‘Good! If you must have it you must, and I cannot refuse,’ answered the knight, whose humour seemed as suddenly to change, as if in triumph, for he actually allowed a smile to part his lips. ‘I grieve that words of mine should have ruffled you. As I am not in the habit of carrying about with me such an amount of money as you will doubtless consider proper to ask, perhaps you will do me the favour to walk with me as far as my house, dear Cestus?’
Cestus hesitated, and looked doubtingly on the unexpected spectacle of his patron’s politeness. His cunning nature was suspicious.
‘What a changeable man!’ was the bland remark of the other; ‘a minute ago he was demanding his wants, like a robber tearing spoil from a victim. Now when he is asked to walk a short way to receive it, he hangs back.’
‘No tricks, master—or else!’ said Cestus, eyeing him keenly.
‘Tricks! Certainly not. You are very coarse. Come!’
Afer then led the way with the man at his heels, so close indeed that he turned and motioned him to keep at a greater distance. Their course lay through the middle of the Subura, a district which lay in the valley, between the Eastern hills and the Fora. It was one of the most ancient districts of the city, as well as the most densely peopled, and noted for its crowded thoroughfares, its low society, its noise and dirt. Occasionally the traffic would come to a dead-lock, amid much shouting and forcible language, caused, perhaps, by the stoppage of some heavy wain, laden with blocks of building material, hauled along with ropes. Or, again, some great man, in his litter, surrounded by his servants, thought fit to halt, for some purpose, in the narrow ways. His suite would, thereupon, become the nucleus of a squeezing crush of pedestrians, who cast frowning glances at the litter and its occupant. At another place, his greatness, moving along, would meet with a like obstruction, and there would be seen the spectacle of rival slaves battling a passage through. Nor were the [pg 28]customs of the tradesmen calculated to increase the public convenience, for they intruded their business into the already too limited space. Their stalls jutted out, and even then failed altogether to confine their occupations. A cobbler hesitated not to ply his awl in public, nor a barber to shave his customer outside his door. The gutters were frequented by noisy hucksters plying their trade, and selling all kinds of articles, from sulphur matches to boiled peas and beans. Importunate beggars were rife with every sorrow, complaint, and ailment; from the lame, sick, and blind, to the shipwrecked sailor, carrying a fragment of his ill-starred ship over his shoulder, as a proof of his sad lot. Down the narrower alleys were noisome, reeking dens crammed with the scum of the city. Thieves, murderers, blackguards, bullies loafed about; fallen women also loitered and aired themselves till the evening approached, when all this daylight idlesse of human filth betook itself to its frightful occupations of crime and wickedness, either in its own refuges, or flooded abroad upon the city. Yet this district, from its central position, was necessarily frequented, and even inhabited, in a few cases, by the higher orders of society. To imagine an unsealed Whitefriars, or a tract of the east end of modern London, cramped and narrowed, after the style of the old Roman city, and placed between two fashionable quarters, would give the best idea of the character of the Subura of Rome. It was the peculiar situation of the city which led to this intermixing of classes. In a city of a plain, where no part of the ground offers any advantage over another, the wealthy naturally form a district select from the poor. In Rome, the great and wealthy sought the elevated and pleasanter faces of the hills, while the poorer people remained beneath. Thus the intermediate valleys, however populated, unavoidably became thoroughfares, and no doubt, to a certain extent, the haunts of all classes.
Through the teeming Subura, then, we will follow our two characters. They each threaded their way after their own manner. The knight, slim, supple, and quick, slipped along like an eel, avoiding all contact and gliding through every opening with the accustomed ease of a person city bred. On the other hand the Subura was the home of Cestus, to whom every nook and corner was familiar. This fact, combined [pg 29]with his superior weight and bulk, rendered his movements more careless and independent of passers-by, some of whom came into collision with him, to their own sorrow. He was, moreover, recognised by more than one fellow inhabitant as he passed along. Two or three fellows, as idle and rough looking as himself, leered knowingly at him from the open front of a wine-shop where they were lounging. Another one nodded and winked to him from out of a reeking, steaming cook-shop where he was munching a light meal of the simplest character. Among the many street idlers, one greasy vagabond, with an evil, bloated face, went so far as to catch his arm and whisper, with a coarse laugh, ‘What, Cestus, boy, hast hooked thy patron? Thou wilt come back like a prince!’ But Cestus shook him off, and having cleared the Subura, he and his patron entered on a less crowded path, and the short, steep ascent of the Esquiline Hill.
At the summit they passed a statue of Orpheus. He was represented playing on the lyre to a group of wild animals, exquisitely modelled in the attitudes of rapt attention to the inspired music. The group was placed in the centre of a large circular basin for the reception of the spray, which usually danced and sparkled from the head of the immortal musician. On this day, however, for some reason, the fountain was dry.
As he passed, the knight turned round, and, pointing with his finger to draw his follower’s attention to the fact, said, with a cold smile, ‘My Cestus, when you likened the supply of my funds to the feeding of that fountain, you made a bad comparison—it is a bad omen, good and faithful man. Do you accept it?—I do.’
Cestus was in no way behind the age in superstition.