CHAPTER XIII
THE ESQUILINE
With attentive ears, and faculties keenly on the stretch, Euchenor, lurking in the corner of the porch, listened to the foregoing conversation. When he gathered that Tiber-side was the direction the fugitives meant to take, his quick Greek intellect formed its plan of operation at once.
There was a post of his comrades, consisting of some of the gladiators purchased by Placidus, and placed there a few hours since by the orders of Hippias, in the direct road for that locality. He would follow the pair, noiseless and unsuspected, for he had no mind to provoke an encounter with the Briton till within reach of assistance, then give the alarm, seize the wayfarers, and appeal to the club-law they all held sacred, for his rights. Esca would be sure to defend the girl with his life, but he would be overpowered by numbers, and it would be strange if he could not be quieted for ever in the struggle. There would still be time enough, thought Euchenor, after his victory to join his comrades at the tribune’s table, leaving the girl to the tender mercies of the band. He could make some excuse for his absence to satisfy his companions, heated as they would by that time be with wine. Indeed, for his own part, he had no great fancy for the night’s adventure, promising as it did more hard knocks than he cared to exchange in a fight with the German guard, fierce blue-eyed giants, who would give and take no quarter. He did not wish, indeed, to lose his share of the plunder, for no one was more alive to the advantages of a full purse, but he trusted to his own dexterity for securing [pg 253]this, without running unnecessary risk. Meanwhile, it was his method to attend to one thing at a time; he waited impatiently, therefore, till Hippias entered the house, and left him at liberty to emerge from his hiding-place.
No sooner was the master’s back turned than the Greek sped into the street, glancing eagerly down its long vista, lying white in the moonlight, for the two dark figures he sought. Agile and noiseless as a panther, he skulked swiftly along under the shadow of the houses, till he reached the corner which a passenger would turn who was bound for Tiber-side. Here he made sure that he must sight his prey; but no, amongst the few wayfarers who dotted this less solitary district he looked in vain for Esca’s towering shoulders or the shrinking figure of the Jewess. In vain, like a hound, he quested to and fro, now casting forward upon a vague speculation, now trying back with untiring perseverance and determination. Like a hound, too, whose game has foiled him, he was obliged to slink home at length, ashamed and baffled, to the porch of the tribune’s house, inventing as he went a plausible excuse to host and comrades for his tardy appearance at the banquet. He had passed, nevertheless, within twenty paces of those he hunted, but he knew it not.
With the first rapture of intense joy for their escape, it was in the nature of Mariamne that her predominant feeling should be one of gratitude to Heaven for thus preserving both herself and him whose life was dearer to her than her own. In common with her nation, she believed in the constant and immediate interposition of the Almighty in favour of His servants; and the new faith, which was rapidly gaining ground in her heart, had tempered the awe in which His worshipper regards the Deity, with the implicit trust, and love, and confidence, entertained for its father by a child. Such feelings can but find an outlet in thanksgiving and prayer. Before Mariamne had gone ten paces from the tribune’s house, she stopped short, looked up in Esca’s face, and said: “Let us kneel together, and thank God for our deliverance.”
“Not here at least!” exclaimed the Briton, whose nerves, good as they were, had been somewhat unstrung by the vicissitudes of the night, and the apprehensions that had racked him for his beloved companion. “They may return at any moment. You are not safe even now. If you are so exhausted you cannot go on (for she was leaning heavily on his arm, and her head drooped), I will carry you in my [pg 254]arms from here to your father’s house. My love, I would carry you through the world.”
She smiled sweetly on him, though her face was very pale. “Let us turn in at this ruined gateway,” said she; “a few moments’ rest will restore me; and, Esca, I must give thanks to the God of Israel, who has saved both thee and me.”
They were near a crumbling archway, with a broken iron gate that had fallen in. It was on the opposite side of the street to the tribune’s house; and as they passed beneath its mouldering span, they saw that it formed an entrance into one of those wildernesses, which, after the great fire of Nero, existed here and there, not only in the suburbs, but at the very heart of Rome. They were, in truth, in that desolate waste which had once been the famous Esquiline Gardens, originally a burial-ground, and granted by Augustus to his favourite, the illustrious Mæcenas, to plant and decorate according to his prolific fancy and unimpeachable taste. That learned nobleman had taken advantage of his emperor’s liberality to build here a stately palace, which had not, however, escaped the great fire, and to lay out extensive pleasure-grounds, which had been devastated by the same calamity. Little, indeed, now remained, save the trees that had originally shadowed the Roman’s grave in the days of the old Republic. The “unwelcome cypresses” so touchingly described in his most reflective ode, by him whose genius Mæcenas fostered, and whose gratitude paid his princely patron back by rendering him immortal.
Many a time had Horace lounged in these pleasant shades, musing with quaint and varied fancies, half pathetic, half grotesque, on the business and the pleasures, the sunshine and the shadows, the aim and the end, of that to him inexplicable problem, a man’s short life. Here, too, perhaps, he speculated on the mythology, to the beauty of which his poetic imagination was so keenly alive, while his strong common sense and somewhat material character must have been so utterly incredulous of its truth. Nay, on this very spot did he not ridicule certain superstitions of his countrymen, with a coarseness that is only redeemed by its wit? and preserve, in pungent sarcasm, for coming ages, the memory of an indecent statue on the Esquiline, as he has preserved in sweet and glowing lines the glades of cool Præneste, or the terraced vineyards basking in the glare and glitter of noonday on Tibur’s sunny slopes? Here, [pg 255]perhaps, many a time may have been seen the stout sleek form, so round and well-cared for, with its clean white gown, and dainty shining head, crowned with a garland of festive roses, and not wanting, be sure, a festive goblet in its hand. Here may the poet have sat out many a joyous hour in the shade, with mirth, and song, and frequent sips of old Falernian, and a vague dreary fancy the while ever present, though unacknowledged—like a death’s-head at the banquet—that feast, and jest, and song could not last for ever, but that the time must come at length, when the empty jar would not be filled again, when the faded roses could be bound together no longer in a chaplet for the unconscious brows, and the string of the lyre, once snapped, must be silent henceforward for evermore. The very waterfall that had soothed its master to his noonday slumber in the drowsy shade, was now dried up, and in the cavity above, a heap of dusty rubbish alone remained, where erst the cool translucent surface shone, fair and smooth as glass. Weeds were growing rank and tall, where once the myrtle quivered and the roses bloomed. Where Chloe gambolled and where Lydia sang, the raven croaked and fluttered, and the night-owl screamed. Instead of velvet turf and trim exotic shrubs, and shapely statues framed in bowers of green, the nettle spread its festering carpet, and the dock put out its pointed leaf; and here and there a tombstone showed its slab of marble, smooth and grim, like a bone that has been laid bare. All was ruin or decay—a few short years had done the work of ages; and whether they waked or whether they slept, poet and patron had gone hence, never to return.