CHAPTER XII
A MASTER OF FENCE
Hippias knew well how to maintain discipline amongst his followers. While he interested himself keenly in their training and personal welfare, he permitted no approach to familiarity, and above all never suffered a syllable of discussion on a command, or a moment’s hesitation in its fulfilment. He came now to put himself at their head for the carrying out of a hazardous and important enterprise. The consciousness of coming danger, especially when it is of a kind with which habit has rendered him familiar, and which practice has taught him to baffle by his own skill and courage, has a good moral effect on a brave man’s character. It cheers his spirits, it exalts his imagination, it sharpens his intellects, and, above all, it softens his heart. Hippias felt that to-night he would need all the qualities he most prized to carry him safely through his task—that while failure must be inevitable destruction, success would open out to him a career of which the ultimate goal might be a procuratorship or even a kingdom. How quickly past, present, and possible future, flitted through his brain! It was not so long since his first victory in the amphitheatre! He remembered, as if it were but yesterday, the canvas awnings, the blue sky, and the confused mass of faces, framing that dazzling sweep of sand, all of which his sight took in at once, though his eyes were fixed on those of the watchful Gaul, whom he disarmed in a couple of passes, and slew without the slightest remorse. He could feel again, even now, the hot breath of the Libyan tiger, as he fell beneath it, choked with sand and covered by his buckler, stabbing desperately at that sinewy chest in which the life seemed to lie so deep. The tiger’s claws had left their marks upon his brawny shoulder, but he had risen from the contest victorious, and Red and Green through the whole crowded building, from the senators’ cushions to the slaves’ six inches of standing-room, cheered him to a man. After this triumph, who such a favourite with the Roman people as handsome Hippias? Again, he was the centre of [pg 246]all observation, as, confessedly the head of his profession, he set in order Nero’s cruel shows, and catered with profuse splendour for the tastes of Imperial Rome. Yes, he had reached the pinnacle of a gladiator’s fame, and from that elevation a prospect opened itself that he had scarcely even dreamed of till now. A handful of determined men, a torch or two for every score of blades, a palace in flames, a night of blood (he only hoped and longed that there might be resistance enough to distinguish strife from murder), another dynasty, a grateful patron, and a brave man’s services worthily acknowledged and repaid. Then the future would indeed smile in gorgeous hues. Which of Rome’s dominions in the East would most fully satisfy the thirst for royal luxury that he now experienced for the first time? In which of his manlier qualities was he so inferior to the Jew, that Hippias the gladiator should make a lowlier monarch than Herod the Great? and men had not done talking of that warlike king, even now!—his wisdom, his cruelty, his courage, his splendour, and his crimes. A Roman province was but another name for an independent government. Hippias saw himself enthroned in the blaze of majesty under a glowing Eastern sky. Life offering all it had to give of pomp and pageantry and rich material enjoyment. Slaves, horses, jewels, banquets, dark-eyed women, silken eunuchs, and gaudy guards with burnished helmets and flashing shields of gold. Nothing wanting, not even one with whom to share the glittering vision. Valeria would be his. Valeria was born to be a queen. It would, indeed, be a triumph to offer the half of a throne to the woman who had hitherto condescended by listening to his suit. There was a leavening of generosity in Hippias that caused him to reflect with intense pleasure on the far deeper homage he would pay her after so romantic a consummation of his hopes. He felt as if he could almost love her then, with the love he had experienced in his boyhood—that boyhood which seemed now to have been another’s rather than his own. He had put it away long since, and it had not come back to him for years till to-day; but gratified vanity, the pleasure which most hearts experience in grasping an object that has been dangling out of reach, beyond all, the power exerted by a woman, over one who has been accustomed to consider himself either above or below such pleasing influences, had softened him strangely, and he hardly felt like the same man who made his bargain with the tribune for a certain quantity of flesh and blood and mettle, so short a time ago.
It is not to be thought, however, that in his dreams of the future, the fencing-master neglected the means by which that future was to be attained. He had mustered and prepared his band with more than common care; had seen with his own eyes that their arms were bright and sharp and fit for work; had placed them at their appointed posts and visited them repeatedly, enjoining, above all things, extreme vigilance and sobriety. Not one of those men saw beneath his unruffled brow and quiet stern demeanour anything unusual in the conduct of their leader; not one could have guessed that schemes of ambition far beyond any he had ever cherished before, were working in his brain—that a strange, soft, kindly feeling was nestling at his heart. He stood in the moonlight amongst his followers, calm, abrupt, severe as usual; and when Hirpinus looked into his stern set face, the hopes of the old gladiator fell as did his countenance, but Mariamne perceived at once with a woman’s eye something that taught her an appeal to his pity on this occasion would not be made in vain.
With habitual caution, his first proceeding was to count the band ere he took note of the two figures in their centre. Then he cast a scrutinising glance at their arms to satisfy himself all were ready for immediate action. After that he turned with a displeased air to Hirpinus, and asked—
“What doth the woman amongst us? You heard my orders this morning? Who brought her here?”
Half a dozen voices were raised at once to answer the master’s question; only he to whom it was especially addressed kept silence, knowing the nature with which he had to do. Hippias raised but his sheathed sword and the clamour ceased. Not a maniple in all Rome’s well-drilled legions seemed in better discipline than this handful of desperate men. Then he turned to Esca, still speaking in short incisive tones.
“Briton!” said he, “you are not one of us to-night. Go your ways in peace!”
“Well said!” shouted the gladiators. “He is no comrade of ours! He hath no share in our spoil!”