The procession of the condemned moved silently along the Via Sacra; as they passed through the arch of Titus and the yellow grey of the eastern sky fell upon their faces, they looked like a file of corpses. Cornelia was as pale as death, and her eyes looked larger than ever. Only Quintus seemed to have lost little of his handsome and elastic youthfulness during these months of imprisonment.
The prisoners were all, without exception, calm and composed. Even those few who, when they first set out, had wept and lamented, soon recovered their firmness when they saw that of their fellow-sufferers.
Cornelia herself was perfectly unmoved. Though she had no ground for that happy assurance and sustaining comfort, which her companions found in their confident faith, she was invincible through her stolid contempt for life which, now that all hope was over, seemed to petrify her spirit and her senses. To live without Quintus was simply impossible. If Fate would not relinquish this victim, if the dark sisters were inexorable to her overwhelming grief, she could have but one wish: to die with the man she loved. To be free from this torment, to vanish into nothingness; this was the one idea that possessed her soul. Even the horror of the last scene of all—the dishonor of standing as a spectacle to the gaping crowd, the agonizing pain under the fangs of the beasts—of all this she took no account. And so it came to pass that she, disbelieving and hopeless, she who so lately tore her hair like one demented—now, on the road to death, bore herself as bravely as the staunchest confessors of the Redeemer; nay, more bravely than some. And the passing glance, a look from soul to soul, that she had exchanged with Quintus as they came out of the prison—the first for so many weeks—had only fanned this passionate desire for annihilation and eternal rest to a fiercer flame.
That look had had a very different effect on her lover. After struggling in the loneliness of a dark cell, and triumphing at length over all that could chain him to life; after a hundred victories over every torture of mind and body, won in the glorious name of duty; the fervent Christian, who hoped confidently that the Son of God would support those who endured such dreadful torment through faith in his sufferings, and that he would, through these torments, work their salvation—this unwavering hero quailed as at a new grief, when he saw the wasted form of the beautiful young girl. For the first time, since Caesar’s message of impossible respite had been brought to him, the thought flashed through his brain: Three beasts! could it be hoped for? But the flash vanished before it could dazzle him.—A gladiator’s short blade and a Gaetulian lion! Verily it was only adding mockery to brutality, if Caesar called this mercy!
Nevertheless the idea had found place in his mind, and though his reason rejected it at once and absolutely, it haunted the background of his thoughts.
How greatly must Cornelia love him, if merely out of defiance, merely to force him to recant, she could declare her adherence to the doomed sect, whom in her heart she scorned. What self-immolation, worthy of the highest crown. Or had a ray of that saving light fallen on her heart? Quintus felt it a duty to be sure on this point. Now, in the face of death, she could not deny the divine truth of the doctrine of Salvation; if she still should do so, well, she must and should, at that supreme moment, speak the truth—deny the faith, save her life and learn to believe afterwards perhaps. He did not know, that Cornelia was guilty also of attempting Caesar’s life; that corrupt witnesses had represented this deed, not as a desperate stroke for self-defence, but as an act of revenge for her uncle’s exile, and that the verdict had pronounced it a crime in the first degree.
When they reached the vaulted cells of the Amphitheatre, the victims were relieved of their fetters and well supplied with food and drink, that they might not appear too miserable in face of the final catastrophe; some, indeed, who refused to eat, were compelled to do so by force. After this they were left to themselves. The two exits from the vaults were barred and guarded on the outside.
Then many a heart-rending scene took place in those damp and dimly-lighted caverns; in every corner there was a group, whispering, praying, weeping.
On a stone bench near the chief entrance sat our worthy Diphilus, his eyes fixed on his young wife, Euterpe, who was kneeling before him, her face hidden in his lap.
“And you forgive me?” she sobbed; “you forgive me for everything? Oh I have been very wicked; I have been a miserable sinner, and do not deserve that you should call me your wife.”