloomed in spring and the warm fruit ripened till it burst in the hot autumn.

Domitia, seated beside the balustrade, looked over mighty Rome, the teeming forum, roofs with gilded tiles of bronze, lay below her, flashing in the sun, and beyond on the Capitol, white as snow, but glinting with gold, was the newly completed temple of Jupiter, rebuilt in greater splendor than before since the disastrous fire.

The hum of the city came up to her as the murmur of a sea, not a troubled one, but a sea of a thousand wavelets trifling with the pebbles of a beach, and dancing in and out among the teeth of a reef; a hum not unlike that of the bees—but somewhat louder, and pitched on a lower note.

Domitia paid no attention to the scene, nor to the sounds, she was engaged with her jewel-box, that she had brought forth into the sun, in order that she might count over her treasures.

At a respectful distance sat Euphrosyne spinning.

Domitia had some Syrian filagree gold work in her hand—it formed a decoration for the head, to be fastened by two pins; the heads were those of owls with opals for eyes.

She laid it aside and looked at her rings and brooches. There was one of the latter, a cameo given her by her mother, of coral of two hues, a Medusa’s head, a beautiful work of art. Then she took up a necklace of British pearls from the Severn, she twisted it about her arm and lovely were the pure pearls against her delicate flesh,—like the dainty tints on the rose and white coral of the brooch she had laid aside.

She replaced the chain, and took up a cornelian fish.

“Euphrosyne,” said Domitia, “come hither! observe this fish. Thy sister gave it me the day I was married, but alack! it brought me no luck. Think you it is an omen of ill? But Glyceria would not have given me one such.”

“Nay, lady, the fish brings the greatest happiness.”

“What is its meaning? It is a strange symbol. It must have some purport.”

The slave hesitated about answering.

Then, hearing steps on the pavement, and looking round, Domitia called—“Thou! Elymas! who pretendest to know all things, answer me this, I have an amulet—a fish—what doth it portend?”

“What?—the murex? That gives the imperial purple.”

“Bah! It is no murex, not a sea snail but a fish. What is the signification?”

“Lady, to one so high, ever-increasing happiness.”

“Away! you are all wrong. Happiness is not where you deem it. False thou art, false to thy creed. Thou speak of a divine ray in every man and woman! an emanation from the Father of Light, quivering, battling, straining to escape out of its earthly envelope and soar to its source!—thou speak of this, and in all thy doings and devisings seekest what is sordid and dark!”

The gloomy man folded his cloak about him, and looking at her from under his penthouse brows answered:—

“Thou launchest forth against me without reason. Knowest thou what is a comet? It is a star that circles about the sun and from it drinks in all the illumination it can absorb, like as the thirsty soil in summer sucks in the falling rain, or the fields the outflow of the Alban Lake; then it flies away into space, and as it flies it sheds its effulgence, becoming ever more dim till it reaches infinite darkness and is there black in the midst of absolute nigritude. Then it turns and comes back to replenish its urn.”

“Nay,” said Domitia, “that can never be. When all light is gone, then all desire for return goes likewise. I know that in myself—I—I am such a comet. When I was a child I longed, I hungered for the light, and in my days of adolescence it was the same, only stronger—it was as a famine. I was the poor comet sweeping up towards my sun; but where my sun was, that—in the vast abyss of infinity—I knew not. I sought and found not, I sought and shed my glory, till there was but a faint glimmer left in me; and now—now all light is extinguished, and with it desire to know, to love, to be happy, to return.”

“Madam, you, as the comet, are reaching your apogee, your extreme limit; you must shed all your light before you can return to the source of light.”

“What! is that your philosophy? The Father of Light sends forth his ray to expire in utter darkness, predestined this ray of light to extinction. If so—then He is not good. And yet,” she sighed, “it is so. I am such. In blackness of night. Look you, Elymas, when I was a child, I laughed and danced; I cannot dance, I can but force a laugh now. I once loved the flowers and the butterflies; I love them no more. My light is gone. The faculty of enjoyment is gone with it. Do I want to return? To what? To the source of light that launched me into this misery? No, not into that cold and cruel fate. Let me go on my inky way, I have no more light to lose—I look only to go out as a fallen star and leave nothing behind me.”

“What! when a great future is before you?”

“What future? you have none to offer me that I value. Away with your hints concerning the purple—it is the sable of mourning to me.”

She panted. The tears came into her eyes.

“It is you who have wrecked my life—you—you. It was you who devised that crime—when I was snatched away from the only man I loved—the only man with whom I could have been happy—whom I—” she turned aside and hid her face. Then recovering herself, but with a cheek glistening with tears, she said: “I admit it, I love still, and ever shall love. And he loves me. He has taken none to wife, for he thinks on me. There, could darkness be deeper than my now condition? And you did it, you betrayed me into the hands—” she had sufficient self-control not to say to whom, before this man and her slave.

“Lady, it is not I, but Destiny.”

“And you, with your tortuous ways, work to ends that you desire, and excuse it by saying, It is Destiny.”

“What, discussing the lore of emanations, little woman?” asked the Emperor, coming suddenly up.

Elymas stood back and assumed a deferential attitude. Titus waved him to withdraw, and was obeyed. Then he took Domitia by the hand.

“A philosopher, are you?”

“No, I ask questions, but get no answers that content me.”

“Ah! you asked a favor of me the other day and spiced it with a sneer—your jibes hit me.”

“I meant not to give pain.”

“I have come to you touching this very matter. I am not sure, child, that the scandal is not greater so long as you and Domitian remain linked together, and pulling opposite ways, than if you were parted. Your quarrels are now the talk of Rome, and many a cutting jest is put into your pretty mouth at our expense; invented by others, attributed to you.”

“You will have us divorced!” her breath came quick and short.

“Listen to what I propose. Domitia, I am not well. I have this accursed Roman fever on me.”

“Sire, I mark suffering in your face.”

“It has been vexing me for some days, and it is my intent to leave Rome and be free from business and take my cure at Cutiliæ—our old estate in the Sabine country. Perhaps the air, the waters of the old home, the nest of our divine family—” his mouth twitched, but there was a sad expression in his face—“they may do me good. It is something, Domitia, to stand on the soil that was turned by one’s forbears, when they bent as humble farmers over the plough. They were honest men and happy; and when one is down at heart, there is naught like home—the old home where are the bones of one’s ancestors, though they may have been yeomen, and one a commissioner, and another an usurer, and so on. They were honest men. Aye! the rate-collector, he was an honest man. Here all is false, and unreal, and—Domitia—I feel that I want to stand on the soil where my worthy, humble, dear old people worked and worshipped, and laid them down to die.”

“You are downcast indeed,” said Domitia.

“And because downcast, I have been brooding over your troubles, little sister-in-law. Come! I did something for your poor Lamia,—I made him consul, and I will do more. Can you be patient and tarry till my strength is restored? I shall return from my family farm in rude health, I trust, and by the Gods! the first matter I will then take in hand will be yours. I know what my brother is. By Jupiter Capitolinus! if Rome should ever have him as its prince, it will weep tears of blood. I know his savage humor and his sullen mind. No, Domitia, you cannot be happy with him. A cruel wrong was done you, and when I return from Cutiliæ I will right it. You shall be separated!”

She threw herself at his feet.

He smiled, and withdrawing from her clasp, said:—

“I will do more than that for your very good friend, in whom you still take such a lively interest. I shall find means to advance him to some foreign post—he knows Antioch, I will give him the proconsulship of Syria and Cilicia, and so move him away from Rome. And then—” he took a turn, looked smilingly at Domitia, and said,—“I do not see that you need mope at Gabii. You know Antioch; you were there for some years. It is, I believe, not well for a governor to take his wife with him; she has the credit of being a very horse-leech to the province. But I can trust thee, little woman! There, no thanks, I seek mine own interest, and to protect our divine images and the new gilding from the rasp of that tongue. That is the true motive of my making this offer. Do not thank me. On my return from Cutiliæ you may reckon on me.”

Then hastily brushing away her thanks, and evading her arms, extended to clasp him, he walked from the terrace.

“Euphrosyne!” cried Domitia, “did you hear! The comet has reached its extreme limit, it is turning—it is drawing to the light—to hope. Happiness is near—ah!”

In her excitement she had struck her jewel-case that stood on the marble balustrade, and sent it, with all its costly contents, flying down the precipice into the thronged lanes at the back of the forum in a glittering rain.

“Ye Gods!” gasped Domitia, “the omen! O ye Gods! the bad omen.”

“Lady,” said Euphrosyne, “all is not lost”

“What remains? Ah! the Fish!”

“Yes, mistress dear, when all else is lost, remember the Fish.”

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CHAPTER III.
IN THE “INSULA.”

“Now, for a while I am as one who has cast off a nightmare,” said Domitia to herself. “He is away—why he has attended Titus to the Sabine land I know not, unless the Emperor could not trust him in Rome—or may be, in his goodness he has done it to relieve me of his presence. I will go see my mother.”

Domitia ordered her litter and bearers. She had no trinkets to put on, save the fish of cornelian. Her mother liked to see her tricked out, and usually when Domitia paid her a visit she adorned herself to please the old lady,—now she could not assume jewelry as she had lost all her articles of precious stones and metal. So she hung the cornelian amulet about her neck.

When a Roman lady went forth in palanquin, it was in some state. Before her went two heralds in livery, to clear the way and announce her coming at the houses where she purposed calling, then she had six bearers, and attendants of her own sex, carrying her scent bottles, kerchiefs, fans, and whatever she might think it possible she would require.

Domitia was impatient of display, but it had been imposed on her by the Emperor. “The Flavians,” said he smiling, “must make a show in public.”

A Roman lady was at this period expected to wear yellow hair, if she would be in the fashion. Under the Flavians, it was a compliment to the reigning princes to affect this color. It was true that the word flavus meant anything in color, from mud upwards to what might be termed yellow by courtesy. It was employed as descriptive of the Tiber, that was of the dingiest of drabs, and of the Campagna when every particle of vegetation was burnt up on it, and the tone was that of the dust-heaps. But now that the parsnip-haired Flavians were divine and all-powerful, the adjective was employed to describe the harvest field and gold. Ladies talked of their hair as “flavan” when it had been dyed with saffron and dusted with gold. Not to have yellow hair was expressive of disaffection to the dynasty—so every lady who would be in the fashion, and every husband who wanted office, first bleached and then dyed their hair, and as hair was occasionally thin, they employed vast masses of padding and borrowed coils from German “fraus” to make the utmost show of their loyalty to the august house of the divine Flavii.

Domitia dared not be out of fashion, and she was constrained to submit to having her chestnut hair dredged with gold-dust before she went forth on her visit. For her, conspicuously to wear her hair in its natural color would at once have provoked animadversion, and been interpreted as a publication, in most defiant manner, of the domestic discord that was a topic of gossip in the saloons of Rome.

When she had entered her palanquin, she gave her orders and was carried lightly down the sloping road into the Forum. This was crossed, and then, drawing back the curtains of her litter, she said:—

“Eboracus, tell the fellows not to go at once to the Carinæ. I have a fancy to see the wife of Paris the actor, in the Insula of Castor and Pollux.”

She was playing with the fish suspended on her bosom, as she was being conveyed down the hill, and the thought had come to her that she had not seen Glyceria for a long time, and that now was a good occasion as her husband—whom these visits annoyed, and who had in fact forbidden them—was absent from Rome.

The porters at once entered the narrow, tortuous lanes, where the lofty blocks of buildings cut off all sun and made twilight in midday.

As Domitia stepped out of her litter, she saw coming down the street, a man much in the company of Domitian, for whom she entertained a particular dislike. He was a very dark man, and blind; his face was pointed, and his nose long; he ran with projecting head, turning his sharp nose from side to side, like a dog after game. His name was Valerius Messalinus.

One of his slaves whispered something into his ear, and he twisted about his head, and then came trotting in the direction of the litter of Domitia.

“Quick,” said she, “I must go in; I will not speak with that man. If he asks for me, say I am out—out of the litter.”

She at once entered the block of lodgings, and impatiently waved back her heralds, who would have ascended the stairs before her and pompously announced her arrival.

Taking Euphrosyne along with her, Domitia made her way towards the apartments of the crippled woman. But already the news had spread that men in the im perial livery had entered the building, and there was a rush to the balustrade to see them.

When Domitia reached the first landing, she saw that the women and children, and such men as were there, had ranged themselves on either side, to give her passage, every face was smiling, and lit with pleasure, the men raised their forefingers and thumbs to their mouths, and the women and children strove to catch her hand, or kneeling to touch, raise and kiss the hem of her dress.

If, at one time it had caused surprise that she a rich lady, should enter a common haunt of the poor, it was now a matter of more than surprise, of admiration and delight—to welcome the sister-in-law of the Emperor, one who it was whispered would some day be herself Empress, Augusta, and an object of religious worship.

This sort of welcome always went to the heart of Domitia, and gave her a choke in the throat.

The great people never regarded the poor, save as nuisances. An emperor had said of the populace that it was a wolf he held by the ears. And it was wolf-like because brutally treated, pampered as to food given without pay, supplied with scenes of bloodshed, also without cost, in the arena, every encouragement to work taken from it, every demoralizing, barbarizing influence employed to degrade it.

The great people were supremely indifferent to the sufferings of the small, provided no hospitals for the poor who were sick, no orphanages for the homeless children—let them die—and the faster the better,—that was one wish of the great;—then shall we be alone on the earth with our slaves.

Had these poor people hopes, ambitions, cares, sorrows? Did they love their wives, and hold to their hearts their cubs of children? Did they have any desire that their children should grow up to be good men and virtuous women? Oh, no! such rabble were not of one blood with the rich. They had no fine feelings, they were like the beasts; they were without human souls; and so, when the poor died their bodies were rammed down wells contrived to contain a thousand corpses at a time, and then heaped over with a little earth.

But Domitia had learned that it was not as supposed. Amidst the falsity, barbarity of heart, and coarseness of mind of such as were of the noble Roman order,—the cultured, the rich, the philosophic—there was no sincerity, no truth. She felt happier and better after one of these visits to the Insula in the Suburra as though her lungs had inhaled a purer atmosphere. To the smiles and kisses and blessings lavished on her, she answered with kindly courtesy—and then stepped into the room of the paralyzed woman. Glyceria was as much a cripple as when first visited. She was more wasted—some time had passed—but she hardly seemed older, only more beautiful in her purity, a diaphanous lamp of mother-of-pearl through which shone a supernatural light.

Domitia drew a deep sigh.

“Glyceria,” she said, “when I come here, it is to me like seeing a glimpse of blue sky after a day of rain, or—like the scent of violets that came on me the first time I visited you.”

“And when you, lady, come to me, it is as though a sunbeam shone into my dark chamber.”

“Nay, nay—no flattery from thee, or I shall hate thee. I get that till it cloys. But tell me now, times have been better, and why has not Paris moved into superior quarters? Surely he is in better employ and pay than of old.”

“It is so, but only to a small degree,” answered the actor’s wife. “Paris performs in the grand old dramas in Greek only; in those of Æschylus and Eurypides and Sophocles, he is a tragic actor,—and—” the poor woman smiled, “perhaps home troubles have taken the laughter out of him. He is a sad bungler in comedy. Now the taste of Rome is not for the masterpieces of the ancients. The people clamor to see an elephant dance on a tight-rope, and a man crucified who pours forth blood enough to swamp the stage—the Laureolus! that is the piece to bring down the house. Or some bit of buffoonery and indecency. To that the people crowd. However, we live; I hang as a log about my Paris’s neck, but thank God, he loves his log and would not be rid of it, so I am content.”

“But if you will suffer me to assist you,” said Domitia.

Glyceria shook her head. “No, dear lady, do not take it ill if I refuse your kind offer, made, not for the first time. I am very happy here, very—with these dear kind people about me, running in and out all the day, offering their gracious good wishes, lending their ready help. On my word, lady! I do believe that they would all be in tears and feel it as a slight if I were to go; and for myself, I could never be happy away from them.”

Domitia stood up and went to the door. Her heart swelled in her bosom.

“None but the poor know,” said the cripple, “how kind, how tender the poor are to one another. Poverty is a brotherhood—we are all of one blood, and one heart.”

“And I—” said the great lady, looking out on the balcony with its swarm of people, some busy, some idle, most merry—“And I—” said she, dreamily—“I love the poor.”

“Then,” said a low firm voice, “thou art not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.”

She turned and started.

She recollected him, that stately man with deep, soft eyes. Luke, the Physician.

“I am not surprised,” he added, “if you be His disciple,” and he touched the cornelian fish.

It was not strange that in this splendid lady with golden hair he did not recognize the timid, crushed girl with auburn locks, he had seen on the Artemis.

But the recollection of that night came back with a rush like a tidal wave, over Domitia, and she threw forth the question, “Why did you cut the thong?”

He did not comprehend her. She saw it, and added, “You do not recollect me. Do you not recall when we nearly ran down the galley of that monster Nero? On that night, we would have sent him to the bottom of the sea, but for you,—you spoiled it all; you cut the thong of the rudder. Why did you prevent us from doing it?”

“Because,” answered the physician, “It is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. It was not for you to do it. You were not called to be the minister of His sentence.”

“I understand you not.”

“My daughter——”

“Hold!” said Domitia, rearing herself up. “Dost thou know to whom thou addressest thyself? I—I thy daughter? I am Domitia Longina, daughter of the great Corbulo, and—” but she would not add, “wife of the Cæsar Domitian.”

“Well, lady,” said Luke, “forgive me. I thought, seeing that sign on thy breast, and hearing thee say that thou didst love the poor, that thou wast one whom, whatever thy rank and wealth and position I might so address, not indeed as one of the Brethren, but as a hearer and a seeker—enough—I was mistaken.”

“What means this fish?” asked Domitia, her wounded pride oozing away at once. “I pray you forgive me. I spoke hastily.”

“The fish,” said he—

But before he could offer any explanation, Paris appeared, his face expressive of alarm; he had seen the servants in the imperial white below, and knew therefore whom to find in his wife’s lodgings.

He hastily saluted her and said:—

“Lady! I beseech thee to go at once. Something has occurred most grave. Return immediately to the palace.”

“What is it? Tell me.”

“Madam, I dare not name it, lest it be untrue. To speak of it if untrue were to be guilty of High Treason.”

“High Treason!” gasped Domitia. She knew what such a charge entailed.

“The Cæsar Domitian has passed at full gallop through the streets, his attendants behind him.”

“Whither has he gone?”

“To the Prætorian barracks.”

“Ye Gods!” spoke Domitia, she could not raise her voice above a whisper. “Then the worst has happened. My light is out once more.”

---

CHAPTER IV.
ANOTHER APPEAL.

On reaching the street, Domitia saw at once that the aspect of the populace was changed. Instead of the busy hum of trade, the calls of hucksters, the laugh of the mirthful, a stillness had come on every one; no face smiled, no voice was raised, scarcely any person moved.

Those who had been bustling here and there stood motionless, trade had ceased. A sudden frost had arrested the flow of life and reduced all its manifestations to the lowest term. Such as had been running about collected in clusters, and conversed in whispers. Blank faces looked at Domitia as she entered her litter, with awed respect.

“Eboracus! What is the meaning of this?” asked the lady.

“Madam, I know not. None will confide what they seem to know or to suspect.”

“Go forward,” said she, “I will visit my mother in the Carinæ. She will know everything.”

In another moment her train was in movement, and as she passed along, all bowed and saluted with their hands; they had done as much previously, but without the earnestness that was now observable. In the heart of Domitia was as it were a blade of ice transpiercing it. She was in deadly alarm lest her surmise should prove true.

She would not draw the curtains of her litter, but looked at everything in the streets, and saw that all were in the same condition of stupefaction.

On reaching the entrance to the palace occupied by her mother, Domitia noticed another palanquin and attendants.

“The Vestal Abbess, Cornelia, is with the Lady Duilia,” said Eboracus.

“I will go in!—I know her well, and esteem her,” said Domitia.

She passed the vestibule, traversed the Atrium and entered the Tablinum. But Longa Duilia was not there. A slave coming up, said that she had entered with the Great Mother into a private apartment, where she might not be disturbed.

“Well! I am no stranger. Lead the way.”

In another instant she was ushered into her mother’s presence, and at once Duilia bowed to her with profound respect.

“Mother—what does this mean?”

“Here is the Lady Abbess, Cornelia, let me present her to your Highness.”

“Mother—I salute the Lady Cornelia—what is this that has cast a shadow over Rome and frightened the people as with an eclipse?”

“My dear, of course you have heard. It may be only rumor and yet,—he was suffering when he left Rome.”

“Ye Gods! do not say so! Mother, withdraw your words of bad omen. Naught has befallen him! It was but a slight fever.”

“So we esteemed it, but——”

“But, mother——” Domitia panted.

“The news are weighty, and concern you vastly, my daughter.”

“It is too horrible for me to think. Surely, surely, mother, it is false.”

“Hearken, my dear,—Lady Cornelia, come also to the top of the house. It is a fine situation for seeing and hearing, and out of all reach of eavesdroppers. I hear shouts, I hear horns blowing. Come—speedily! let us to the house-top.”

Laying hold of Domitia and the Vestal Superior by the wrists, she drew them with her to the roof.

The silence that had fallen on Rome had passed away, the town was now resonant with horns and trumpets pealing from the Prætorian camp, with the shouting of many voices from the same quarter. In the streets, messengers were running, armed with knotted sticks, and were hammering at the doors of Senators to summon them to an extraordinary meeting. The clash of arms resounded, so also the tramp of feet, as the city police marched in the direction of the Palatine. Here and there rose loud cries, but what they signified could not be judged.

In another moment Eboracus came out on the housetop, and hastening to his mistress, said:—

“Madam, the Augustus—Titus, has been. The Cæsar Domitian is proclaimed Emperor by the troops. The vigiles are hastening in cohorts to swear allegiance.”

“I congratulate you—I congratulate you with all my heart!” exclaimed Longa Duilia, throwing her arms round her daughter. “I have reached the summit of my ambition. I vow a kid to Febronia for her opportune—ahem!—but who would have thought the Roman fever would have been so speedy in bringing us luck. Run, Eboracus, summon the housekeeper; order the ancestral masks to be exposed, all the boxes opened, dust the noses with the feather brush; let the lares be garlanded. Tell Paulina to bring out the best incense, not the cheapest this time, and I vow I will throw a double pinch on the altar of the household gods. Who would have thought it! I—I, mother to an empress. I would dance on the house-top, but that my wig is not properly pinned, and might come off. I must, I positively must embrace you again, Domitia; and you too, Cornelia, I am so happy!—As the Gods love me! Wig pinned or not, I must dance.”

“Let us go down,” said Domitia in a hard tone.

“Come down, by all means,” acquiesced her mother. “I must see that the Gods be properly thanked. I stepped this morning out of bed left leg foremost.[9] I knew some happiness would come to me to-day. As the Gods love me! I’ll give a little supper. Domitia! whom shall I invite? None of your second-class men now. There!—I thought as much; my wig has come off. Never mind! no men can see me, and women don’t count.”

On reaching the private apartment of the lady, Domitia said:—

“Mother—a word.”

She was white, save that a flame was kindled on each cheek-bone and her eyes scintillated like burning coals.

“Well, my dear, I am all ears—even to my toes.”

“Mother, he murdered him. I know it—I feared there was mischief meant, when Domitian attended him to Cutiliæ and took Elymas with him. It was not fever that——”

“MOTHER, HE MURDERED HIM.” Page 240.

“My dear, don’t bother your head about these matters. They all do it. We women, I thank the Gods, are outside of politics. But—well—well, you must not say such things, not even think them. It is all for the best in the best of worlds. I never had the smallest wish to see behind the scenes. Always eat your meat cooked and spiced, and don’t ask to see it as it comes from the shambles. If you are quite positive, then I won’t throw away the kid on Febronia. It is of no use wasting money on a goddess who really has not helped.”

“Mother,” said Domitia, her whole frame quivering with excitement; “I am sure of it. Did not the Augustus give his daughter Julia to Flavius Sabinus? I know that Domitian was alarmed at that. I saw it in his looks, I heard it in his voice; his movements of hand and foot proclaimed it. He feared a rival. He feared what the will of Titus might be—whom he might name as his successor. Mark me, my mother; the first to fall will be Flavius Sabinus.”

“Hist! the word is of bad omen.”

“It was of bad omen to Sabinus and to Titus alike when Julia was given to her cousin.”

“Well, my dear,” said Longa Duilia, “I do not see that we need concern ourselves about politics. You see,—every night, stars drop out of the heavens; the firmament is overcrowded, and those stars that are firmest planted elbow out the weakest. It is their way in heaven, and what other can you expect on earth? Of course, it were much to be desired—and all that sort of thing; but we did not make the world, neither do we rule it. All eggs in a nest do not hatch out, some addle.”

“Mother, I will not go back to him.”

“Folly! you cannot do other.”

“I will not. My condition was bad enough before, it will be worse now.”

“Domitia, set your mind at rest. I have no doubt that there have been little unpleasantnesses. Man and wife do not always agree. Your poor father would not be ruled by me. If he had—ah me!—Things would have been very different in Rome. But he suffered for his obstinacy. You must be content to take things as you find them. Most certainly it would be better in every way if peacocks had eyes on both sides of their tails, but as they have not, only very silly peacocks turn about and expose the eyeless side. Make the best of matrimony. It is not many marriages are like young walnuts, that you can peel off the bitter and eat only the sweet. In most, the skin adheres so tightly that you have to take the sweet with the gall, and be content that there is any sweet at all.”

“I shall go away. I will not return to the palace.”

“Go whither? the world belongs to Domitian. There is not a corner where you can hide. There are officials, and when not officials—spies. I have no doubt that the fish in that tank put up their heads and wish they were butterflies to soar above the roof and get away and sport among the flowers, instead of going interminably about the impluvium. But, my dear, they can’t do it, so they acquiesce in tank existence. Yours is the finest and best lot in the world,—and you would surrender it! From being a lioness you would decline to be a house cat!”

Domitia turned abruptly away, tears of anger and disappointment were in her eyes.

She said in a muffled voice:—

“Lady Cornelia, will you come with me?”

“I am at your service,” answered the Vestal.

The ladies departed together, and at the portal each entered her own litter.

“To the Atrium Vestæ,” said Domitia.

Her retinue started, and a moment after followed that of the Vestal Cornelia.

The streets were full of excited multitudes, currents running up one side, down another, meeting, coming to a standstill, clotting, and choking the thoroughfares, then breaking up and flowing again.

If it had not been for the liveries of the two heralds, the palanquin of Domitia could not have got through, but when it was observed whose litter and servants were endeavoring to make way, the crowd readily divided, and every obstacle gave way immediately. But the Vestal Superior needed not that the Cæsar’s wife should open the road for her. As much respect was accorded to her as to Domitia.

Both trains, the one following immediately after the other, entered and traversed the Forum, passed the Temple of Julius, and at the south extremity reached the Atrium of the Vestal Virgins, a long building without a window, communicating with the outer world by a single door.

At this door Domitia descended from her litter, and awaited the Abbess.

Cornelia also stepped from her litter. She was a tall and stately lady of forty years, who had once been beautiful, but whose charms were faded. She smiled—

“You will pay me a visit, as you go your way? that is a gracious favor.”

“A lengthy visit,” said Domitia.

“Time will never seem long in your sweet society,” answered the Vestal and taking Domitia’s hand led her up the steps to the platform.

No sooner was Domitia there, than she ran to the altar of the Goddess on which burned the perpetual fire, within a domed Temple, and clasped it. Cornelia had followed her, and looked at her with surprise.

“I claim the protection of the Goddess,” said Domitia. “I will not return to the palace! I will be free from him.”

Cornelia became grave.

“If your Goddess has any might, any grace, she will protect me. Do you fear? Have you lost your rights? I claim them.”

“Be it so,” said the Abbess. “None have appealed to the Goddess in vain, none taken sanctuary with her, who have been rejected. She will maintain your cause.”

---

CHAPTER V.
ATRIUM VESTÆ.

When the Romans were a pastoral people at Alba, then it was the duty of the young girls to attend to the common hearth and keep the fire ever burning. To obtain fresh fire was not always possible, and at the best of times not easy.

Fire was esteemed sacred, being so mysterious, and so indispensable, and reverence was made to the domestic hearth (hestia) as the altar of the Fire goddess.

When the Roman settlement was made on the banks of the Tiber, one hut of a circular form was constituted the central hearth, and provision was made that thence every household should obtain its fire. This hut became the Temple of Hestia or Vesta, and certain girls were set apart to watch the fire that it should never become extinguished.

This was the origin of the institution of the Vestal Virgins, an institution which lasted from the founding of Rome in B. C. 753, to the disestablishment of Paganism, and the expulsion of the last Vestal, in A. D. 394, nearly eleven hundred and fifty years.

No girl under six or above ten years of age was admissible as priestess of the sacred fire, and but six damsels were allowed,—their term of service was thirty years, after which the Vestal was free to return home and to marry. The eldest of the Vestals was termed Maxima, and she acted as superior or abbess over the community.

They enjoyed great possessions and privileges and were shown the most extraordinary respect. Seats of honor were accorded to the Vestals in the theatres, the amphitheatre and the circus.

The Vestals had other duties to perform beside that of maintaining the perpetual fire. They preserved the palladia of Rome, those mysterious articles on which the prosperity, nay, the very existence of the city was thought to depend. What these were was never known. The last Vestal carried them away and concealed them. With her death the secret was lost. Moreover, they took charge of the wills of great men, emperors and nobles, and in times of civil war they mediated between the conflicting parties.

Cornelia gently detached the hands of Domitia from the altar of Vesta, and led her within the college of the Vestals, the only door to which opened on the platform on which stood the Temple.

On entering, she found herself in an oblong court surrounded on all four sides by a cloister, the prototype of those to be in later days erected in the several convents and abbeys, and collegiate buildings of Christendom. In the open space in the midst was the circular treasury of the palladia, at one end was the well whence the virgins drew their water. The cloister was composed of marble columns, and sustained an upper gallery, also open to the court but roofed over and the roof supported on columns of red marble.

Between the columns below and above stood statues of the Superiors, who had merited commemoration. There was no garden, the place for walking was the cloister.

Cornelia conducted Domitia into the reception-chamber, and kissing her said:—

“Under the protection of the Goddess you are safe.”

“I trust I in no way endanger your safety.”

“Mine!” Cornelia laughed. “There is none above me save the supreme pontiff, and so long as I do no wrong, no one can molest me. But tell me—what wilt thou do?”

“In the first place send out and bid my servants return home; and if they ask when to come for me, answer, when I send for them.”

“That is easily done,” said the Abbess. She clapped her hands and a slave girl answered and received this commission.

“Now,” said she, “now we come to the real difficulty. Here you are, but here you cannot tarry for long. For six days we may accord sanctuary, but for no more. After that we must deliver over the person who has taken refuge with us if required.”

“I have for some time considered what might be done. I have been so miserable, so degraded, so impatient, that I have racked my brain how to escape, and I see but one course. When we were at Cenchræa, my mother and I, we were in the house of a Greek client of our family, who was very kind to us, and his wife loved me well. If I could escape thither in disguise, then I think he would be able to secrete me, there are none so astute as are the Greeks, and who so love to outwit their masters.”

“But how is this possible?”

“That I know not—only let me get away from Rome, then trust my craft to enable me to evade pursuit. Let it be given out that I am here in fulfilment of a vow, then no suspicion will be roused, and I can take my measures.”

“It is not possible,” said Cornelia in some alarm. “Have you considered what your mother said? the Augustus is all-seeing and all-powerful, and has his hand everywhere.”

“Get me out of Italy, and I shall be safe. I will not return to the Palatine. If my life was hateful to me before, what will it be made now? Then he had some fear of his father and of his brother, now he has none to fear.”

The Vestal said, “Let me have time to think this over—and yet, it doth not seem to me feasible.”

“Get me but a beggar’s suit, and walnut juice, that I may stain my face and hands and arms. I will wash all this gold-dust from my hair—and I warrant you none will know me, with a staff and a wallet, I will go forth, right willingly. I will not return to him.”

“That is impossible. You—with your beauty—your nobility——”

“My nobility is of no account with me now.”

“You think so, and so it may be whilst untouched, but I am certain the least ruffle would make your pride flash out.”

Domitia remembered her resentment at the physician’s apparent familiarity.

“Well—my beauty will be disguised.”

“That nothing can conceal.”

“Oh! do not speak thus, or I shall mistrust you, as I mistrust every one else—except my slave Euphrosyne, and Eboracus, and Glyceria the actor’s wife. These seem to me the only true persons in the world. I would cast myself on them, but two are slaves and the other is paralyzed. Consider now, Cornelia, do you not understand how that one may reach a condition of mind or soul, call it which you will, when we become desperate. One must make an effort to break away into a new and free and better life, or succumb and become bad, and dead to all that is noble and true and good, hard of heart, callous to right and wrong. I am at that point. I know, if I were to return to him, and to be Empress of the Roman world, that I should have but one thing to live for—the pride of my place and the blazoning of my position; and to all that which lies deep within me, bleeding, crying out, hungering, and with dry lips—dead.”

“My dear lady, you were never made for what you are forced to become.”

“Then, why do the Gods thrust me on to a throne that I hate, tie me to a man that I loathe, surround me with a splendor that I despise. Tell me why? O Vesta! immaculate Goddess! how I would that I had been as one of thy consecrated virgins, to spend my days in this sweet house, and pure, peaceful cloister! Do you see? I must away. I am lost to all good—if I remain. I must away! it is my soul that speaks, that spreads its hands to thee, Cornelia! save me!”

She threw herself on her knees and extended her arms to the Vestal Abbess, caught her dress and kissed it.

Cornelia was deeply moved,

“I beseech you, rise,” she said, lifting the kneeling suppliant, clasping her in her arms, and caressing her as a child.

“Hearken to me, Domitia, I can think but of one person that can assist us; that is my cousin Celer. He is a good man, and whatever I desire, he will strive to execute as a sacred duty. Yet the risk is great.”

“I pray you!—I pray you get him to assist me to escape.”

“He must furnish you with attendants. It will not be secure for you to be accompanied by any of your own servants. They might be traced. Celer has got a villa. Stay, I will go forth at once and see him. He can give counsel. Do nothing till my return.”

The Vestal Great-Mother left, and Domitia was glad to be alone.

The habitation of the Vestals was wonderfully peaceful, in the midst of busy, seething Rome, and in the centre of its greatest movement. As already said, it had no windows, and but one door that opened on the outer world. It drew all its air, all its light, from the patch of sky over the central court. Figures of Vestals glided about like spirits, and the white statues stood ghostlike on their pedestals.

But to be without flowers, without a peristyle commanding a landscape of garden and lake and trees and mountains! That was terrible. It would have been an unendurable life, but that the Vestal college was possessed of country seats, to which some of the elder of the sisterhood were allowed occasionally to go and take with them some one or two of the novices.

Although there were no flowers in the quadrangle, there was abundance of birds. In and out among the variegated marbles, perching on balustrades, fluttering among the statues, were numerous pigeons, as marbled in tint as the sculptured stonework, and looking like animated pieces of the same; and a tame flamingo in gorgeous plumage basked himself, then strutted, and on seeing a Vestal approach hopped towards her. When, moreover, the same maiden drew water from the well, the pigeons came down like a fall of snow about her, clustering round the bucket to obtain a dip and a drink.

Several hours passed. At length the Abbess returned. She at once sought Domitia, who rose on her entry. Cornelia took both her hands within her own and said:—

“We women are fools, that is what Celer said, when I told him your plan. As he at once pointed out, it is impossible for you to lie hid anywhere in Italy—and impossible to escape from it, unknown to the Augustus. Any one endeavoring to assist you to escape would lose his life, most assuredly. ‘I cannot sell smoke to a clown,’ said he bluntly—he is a plain man—‘I will not put out a finger to assist in such an attempt, which would bring ruin on us all. But,’ he said, ‘this may be done; let the Lady Domitia retire to one of her own villas, in the country, and commit the matter to the Vestals. Your entreaty is powerful, and if attended by two of the sisters—or perhaps better alone, for this is not a matter to be made public—go to the prince, and plead in the lady’s name, that thou feelest unequal to the weight of duties that will now fall on the Augusta, and that thy health is feeble and thou needest repose and country air—then he may yield his consent, at least to a temporary retreat.’ But my kinsman Celer advised nothing beyond this. In very truth, nothing else can be done. Most men’s noses are crooked,—he said—and he is a blunt man—and those who have straight ones do not like to follow them. But in your case, Lady Domitia, there is practically no other way.”

“Then I will to Gabii,” said Domitia with a sigh. “If he will force me back—there is the lake.”

Then, said Cornelia, “Dost thou know that blind-man Messalinus?”

“Full well—he hangs on to the Cæsar Domitian, like a leech.”

“Since thou didst enter the house of us Vestals, he hath been up and down the Via Nova and the Sacred Way, never letting this place out of his eye—blind though he be. Some say he scents as doth a dog, and that is why he works his head about from side to side snuffing the wind. When I went forth he detached two of his slaves to follow—and they went as far as myself and stood watching outside the door of the knight Celer, and when I came forth they were still there, and when I returned to the Atrium of Vesta, I found Messalinus peering with his sightless eyes round the corner. But, I trow, he sees through his servants’ eyes.”

“He is a bird of ill omen,” said Domitia, “a vulture scenting his prey.”

---

CHAPTER VI.
FOR THE PEOPLE.

Domitia was at Gabii. Cornelia, the Vestal Great Mother had sent her thither in her own litter, and attended by her own servants, but with the assistance of the knight Celer, who had gone before to Gabii to make preparations.

Gabii had none of the natural beauties of Albanum, but Domitia cared little for that. It was a seat that had belonged to her father and here his ashes reposed. The villa was by no means splendid; but then—nor had been that of Albanum when she was first carried thither. Domitian had bought it immediately after the proclamation of his father, and it had then been a modest, but very charming country residence. Since then, he had lavished vast sums upon it, and had converted it into a palace, without having really improved it thereby. To Albanum he had become greatly attached; to it he retired in his moody fits, when resentful of his treatment by his father, envious of his brother, and suspicious of his first cousin Sabinus. There he had vented his spleen in harassing his masons, bullying his slaves, and in sticking pins through flies.

But if Gabii was less beautiful and less sumptuous, it had the immeasurable advantage of not being occupied by Domitian. There, for a while, Domitia was free from his hateful society, his endearments and his insults, alike odious to her.

And she enjoyed the rest; she found real soothing to her sore heart in wandering about the garden, and by the lake, and visiting familiar nooks.

Only into the temple of Isis she did not penetrate, the recollection of the vision there seen was too painful to be revived.

On the third day after she had been in the Gabian villa, Celer came out from Rome. He was a plain middle-aged man with a bald head, and a short brusque manner, but such a man as Domitia felt she could trust.

He informed her that Cornelia had been before the Augustus and had entreated him to allow his wife to absent herself from the palace, and from his company. She had made the plea that Domitia Longina was out of health, overstrained by the hurry of exciting events, and that she needed complete rest.

“But I demand more than that,” said she.

“Madam, more than that, my cousin, the Great Mother, dared not ask. The prince was in a rough mood, he was highly incensed at your having withdrawn without his leave, and he saw behind Cornelia’s words the real signification. He behaved to her with great ill-humor, and would give no answer one way or the other—and that means that here you are to remain, till it is his pleasure to recall you.”

“And may that never be,” sighed Domitia.

“The Augustus is moreover much engaged at present.”

“What has he been doing? But stay—tell me now—is there news concerning Sabinus?”

“Ah lady! he has been.”

“I knew it would be so. On what charge?”

“The Augustus was incensed against him, because under the god Vespasian he had put his servant in the white livery, when Flavius Sabinus was elected to serve as consul for the ensuing year. Unhappily, the herald in announcing his election gave him the title of Emperor in place of consul, through a mere slip of the tongue. But it was made an occasion of delation. Messalinus snapped at the opportunity, and at once the noble Sabinus was found guilty of High Treason, and sentenced to death.”

“And what has become of Julia, daughter of the god Titus, the wife of Sabinus?”

“She has been brought by the Augustus to the Palatine.”

Next day, the slave Euphrosyne arrived. She had been sent for by Domitia, and was allowed to go to her mistress. She also brought news.

The town was in agitation. It was rumored that the Emperor was about to divorce Domitia, and to marry his niece.

“It would be welcome to me were this to take place,” said Domitia. “Come, now, Euphrosyne, bring me spindle and distaff, I will be as a spinster of old.”

So days passed, occasionally tidings came from Rome, but these were uncertain rumors. Domitia was enjoying absolute peace and freedom from annoyance in the country. And she had in Euphrosyne one with whom she talked with pleasure, for the girl had much to say that showed novelty, springing out of a mind very different in texture from that usual among slaves.

“It is a delight to me to be still. Child!—I can well think it, after a toilsome and discouraging life, it is pleasant to fold the hands, lay the head on the sod, and go to sleep, without a wish to further keep awake.”

“Yes, when there is a prospect of waking again.”

“But even without that, is life so pleasant that one would incline to renew it? Not I for one.”

Domitia looked up at the fresco of the Quest of Pleasure, and said—“Once I wondered at that picture yonder, and that all pleasure attained should resolve itself into a sense of disappointment. It is quite true that we pursue the butterfly, after we have ceased to value it, but that is because we must pursue something, not that we value that which is attained or to be attained.”

“Ah, lady, we must pursue something. That is in our nature—it is a necessity.”

“It is so; and what else is there to follow after except pleasure?”

“There is knowledge.”

“Knowledge! the froth-whipping of philosophers, the smoke clouds raised by the magicians, the dreams and fancies of astronomers—pshaw! I have no stomach for such knowledge. No! I want nothing but to be left alone, to dream away my remainder of life.”

“No, lady, that would not content you. You must seek. We are made to be seekers, as the bird is made to fly, and the fish to swim.”

“If we do not seek one thing, we seek another, and in every one, find—what the pinched butterfly is—dust.”

“No, mistress, not if we seek the truth. The knowledge of the truth, the Summum Bonum.”

“But where, how are we to seek it?”

“In God,” answered the slave.

“The Gods! of them we know only idle tales, and in place of the tales, when taken away, there remains but guesswork. There again—the pinch of dust.”

“Lady, if we are created to seek, as the fish to swim, there must be an element in which to pursue our quest, an end to attain. That is inevitable, unless we be made by a freakish malevolent power that plants in us desire that can feed only on dust, ever, ever dust. No, that cannot be, the soul runs because it sees its goal—”

“And that?—”

A bustle, and in a moment, in sailed Longa Duilia, very much painted, very yellow in hair, and with saffron eyelashes and brows.

“Little fool!” said the mother. “Come, let me embrace thee, yet gently lest you crumple me, and be cautious of thy kisses, lest thou take off the bloom of my cheek. Thou art ever boisterous in thy demonstrations. There, give me a seat, I must put up my feet. As the Gods love me! what a hole this Gabii is! How dingy, how dirty, how shabby it all looks! As the Gods—but how art thou? some say ill, some say sulky, some say turned adrift. As the Gods love me! that last is a lie, and I can swear it. The Augustus distills with love, like a dripping honeycomb. You must positively come back with me. I have come—not alone. Messalinus is with me—a charming man—but blind, blind as a beetle.”

“What, that fourfolder!”[10]

“Now, now, no slang! I detest it, it is vulgar. Besides, they all do it, and what all do can’t be wrong. One must live, and the world is so contrived that one lives upon another; consequently, it must be right.”

“Well have the Egyptians represented the God who made men as a beetle—blind, and this world as a pellet of dung rolled about blindly by him.”

“My dear, I am not a philosopher and never wish to be one. Come, we have brought the Imperial retinue for taking you back.”

“Whither? To your house in the Carinæ?”

“Oh, my Domitia! How ridiculous! Of course you go to the Palatine, to your proper place. My dear, you will be proclaimed Augusta, and receive worship as a divinity. The Senate are only pausing to adjudge you a goddess, to know whether the Emperor intends to repudiate you or no. It is absolutely necessary that you come back with me.”

“My godhead is determined by the question whether I be divorced or not!” exclaimed Domitia contemptuously. “I cannot go with you, mother.”

“Then,” said Duilia, looking carefully about, “that jade, big-boned and ugly as a mule—you know to whom I refer, will get the upper hand, and your nose will be broken.”

“Mother, I ask but to be left alone.”

“I will not suffer it. By my maternal authority——”

“Alas, mother! I have passed out of that—I did so at my marriage.”

“Well then, in your own interest.”

“If I consider that I remain here.”

“Avaunt nonsense! Your position, your opportu nities! Just think! There is cousin Cnæus must be given a help up. He is a fool—but that don’t matter, you must get him a proconsulship. Then there is Fulvia, you must exert yourself to find her a wealthy husband. As the Gods love me! you can push up all your father’s family, and mine to boot. Come, get the girls to dress you becomingly and make haste.”

“I cannot go.”

“You must. The Augustus wills it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You cannot refuse.”

“I do so now.”

“My dear, by the Good Event! you shall come. You can no more refuse him than you can Destiny.”

“Let him send his lictors and lead me to death.”

“Lead you to—how can you talk such rubbish? You must come. This is how the matter stands. There has been a good deal of disturbance in Rome. As the Gods love me! I do not know why it is, but the people like thee vastly, and the rumor has got about that thou wast about to be repudiated, and that raw-boned filly taken in your place. First there were murmurings, then pasquinades affixed to the statues of the august Domitian. Then bands of rioters passed under his windows howling out mocking songs and blasphemies against his majesty, and next they clustered in knots, and that Insula of Castor and Pollux is a nest of insubordination. In fact, return you must to quiet men’s minds. You know what a disturbance in Rome is, we have gone through several. By Jupiter! I shall never forget the rocking I went through that night of the Lectisternium. These sort of things are only unobjectionable when seen from a distance. But they leave a taste of blood behind them. When the riot is over, then come proscription; the delators have a fine time of it, and the rich and noble are made to suffer.”

“But, mother, let Julia do what she will, I care not.”

“Rome does. The Roman rabble will not have it so. You have been familiar with the base and vile multitude. Can’t think how you could do it! However, it has succeeded this time and turned out a good move, for the people are clamorous for your return. The Augustus is but recently proclaimed and allegiance is still fresh—and I believe his cousin Ursus has been at him to have you back so as to humor the public.”

“Yet, if I refuse to gratify him.”

“Then, my dear, of course, it will be a pity, and all that sort of thing; but they all do it, and it must be right. The Augustus would prefer not to use severity—but if severe he must be, he will put down this disturbance with a hand of iron. He bears no actor’s sword, the blade of which is innocuous. I will call in Messalinus. He will tell you more.”

She clapped her hands; in obedience to her order a slave went outside the villa, and presently returned with the blind man.

He entered, working his sharp nose about, and then made a cringing bow towards the wall—not knowing where stood Domitia.

“Catullus Messalinus,” said Duilia, “have the goodness to inform my daughter of the intentions of the Augustus relative to the rabble in the Insula of Castor and Pollux, whence all the agitation proceeds.”

“Madam,” said the blind informer, “my god-like prince has already given command to clear the streets by means of the prætorian swords. As to that herd in the block of Castor and Pollux, they are reserved for condign punishment, unless my dear lady return at once. They will all—men, women and children, be driven into the circus. There are a pair of British war chariots, with scythes affixed to the axles, and the green drivers will be commanded to hustle round the ring at full speed among this rebellious rabble, to trample them down, and mow them as barley with the scythes—till not one remains alive as a seed of disaffection. What I say is—if a thing has to be done, do it thoroughly. It is true kindness in the end. Of course some must suffer, and one may praise the Gods that in this case it is only the common people.”

“The common people,” gasped Domitia.

Her eyes were glazed with horror. She saw the Insula, its crowds of busy, kindly, happy people, so good to one another, so affectionate to Glyceria, so grateful to her for visiting among them. And it was she, she by winning their love who was bringing this punishment upon them. In their blind, foolish way, they had misconceived her flight, and in their blind and stupid way, had resented an imaginary wrong offered to her, and because of their generous championship—they must suffer.

With bursting heart, and with a scalding rush of tears over her cheeks, Domitia extended her hand to her mother:—

“I go back,” she said, “My people! my poor people, my dear people! It must be so.—For their sake—pro populo.”

---

CHAPTER VII.
“THE BLUES HAVE IT!”

On her return to Rome and the palace, Domitia did not see the Emperor, but he sent her notice to be prepared to appear with him in public at the opening of the Circensian Games that he gave to the people in honor of his accession to the principate. This was to take place on the morrow. The games began at an early hour and lasted all day, with an interruption for the cena or supper at two o’clock.

The Circus was close under the Palatine Hill and occupied the valley between it and the Aventine. The site has now been taken possession of for gas-works.

It was a long structure, with one end like a horseshoe, the other was straight, or rather diagonal, a contrivance to enable horses and chariots when starting abreast to have equal lengths to run, which would not have been the case had the end been drawn straight across the circus.

This end was dignified with two towers, with a central gate between them and four arched doors on each side closed with ornamental wooden gates.

The seats of the spectators rose in tiers on all sides, except that of the straight side, where above the great entrance was the seat of the director of the sports. On one side of the Circus near the winning post was the imperial box.

Down the middle of the course ran a wall with statues planted on it, but at each end was a peculiar structure; that near the winning post sustaining seven white balls like eggs, that at the other extremity supporting as many bronze dolphins.

Each race consisted of seven circuits of the course, and a servant of the management at each end attended to the number of rounds made, and as each concluded, an egg was removed at one end, and a dolphin turned round at the other.

There was a separate entrance, with waiting-room for the prince and his party. Domitia with her train arrived first, and remained in the waiting-room till his arrival.

She was dressed in blue, with gold woven into the garment, and her hair was tied up with blue. She looked very lovely, slender and delicate in color, with large earnest indigo eyes, the darkest blue points about her. The sadness of her expression could not be dissipated by forced smiles.

In the waiting-chamber she could hear the mutter of voices in the circus; all Rome would be there. As she had descended from the Palatine she had seen scarce a soul in the forum or the streets, save watchmen and beggars.

Now pealed the trumpets, and next moment the prince, attended by his lictors, and with his niece Julia at his side, entered. He scowled at Domitia, and beckoned her to approach, then, without another word he went out of the door into the Imperial box. Hitherto it had been customary for the Empress to sit with the Vestal Virgins. But Nero had broken this rule and Domitian, the more to emphasize his reconciliation with Domitia, so as to please the people, followed the example of Nero.

Domitia entered and moved to the seat on his right; Julia, that on his left. Behind them poured a glittering retinue of lictors and soldiers, officers of the guard, and officials of the city and chamberlains. At once the whole concourse stood, and thundering cheers with clapping of hands rose from the circus. The Emperor made a hasty, ungracious sign of acknowledgment and took his seat.

The applause, however, did not die away, it broke out afresh, in spurts of enthusiasm, and the name of the Empress was audible—whereupon the cheers were prolonged with immense vehemence.

Domitian heard it. His brow darkened and his face flushed blood-red. He made a signal with his hand, at once three priests attended by men bearing pick and shovel entered the course, and directed their way to the end of the dividing wall or spine; there they threw up the soil, till a buried altar was reached, on which at once burning coals were placed, and all the concourse rose whilst incense and a libation and prayers were offered to the God Consus.

That ended, the fire was extinguished by the earth being thrown over it. Again the altar was buried, and the soil stamped above it.

This ceremony was hardly complete before the great central gates were thrown open, to a peal of trumpets, and heralds entered to proclaim the opening of the sports given by the Emperor, the Cæsar Domitian, the Augustus, son of the God Vespasian, high priest, holder of the tribunician power, consul, perpetual Censor, and father of his country; sports given for the pleasure of his well-beloved, the citizens of Rome, senators, knights, and people generally, and of such strangers as might at the time be in Rome, the centre of the world.

Again rose a roar of approbation, men stood up, stamped, jumped on their seats, and clapped their hands.

Then through the Triumphal Gate came the Circensian procession. This was properly a ceremonial of the 13th September; but in honor of the proclamation of the accession of Domitian to the throne, and to his giving the shows at his own charge, it was now again produced.

First came boys on horseback and on foot, gayly clothed, and immediately behind them the jockeys and runners who were to take part in the games. The racers were divided into four classes, each wearing the color of one season of the year. Green stood for spring, red for summer, blue for autumn, and white for winter. The riders and drivers were dressed according to the class to which they belonged. The chariots were drawn by four horses abreast, and each furnished with an outrider in the same colors, armed with a whip. At once cries rose from all sides, for every jockey and every horse was known by name, some cheered the drivers, some shouted the names of the horses, some proposed bets and others booked such as they had made.

Then came huntsmen with hounds, armed with lances, and behind them dancing soldiers, who clashed shields and swords in rhythm, accompanying their dance with choric song.

Next entered a set of men dressed in sheep’s and goats’ skins, and with fluttering ribbons, and lastly images of the gods on biers. The “pomp,” though a quaint and pretty sight, was looked on with some impatience, as wanting in novelty, and as but a prelude to the more exciting races.

The procession having made the circuit of the arena, retired, and with great rapidity the first four racing chariots were got into their caveæ, the vaults on the right side of the entrance with four doors opening on to the circus.

And now a chalked line was rapidly stretched across the course in front of the gates. A trumpet sounded, the gates were thrown open and the four chariots issued forth and were drawn up abreast behind the line, and lots cast to determine their positions.

Then Domitian stretching forth his hand, threw a white napkin into the arena, the white cord fell, and instantly the chariots started.

The spectators swayed and quivered, shouted and roared, women waved their veils, men clashed potsherds; some yelled out bets, and one or two from behind stumbled forward and fell among the occupants of the benches in front.

At the further end, where the circus described a horseshoe, a gallery of wood projected over the heads of those on the lower stages, to accommodate still more spectators; and these hammering on the boards with feet and fists greatly increased the din.

The roar of voices rolled like a wave along the right side of the circus, then broke into a billow at the curved end, and then surged down to the further extremity, again to swell and run and revolve, as an egg was dismounted, and a dolphin turned.

At each end of the spine, detached from it, were three obelisks, or conical masses of stone, sculptured like clipped yew trees. These were the Metæ.

Attending every charioteer was, as already said, an outrider in his colors, to lash the horses, and to assist in case of accident. Moreover, boys stood about with pitchers of water, to dash over the axles of the wheels when they became heated, or to wash away blood stains, should there be an accident.

Domitia sat watching the race, at first with inattention. Yet the general excitement was irresistible, it caught and carried her out of herself, and the color mounted into her ivory cheek.

The Emperor paid no attention to her, he studiously avoided speaking to her, and addressed his conversation to Julia alone—who was constrained to be present notwithstanding that the execution of her husband had taken place but a few days previously. But her heavy face gave no indication of acute sorrow. It was due to her position and relationship to the prince to be there, and when he commanded her attendance, it did not occur to her to show opposition.

The keenest rivalry existed between the parties of the circus, at a time when political partisanship was dangerous except to the sycophants of the regnant prince, all faction feeling was concentrated on the colors of the race-course. Caligula had championed the green, so had Nero, who had even strewn the course with green sand when he himself, in a green suit, had driven on it. And now Domitian accepted the green as the color that it comported with the dignity of his parvenu dynasty to favor. It was also generally preferred to the other, at any rate in the betting, because it was known that the Imperial favorites were allowed to win the majority of the races.

Yet the jockeys and horses and chariots belonged to different and rival companies, and were hired by the givers of games. It was not in the interest of the other colors to be beaten too frequently. They therefore arranged among themselves how many and which races were, as a matter of course, to be won by the green, and the rest of the races were open to be fairly contested. But the public generally were not let into the secret; though indeed the secret was usually sold to a few book-makers.

Hah! down went the red. In turning the metæ at the further end, the wheel had caught in that of the white, throwing the latter out, but not upsetting the chariot, whereas the car of the red jockey overturned, one horse went down, sprang up again, and would have dragged the driver along, had he not dextrously whipped a curved knife out of his girdle and cut the reins. This was necessary, as the reins of all four horses were thrown over the shoulder and wrapped round the body. Consequently a fall was certain to be fatal unless the driver had time and presence of mind at once to shear through the leathers.

“He is out! the red is out!” roared the mob. Then, “The white! the white is lagging—he cannot catch up!—the red did for him? Out of the way! Out ye two! ye cumber the course.”

The white struggled on, driver and outrider lashed the steeds, they strained every muscle, but there was no recovering from the loss of time caused by the lock of wheels, and on reaching the doors on the right, which were at once swung open, both chariots retreated into the caveæ, amidst the groans of such as had bets on their favor.

“It lies now between green and blue!” was the general shout. “On with the Panfaracus!” “Nay! hit the off horse, he sulks, Euprepes!” “Well done, Nereus! Pull well, Auster! Brave horses! brave greens! greens for ever! The Gods befriend the greens!”

Then some one looking in the direction of the imperial box noticed Domitia in her blue habit, with her blue eyes wide distended, and the blue ribbons in her hair. Suddenly in a clear voice he cried,—

“The blue! the blue! It is the color of the Augusta! The blue! Sabaste! I swear by her divinity! I invoke her aid! The blue will win.”

Like an electric shock there went a throb through the vast concourse—there were nearly three hundred thousand persons present. At once there rose a roar, it was loud, thrilling, imperious:—

“The blue! It shall win! The color of the Augusta! of the divine Augusta, the friend of the Roman people! The blue! the blue! we will have the blue!”

The drivers lashed furiously, the outriders swung themselves in their saddles to beat the horses. But the gallant steeds needed no scourging, they were as keen in their rivalry as were their drivers and their supporters.

“The last egg! the last dolphin! Again! the green is ahead!” a groan broken by only a few cheers. Wonderful! In the sudden contagion even those who had betted on the green, cheered the rival color.

“Who was that cried out for the blue?” asked Domitian, turning sharply about. “Find him, cast him to the dogs to be torn.”[11]

His kinsman Ursus whispered in his ear,—

“It is the actor Paris. Yet do nothing now. It would be inauspicious.”

The command was grudgingly withdrawn.

A gasp—stillness, the extreme meta had been turned; then a restless, quivering sound, men, women, too agitated to shout, held their breath, but muttered and moved their feet—the blue! the blue gains; nay! the green is forging ahead—Ha! Ha! at the last moment in swung the blue, across the white line, one stride ahead of the green.

Then there rolled up a thunder of applause.

“The blue! the dear blue! the blue of the Augusta has it! Ye Gods be praised! I vow a pig to Eppona! The blue has it. All hail to the Augusta! to heaven’s blue!”

Domitian turned with a look of hate at his wife, and whispered:—

Nevertheless she shall come in second.

“NEVERTHELESS SHE SHALL COME IN SECOND.” Page 270.

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CHAPTER VIII.
THE LOWER STOOL.

“Come now!” said the Emperor, rising from his seat; “it is time that we should eat. My lady Longina, may it please you to sup with us?”

There was a malevolent glance in his pale watery eye. But Domitia did not see it, she looked at him as little as might be.

She rose at once. So also did Julia, the daughter of Titus, and the Emperor and his train left the circus; but as they withdrew there rose ringing cheers, the people standing on their benches and applauding—not the Cæsar, the Augustus, the Imperator—but her, Domitia, the blue. The people’s own true blue. He heard it, and ground his teeth—his face waxed red as blood. Domitia heard it, and her heart filled and her eyes brimmed with tears.

Then Domitian turned and looked at her savagely, as a dog might look at another against which it was meditating an onslaught, and said:—

“Remove that blue—I hate it, and come to the banquet.” Then with an ugly leer—“I have sent for the actor to amuse you.”

“What actor?”

“Paris, madam, the inimitable, the admired Paris, that he may recite from Greek plays to our pleasure. These Greek tragedians are at a discount. Our people do not care for the dismals. But they are wrong, do not estimate true art. You do that really! You like tragedy! and tragedy you shall have, I warrant you.”

The blood mounted to the brow of Domitia at the sneers and covert insinuations. Paris! what was Paris to her? what but the struggling husband of Glyceria? Was it impossible for her to do a kind act, to give expansion to her heart, without misinterpretation, without the certainty of incurring outrage?

She withdrew to her apartments and changed her dress, from the blue to white with purple stripe and fringes. Then she entered the triclinium where the meal was spread.

Domitian was already there, together with Julia, Messalinus, Ursus, and some other friends. The Emperor, standing apart from the latter, said with a sneer to Domitia,—

“So you have shed your blue—a cloud has passed over the azure! That is well. And now, madam, I granted you the first place at the games, in the circus, to humor the people; but in my palace it shall be as I will, not as they. Julia shall take the precedence, and she shall occupy the first position at table, and everywhere. She is the daughter of the God Titus, granddaughter of the God Vespasian-”

“And great grand-daughter of the Commissioner of Nuisances.”

“Silence,” roared Domitian, “she has the sacred Flavian blood, she is of Divine race, and shall sit by me, recline by me, in the position of honor, and you occupy a stool at my feet. Julia and I will have a lectisternium of the Gods! Am not I divine?—and she divine?”

“Certainly,” answered Domitia, “she is the daughter of a victor who has triumphed, I the wife of a man who will filch laurels from his generals, and himself has never seen a battle.”

Domitian clenched his teeth and hands, and glared at her.

“I wish to the Gods I could find it in my heart to have thee strangled, thou demon cat.”

“I can understand that, having let out the divine blood of the Flavii from the throat of your cousin Sabinus, you would stoop to me.”

“What—what—what is this?” exclaimed Messalinus, thrusting his pointed face in the direction of the prince and Domitia; he scented an altercation.

As for her—she wondered at herself, having the courage to defy the Lord of the World. She could not keep down the disgust, the hatred she felt for the man who had wrecked her life, it must out, and she valued not her life sufficiently to deny herself the gratification of throwing off her mind the taunts that rose in it, and lodged on her tongue.

Domitian signed to table—Julia, with a flutter of clumsy timidity, shrank from the place of honor, and looked hesitatingly at her sister-in-law, who without a word seated herself on the stool indicated by the Emperor. There was no vulgar pride, no ambition in the daughter of Titus.

The guests looked at each other, as Julia was forced by the command of her uncle to recline on the couch properly belonging to his wife, and whispered to each other.

“What, what? Who is where?” asked the ferret-faced Messalinus. “What has been done? Here, Lycus,” to a slave, who always attended him, “Tell me, what has been done. In my ear, quick, I burn to know.”

Something was communicated in an undertone, and Messalinus broke into a cackle, that he quickly smothered—

“That is admirable, great and god-like is our prince! As a Jew physician said to me, he sets down one and setteth up another, at his pleasure. That is divine caprice. The Gods alone can act without having to account for what they do. I like it—vastly.”

And now at once the sycophant herd began to pay their addresses to Julia, and to neglect Domitia. The former was overloaded with flattery, her every word was repeated, passed on from one to another, as though oracular. Domitian, conspicuously and purposely ignored his wife made to sit at his feet; and raising himself on the left elbow upon his pulvinar, or cushion of gold brocade, talked with his niece, who also reclined instead of sitting.

Domitia remained silent with lowered eyes, carnations flowered in her cheeks. She made no attempt to speak; eat she could not. She felt the slight. Her pride was cut to the quick. The humiliation, before such as Messalinus was numbing. She would have endured being ordered to execution, she would have arranged her hair with alacrity, for the bowstring that would have finished her troubles, but this outrage before members of the court, before the imperial slaves,—and the knowledge that it would be the talk on the morrow of Roman society, covered her with confusion, and filled her soul with wrath, for she had pride—not a little.

Ursus, a kinsman of the Emperor, an elderly man, of good character and upright walk, was near her. He alone seemed to feel the indignity put upon the Empress. His eyes, full of pity, rested on her, and he waited an opportunity to speak to her unheard by others. Then he said, turning his head towards Domitia,—

“Lady, recall the fable of the oak and the bulrush. Humor the prince and you can do with him what you will. Believe me, and I speak sincerely,—he loves you still, loves you madly—but you repel him and that offends his pride. All things are his, in earth,—I may almost say in heaven—and he cannot endure that one frail woman’s heart should alone be denied him.”

“There are certain waters,” answered Domitia, “that turn to stone whatever is exposed to them—even a bird’s feather. It is as though I had been subjected to this treatment. My heart is petrified.”

“Not so, dear lady, it beats at the present moment with anger. It can also beat with love.”

“Never towards him who has maltreated me.”

“By the Gods! forbear. I am endangered by listening to such words.”

“What—what—what is Ursus saying?” asked Messalinus, who caught a word or two. “He is beside the Augusta—what did he say—and in a low tone also. No treason hatching at the table of our Divine Lord, I trust.”[12]

“Here come the jesters and the mimes,” said Ursus, “and may the god of Laughter provide such matter for mirth as will satisfy Catullus Messalinus.”

“Then it must be a tragedy,” said another guest, “for to our blind friend here, naught is jocose unless to some other it be painful.”

“We have all our gifts,” said Messalinus, smirking.

Then entered some acrobats who went through evolutions, casting knives and catching them, forming human pyramids, ladders, wheels, balancing poles on their chins whilst a boy went through contortions at the top.

But there was no novelty in the exhibition. The Emperor wearied of it, and ordered the performers to withdraw.

Next appeared mimes, who performed low buffoonery in gesture and dialogue, interspersed with snatches of song, that were so offensive to decency that Domitia, who had never seen and heard anything of the kind at her mother’s house, sprang to her feet with flaming cheeks, brow and bosom, and made a motion to leave. She knew it—this disgusting performance had been commanded by the prince, for the purpose of humiliating her. She would go. But Domitian, whose malignant glance was on her, saw her purpose and called out,—

“It is my will, Domitia, that you remain in your seat. The cream of the entertainment has yet to come.”

Ursus put his hand to her garment and gently drew her down on her seat.

“Endure it,” he whispered, “it will soon be over.”

“It is the worst outrage of all,” said she with heaving breast, and the blood so surged into her eyes and ears that she could see and hear no more.

Indeed, she was hardly conscious when the buffoons withdrew, her eyes rested on the marble floor, strewn with the remains of the feast.[13] But suddenly she started from the dream, or the stupefaction into which she had fallen, by hearing the voice of Paris, the tragic actor.

She looked up sharply, and saw him, a tall, handsome man, of Greek profile, and with curly dark hair. He was clad in a long mantle, and wore the buskins. Behind him were minor performers, to take a part in dialogue, or to chant a chorus.

“Lord and Augustus, what is it your pleasure that we represent in your presence?” asked the actor.

“Repeat the speech of Œdipus Coloneus to Theseus towards the close of the drama. That, I mean, which begins, ‘O son of Ægeus, I will teach the things that are in store.’ ”

Paris bowed, and drawing himself up, closing his eyes to represent the blindness of the old king he personated, and with hands extended began:

“O son of Ægeus, I will teach the things that are in store.

Myself unguided, straightway go, ye follow, I before.

The spot where I am doomed to die—That spot will I reveal.

But on your lips, I pray you set, to that a holy seal.”

“I WILL TEACH THE THINGS THAT ARE IN STORE.” Page 277.

“Do you mark, Domitia?” called the Emperor with bantering tone.

“I have looked under the table, sire, to see whether, like your kinsman Calvisius, you keep there a prompter who has read Eurypides.”[14]

Some of the guests hardly controlled their laughter. The deficiency in the education of Domitian was well known.

“Go on, fellow,” ordered he surlily. “Skip some lines—it is tedious, draw to the end.”

Paris resumed:—

“Now let me to that place repair; an impulse from on high,

A sacred impulse carries me to where I’m doomed to die.

O daughter! I must show the way—aye, I, myself, the guide,

To you who hitherto did lead, or clave unto my side.

Nay! touch me not, but suffer me, myself to find the road

That leadeth to the silent tomb, and to the dark abode.

O Hermes! guardian of the soul that fleeteth from this breast!

O Goddess of the darkest night—Give to thy weary rest!

O light! beloved, glorious light! that once did fill these eyes.

Now I embrace thy sacred beams, then turn where shadow lies.

O dearest friends, when well with you, and with this land, recall

Me, as about my bowed head Death’s purple shadows fall.”

Then the chorus, in rhythmic dance sang:—

“If it be meet—O Goddess thou, unseen whom all men dread,

If it be meet—O awful King who rulest o’er the dead,

Be pitiful unto this man, a stranger in the land,

And gently, without pain acute, conduct him by the hand

From out the world of light into the Stygian deeps below,

Remember how that ever here, he suffered want and woe!

Ye polished iron gates unclose, and as ye backward roll,

Let not the rav’nous monster leap and lacerate the soul.

And then on son of Tartarus advance with pity sweet,

The fluttering, frightened, parted soul, approaching gently greet!”

“Enough,” said Domitian, and waved his hand. “How likest thou that, Domitia?”

“Methinks, sire, the words are ominous. Suffer me I pray thee to retire—for I am not well.”

As she rose, she looked at Paris. Their eyes met, and at once a horror—a premonition of evil fell on her, and turned her blood to ice.

He raised his hand to his lips and said in a low tone as she passed him:—

“Morituri te salutant.”

“I’ faith it is an excellent jest!” said Messalinus—“I relish it vastly.”

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CHAPTER IX.
GLYCERIA.

Domitia returned to her apartments, quivering like an aspen in a light air; but no sooner was she there, than she summoned Eboracus, and said to him:—

“Be speedy. Follow Paris, and protect him. There is evil planned against him. Fly—lest you be too late.”

The slave departed at once.

Domitia paced the room, in an agony of mind, now shivering with cold, then with face burning. But it was not the humiliations to which she had been subjected that so affected her,—it was fear of what she suspected was meditated against the actor, and through him against Glyceria.

A cold sweat broke out on her brow, and icy tears formed on her long eyelashes. It seemed to her that for her to show favor to any one, was to bring destruction on that person. And hatred towards the Emperor became in her heart more intense and bitter.

She could think of nothing else but the danger that menaced Paris. She went out on the terrace, and the wind blowing over her moist brow chilled her; she drew her mantle more closely around her, and re-entered the palace. Already night was falling, for the days were becoming short.

Her heart cried out for something to which to cling, for some one to whom to appeal against the overwhelming evil and tyranny that prevailed.

Was there no power in earth above the Cæsar? There was none. No power in heaven? She could not tell; all there was dark and doubtful. There was a Nemesis—but slow of step, and only overtaking the evil-doer when too late to prevent the misery he wrought, sometimes so lagging as not to catch him at all, and so blind as often to strike the innocent in place of the guilty. No cry of the sufferer could reach this torpid Nemesis and rouse her to quicker action. She was a deity bungling, deaf and blind.

Again she tramped up and down the room. She could endure to have no one with her. She sent all her servants away.

But the air within was stifling. She could not breathe, the ceiling came down on her head, and again she went forth.

Now she could hear voices below in the Sacred Way. She could see lights, coming from several quarters, and drawing together to one point where they formed a cluster, and from this point rose a wail—the wail of the dead.

She wiped her brow. She was sick at heart, and again went within, and found Eboracus there, cast down and silent.

“Speak,” she said hoarsely.

“It was too late. He had been stabbed in the back, whilst leaving the palace, and a pupil was assassinated at the same time, because somewhat resembling him.”

Domitia stood cold as marble. She covered her mouth for a moment with her right hand, and then in a hard voice said:—

“Inform Euphrosyne. I cannot.”

Then she turned away, went to her bed-chamber, and was seen of none again that night. Several of her female slaves sought admission to undress her, but were somewhat roughly dismissed.

In that long night, Domitia felt as one drowning in a dark sea. She stretched out her hands to lay hold of something—to stay her up, and found nothing. She had nothing to look forward to, no shore to which she might attain by swimming, nothing to care for, nothing to cling to. There was no light above, only the unsympathetic stars that looked down on the evil there was, the wrong that was done, and cared not. The pulsation of their light was not quickened by sense of injustice, they did not veil their rays so as to hide from them the horrors committed on earth. There was no light below, save the reflection of the same passionless eyes of heaven.

She felt as though she were still capable of the sense of pain, but not of being sensible to pleasure.

The faculty of being happy was gone from her forever, and life presented to her a prospect of nothing better than gray tracts of monotonous existence, seamed with earthquake chasms of suffering.

Next day she rose white and self-restrained, she summoned to her Euphrosyne, but did not look at her tear-reddened eyes.

“Euphrosyne,” said she, “I bid you go, and take with you Eboracus, I place you both wholly at the disposal of your sister—and bid her spare no cost, but give to him who has been, a splendid funeral at my expense. Here is money. And—” she paused a moment to obtain mastery over herself, as her emotion threatened to get the upper hand—“and, Euphrosyne, tell Glyceria that I shall go to see her later. Not for a few days, not till the first agony of her grief is over; but go I will—for go I must—and I pray the Gods I may not be a cause of fresh evil. O, Euphrosyne, does she curse me?”

“Glyceria curses none, dear mistress, least of all you. Do not doubt, she will welcome you when you do her the honor of a visit.”

“If she were to curse me, I feel as if I should be glad—glad, too, if the curse fell heavy on my head—but you know—she knows—I meant to do well, to be kind—to—but go your way—I can speak no more. Tell Glyceria not to curse me—no—I could not bear that—not a curse from her.”

Euphrosyne saw by her mistress’s manner, by her contradictory words, how deeply she was moved, how great was her suffering. She stooped, took up the hem of her garment, and kissed the purple fringe. Then sobbing, withdrew.

That day tidings came to Domitia to render her pain more acute.

The kindly, sympathetic people in the insula of Castor and Pollux, in poetic, picturesque fashion had come with baskets of violets and late roses, and had strewn with the flowers the spot stained with the blood of Paris.

This was reported to the Emperor, and he sent his guards down the street to disperse the people, and in doing this, they employed their swords, wounding several and killing two or three, of whom one was a child.

Three days later, Domitia ordered her litter and attendants that she might go to the Insula in the Suburra.

She had said nothing of her intentions, or probably Domitian would have heard of them—she was surrounded by spies who reported in his ear whatever she did—and he would have forbidden the visit.

Only when the Forum had been crossed, did she instruct the bearers as to the object of her excursion.

On entering the block of lodgings and ascending the stairs Domitia was received with respect but with some restraint. The people did not press about her with enthusiasm as before; they knew that it was through her that evil had overtaken them, and they dreaded her visit as inauspicious.

Yet there was no look of resentment in any face, only timorous glances, and reverential bows, and salutations with the hand to the lips. The poor folk knew full well that it was through no ill-will on her part that Paris and his pupil, and some of their own party had fallen.

It was already bruited about that Julia daughter of Titus was honored in the palace, and advanced above Domitia, the Empress. Some said that Domitian would repudiate his wife, that he might marry his niece, and that he waited only till the months of mourning for her husband were passed, so as not to produce a scandal. Others said that he would not repudiate Domitia, but treat her as Nero had treated Octavia, trump up false charges against her and then put her to death.

Already Domitia was regarded as unlucky, and on the matter of luck attaching to or deserting certain persons, the Roman populace were vastly superstitious.

And now, although these poor creatures loved the beautiful woman of imperial rank who deigned to come among them, and care for one of their most broken and bruised members, yet they feared for themselves, lest her presence should again draw disaster upon them.

Domitia was conscious rather than observant of this as she passed along the gallery to the apartment of Glyceria.

At the door to the poor woman’s lodgings she knocked, and in response to a call, opened and entered. She waved her attendants to remain without and suffer none to enter.

Then she approached the bed of the sick woman, hastily, and threw herself on her knees beside it.

“Glyceria,” she said, “can you forgive me?”

The crippled woman took the hands of Domitia and covered them with kisses, whilst her tears flowed over them.

This was more than the Empress could bear. She disengaged her hands, threw her arms about the widow, and burst into convulsive weeping.

“Nay, nay!” said Glyceria, “do not give way. It was not thy doing.”

“But you fear me,” sobbed Domitia, “they do so—they without. Not one touched, not one kissed me. They think me of evil omen.”

“There is nothing unlucky. Everything falls out as God wills; and whatever comes, if we bow under His hand, He will give sweetness and grace.”

“You say this! You who have lost everything!”

“Oh, no! lady,” then the cripple touched the cornelian fish. “This remains.”

“It is a charm that has brought no luck.”

“It is no charm. It is a symbol—and to you dark. To me full of light and joy in believing.”

“I cannot understand.”

“No—that I know full well. But to one who does, there is comfort in every sorrow, a rainbow in every cloud, roses to every thorn.”

“Glyceria,” said Domitia, and she reared herself upon her knees, and took hold of both the poor woman’s hands; so that the two, with tear-stained cheeks, looked each other full in the face. “My Glyceria! wilt thou grant me one favor?”

“I will give thee, lady, anything that thou canst ask. I should be ungrateful to deny thee ought.”

“It is a great matter, a sharp wrench I ask of thee,” said the daughter of Corbulo.

“I will do all that I can,” replied the widow.

“Then come with me to the palace. Here you have none to care for you, none to earn a livelihood for you,—I want you there.”

Glyceria hesitated.

“Do you fear?”

“I fear nothing for myself.”

“Nor I,” said Domitia. “Oh, Glyceria, I am the most miserable woman on earth. I thought I could not be more unhappy than I was—then come—I will not speak of it,—thy loss—caused unwillingly by me, because I came here—and that has broken my heart. I have done the cruellest hurt to the one I loved best. I am most miserable—most miserable.” She covered her face, sank on the bed and wept.

The widow of the player endeavored to soothe her with soft words and caresses.

Then again Domitia spoke. “I have no one, I have nothing to look to, I am as one dead, and the only life in me is hate, that bites and writhes as a serpent.”

“And that thou must lay hold of and strangle as did Hercules.”

“I cannot, and I will not.”

“That will bring thee only greater suffering.”

“I cannot suffer more.”

“It is against the will of God.”

“But how know we His will?”

“It has been revealed.”

Again Domitia threw her arms about the sick woman, she pressed her wet cheek to her tear-moistened face, and said:—

“Come with me, and tell me all thou knowest—and about the Fish. Come with me, and give me a little happiness, that I may think of thee, comfort thee, read to thee, talk with thee—I care for no other woman. And Euphrosyne, thy sister, she is with me, and I will keep thee as the apple of mine eye.”

“Oh, lady! this is too great!”

“What? anon thou wouldst deny me naught, and now refusest me this.”

“In God’s name so be it,” said Glyceria. “But when?”

“Now. I will have no delay, see—” she went to the door and spoke with her slaves. “They shall bear thee in my litter, at once. Euphrosyne shall tarry here and collect thy little trifles, and the good Eboracus, he shall bear them to thy new home. O Glyceria! For once I see a sunbeam.”

Never could the dwellers in the Insula have dreamt of beholding that which this day they saw. The actor’s crippled widow lifted by imperial slaves and placed in the litter of the Empress, the Augusta, to whom divine honors had been accorded. And, further, they saw the cripple borne away, down the lane of the Suburra in which was their block of lodgings, and the Empress walked by the side, holding the hand of the patient who lay within.

They did not shout, they uttered no sound indicative of approval, no applause. They held their breaths, they laid their hands on their mouths, they looked each other in the eyes—and wondered what this marvel might portend. A waft of a new life had entered into the evil world, whence it came, they knew not, what it would effect, that also they could not conceive—whom it would touch, how transform, all was hid from their eyes.

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CHAPTER X.
THE ACCURSED FIELD.

No notice was taken by Domitian of the presence in the palace of the murdered actor’s widow. It concerned him in no way, and he allowed the unfortunate woman to remain there, under the care of his wife, and without making any protest.

Domitia found an interest and a delight in the society of the paralyzed woman, so simple in mind, gentle in thought, always cheerful, ever serene, who lived in an atmosphere of love and harbored no resentments.

She marvelled at what she saw, but it was to her an unattainable condition. Her own affections were seared, and a gnawing hate against the man who had blighted her life, and to whom she was tied, ever consumed her.

She was like a dead plant in the midst of spring vegetation. It looks down on the beautiful life about its feet, but itself puts forth no buds, shows no signs of mounting sap.

Every now and then Glyceria approached the topic of the Fish, and the mysteries involved in the symbol, but would not disclose them, for she saw that Domitia, however miserable she felt, however hopeless, was not in a frame of mind to receive and welcome the interpretation. For in her, the one dominating passion was hate—a desire to have her wrongs revenged, and a chafing at her powerlessness to do anything to revenge them.

Her treatment by Domitian was capricious. At one time he neglected her; then he went sometimes out of his way to offer her a slight; at others he made real efforts to heal the breach between them, and to show her that he loved her still.

But he met with not merely a frosty but a contemptuous reception, that sent him away, his vanity hurt, and his blood in a ferment.

In her indifference to life, she was able to brave him without fear, and he knew that if he ordered her to execution she would hail death as a welcome means of escape from association with himself.

His blundering and brutal tyranny was no match for her keen wit cutting into him, and maddening him. He revenged himself by a coarse insult or by a side blow at her friends. She was without ambition. Many a woman would have endured his treatment without repining, for the sake of the splendor with which she could surround herself, and the towering position which she occupied. But neither had any attraction for Domitia. The one thing she did desire, to be left alone in retirement, in the country, that he could not, he would not accord her.

Usually, when he was in his splendid villa at Albanum, she elected to remain in Rome, and when he came to the palace on the Palatine, if permitted, she escaped to Albanum; but he would not always suffer this.

Thus a wretched life was dragged on, and the heart of Domitia became harder every day. It would have become as adamant but for the presence of Glyceria, whom the Empress sincerely loved, and who exercised a subtle, softening and purifying influence on the princess.

Glyceria saw how the Empress suffered, and she pitied her, saw how hopeless the conditions were for improvement; she saw also what was hidden to other eyes, that circumstances were closing round and drawing towards a crisis.

Beyond a certain point Glyceria could effect nothing, once only did she dare to suggest that the Augusta should assume a gentler demeanor towards the sovereign of the world, but she was at once cut back with the words:—

“There, Glyceria, I allow no interference. He has wronged me past endurance. I can never forgive. I have but one hope, I make but one prayer—and that for revenge.”

When Domitian was at Albanum, the Empress enjoyed greater freedom. She was not compelled when she went out, to journey in state; and she could make excursions into the country as she pleased. The absence of gardens on the Palatine and the throng of servants and officers made it an almost intolerable residence to her, beautiful as the situation was, and splendid as were the edifices on it. Nor was this all. Domitian had not rested content with the palaces already erected and crowding the summit of the rock,—those of Augustus, of Tiberius, and of Caligula, he must build one himself, and to find material, he tore down the golden house of Nero.

But the construction of his palace served still further to reduce the privacy of the Palatine, for it was thronged with masons, carpenters and plasterers. Indeed the Palatine hill-top was almost as crowded and as noisy as was the Forum below.

From this, then, Domitia was glad to escape to a little villa on the Via Nomentana, on a height above the Anio, commanding a view of the Sacred Mount.

On one occasion, when Domitian was away at Albanum, she had been at this modest retreat, where she was surrounded by a few servants, and to which she had conveyed Glyceria, to enjoy the pure air and rest of the country.

But she was obliged to return to Rome; and with a small retinue, and without heralds preceding her, she started, and in the morning arrived at the Porta Collina. Then Eboracus, coming to the side of the litter, said:—

“Lady, there is a great crowd, and the street is full to choking. What is your good pleasure? shall we announce who you are, and command a passage?”

“Nay,” answered the princess, “my good Eboracus, let us draw aside, and the swarm will pass, then we can go our way unconcerned. I am in no precipitate haste, and, in faith, every minute I am outside Rome, the better satisfied am I.”

“But, madam, it is an ill spot, we are opposite the Accursed Field.”

“That matters not. It is but for a brief while. Go forward, Eboracus, and inquire what this crowd signifies. Methinks the people are marvellously still. I hear no shout, not even a murmur.”

“There be priests leading the way.”

“It is some religious rite. Run forward, Eboracus, and make inquiries. That boy bears an inverted torch.”

The sight was extraordinary. A procession of priests was advancing in silence, and an enormous crowd followed through the gate, pouring forth like water from a sluice, yet without a word spoken. The only sound was that of the tramp of feet.

The place where Domitia had halted was just outside the Collina gateway, where was the wall of Servius Tullius and in its moat, thirty feet deep, but dry, out of which rose the wall of massive blocks to another thirty above the level of the ground.

This ditch was a pestilential refuse place into which the carcasses of beasts, foul rags, sometimes even the bodies of men, and all the unmentionable filth of a great city were cast. So foul was the spot, so unwholesome the exhalations that no habitations were near it, and the wide open space before the wall went by the designation of the Accursed Field.

And now, through the gateway came a covered hearse, and at each corner walked a youth in mourning garb, one bearing a lamp and oil, another milk in a brass vessel, a third water, and a fourth bread. Now, and now only, with a shudder of horror, did Domitia suspect what was about to take place. She saw how that as the crowd deployed, it thickened about one portion of the bank of the ditch, and she saw also the battlements above crowded with the faces of men and women leaning over to look down into the dyke. And there, at one spot in the fosse stood three men. Instinctively Domitia knew who they were—the executioner and his assistants.

But who was to be put to death—and on what charge, and by what means?

Now the hearse was slowly brought to the edge of the moat and the curtains were raised.

Then Domitia saw how that within, prostrate, lay a woman, bound hand and foot to the posts by leather straps, with her face covered, and her mouth muffled that her cries might not be heard.

She saw the attendants of the priests untie the thongs and the unfortunate woman was raised to a sitting posture, yet still her face was veiled, and her hands were held by servants of the pontiff. Now one by one the attendants descended into the moat bearing the lamp and the bread and milk, and each handed what he had borne in the procession to the executioner, who gave each article as received to one of his deputies; and the man immediately disappeared with it.

Domitia’s heart beat furiously, she put forth her head to look, and discovered a hole at the base of the wall, and through this hole she discerned the twinkling light of the lamp as it passed within, then it was lost. The bread followed, the milk and the water, all conveyed into some underground cellar.

And now the chief pontiff present plucked the veil from the face of the victim, and with a gasp—she could not cry out, the power was taken from her—the Empress recognized Cornelia.

She made an effort to escape from her litter, and fly to her friend with outstretched arms, but Eboracus, who with white face had returned, caught and restrained her.

“Madam,” he said in a low tone, vibrating with emotion, “I pray you, for the sake of the Gods—do nothing rash. Stay where you are. No power—not that of the Sacred Twelve can save her.”

“Ye Gods! But what has she done?”

“She has been accused of breach of her vows, and condemned by the Augustus, as Chief Priest—” in a lower tone, hardly above a whisper, “unheard in her defence.”

“I must go to her.”

“You must not. Nothing can save her. Pray for a speedy death.”

With glazed eyes, with a surging in her ears, and throbbing in the temples—as in some paralyzing nightmare—Domitia looked on.

And now the gag was removed, and with dignity the Great Mother of the Vestals descended from the bier. She stood, tall and with nobility in her aspect, and looked round on the crowd, then down into the moat, at the black hole under the roots of the wall.

“Citizens, by the sacred fire of Vesta, I swear I am innocent of the charge laid against me, and for which I am sentenced. No witnesses have been called. I have not been suffered to offer any defence. I knew not, citizens, until I was told that I was sentenced, that any accusation had been trumped up against me. Thou, O Eternal God—above all lights in the firmament, Thou, O Sovereign Justice that holdest true balances—I invoke Thee—I summon the Chief Pontiff who has sentenced me, before your just thrones, to answer for what is done unto me this day. I summon him for midnight three days hence.”

Then the deputy of the Chief Pontiff, who presided at the execution, Domitian being absent at Albanum (he being Pontifex Maximus), raised his arms to heaven in silent prayer.

His prayer ended, he extended his hand to Cornelia, but she refusing his help, unaided descended into the fosse.

The vast concourse was as though turned to stone by a magician’s wand—so immovable was it and so hushed. Some swallows swept screaming along the moat, and their shrill cries sent a shudder through the entire concourse, wrought to such a tension, that even the note of the birds was an intolerable addition.

The Vestal reached the mouth of the pit—the ends of a ladder could be seen at the threshold of this opening. It was evident that the opening gave access to a vault of some depth.

Beside it were stones from the wall piled up, and mortar. As soon as the Abbess reached the opening, she turned, and again declared her innocence. “The Emperor,” said she in clear, firm tones, “has adjudged me guilty, knowing that my prayers have obtained for him victory, triumph and an immortal name. I repeat my summons. I bid him answer before the throne on high, at midnight, three days hence.”

Then she looked steadily at the blue sky—then up at the sun,—to take a last view of light. With calmness, with fortitude, she turned, and entering the opening began to disappear, descending the ladder.

In so doing her veil caught in one of the ends of the side poles of the ladder. She must have reascended a step or two, for her hand was visible disengaging the white veil, and then—hand and veil disappeared.

Immediately stones were caught up, trowels and mortar seized, and with incredible celerity the opening was walled up. The pontiff applied his leaden seal.

“Be speedy! Remove her! Run—” shouted Eboracus, for his mistress had fallen back in the litter in a dead faint,—“At once—to the Palace!”

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CHAPTER XI.
AGAIN: THE SWORD OF CORBULO.

Eboracus was able to open a way for the litter through the crowd, now clustered on the bank of the dyke, watching as the workmen threw down earth and stones, and buried deep that portion of the wall in which was the vault where the unhappy Abbess Cornelia was buried alive. And now the populace broke forth in sighs and tears, and in murmurings low expressed at the injustice committed in sentencing a woman without allowing her to know that she had been accused, and of saying a word in her own defence. Some of the crowd was drifting back into Rome, and by entering this current, the train of Domitia travelled along.

Eboracus returned from the head of the litter repeatedly to the side, to look within and ascertain whether his mistress were recovering. At the first fountain he stopped the convoy and obtained for her water to bathe her face, and at a little tavern, he procured strong Campanian wine, which he entreated her to sip, so as to nerve her.

As the litter approached the Forum, the crowd again coagulated and at last remained completely stationary. Again the street was blocked.

Eboracus went forward and forced his way through, that he might ascertain the cause, and whether the block was temporary and would speedily cease. He came back in great agitation, and said hastily to his mistress:—

“Lady, you cannot proceed. Suffer me to recommend that you go to the Carinæ and tarry there—with your lady mother for a while, till your strength is restored, and till the streets be more open.”

“Eboracus—what is going on? tell me.”

“Madam, there is something being transacted in the comitium that causes all the approaches to be packed with people. We might make a circuit—but, lady! I think if you would deign to repose for an hour at your mother’s house, after what you have suffered, it would be advisable.”

“Tell me what is taking place in the comitium.”

“I should prefer, lady, not to be asked.”

“But I have asked.”

“Then, dear mistress, do not require of me to make answer.”

“Answer truly. Tell me no lie. What is it?”

He hesitated. Then Domitia said:—

“Look at my hand, it is firm, it does not tremble. Nothing that I hear can be worse than what I have seen.”

“Lady—your strength has already failed.”

“And now I have gathered my resolution together, and can bear anything. I adjure you, by your duty to me—answer me, what is taking place in the comitium, what is it that causes the streets leading thereto to be impassable.”

“If I must reply——”

“If you do not, I will have you scourged.”

“Nay, lady, that is not like thee. It is not fear that will make me speak, but because I know that if I do not, the information can be got from another.”

“Well—what is it?”

“The knight Celer, on the same charge as that which lost the Great Mother Cornelia, is being whipped to death with the scorpion.”[15]

“By the same orders? To my mother’s in the Carinæ.”

Hastily Domitia drew the curtains of her litter, and was seen no more, spoke no more till she reached the door of Longa Duilia.

Here she descended and entered the house.

“My dear Domitia! my august daughter! What a pleasure! What an honor!”

The lady Duilia started up to embrace the Empress.

Domitia received the kiss coldly, and sank silent on a stool.

Her mother looked at her with surprise. Domitia was waxen white, her eyes with dark rings about them, and unnaturally large and bright. The color had left her lips and these were leaden in hue.

Domitia did not speak, did not move. She remained for some moments like a statue.

“As the Gods love me!” exclaimed her mother after a long pause, “you are not going to be ill, surely—nothing dangerous, nothing likely to end unhappily. Ye Gods! and I have so much I want you to do for me. Tell me, I entreat you. Hide nothing from me. You are suffering. Where is it? What is it? Shall I send for a doctor?”

“Mother, no doctor can cure me. It is here,” Domitia pressed her hands to her heart—“and here,” to her temples. “I am the most miserable, the most unfortunate of women.”

“Ye Gods! He has divorced you?”

“No, mother. I would that he had.”

“Then what is the matter? Have you eaten what disagrees with you? As the Gods love me! you should not come out such a figure. Who was your face-dresser to-day? she ought to be crucified! Not a particle of paint—white as ivory. Intolerable—and it has given me such a turn.”

Domitia made no reply.

“But what is it? What has made you look like Parian marble?”

“The Great Mother Cornelia—” Domitia could say no more, a lump rose in her throat and choked her. Then all at once she began to shiver as though frost-stricken and her teeth chattered.

“I have an essence—you must take that,” said the lady Duilia. “My dear, I know all about that. An estimable lady. I mean she was so till the Augustus decreed otherwise. I am sorry, and all that—but you know—well, these things do happen and must, and I dare be bound that some are glad, as it makes an opening for another needy girl, of good family of course. What is one person’s loss is another’s gain. The world is so and we can’t alter it, and a good thing, I say, that it is so.”

“Mother—she was innocent.”

“Well, well, we know all about that. Of course it was all nonsense what was charged against her, that we quite understand. It would never have done for the real truth to have been advertised.”

“And what was the truth?”

“My dear Domitia! How can you ask such a silly, infantile question? It was your doing, you must understand that. You threw yourself on her protection, embraced the altar of Vesta, and Cornelia with the assistance of Celer did what she could to further your object in leaving Rome. If people will do donkey-like things they must get a stick across their backs. It is so, and always will be so in this world, and we cannot make it otherwise.”

“I thought so. I was sure it was so,” said Domitia gravely. There was an infinity of sadness, of despair in her tone. “Mother, I bring misfortune upon all with whom I have to do.”

“Ye Gods! not on me! I hope to be preserved from that! Do not speak such unlucky words—they are of bad omen.”

“I cannot help it, mother, it is true. I am the most unfortunate of women myself——”

“You speak rank folly. Ye Gods forgive me! saying such a thing to one who is herself divine. But, it is so—you are positively the most fortunate of women. What more do you desire? You are the Augusta, the people swear by your genius and fortune.”

“By my fortune! Alack poor souls!”

“And is it not a piece of good fortune to be raised so high that there is none above you?”

“My fortune! The Gods know—if they know anything—that I would gladly exchange my lot with that of a poor woman in a cottage who spins and sings, or of a girl among the mountains who keeps goats and is defended by a boisterous dog. Mother, listen to me. I have brought misfortune on Lucius Lamia, I have caused the death of that harmless actor Paris, I have been the occasion of Cornelia being—buried alive—watching the expiring of the one lamp. Ye Gods! Ye Gods! I shall go mad—and of Celer also.—He——”

She held her face, rocked herself on the seat and sobbed as if her heart would break.

“Yes,” said the old lady, roused to anger at her daughter’s lack of appreciation of the splendor of her position. “Yes, child, and mischief you will work on every one, if you continue in the same course. Do men say that the Augustus is morose? Who made him so?—you by your behavior. Do they say that he is severe in his judgments? Who has hardened him and made him cruel?—You—who have dried up all the springs of tenderness in his breast. He was not so at first. If he be what men think—it is your work. You with your stinging words goaded him to madness and as he cannot or will not beat you, as you deserve, he deals the blows on some one else. Of course he cuts away such as you regard and love—because they obtain that to which he has a right, but which you deny him.”

“He—he—a right!”

Domitia started up, anger, resentment, hatred flared in her eyes, stiffened the muscles of her whole face, made her hair bristle above her brow.

“He a right, mother! he who tore me away from my dear Lamia, to whom I had given my whole heart, to whom I had been united by your sanction and our union blessed by the Gods! He who violated hospitality, the most sacred rights that belong to a house, who repaid your kindness in saving his life—when he was hunted like a wolf, by breaking and destroying, by trampling under his accursed heel, the brittle, innocent heart of the daughter of her who had protected him! No, mother, I owed him no love. I have never given him any, because he never had a right to any. Mother—this must have an end.”

She sank into silence that continued for some while.

Duilia did not speak. She did not desire another such explosion, lest the slaves should hear and betray what had been said. Presently, however, she whispered coaxingly:—

“My dear Domitia, you are overwrought. You have eaten something that has affected your temper. I find gherkins always disagree with me. There, go and take a little ginger in white wine, and sleep it off.”

Domitia rose, stiffly, as though all her joints were wooden.

“Yes, mother, I will go. But there is one thing I desire of thee. I have long coveted it, as a remembrancer of my father—may I take it?”

“Anything—anything you like.”

Domitia went to the wall and took down the sword of Corbulo, there suspended.

“It is this, mother. I need it.”

Then she departed.

“That sword—ah!” said Duilia. “It has been a little overdone. I have caught my guests exchanging winks when I alluded to it, and dropped a tear. O by all means she shall have it. It has ceased to be of use to me.”

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CHAPTER XII.
THE TABLETS.

Elymas the sorcerer stood bowing before Domitia, his hands crossed upon his breast.

She looked scrutinizingly into his dark face, but could read nothing there. He remained immovable and silent before her, awaiting the announcement of her will.

“I have sent for thee,” she said. “How long, I would know, before the sixth veil falls?”

“Lady and Augusta,” answered the Magian, “remember that when thou lookest out upon the Sabine Mountains, on one day all is so distinct that thou wouldst suppose a walk of an hour would bring thee to them. On the morrow, the range is so faint and so remote, that thou wouldst consider it must require days of travel to attain their roots. It is so with the Future. We look into its distance and behold forms—but whether near or far we know not. This only do we say with confidence, that we are aware of their succession, but not of their nearness or remoteness.”

“What! and the stars, will they not help thee?”

“There is at this time an ominous conjuncture of planets.”

“I pray thee, spare me the details, and tell me that which they portend.”

“Is it thine own future, Augusta, thou desirest to look into?”

“Elymas, my story has been unfolded—to what an extent it has been managed by such as thyself, that I cannot judge. But of a certainty it was thou who didst contrive that I was carried away from my husband’s house. Then what followed, the Gods know how far thou wast in it, but I have heard it said that the God Titus would not have had his mortal thread cut short but that, when in fever, thou didst persuade him to a bath in snow water. It is very easy to predict what will be, when with our hands we mould the future. And now—I care not whether thou makest or predictest what is to be—but an end there must be, and that a speedy one—for thine own safety hangs thereon.”

“How so, lady?”

“The Augustus has been greatly alarmed of late at sinister omens and prophesies; and he attributes them to thee. Perhaps,” with a scornful intonation, “he also is aware that fulfilment is assured before a prophesy is given out.”

The Magus remained motionless, but his face became pale.

“I know, because at supper with his intimates, Messala and Regulus and Carus, he swore by the Gods he would have you cast to savage dogs, and he would make an example of such as filled men’s minds with expectation of evil.”

“Lady——”

But Domitia interrupted him. “Thou thinkest that I say this to alarm thee and bend thee to my will. If the Augustus has his spies that watch and repeat to him whatsoever I do, whomsoever I see, almost every word I say—shall not I also have a watch put upon him? Even now, Magus, that I have sent for thee, and that thou art closely consulted by me this has been carried to his ears, and as he knows how I esteem him, he will think this interview bodes him no good.”

“When, Lady Augusta, was this said?”

“The Emperor is this day returned from Albanum, and the threat was made but yesterday. Who can say but that the order has already been given for thy arrest, and for the gathering together of the dogs that are to rend thee.”

The man became alarmed and moved uneasily.

“Magus,” said Domitia, “I cannot save thee, thine own wits must do that. Find it written in the stars that thy life is so bound up with that of the Cæsar, that the death of one is the extinction of the other; or that thou holdest so potent a charm that if thou wilt thou canst employ it for his destruction. It is not for me to point out how thou mayest twist out of his grasp—thou art a very eel for slipperiness, and a serpent for contrivance. What I desire to know is—How much longer is this tyranny to last, and how long am I to suffer?”

Then the magician looked round the room, to make sure that he was unobserved; he raised the curtain at the door to see that none listened outside, and satisfied that he was neither observed nor overheard, he pointed to a clepsydra.

This was an ingenious, but to our minds a clumsy, contrivance for measuring time. It consisted of a silver ball, with a covered opening at the top, through which the interior could be replenished. About the base of the globe were minute perforations through which the liquid that was placed in the vessel slowly oozed, and oozing ran together into a drop at the bottom which fell at intervals into the bucket of a tiny wheel.

When the bucket was full, the wheel revolved and decanted the liquid whilst presenting another bucket to the distilling drops.

At each movement of the wheel a connection with it gave motion to the hand of a statuette of Saturn, who with his scythe indicated a number on an arc of metal. The numbers ranged from one to twelve, and the contrivance answered for half the twenty-four hours.

“Lady,” said the Magus, “before Saturn has pointed to the twelfth hour——”

Steps were heard, approaching the room, along the mosaic-laid passage, and next moment, the curtain was snatched aside, and Domitian, his face blazing with anger, entered the apartment of his wife.

“So?” said he, “you are in league with astrologers and magicians against me! But, by the Gods! I can protect myself.”

He clapped his hands, and some of the guard appeared in the doorway.

“Remove him,” said the Emperor. “I have given orders concerning him already. Hey! Magus! knowest thou what will be thy doom, thou who pretendest to read the fate of men in the stars?”

“Augustus,” answered the necromancer, “I have read that I should be rent by wild dogs.”

“Sayest thou so? Then by Jupiter! I will make thy forecast come to naught. Go, Eulogius!—it is my command that he be at once, mark you, this very night, burned alive. We will see whether his prophecies come true. Here is my order.”

Domitian plucked a packet of tablets from his bosom, bound together with a string, drew forth one, and wrote hastily on it, then pressed his seal on the wax that covered the slab and handed it to the officer.

Then the guard surrounded the astrologer, and led him away.

Domitian waved his hand.

“Every one out of earshot,” ordered he, and he walked to the window and looked forth.

It was already night; to the south the sky was quivering with lightning, summer flashes, without thunder.

“A storm, a storm is coming on,” said the Emperor; “there’ll be storms everywhere, and lightning falling on all sides—portents they say. So be it! as the sword of heaven smites, so does mine. But it falls not on me, but on my enemies. Domitia,” said he, leaving the window, “there has been a conspiracy entered into against my life, and the fools thought to set up Clemens—he, that weakling, that coward; but I have sent him to his death, and those who were associated with him, the sentence is gone forth against them also.”

“I marvel only that any in Rome are suffered to live.”

“Minerva gives me wisdom—to defend myself.”

“Any wild beast can employ teeth and claws.”

“Domitia,” he came close to her, “I am the most lonely of men. I have no friends; my kinsmen either have been, or hate me; my friends are the most despicable of flatterers, who would betray their own parents to save their own throats; I use them, but I scorn them. You know not what it is to be alone!”

“I! I have been alone ever since you tore me from Lamia.”

“Lamia!” he ground his teeth; “still Lamia! But by the Gods! not for long. And you—you my wife whom I have loved, for whom I would have done anything—you are against me; you take counsel with a Chaldæan how long I have to live; the Senate, the nobles hate me, and by Jupiter, they have good cause, for I cut them with a scythe like ripe wheat. That was a good lesson of Tarquin to his son Sextus to nip off the heads of the tallest poppies. And the people—you have been currying favor with them—against me; the soldiers alone love me, because I have doubled their pay; let another offer to treble it and, to a man, they will desert me. By the Immortals! it is terrible to be alone—and to be plotted against, even by one’s wife.”

He walked the room, flourishing his tablets, then halted in front of the clepsydra.

“What said that star-gazer about the twelfth hour?” he asked. “Walls have ears, nothing is said that does not reach me. So, old Saturn, with thy scythe, dost thou threaten? Then I defy thee—ha! I saw the storm was coming up over Rome.”

A long-drawn growl of thunder muttered through the passages of the palace.

“I saw no flash,” said the prince, “yet lightning falls somewhere, maybe to kindle the pyre on which that sorcerer will burn; I care not. Fire of heaven fall and strike where and whom thou wilt!”

He went again to the window and looked forth. The air was still and close. The sky was enveloped in vapor and not a star could be seen. A continuous quiver of electric light ran along the horizon. Then the heavens seemed to be rent asunder and a blaze of lightning shot forth, blinding to the eyes.

Domitian turned away, and laid the tablets on the marble sideboard as he pressed his hands to his eyeballs.

“By the Gods!” he exclaimed a moment later, “here comes the rain; it descends in cataracts; it falls with a roar.”

He paced the room, halted, stood in front of the clepsydra and looked at the dropping water. The water had been reddened, and it seemed like blood sweated out of the silver globe. At that moment the wheel revolved, and sent a crimson gush into the receiver. With a jerk Saturn raised his scythe and indicated the hour ten.

The Emperor turned away, and came in front of Domitia.

“None have ever loved me,” he said bitterly, “how then can it be expected that I shall love any? my father disliked me, my brother distrusted me—and you—my wife, have ever hated me. I need not ask the cause of that. It is Lamia, always Lamia. Because he has never married you think he still harbors love for you; and you—you hate me because of him. It is hard to be a prince, and to be alone. If I hear a play—I think I catch allusions to me; if it be a comedy—there is a jest aimed at me; if a tragedy, it expresses what men wish may befall me. If I read a historian, he declaims on the glories of a commonwealth before these men, these Cæsars became tyrants, and as for your philosophers—away with them, they are wind-bags, but the wind is poisonous, it is malarious to me. When I am at the circus, because I back green—you, the entire hoop of spectators cheer, bet on the blue—to show me that they hate me. At the Amphitheatre, if I favor the big shields, then every one else is for the small targets. A prince is ever the most solitary of men. If you had protested that you loved me, had fondled me, I would have held you in suspicion, mistrusted your every word and look and gesture. Perhaps it is because that you have never given me good word, gentle look, and gesture of respect that I feel you are true—cruelly true, and I have loved you as the only true person I know. Now answer me—you asked after my death?”

“Yes,” answered Domitia.

“I knew it.”

“And,” said she, in cold, hard tones, looking straight into his agitated, twitching countenance, “I bear to you a message.”

“From whom?”

“From Cornelia, the Great Mother.”

“Well, and what——” he stopped, some one approached the door. “What would you have?”

The mime Latinus appeared.

“Well—speak.”

“Sire, the rain extinguished the pyre, before that the astrologer was much burnt; then the dogs fell on him, as he was unbound, and they tore him and he is dead.”

“Ye Gods!” gasped Domitian, putting up his hand. “His word has come true after all.”

Domitia signed to the actor to withdraw.

“You have not heard the message of Cornelia.”

He did not speak.

“She has summoned you, the Augustus, the Chief Pontiff, the unjust Judge, to answer before the All-righteous Supreme Justice, above—before the scythe points to Twelve.”

Domitian answered not a word, he threw his mantle about his face and left the room.

He had left his tablets on the table.

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CHAPTER XIII.
THE HOUR OF TWELVE.

For some moments Domitia remained without stirring. But then, roused by a glare of lightning, succeeded by a crash so loud as to shake the palace, she saw in the white blaze the tablets of the Emperor lying on the table.

At once, aware of the importance of what she had secured, she seized them, and went to the lamp to open them.

They consisted of thin citron-wood boards, framed and hinged on one side, the surfaces within covered with a film of wax, on which notes were inscribed with a stile or iron pen. There were stray leaves that served for correspondence, orders and so forth, but what Domitia now held was a diptych, that is to say, two leaves hinged, like a book-cover, which had included loose sheets and were bound together by strings.

She at once opened the diptych, and saw on the first page:—

“To be executed immediately:—
In the Tullianum, by strangulation,
Lucius Ælius Lamia Plautius Ælianus.
To be torn by dogs:—
The Chaldæan Elymas, otherwise called Ascletarion.”

On the second leaf:

“To be executed on the morrow:—
By decapitation:
Petronius Secundus, Præfect of the Prætorium.
Norbanus, likewise Præfect of the Prætorium.
By strangling, in the Tullianum:
Parthenius and Sigerius, Chamberlains of the Palace.
To be bled to death:
Stephanus: steward to my niece Domitilla.
Entellus: Secretary a libellis.”

The words applying to Lamia acted on her as a blow against her heart. She staggered to a stool, sank on it and struggled for breath.

But the urgency of the danger allowed no delay—she rallied her strength immediately, flew from the room and summoned Eboracus.

To him, breathless, she said: “Fly—summon me at once Stephanus the steward, Petronius and Norbanus, præfects, and the chamberlains Parthenius and Sigerius. Bid them come to me at once—not make a moment’s delay.”

She sank again on the stool and put her hands to her temples and pressed them.

The lightning continued to flare and the thunder to roll. There ensued a turmoil, and a sound of voices crying; then a rush of feet. Euphrosyne entered with startled mien—“My mistress! The bolt of heaven has fallen on the Palatine, and the chamber of the Augustus has been struck. The Temple of the Flavians is on fire, and is burning in despite of the rain.”

The chamberlain, Parthenius, entered.

“Augusta!” said he, “the lightning has struck that part of the palace occupied by Cæsar. He must have his apartment for the night on this side.”

“That is well,” answered Domitia. “Parthenius, have you received my message from Eboracus?”

“No, lady.”

“Then read this,” she extended to him the wax tablets.

The chamberlain turned ash gray and trembled.

“Parthenius,” said Domitia, “it is no vain augury that lightning has struck the Temple of the Flavians, and driven Cæsar from his apartments. Let his place of rest be to-night in the room adjoining this—and—if he wakes—” she looked at the clepsydra, as at that moment with a click the wheel turned and Saturn moved his scythe—“there is but an hour in which the fate of more than yourself, of Lamia—of Entellus must be decided. Take the tablets.”

Scarce had she spoken, before quick steps were heard, and in a moment Domitian entered.

Parthenius hastily concealed the tablets by throwing a fold of his garment over the hand that held them. “Sire,” said he, “I have come to announce that thy chamber must be on this side.”

“Go thy way,” said Domitian roughly, “see to it that I have a bed brought at once. Hast heard, Domitia, the fire has fallen!”

“Sire,” said Parthenius, “I haste to obey and pray the Gods that in spite of thunder and lightning you may sleep sound and not wake.”

The Emperor walked to the clepsydra, and laughed scornfully. “The bolt of Jove has missed me,” said he. “The red-handed One made a mistake. I am wont to be in bed at this hour—by good luck, this night I was not. He has levelled his bolt at my pillow and burnt that—I am escaped scot-free. Now I have no further fear.”

“The temple of your divine family is in flames.”

“What care I? I will rebuild it—the majesty, the divinity of the Flavians resides not in stones and marble—it is incorporate in Me. I may have been in danger for a moment. Now I snap my fingers in the face of that blunderer Jove, who burnt a hole in my pillow instead of transfixing my head. And yon old Chronos—” he made a sign of contempt towards scythed Time, “I defy thee and thy bucket of blood. Twelve o’clock! In spite of Jove’s bolt, and the summons of Cornelia—I shall be asleep by that hour.”

“I pray the Gods it may be so.”

Then Domitian went out precipitately. His defiant attitude, his daring talk did not serve to disguise the alarm which he felt. Suddenly, after having left the room he turned, came back and said, “Domitia! What sword is that? What need has a woman with a sword?”

He pointed to that of Corbulo, suspended against the wall.

He went to it and took it down.

“Leave it,” said she harshly. “It is that on which my father fell. It is stained likewise with the blood of Nero.”

He held it by the scabbard. She caught the handle and, as he turned, drew forth the blade.

At the same moment he heard steps in the passage approaching the door, and without noticing that he held but the sheath, or else purposing to demand the weapon itself later, when the interruption was over, he walked towards the entrance uttering an expression of impatience, holding the empty scabbard in his right hand.

In the doorway stood Stephanus, a freedman, the steward of Flavia Domitilla, wife, or rather widow of Clemens, whom Domitian had recently put to death. Domitilla had been exiled, and the Emperor had appropriated to his own use the estates of his kinsman.

“Why camest thou hither?” asked the prince roughly. “I shall have enough to say to thee on the morrow because of thy embezzlements.”

“Augustus! I am innocent.”

“A thief, a vile purloiner, a blood-sucking leech, that has fattened as do all thy kind on thy masters. Go thy way—I want thee not here.”

And striding towards him, with Corbulo’s scabbard he struck the freedman across the face.

Stephanus uttered a cry of rage and pain, and instantly smote at the Emperor with a dagger he had held concealed in his sleeve.

“What, hound! You dare! You shall be flayed alive! Ho! to my aid!”

Stephanus threw himself on the Emperor.

Then Domitia stepped between the struggling men and the doorway, and with one hand drew together the curtains so as to muffle the cries.

“To my aid! to my aid!” called Domitian, as the powerful steward grappled him, and struck his dagger into the thigh of the prince.

“To my aid! Ho, a sword!” shouted the Emperor, and he grasped the weapon of the steward but so that, holding the blade with his hand, the weapon cut it across and the blood streamed forth.

He now made an effort to reach the doorway; and the steward, holding him, strove to wrench away the dagger and inflict a mortal wound. But Domitian, aware of his object, with his bleeding hand retained his grasp of the blade.

All at once, the Emperor let go his hold, and seizing the steward by the head drove his thumbs into his eyes.

Stephanus instantly dropped the dagger in his attempt to save himself from being blinded.

The two men twisted and writhed in grapple with each other. The freedman was a powerful man—it was for this reason he had been sent to despatch the prince. But Domitian was battling for his life. Though his legs were thin and out of proportion to his body, he was a strong man—he had ever maintained his vigor by exercise of the muscles and had never weakened himself by excess in eating and drinking.

By a happy turn he flung Stephanus, but clasped by him fell with him on the floor.

And now the two men rolled and tossed in a tangled mass together. Their snorts and gasps and the bestial growl of rage filled the room.

“Quick! Domitia—the sword! At once—the sword—the sword!” said the Emperor. He spoke in gulps and gasps.

He had Stephanus under him; his knee was on his chest and his hand, the gashed left hand flowing with blood, contracted the prostrate man’s throat.

“Domitia! the sword!”

“DOMITIA! THE SWORD!” Page 316.

But she stood, stern, cold, without stirring a step, and she folded the sword of her father to her breast, with her arms crossed over it.

“Because of Paris—No!”

“The sword! be speedy. I will finish him!”

“Because of Cornelia—No!”

“Domitia—help!”

“Because of Lucius Lamia—No!”

She went to the curtains, drew them apart, and called down the passage to Norbanus.

The two Prætorian præfects were there with the chamberlains—but they were ill able to restrain the guard who suspected that their prince and Emperor was in danger and scented treachery.

Instantly a rush was made. Some of the soldiers, with the præfect Norbanus, came on running, whilst the other, Petronius Secundus, endeavored by his authority to restrain the rest.

But from the other end of the passage came gladiators running, hastily brought together by Parthenius.

For a moment there was a jam in the doorway, a burly gladiator and a soldier of the guard were wedged together, each endeavoring to hold the other back and force himself in.

Meanwhile Petronius continued to exhort his soldiers to stand back, and Parthenius to promise rewards to the gladiators who pressed on. The tumult became terrible. Men came to blows without, there was a running together of slaves and freedmen—of frightened women and pages from all sides. Some had leaped from their beds, roused from sleep, and were not clothed. Some bore lamps—but again certain others attempted to extinguish the lights. Some cried “Treason!” Others “Away with the monster!” Some called out “Nerva is the Emperor!” others “Domitian is the Augustus!”

Then the gladiator at the door, by dint of elbowing, forced his way within, but he was unarmed.

Next moment the Prætorian guardsman held back by the gladiator entered and struck at Stephanus, dealing a frightful blow.

Relieved by this assistance, Domitian staggered to his feet and glared about him. He was too much out of breath to speak, and in at the door came others pressing, some crying one thing, some another.

Then Domitia unfolded her arms, and taking the sword of Corbulo in her right hand, extended it to the gladiator and said—“Make an end.”

The man snatched at the haft; and with a blow drove the blade into the breast of the Emperor.

Still the prince remained standing, and stretched forth his hands gropingly for a weapon.

Parmenas leaped at him, and with a knife struck him in the throat.

Then he reeled; in another moment he was surrounded, blows from all sides were rained on him. Again the sword of Corbulo was lifted and again smote, and he fell as a heap on the body of Stephanus.

For a moment there was stillness.

Then in that hush sounded a click and a gush. The bucket of the clepsydra had discharged, and with a jerk Saturn raised his scythe and pointed to the hour of midnight.

“He has answered his summons before the seat of Divine Justice!” said Domitia.

She stooped and plucked the signet ring from the finger of the murdered prince.

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CHAPTER XIV.
IN THE TULLIANUM.

No sooner had Domitia got the signet from the finger of the dead Emperor, than she hastened from the room, trembling, almost blind as to her course, but armed with more than her natural strength to force her way through those who filled the passage.

Parmenas was now there, and he cleared a way for her, and in a loud voice forbade any of the slaves to leave the palace; Petronius at the same time gave orders to the soldiers of the guard to remain where they were, keeping watch that none left to spread the tidings, until Cocceius Nerva had been communicated with, and the Senate had been summoned.

Domitia, however, made her way from among the excited and alarmed throng, and finding some of her own slaves, bade them bring Eboracus to her.

“I am here, lady,” answered the Briton.

“Then quick—with me. Not a moment is to be lost. Light a torch and lead the way.”

“Whither, mistress?”

“To the Tullianum.”

He stared at her in amazement.

“Quick—a life, a precious life is at stake. Not a minute must we delay or it will be too late.”

“I am ready, lady.”

He snatched a torch from an attendant, and advanced towards a postern gate that communicated with a flight of steps leading to the Forum. It was employed almost wholly by the servants and was used for communication between the kitchen and the markets.

“Shall we take any one else with us?” asked Eboracus. He answered himself—“Yes—here is Euphrosyne. She shall attend, and a boy shall carry the link. At night—and on such a night, I must have both arms at my disposal.”

Domitia said nothing. She was eager to be on her way, was impatient of the smallest delay. Euphrosyne came up, and obeyed a sign from the Briton. He caught a scullion who was rubbing his sleepy eyes, and wondering what had caused the commotion, and had roused him from his bed. Eboracus thrust the torch into his hand and opened the door for the Empress.

Domitia stepped out to the head of the stairs. The rain had ceased, but the steps were running with water. The eaves dripped. The shrubs were laden with rain, they stooped their boughs and shed a load of moisture on the soil, then raised their leaves again, once more to accumulate the wet, and again to stoop and shower it down. Runnels conveying water from the roof were flowing as streams, noisily: the ground covered with pools, reflected the torch; as also every gleam from the retiring storm. Still in the distance thunder muttered, but it was a grumble of discontent at having failed to achieve all it had been sent to execute.

On such a night few would be abroad, except the patrols of the Vigiles and them there would be no difficulty in passing as the watchword was known to Eboracus, the word which allowed those only who could say it to traverse the streets at night in the respectable portions of the city. But there were no lamps, not even the feeble glimmer of a lantern slung in the midst of the street. Notwithstanding all the civilization of ancient Rome the art of lighting the thoroughfares at night was unknown. Such as were constrained to walk abroad after dark were attended by slaves bearing torches.

The streets of Rome had for long been of bad repute for the brawls and murders committed in them at night. Tipsy youths and rufflers had assaulted honest men, and should a woman be out after dark, she was certain of insult. Nero himself had distinguished himself in such vulgar performances. But under the Flavian princes much had been done to establish order and to ensure protection to life and purse of such as were out after dark, so that now, except in the slums, a citizen could visit his friends, a doctor his patients, by night, without fear of molestation.

And of all portions of Rome, the Forum with its splendid monuments, its rich temples, especially that of Saturn, that contained the city treasures, was most patrolled and therefore the safest. Eboracus had little expectation that his mistress would meet with rudeness or encounter danger, the rain must have swept the street of all idlers.

The long flight of steps was descended with caution, as they were slippery with rain, indeed with more caution than Domitia approved, so impatient was she to reach the object of her journey. The distance was not great. She had but to traverse the upper end of the Forum.

That at which she aimed was the prison of Rome. It lay at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and consisted of an ancient well or subterranean chamber in which flowed a small spring. Above this was the prison, consisting of a series of cells that rose in stages to a considerable height, against the rock, the chambers being in part scooped out of the travestine. From the top of the hill ran a set of steps called the Gemonian stair, and it was customary for State prisoners who had been condemned to death, after execution to be cast from the upper chamber of the Tullianum down the stairs; whence with hooks the corpses were dragged across the Forum and then flung into the Tiber.

To the house of the jailer, Domitia with her attendants made her way. She had been stopped once in crossing the Forum, but the watch recognized her, and saluted with respect, though with an expression of astonishment on his countenance at seeing Cæsar’s wife abroad at such a time of the night, in such weather and with such scant attendance.

On reaching the jailer’s door, Eboracus knocked. No answer was given. He knocked again and louder, and continued knocking, till at length a gruff voice from within called to know who was without, and what was wanted.

“Open—in the name of the Augustus,” said the British slave; and at once the keeper of the prison let down the bars and withdrew the bolts and chains, then carrying a lamp, peered out at those who demanded admittance.

Then Domitia stood forward.

“You have a prisoner here—Lucius Ælius Lamia?”

“Yes.”

“You must lead me to him.”

The jailer appeared disconcerted, he held his lamp aloft and eyed the woman who spake. He did not know her, his light was feeble, and as it happened, he had seen little of the Empress.

“You do not know me,” said Domitia. “Know you this ring?”

The prison-keeper held the flame of his lamp to the signet, and made the usual sign of respect and recognition.

“You are required to lead me within,” said Domitia.

The jailer at once stood aside, and suffered the Empress and her attendants to enter. Then he barred and bolted the door again.

“And now,” said Domitia, impatient at the leisurely proceeding of the man, “lead me to him.”

Without another word he went forward, holding his lamp down that those who followed might see the steps and not stumble at them.

“This way,” said he, “and bow your heads, the entrance is low; but most of them that pass this way have to hold their heads still lower when they are taken out. Look at these stones—great blocks built by the Kings—by Servius Tullus, they say. By Hercules! this is not a tavern where men tarry long, nor do they relish our fare. One thing I must say in our favor, we make no charge for our hospitality.” Thus the jailer muttered as he went along.

“Look there—on your right—there is the cell where Simon Bar Gioras, the Jew, was strangled—he who was the last to maintain the struggle against the God Titus, in defence of Jerusalem; and see—” he threw open a door. “Here is the Bath of Mamertius in which Jugurtha was starved, all in blackness of darkness and soaking in ice-cold water. What! Impatient—do you not care to see the sights and hear my gossip? Well, well—but I have pretty things to show. I have a shankbone of Appius Claudius, who committed suicide in yon cell, and a garment of Sejanus, and the very bowstring wherewith—I am going on as fast as may be. See! we have had Christians here also. There was another Jew, Simon Petrus by name, he was in this cell, and I have the chain whereby he was bound, and I sell the links to the followers of the Nazarene,” he began to cackle. “By Hercules! the chain is long enough. They come for more links than there would be, were the chain to reach across the Tiber. But any bit of old iron will serve, and they are not particular—take any scrap and pay in silver. I am going as fast as may be. I am not young. Fast enough I warrant. He is in no hurry—not Lamia. He can wait. All the same to him whether we reach him now or an hour hence.”

Then Domitia, whose brow was beaded with cold sweat, like the stones of the vault that ran with moisture, laid hold of the prison-keeper’s arm and said:—“Tell me—is he—” she could not say the word, her heart beat so furiously, and everything swam before her eyes.

“Aye, aye, you shall see for yourself. Come from the Augustus to satisfy him that we do our work properly, I trow. I have not much strength in these old-hands, but my two sons are lusty—and say the word—they will bend your back and snap the spine, smite and shear off your head like a pumpkin under a scythe, twist, and the life is throttled out of you. Here—here we are. Go in and see for yourself that we are good workmen.”

He threw open a door and raised his lamp.

A low vaulted chamber was faintly illumined by the flame, the torch held by Eboracus was behind Domitia and the jailer; he had taken it from the link boy at the prison door. He and Euphrosyne attended their mistress, the boy was left without.

The old prison-keeper stood on one side.

“The order came yesterday,” said he, “and we are not slack in the execution.”

Domitia saw the figure of a man lying on the stone floor. She started forward—

“He sleeps!”

“I warrant you—right soundly.”

She uttered a smothered cry.

“Put down the lamp!”

She turned and faced the jailer. “Leave me alone with him. I will wake him. I know he but sleeps.”

The man hesitated.

Then Eboracus pressed forward and laid hold of the jailer and whispered—“Go without, it is the Augusta!”

The keeper of the prison started, raised his hand to his lips, bowed, set the lamp on the moist floor and drew back.

“Without! Without all!” ordered Domitia.

Then Eboracus pulled the jailer out of the cell. Euphrosyne stood doubtful whether to remain with her mistress or obey—but an impatient sign from the Empress drove her forth, and the British slave closed the door.

“He is dead,” said the jailer. “Did the Augustus desire to withdraw the order? His signet has arrived too late. The prisoner has been throttled by my sons.”

The old man and the two slaves remained for some quarter of an hour in the passage almost smothered by the smoke emitted by the torch.

From within they heard a voice—at intervals, now raised in weeping, then uttering low soothing tones, then raised in a cry as the conclamatio of hired wailers for the dead, calling on Lamia by name to return, to return, to leave the Shadowland and come back into light.

And then—a laugh.

A laugh so weird, so horrible, so unexpected, that with a thrust, without scruple, Eboracus threw open the door.

On the stone pavement sat Domitia, her hair dishevelled, and on her lap the head of the dead man. She was wiping his brow with her veil, stooping, kissing his lips, weeping, then laughing again—then pointing to purple letters, crossed L’s woven into his tunic.

Eboracus saw it all—her reason was gone.

CHAPTER XV.
DRAWING TO THE LIGHT.

In the old home of Gabii, under the tender care of Euphrosyne and in the soothing company of Glyceria, little by little, stage by stage, Domitia recovered.

There was a horrible past to which no reference might be made. The true British slave, Eboracus, was ever at hand to help—when needed. Never a day, never half a day, but his honest face appeared at the door to inquire after his dear lady, and as her senses came flickering back, it was he to whom she clung to take her in his arms into the trellised walk, or when stronger to lead her where she could pick violets for Glyceria, and to pile about the feet of the little statue of the Good Shepherd. He took her a row on the lake and let her fish—he found nests of young birds and brought them to her; and all at once disclosed great powers of story-telling; he told marvellous British tales as to a little child, of the ploughing of Hu Cadarn, of Ceridwen and her cauldron. And he would sing—he fashioned himself a harp, of British shape, and sang as he accompanied himself, but his ballads were all in the Celtic tongue that Domitia could not understand—nevertheless it soothed and pleased her to listen to his music.

Longa Duilia did not visit her often. She made formal duty calls at long intervals, and as Domitia became better, these visits grew proportionately fewer.

Duilia, as she herself said, was not created to be a nurse. She knew that some were fitted by nature to attend to the sick, and all that sort of thing—but it was not her gift. Society was her sphere in which she floated and which she adorned, but she was distraught and drooping in a sick-room. She wished she had the faculty—and all that sort of thing—but all women were not cast in the same mould, run out of the same metal—and, my dear, parenthetically—some are of lead, others of Corinthian brass—and which are which it is not for me to say—she thanked the Gods it was so.

Nor did the visits and efforts to amuse, of Duilia, avail anything towards Domitia’s cure. On the contrary, she was always worse after her mother had been with her. The old lady ripped up ill-healed sores, harped on old associations, could not check her tongue from scolding.

“My poor dear child—I never made a greater blunder in my life—I, too, who have the pedigree at my finger’s ends—as to fancy that there was any connection with those Flavians. My dear! yellow hair is quite out of fashion now, quite out. Look at mine, a raven’s wing is not darker. It was through Vespasia Polla—I thought we were related—stupid that I was—it was the Vipsanians we were allied to, not those low and beggarly Vespasians. As the Gods love me, I believe Polla’s father was an army contractor. But I have made it all right. I have smudged out the line I had added to the family tree, and as for the wax heads of those Flavians, I have had them melted up. Will you believe it—I had the mask of Domitian run into a pot and that stupid Lucilla did not put a cover on it, and the rats have eaten it—eaten all the wax. I hope it has clogged their stomachs and given them indigestion. They doubtless thought it was dripping. But I really have made a most surprising discovery. I find there was an alliance with the Cocceii—most respectable family, very ancient, admirable men all—and so there is a sort of cousinship with the present admirable prince. His brother Aulus—rather old perhaps—but an estimable man—is—well—may be—in a word, I intend to give a little supper—a dainty affair—all in the best style—so sorry you can’t be there, my dear Domitia—but of course absolutely impossible. Your state of health and all that sort of thing. Don’t be surprised if you hear—but there, there—he is rather old though, for one who is only just turning off the very bloom of life and beauty.”

After such a visit and such talk the mind of Domitia was troubled for several days. She became timid, alarmed at the least noise, and distraught. But then the poor crippled woman succeeded in comforting and laying her troubles, and the painful expression faded from her face. It became placid, but always with a sadness that was inseparable from the eyes, and a tremulousness of the lips, as though a very little—a rough word or two—would dissolve her into tears.

With the spring, the growing light, the increasing warmth, the bursting life in plant and insect, she began to amend more steadily, and relapses became fewer.

One sweet spring day, when Glyceria had been carried forth into the garden, and Domitia sat on the turf near her with purple anemones in her lap, that she was binding into a garland, the paralyzed woman was startled by hearing Domitia suddenly speak of the past.

She spoke, and continued weaving the flowers, “My Glyceria, I intend this for the little temple of my father. It is all I can do for him—to give flowers where his ashes lie—but it does not content me. There were two whom I loved and looked up to as the best of men, and both are gone—gone to dust: my own dearest father, and my lover, my husband, Lamia. I cannot bear to think of them as heaps of ashes or as wandering ghosts. When that thought comes over me, I seem to be as one drowning, and then darkness is before my eyes. I cannot cry—I smother.”

“Why should you think of them as wandering ghosts or as heaps of dust?”

“I know that they are dust—I suppose they are shadows. But of anything else, all is guess-work, we know nothing—and that is so horrible. I love two only—have loved two only—and they are no more than shadows. No, no! I mean not that.” She flung her arms about Glyceria, and laid her cheek against that of the sick woman. “No, I do love you, and I love Euphrosyne and I love Eboracus. But I mean—I mean in a different manner. One was my father, and the other my husband. It is so terribly sad to think they are lost to me like yesterday or last summer.”

“They are not lost. You will see them again.”

“See my father! See my Lamia!”

“Yes—I know it will be so.”

“O, Glyceria, do not say such things. You make my heart jump. How can it be? They have been.”

“They are and will be. Death is swallowed up in Life.”

“That is impossible. Death is death and nothing more.”

Then Glyceria took the hand of Domitia, and looking into her eyes, said solemnly: “Dost thou remember having asked me about the Fish?”

“Yes—this amulet,” answered the noble lady, and she detached the cornelian from her throat, and held it in the hand not engaged by Glyceria. “Yes—I recollect—there was some mystery, but what was it?”

“The Fish is a symbol, as I said once before, and it is no amulet.”

“Of what is it the symbol?”

“Of One who died—who tasted of the bitterness of the parting of soul and body, and who went into the region of Shadows and returned—the soul to the body, and rose from the dead, and by the virtue of His resurrection gives power to all who believe in Him to rise in like manner.”

“And he could tell about what the ghosts do—how they wander?”

“I cannot say that. There would be no comfort in that. He rose to give us joy and to rob death of its terrors.”

“But what has this to do with the Fish?”

“You know what the word Fish is in Greek.”

“Very well.”

“Take each letter of that word, and each letter is the first of words that contain the very substance of the Christian belief—Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.”

Domitia looked at the little cornelian fish; she could not understand.

“I believe that one could die and wake again. I have fainted and come round. And he might say what was in the spirit world into which he had been—but the region of ghosts is very dreary, very sad.”

“Nay, He can do more. As He rose, He can raise us to new life, and He will do it, for He is God. He made us, and He will recall us from death.”

“What—my father! Lucius! I shall see them again—not as shadows, but as they were—?”

“Not so—not as they were, mortal; but raised to an immortal life.”

“I shall kiss my darling father—put my arms around my Lucius from whom I have been parted so long, and so cruelly, and who has been so—so true to me.”

Then Domitia burst into tears.

Glyceria stroked her hand.

“There—you see how joyous is our hope. Death is nothing—it is only a good-bye for a bit to meet again.”

“O, Glyceria! O, if I could see them—O Glyceria! O, you should not have said this if it be not true. My heart will break. O, if it might be so! if I could! but once only—for a moment——”

“Nay, that would not suffice; forever, never to be separated; no more tears, no more death.”

“O, Glyceria—not another word—I cannot bear it. My heart is over full. Another time. My head, my head! O, if it might—it could be!”

Next day Glyceria saw by the red eyes of Domitia that she had slept little and had wept much. She did not turn the conversation to the same topic; she wisely waited for the noble lady to begin on it herself, and she judged that she would take some time to consider what had been spoken about and to digest it.

And in fact Domitia made no further allusion to the matter for some days. But after about a week, when alone with the paralyzed woman, she said to her abruptly: “You have never been in Syria?”

“No, dear lady.”

“I have—and I have been on the confines of the desert and looked away, as far as the eye could reach, and have seen nothing but sand and barren rock. Behind me a rose-garden, syringas, myrtle and citron trees, and murmuring streams, before me—no green leaf, only death. It is to me, as I stand now and look back on my life as if it were that barren desert; and the fearful thing is—I dare not turn and look the other way, for it is into impenetrable night. But no, my life is not all desolation, there are just two green spots in it where the date palms stand and there are wells—my childhood, when I sat on my father’s knee and cuddled into his arms; and once again, when I was recovering from the loss of him and was basking in the joy of my love for Lucius Lamia. All the rest—” she made a gesture of despair—“Death.”

“Dearest lady! I would like to turn you about and show you that where you think only blackness reigns, lies a beautiful garden, a paradise, and One at the gate who beckons and says, Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

“Ah! but that may be all fancy and dream work like the promises of the Magi, and the mysteries of Isis.”

Glyceria got no further than this. Domitia was disposed to talk with her on her hope, and on the Christian belief, but always with reserve and some mistrust.

There were old prejudices to be overcome, there was the consciousness that the promises so largely made by the votaries of the many cults from East and South who came to Rome were unfulfilled, and this made her unable to place confidence in the new religion held by slaves and ignorant people, however alluring it might seem.

Among the very few who came to Gabii during her illness and convalescence, was Flavia Domitilla, the widow of Flavius Clemens, who had been put to death by Domitian. Domitilla had been banished, but returned immediately on the death of the tyrant. She had suffered as had Domitia. In her manner and address there was something so gentle and assuring, that the poor ex-empress, in the troubled condition of her brain, was drawn to her, and after her visits felt better. She knew, or rather supposed, that Domitilla was a Christian. Her husband had been one, and had suffered for his faith.

It was with real pleasure that she ran to welcome her one morning, when the steward entered and announced: “The Lady Flavia Domitilla.”

CHAPTER XVI.
AN ECSTASY.

“I have come, dear Domitia, with a petition,” said the widow of Flavius Clemens. “And it is one you will wound me if you refuse.”

“But who would wound so gentle a breast?” answered Domitia, kissing her visitor. “He must be heartless who draws a bow against a dove.”

“Hearken first to what I ask. I am bold—but my very feebleness inspires me with audacity.”

“What is it, then?”

“That you come with me to my villa for a little change of scene, air and society. It will do you good.”

“And I cannot refuse. It is like your sweet spirit to desire nothing save what is kindly intended and does good to others.”

“As you have assented so graciously, I will push my advance a little further and say—Return with me to-day. Let us travel together. If you will—I have a double litter—and we can chatter as two magpies together.”

“Magpies bring sorrow.”

“Nay, two—mirth—we have cast our sorrows behind us. You said I was a dove, so be it—a pair of doves, perhaps wounded, lamed—but we coo into each other’s ear, and lay our aching hearts together and so obtain solace.”

“I will refuse you nothing,” said Domitia, again kissing her visitor.

Accordingly, a couple of hours later the two ladies started, Domitia taking with her some attendants, but travelling, as was proposed, in the large litter of Domitilla.

This latter lady was, as already mentioned, the widow of Clemens, one of the two sons of Flavius Sabinus, præfect of the city, who had held the Capitol against the Prætorians of Vitellius and had been murdered but a few hours before Rome was entered by the troops that favored his brother Vespasian. On that occasion his sons had escaped, and the elder was married to Julia, daughter of Titus, but had been put to death by Domitian. The younger brother, Clemens, a quiet, inoffensive man, who took no part in public affairs, had been executed as well, shortly before Domitian himself perished.

And now Flavia Domitilla lived quietly on her estate not far from the Ardeatine Gate of Rome.

“How!” said Flavia, suddenly, as she espied the little cornelian suspended on the bosom of Domitia, “you have the Fish!”

“Yes, Glyceria gave it me—long ago.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“Glyceria told me—but it is a dream, a beautiful fancy, nothing more. There is no evidence.”

“Domitia, you have not sought for it.”

“My cousin, Rome is full of religions. Some say the truth is in Sabazius, some in Isis, some in the stars, some in Mithras—a new importation—and some will go back to the old Gods of our Latin ancestors. But one and another all are naught.”

“How know you that?”

“By the spirit that is within me. It can discern between what is true and false. Not that which promises best is the most real.”

“You are right, Domitia—that is truest and most real which meets and satisfies the seeking, aching heart.”

“And where is that?”

“Where you have not sought for it.”

“If I were sure I would seek. But I am weary of disillusionings and disappointments.”

“Well—will you hear?”

“I am not sure. I have met with too many disappointments to desire another.”

Nothing further was said on this topic till the villa was reached. Domitia showed that she did not desire to have it pursued.

As Flavia alighted from her litter, a young man approached, handed her something and asked for an answer.

The widow of Clemens opened a tied diptych and read some words written therein.

She seemed disconcerted and doubtful. She looked questioningly at Domitia, and then asked leave of the latter to say a word in private to Euphrosyne. Leave was granted and a whispered communication passed between them.

Again Flavia looked inquiringly at Domitia, and it was with considerable hesitation that she signed to the young man to approach, and said:—“Be it so. The Collect shall be here.”

That evening before she and her guest parted for the night, Flavia took Domitia by the hand and said:—“You are right—the faculty of determination is seated in every breast. Inquire and choose.”

A few days passed, and then the hostess became uneasy. Evidently she had something that she desired to say, but was afraid of broaching the subject.

At length, abruptly, she began on it.

“Domitia, I show you the utmost confidence. I must tell you something. You know how that the Christians have been persecuted under—I mean of late, and how we have suffered. My dear husband shed his blood for the cause, and he was but one among many. Now there is a respite granted, but how long it will last we know not. The laws against us stand unrepealed and any one who wishes us ill can set them in motion for our destruction.”

“You do not think, Cousin——”

“Nay, hear me out, Domitia. You saw a young man approach me as we arrived here. He is what we term a deacon, and he came to announce that, if I saw fit, the Church would assemble in my house next first day of the week, that is the day after the Jewish Sabbath. It is customary with us to assemble together for prayer on that day, early, before dawn, sometimes in one house, then in another, so as to escape observation. And now, on the morrow—this assembly, which we term the Collect, will take place. Do thou tarry in thy chamber, and thou shalt be summoned when all have dispersed.”

“Nay, I would see and hear what takes place.”

“That may not be, Domitia, that is only for the initiated.”

“But why secrecy if there be naught of which to be ashamed?”

“Our Master said, Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine. Tell me, Domitia, how would you endure were your father made a mock of, his sayings and acts parodied on the stage, and turned into a matter of low buffoonery?”

Domitia’s brow flamed and her eyes flashed.

“I see your answer in your face. So with our Great Master. His mysteries are holy, and we would preserve them from outrage. Now you understand why you cannot be present.”

“But I would not mock.”

“It is our rule, to avoid the chance of profanity.”

“As you will.”

“There is one thing more,” said Flavia. “You will not be angry if I have sent to have poor Glyceria brought here. Owing to her infirmity she has not been able to be present at a gathering of the Church for a long time, and nothing could give her greater consolation and happiness.”

“I am willing for anything that can cheer her,” answered Domitia; then in a tone of vexation, “So—a freedwoman, and Euphrosyne, a slave, will be admitted where I am shut out—I, who was Empress——”

“Do not be offended. Is it not so in every sodality, that the members of the Club alone attend the gatherings of the Club.”

“You are a Club then?”

“We are the worshippers of God.”[16]

Domitia was silent, then Flavia started up. “I hear them—they have come with Glyceria. I must see that she be cared for. The long journey to that frail and broken frame will have exhausted her slender powers.”

“And I will go, too”—with a tinge of jealousy in her manner. Domitia little liked that another should interest herself about the poor woman, and should stand to her in a more intimate relation than herself.

On going forth, all feeling of envy disappeared at once before a sense of alarm.

An accident had occurred on the way. Owing to some fault in the paving of the road, one of the bearers had stumbled and, in falling, the litter had been thrown down and the woman within injured.

Domitia saw by the ashen face and the green hue about the mouth and temples that Glyceria was in great pain. But her eyes were bright and sought her at once and a world of love flowed out of them, she put forth her thin hand to lay hold of the great lady. Domitia at once flashed into anger. “This comes of bringing her here. Had she been left at Gabii it would never have happened. Where is the fellow who threw her down?—Flavia! have him whipped with the scorpion.”

Glyceria caught her hand. “It was an accident. He was not in fault. I am happy. It is the will of God—that is everything to me.”

“You suffer.”

The paralyzed woman could not speak more. She was being lifted out of the litter, and fainted as she was moved. She was conveyed, in a condition of unconsciousness, to the room she was to occupy, a room opening out of the same corridor as that given up to Domitia.

The family physician was summoned; he gave little hopes of the poor woman recovering from the shock, her natural strength and recuperative power had long ago been exhausted.

All that evening Domitia remained silent, apparently in ill humor, or great distress, and Flavia Domitilla was unable to get many words from her.

She retired early to rest, but could not sleep. Before going to her bed, she had visited the sick woman, and she convinced herself with her own eyes that the flame of the lamp of life was flickering to extinction.

Domitia loved the actor’s widow with all the passion of her stormy heart; and the thought of losing her was to her unendurable.

The night was still, balmy, and the heavens star-besprent. She looked from the corridor at the lights above, and then dropped the curtains over her door. She threw herself on her cushions, but her thoughts turned and tossed in her head.

She pressed her knuckles to her eyeballs to close her eyes, but could not force on sleep.

It was to her as though every person whom she loved was taken from her; till she had no one left to whom her heart could cling.

“I vow a pig to Æsculapius!” she said, “if he will recover her!” and then impatiently turned to the wall. “What can Æsculapius do? Whom has he succored at any time? He is but a name.” To whom could she cry? What god of Olympus would stoop to care for—even to look at an actor’s widow, a poor Greek freedwoman.

The gods! They revelled and drank Ambrosia; made love and deceived the simple, and lied and showed themselves to be arrant knaves. They were greedy of sacrifices, they accepted all that was given—but they gave nothing in return. Their ears were open to flattery, not to prayer. They were gods for the merry and rich, not for the miserable and poor.

She thought she heard hasty steps in the passage, then voices. “And He! the God of Glyceria—why had not He saved her from this fall? Was He as powerless, as regardless, of His votaries as those of Olympus?” Yes—something was the matter—there was a stir in the house—at that hour—at dead of night—Domitia’s heart bounded. Was Glyceria passing away?

She threw a mantle about her, and barefooted as she was, ran forth into the gallery.

She saw at the further end a light at the door of the sick room, and sounds issued thence.

Instantly she flew thither, plucked aside the curtain, and stood in the doorway, arrested by the sight.

Euphrosyne was seated on the bed, and had raised her sister in her arms; the sick woman rested against her in a sitting posture; Flavia Domitilla was there as well. Directly she saw Domitia she signed to her to approach.

But Glyceria!—she was at once transfigured. Her face seemed to shine with a supernatural light—it had acquired a loveliness and transparency as of an angel—her eyes were upraised and fixed as in a trance, and her arms were outspread. She seemed not to weigh on Euphrosyne, but to be raised and sustained by supernatural power.

The joy, the rapture in that sublimated countenance were beyond description. She saw, she knew, she felt none of those things that usually meet the senses. And yet Domitia, Flavia, were convinced that those illumined happy eyes looked on some One—were gazing into a light to themselves unseen.

From her lips poured rapturous prayer.

“I see Thee! Thou—the joy of my heart, my hope and my portion forever! Thee whom I have loved and longed for! I hold Thee—I clasp Thy feet! O give her to me—the dear mistress! Take me, take me to Thyself—but ere I go—by Thy wounded hands—by Thy thorn-crowned head—by Thy pierced side—bring her to the light! To the light! To the light!” And suddenly—with an instantaneous eclipse the illumination died off from her face, the tension was over, the arms, the entire body sank heavily against the bosom of Euphrosyne, the eyes closed; she heaved a long sigh, but a smile lingered about her lips.

Awed, not daring to draw nearer, unwilling to go back, Domitia stood looking. Neither did Flavia Domitilla stir.

After a little while, however, the latter signed to Domitia to depart, and made as though she also would go.

“She sleeps,” she said.

Then Glyceria’s bright eyes opened, and she said:—

“Not till after the Collect—at that I must be—bear me down—then only——”

CHAPTER XVII.
HAIL, GLADSOME LIGHT!

Before the day began to break, from various quarters came men and women, in twos and threes to the house of Flavia Domitilla.

The visitor to Rome may see the very spot where stood her house and garden. For this good woman converted the latter into a place of sepulture for the Christians, and the catacomb that bears her name is one of the most interesting of those about Rome. Not only so, but the ruins of her villa remain, on the farm of Tor Marancia, or the Ardeatine Way. Here lived the widow of the martyr Clemens, with her sister-in-law, Plautilla, and her niece, of the same name as herself, all three holy women, serving God and ministering to the necessities of the poor.

The Collect, or assembly of the Faithful, was to take place in the atrium or hall of the villa. Domitilla had only Christian slaves with her in her country residence, and could trust them.

In the large mansions of the Roman nobility there were grand reception halls, called basilicas, with rows of pillars down the sides dividing them into a nave and aisles, with an apse, or bema as it was termed, at the end, in which the master of the house sat to receive his visitors. Here he and his clients, his parasites and friends walked, talked, declaimed, listened to readings, when the weather was wet or cold. At a later period, when the nobility became Christian, many of them gave up their basilicas to be converted into churches, and such is the origin of several churches of Rome. They never were, as some have erroneously supposed, halls of justice—they were, as described, the halls attached to the great Roman palaces.

But at the time I am speaking of, no such surrenders had been made. The great families had not been converted, only here and there, at rare intervals, some of their members had embraced the Gospel. But smaller people had become Christian, and these did temporarily give up the more public portion of the house, the atrium and tablinum for Christian worship. It was dangerous to thus assemble, and it would have been infinitely more dangerous had the assemblies taken place always at the same house. Accordingly it was contrived to vary the place of meeting and to give secret notice to the faithful where the gathering would be on the ensuing Lord’s day.

The danger of these Collects was further reduced by their being held sometimes in the churches underground in the catacombs, or in the cellæ near the tombs; and these gatherings passed uncommented on, as it was customary for the pagans to meet for a solemn banquet in the decorated chambers attached to their places of interment on the anniversaries of the death of their friends.

The various guilds also had their meeting for the transaction of business, a sacred meal, and a sacrifice to the gods, and the early Christians were able so to copy the customs of the guilds or sodalities, as to carry on their worship undetected by the authorities, who supposed their assemblies were mere guild gatherings.

The hour was so early that lights were necessary, and lamps were suspended in the tablinum, which was raised a couple of steps above the floor of the hall.

Round the arc of the chamber, which was semi-circular, seats had been arranged, and in the centre against the wall one of more dignity than the rest, covered with white linen. In the midst of the tablinum at the top of the two steps was a table, and on one side a desk on legs.

Great care was taken at the door to admit none but such as could give the sign that they were Christians. The ostiarius or porter in the early Church held a very important office, on his discretion much of the safety of the Church depended. He had to use the utmost caution lest a spy should slip in.

The hall rapidly filled.

Before the steps into the apse lay Glyceria on a sort of bier, her hands folded, and her earnest eyes upraised! She had been gently, carefully conveyed thither, to be for the last time united in worship with the Church on earth, before she passed into the Church beyond.

On each side of the tablinum were curtains, that could be easily and rapidly drawn along a rod and so close the apse.

In the atrium itself there were few lights. They were not needed, day would soon break.

In the tablinum, against the wall, sat the presbyters with Clement, the bishop, in the centre. He was an old man, with a gentle face, full of love. He had been a freedman of the Flavians, and it was out of respect to them that he had taken the name of Clement, which was one of those in use in their family.

At his side, on the right hand, was one far more aged than he—one we have seen before, Luke the Physician and Evangelist.

Now one with a pair of clappers gave a signal and all rose who had been seated.

A deacon standing at the top of the step said:—“Let us pray for the Emperor.”

Whereupon all the congregation responded as with a single voice: “Lord, have mercy.”

Then Clement, the Bishop, prayed:—“We beseech Thee, O Father, to look down upon the Emperor and to strengthen him against his foes, and to illumine his mind that he may rule in Justice, and be Thou his defence and strong tower.”

Thereupon the deacon called again:—“Let us pray for the magistrates.” To which the people responded in the same manner, and the Bishop prayed in few terse words for the magistrates. In precisely similar manner was prayer made for the bishops and clergy, for all the faithful, for those in chains, working in mines, for the sick and the sorrowful, for the widows and orphans; it was as though a flood of all-embracing charity flowed forth.

Then the intercessions ended, Luke came to the desk, and a deacon brought the roll of the Law and unfolded it before him, and another held aloft a torch.

He read as follows:—“This commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee neither is it far off.... But the word is very nigh thee in thy heart and in thy mouth, that thou mayest do it. See, I have set before thee life and good, and death and evil.... I call heaven and earth to record this day that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life ... that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him.”

Then the Evangelist closed the roll and returned it to the deacon, and he spake some words of exhortation thereon.

Next came another deacon and unfolded the roll of the Prophets; and Luke read:—“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.... To give to them that mourn beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called Trees of Righteousness, the Planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.”

Then again Luke spoke a few simple words and declared how that the prophecy of old was fulfilled in Christ who was the healer of all sick souls, and the strengthener of all who were feeble, the restorer of the halt, the comforter of all that mourn, and the planter in the field of the Church of such as would grow up plants of righteousness to bear their fruit in due season.

And when he ceased, the congregation sang a psalm: “Praise the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me praise His holy name.”

In the first age of the Church the liturgical service grew out of that of the synagogue. As in the latter there were the two lessons from Law and Prophet, so was there in the Church, but after the Psalm there were added to these, two more lessons, one from an Epistle by an Apostle and one from a Gospel.

At the time of our narrative the service was in process of formation and was not yet formed; and the sequence of Epistle and Gospel had not as yet been established. However, now Luke stood forward and said:—

“Beloved, we have a letter written by the Blessed John—the Disciple that Jesus loved, and therefrom I will read a few words.”

Then he unfolded a short roll and read as follows:—

“Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God! therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”

He ceased, for a strange sound reached the ears of all—a sound that swelled and rose and then fell away and became all but inaudible.

Once again he began to read—and again this sound was heard.

“This is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”

Again he ceased, and looked round, and listened. For once more this strange wailing sound arose.

But as it declined, he resumed his reading.

“Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.”

He was constrained to cease.

Then at a signal, two deacons went in the direction of the sound. And the whole congregation was hushed. But Glyceria, on her bed, lifted her hands and her eyes shone with expectation.

Presently the deacons returned:—“A woman—a weeping woman in a dark room.”

Then Luke descended from the bema, and attended by them went in the direction of the voice, and came, where crouching, concealed, Domitia lay on the ground, sobbing as if her heart would break—they could not stay her—they did not try—they waited.

And presently she raised her face, streaming with tears, and said—“The light! the glorious light!”

And the sun rose over the roof, and shone down into the atrium, on the face of Glyceria.

Then Flavia Domitilla stooped over her, laid her hand on her eyes and said:—“In the Joy of thy Lord, Face to Face!”

“THE LIGHT! THE GLORIOUS LIGHT!” Page 348.

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