‘Tell me what reasons have impelled you to come to me now and confess all this villainy,’ said Fabricius, in hollow tones.
‘Because I am sorry for what I did, and wish to make some amends,’ replied Cestus.
‘And for this penitence you require to be paid,’ rejoined the other, with withering scorn; ‘by your own showing you have made terms for committing a desperate sin, and have probably extorted every sesterce possible in that direction; now you betray your accomplice, and come to extort more from me, under a mask of righteousness.’
‘I have told you nothing but the truth, and you may twist it as you like,’ replied Cestus, unmoved; ‘bear in mind, but for me, there would have been no child at all to welcome back.’
‘I have only your word for that, so far.’
‘The terms made are not to be carried out, on your side, until you are satisfied with your bargain. That is enough to show, of itself, that I am in earnest. I must live, and to your own generosity I leave the payment. But it is not altogether that for which I am here. Your nephew, the worshipful knight, has dealt very scurvily with me, after his nature. He is a hundred times more rascal than myself—a mean, cowardly dog, knight as he is. I have two surprises in store for him—one, when he is confronted with the girl he paid me to kill, and the other, when his eyes fall on me, whom he struck down one night, not long since, in the streets, and left for dead. He thought, when he did that, his secret was for ever safe. But I was picked up with a hole in my side, and so well tended in a house I can take you to, that, after a hard fight of it, I came round. I bethought me of the girl I had left in Surrentum, and I stole away to see how she fared, and to pick up strength. I have been living for weeks, waiting and watching in my sister’s house; for it was my sister, and her husband, the potter, who took her from me. They have loved her like their own child, and she treats them as her parents, for she knows nothing to the contrary. Watch well your nephew, therefore, when he first sets eyes on me—if his conscience don’t visibly trouble him it will be strange. But there is more yet to be told you, and we are wasting time. When I came away, matters in my sister’s house were in a bad state. Masthlion had gone to Capreae, to show Caesar some new kind of glass he had discovered. He was a fool [pg 393]and it cost him his life; for he found the bloody tyrant in the humour to reward him with a bed at the bottom of the sea. And more than that, a gang of slaves, from the palace, I suppose, arrived after dark, and sacked the house, and took off the girl back with them. You must understand she has uncommon good looks, and is good prey for this island, which is no place for her. Now you know what reason there is for haste to protect her. I could do nothing; but you are a patrician and powerful, and to you Caesar will listen.’
‘Alas, you told me she was alive and well, and now you say Tiberius has carried her off to his island—is this your good news?’ cried Fabricius, wringing his hands. ‘Better indeed dead, I should say, than left to the mercy of that debauched old man! Four days since you left, and as long for me to go thither, what hope is there? Why did you not bring her away at once? Here, in this house, the house from which you say you took her, you might have proved your words, or damned yourself for ever. You bid me hope, and then dash hope away. Alive—ay, but if alive, most likely in a living death—Oh!’
‘Stay a moment,’ said Cestus soothingly, ‘the danger is great; but yet I have hope. I have not told you that the maid has caught the eye of a youth, and they are betrothed. I had a suspicion that something ill was brewing to the girl, and they will bear witness that I did my utmost to persuade them to come to Rome at once, where she might be in safety; but they flatly refused to move until the potter came back from the island. He never did come back, but in his place came the slaves, who tore the girl away. But soon after they had gone, arrived the youth who has fallen in love with her. He is a centurion, and was posting from Rome to the island with despatches, and him I told who she was, and bade him warn Caesar not to harm her—I said I would go straight and bring you, and now the matter rests with yourself.’
‘And the name of the youth you say is betrothed to her?’
‘He is a centurion of the Pretorian Guard, and his name is Martialis.’