“He is mad,” said Cinna. Then, turning to Aurelius, he went on: “You, my friend, go now and mingle with the guests. Amuse yourself, refresh and rest yourself. You are young, and youth claims its dues. To-morrow—you know—at the house of Afranius....”
“Yes, I know,” answered Aurelius, drawing a deep breath, “and I thank you, noble friends, for honoring me by admitting me to your society and confidence.”
He went slowly out into the atrium, where the darkness was but dimly broken by a few lamps hanging under the colonnade. A cold chill fell on his heart, for, from the peristyle, he heard a girl’s voice singing a graceful melody to the chords of a cithara. It was the same air that had charmed his heart before now, at Baiae—the Spring song of Ibycus; it was the same voice—the voice of his beautiful, adored and peerless Claudia. These few weeks had wrought an entire change in him. He had been unresistingly drawn into the vortex of two engulfing passions. On one hand was the noble girl whom he worshipped and perhaps might never win, on the other were the proud nobles—men inspired with the most fervid patriotism, who had taken him spellbound as by some sacred magic; the champions of liberty, of manly dignity, of proud Roman virtue, among a degenerate rabble of slaves. What a storm and whirl of feeling in the present, and what a struggle to be fought in the future!
He stood still to listen; a faint murmur coming up through the peaceful night, was all that could be heard of the tumult of the busy city that surrounded them, and the sweet girlish voice rose clear and strong—as pure and holy as though in all the earth there was no such thing as sorrow, as remorse and crime. The song, as it soared up fresh and strong from the innocent soul, seemed to rise to heaven in atonement for the infinite wickedness of the two million souls in the city, and for the foul and bloody deeds of its tyrants. Aurelius quivered in every nerve, and tears sprang to his eyes; but he instantly struck his breast resolutely and defiantly, and dashing his hand across his wet lashes, went through the corridor into the peristyle.
CHAPTER XII.
It was the middle of the second vigil—between ten and eleven o’clock at night by our reckoning of time—and the house of Cornelius Cinna was sunk in silent repose. The lamp in the peristyle was extinguished, and the last guests—Claudia, Lucilia and Quintus—had left about half an hour since....
There was a sound of steps in the colonnade—soft, cautious, and mysterious. Two women wrapped in large cloaks went to the back door,[252] followed by a sturdy slave.
“Oh! my sweet mistress,” whispered Chloe, as she opened the little gate, “you may believe it or not, but my knees shake beneath me. If your uncle were to discover us...! It would be the death of me!”
“Silence!” replied Cornelia. “My uncle is sound asleep. And even if he were to find out....”