“You must. By all the gods, but you must! What? My son a traitor—to be the sport and gazing-stock of a cackling crowd, scorned and mocked at as a fool, and condemned to an ignominious death—? You are raving, boy! Come, away from this fetid cell. I command you!”
Titus Claudius gazed with agonized enquiry at his son’s pale face, which looked more and more petrified to marble.
“I cannot, Father!” That was all the bloodless lips could utter.
Then the despairing father fell on his knees and raised his hands in entreaty, like a criminal suing for mercy. Tears streamed down his distorted face, which looked ten years older for that hour’s anguish. He rent his robe, he tore his hair, he struck his forehead against the pavement. In heart-rending accents he implored his son—his only, beloved son, the star and joy of his life, not to make him so miserable—more miserable than ever man had been before in all this grief-stricken and strife-plagued world. He reminded him of the days of his infancy, when he had nursed him in his arms, lived, cared, and toiled only for his boy. And would this child, his Quintus, his all in all, doom him to this hideous fate?
The miserable man presented a pitiable sight.
“Oh Father,” cried Quintus, gasping for breath. “What have you done? Woe is me, I am a monster! That sacred head in the dust—compose yourself—you are driving me mad! O God, not yet! Father, I will obey you, I am yours henceforth. My soul’s salvation?—I give it up. You shall not suffer for my sake.”
Titus Claudius rose. The strong man was trembling like a child. With one passionate cry the father and son were clasped in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER XII.
The commander of the imperial guard, with a few officers and soldiers, received Quintus as he slowly went out through the heavy stone gate-way into the street, but his silent greeting was not altogether free from embarrassment. During the last few days events had occurred, which had thrown the worthy soldier off his balance. The intrigues of a court, with their underhand and mysterious details, were foreign to his nature. Out in the field, with the Dacian foe in front of him, he could avail himself of the ruses of war and the arts of strategy; but in peace, in the capital of the empire, this mode of action revolted and puzzled him. Such a measure as the wholesale arrest of senators and knights had never been adopted before, even under Domitian. And now this mysterious discovery of Quintus Claudius in the catacomb with the Nazarenes! Norbanus was wholly at a loss how to account for it. The high-priest had given him a very superficial and hasty explanation, and the whole thing might be either the device of some mortal enemy, or the result of some outrageous whim. Norbanus had long known the young man’s spirit and daring, though under different circumstances. A man, who could address a love-song to a vestal virgin, would be quite capable of playing the part of an adherent of the Nazarenes, particularly if among them there bloomed some rose of Palestine, whose beauty would suffer no drawback from the superstition of her people. To be sure—as they came out, the father and son together—their faces were too pale and grave for so light a matter. The worthy warrior had a grave feeling that, whatever had happened, he had not the key of the riddle and would be sure to say the wrong thing, so he wrapped himself in a dignified and significant silence, which each might interpret just as he pleased or as the case required. Quintus understood it to mean kindly sympathy and due considerateness, the Flamen took it for horror and disapproval, the tribunes and centurions attributed it to military severity and discipline.