CHAPTER IV.
Crispus then turned to go towards the house.
"What dost thou wish to do?? asked Fulvius.
"To ask Felicitas if there is no writing, no evidence of emancipation"----but the young husband stopped him.
"No, no! She must know nothing about it. The poor, tender, helpless, happy child! It would crush her--this horrid plot!"
"How wilt thou prevent her knowing it, when it will to-morrow be carried out? For I do not doubt it is all correct what the usurer says of the tax-dues and of his purchase of the property. And that is not the worst. Thou canst fly, as so many thousand debtors have already, to the mountains, to the forests, to the barbarians, for aught I care. Leave him here the heap of stones."
"The house of my parents! the place where we have been so happy!"
"You can be happy elsewhere, when you come together again. But Felicitas with the infant--she cannot yet share thy flight. She must stay, and can stay with me. And that, I hope, can be arranged; for I have no doubt about the emancipation. The old people did not fabricate it. It is only the evidence that we want--the evidence!"
"The letter of emancipation is burnt; that is certain; burnt with the few ornaments and savings of the parents. They often told us about it. They had put all their valuables in a little box of cedar-wood, under the cushions of the bed, in their own room. In the night that the despairing tax-debtors and the peasants, the beasts of burden of the great landlords, had broken out in riot, the old people had, with the child, hastened into the street to inquire the cause of the fearful noise. They ran forward to the corner of the Vulcan market. Another crowd of fighting peasants and soldiers then poured in from behind, cutting off their return. The wooden storehouses of the small tradesmen that lived there, were set on fire. It was two days before they could return to their house, and then it was almost entirely burnt out; under the half-carbonised cushions of the bed, they found two melted gold pieces and the iron mounting of the cedar-box, yet glowing, and round about ashes:--from the wood of the box and its contents."
"The writing was not to be found?"