Lords of the World: A story of the fall of Carthage and Corinth

by Alfred John Church

He lost no time in looking for his friend, and was luckily soon successful in his search.

"I am not surprised," said the physician when he had heard the story. "I knew that something of the kind was going on, though the priests keep it as quiet as they can. I was called in yesterday to see the wife of a senator. She was in a state of prostration, for which I could see no physical cause. Of course I diagnosed mental trouble, and put some questions in that direction. I got nothing but the vaguest answers. Just when I was going away I asked some question about her children. She said nothing, but the next moment she fell into the very worst fit of hysterics I have ever seen. I put two and two together, for I haven't been a doctor for forty years for nothing, and guessed the truth. And afterwards, when I was giving the maid in attendance some directions, I heard it for certain. The poor woman had given up her eldest boy, a beautiful little creature of six, to Moloch. And now about this Greek child. Well, we must not be seen on the street talking together. Come to my house about noon to-morrow, and we will talk it over."

Cleanor was punctual at the appointed time.

"I have been thinking it over," said the physician when he had satisfied himself that he could not be overheard. "And I don't see any chance of success except by bribery. I know where the child is—in the high-priest's house. I was called in two or three days ago to see a child who was ill there. I thought it strange, for the priests have no families. Still, it might be a child of a relative. But it was stranger still when, after I had prescribed for the little fellow and was going away, I heard the voices of other children. Then it was all explained by what I told you this morning. They keep the poor little creatures, when they have got them by persuasion or force, in the high-priest's house. That is one step, then. We know where the boy is. And the next, by great good luck, is made easy for us. The little fellow that I have been attending will certainly die. I feel almost sure that I shall not find him alive when I go this afternoon. Well, I shall have to report his death to the high-priest, who will have to find a substitute for him, and will, I suppose, kidnap another child. That is a horrible thing; but we can't help it. Now for my plan. You must bribe the attendant who will have to remove the child and see to its burial. That will be easy enough. He is a fellow of the lowest class, and will do anything for a score of gold pieces. And you must also bribe the priest who has the business of actually offering the children. That will be a more serious matter. The practice is for the high-priest to offer the first, and to hand over the rest to a subordinate. This is the man you will have to deal with. It isn't that it will be a matter of faith with him. Generally, in my experience—not always, mark that—but generally the nearer the altar the less the faith; and this man I know. But it is a dangerous affair, and, besides, the man can make his own terms. I should say that a hundred gold pieces will be wanted. Now, can you manage that? It isn't every young officer that has a hundred gold pieces to spare. I can help you a little, but a physician's fees are small and hard to come by."

"A thousand thanks!" said Cleanor, "but I have as much as will be wanted."

"Come again after dark," the physician went on. "You will have to settle with the men, for I must not appear in the matter, but I will arrange a way for you to see them."

"Everything is going as well as possible," said the physician when the two met again. "As I expected, the child was dead. And here I have made a little change in our plans. I thought that it might make complications if two were engaged in the affair. And the priest might object if he found his secret shared by an attendant of far inferior rank. It might mean, he would say, endless blackmailing. What I did, then, was to tell the man that there was something very strange about the child's illness, that I wanted to discover the real cause, and that I would give him a couple of gold pieces—to offer him more would have been suspicious—if he would let me have the body. That is disposed of, then. Now for the priest. He comes here to-night; he has long been a patient of mine, and he wants to see me. The fellow, who is one of the hardest drinkers in Carthage, would have been dead long ago but for me. You will see him, and tell him what he is to do, which, in a word, is to put a dead child for a living one, and what you will give him for doing it. That is the naked truth, but you will wrap it up as you think best."

"But will not that be an impossible thing—a dead child for a living?" asked Cleanor.

"Not at all," replied the physician, "and not by any means so hard as you think. You don't know, I daresay, that the children are drugged as heavily as possible without making them actually insensible. All the creatures that are brought to be sacrificed have to be drugged. You know that it is thought to be the very worst omen if a bull or a ram breaks away from the attendants as they are bringing it to the altar. You don't suppose that there is a miracle perpetually worked so that what happens every day in the slaughter-house never happens in a temple? And this makes the affair comparatively easy. There is not much difference between a drugged child and a dead child."

The priest came in due course. The physician with some cautious hints excited his curiosity and greed, and Cleanor found his task neither so difficult nor so costly as he had anticipated. It is needless to relate the negotiations. As the physician had anticipated, the priest's faith was not a difficulty. He had not a vestige of belief. He had been a party to too many impostures to have anything of the kind left. Fraudulent miracles were a part almost, it might be said, of his daily business. But he made the most of the risk of the proceeding, and this was undoubtedly great. Not only was the dead child to be substituted for the living, but the living was to be smuggled away. The physician had provided a temporary refuge for it; it was to be received into the family of the couple which kept his house. The thing probably appeared to be more difficult than it really was, chiefly because no one would have any idea that it would be attempted. A bargain was ultimately made for a somewhat smaller sum than the physician had named. The priest was to receive five-and-twenty gold pieces down, and fifty pieces more when Cleanor was satisfied of the safety of the child.