“And no wonder,” retorted another. “Wealth and good fortune are poured into his lap! His whole life is sunshine. Even the affairs of state hardly trouble him at all; he has no ambitions—no fears—no anxieties. He plucks the present[87]—carpe diem, as Horace sings, and never for an instant troubles himself about the future. Who would not change with him!”
CHAPTER XI.
It was during the night following on the evening, which the guests of Parthenius spent in dissipation, that the fearful catastrophe took place of which the reader is already informed. Quintus Claudius and the whole congregation of Nazarenes were discovered and seized in the catacomb between the Via Appia and the Via Labicana.
We left our hero at the moment, when the procession of prisoners was setting out Rome-wards. It was a long and melancholy march through the solitude and gloom. No one spoke a word; only a suppressed sob or a groan of anguish now and then broke the oppressive silence. With what emotion did Quintus cross the bridge over the Almo, which he had walked over once before, that night when he had rescued Eurymachus. He did his best to banish all memories, all fears—nay, all hopes—and to fix his mind unswervingly on one thought alone: that his life and fate were in the hands of God.
But it was hard, very hard, to school his struggling soul to composure. Again and again an image rose before him, which threatened to undermine his self-control—an agonized face—the features of his beloved, oh! so-devotedly loved father. And then again the voices, the shouts of a vast multitude rang in his ears—he was in the arena—face to face with ravening beasts—defenseless, alone, forsaken, delivered over to a fearful death.
It was impossible!... He, a son of the ancient and noble house of Claudia! No, never! That father could never give up his only son to be torn limb from limb. Perhaps this would end in salvation for all, perhaps his arrest meant liberty for all his companions. If he, Quintus Claudius, could swear fidelity to the creed of the Nazarene, was it not at once and forever purged of all suspicion of hostility to the State? Could any one think of him—the richest and most envied youth of the imperial city—as a foe to social order? Certainly his father could see and understand how greatly the government had erred; the faith that had been so blindly condemned, would be granted a hearing, and the law which had but just been passed for its suppression, would be trampled under foot.
And in spite of his will, these pictures chased each other through his excited brain, terrors and hopes in rapid alternation, till, at last, their destination was reached: the Mamertine prison[88] at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. Then he had no thoughts but for the horrors of the present.
Here, in the very heart of the splendid capital, in sight of gorgeous temples and pillared halls—which, lighted at this hour by torches, looked even more imposing than by day—in view of the imperial palace he had so often entered as Caesar’s guest and friend—here he must be swallowed up, as it were, as a malefactor in the horrible gulf of the Tullianum![89] The thought was unendurable; he was on the point of making a desperate resistance to the centurion’s word of command. But his eye fell on the calm and happy face of the blind man—and in that instant the picture, which the old disciple had set before his hearers with such startling reality, rose before the young man’s soul.
“It must be endured to the end,” said he to himself. “To be sure, at eighty a man’s heart does not throb with such keen pain as at twenty.”