Marcian threw his arms round the slighter form of his young friend, speaking some words in a low tone. Flavia rose and gazed eagerly in the face of the tribune, who shook his head mournfully as his reply; and Theodore hid his face in his mantle, while Eudochia burst into wild and weeping lamentations. Ildica's dark eyes overflowed in silence; and though Flavia let not one drop roll over the jetty fringes of her eyelids, her pale cheek grew paler, and her lip quivered with intense emotion. Marcian said no more, but gazed down sternly upon the hilt of his sword; and the only words that were uttered for some time were: "Alas, Paulinus!" which broke from the lip of Ammian.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE DEPARTURE.
It was a long and dreary pause; but at length the stern and virtuous soldier, who, ere many more years had passed, seated himself without crime or bloodshed in the chair of the Cæsars, laid his hand upon the arm of Theodore, with a firm but kindly pressure which spoke at once to a heart full of high feelings and of noble energies, and roused it from the dull stupor of sudden grief.
"Oh! Marcian," exclaimed the youth, "this is an unexpected stroke! So short a while since I saw him depart full of vigour, and life, and happiness. So short, so common a journey--so easy--so safe! How, tell me how this has befallen? Was it by sickness, or accident, or war with some rebel, or in the chase of some wild beast?"
"Alas, no!" replied Marcian; "it was by none of these, my son. Nor would I wound your young heart afresh by telling how it did take place, were it not absolutely necessary for you to know your father's fate, in order that you may gain an augury or a warning of your own, and timely prevent it."
"The emperor," cried Flavia, "the emperor has destroyed his faithful friend: Paulinus saw it before he went. Every line of his last letter breathes the anticipation of his coming fate. He saw it in the gloomy brow of Theodosius; he saw it in the smile of Chrysapheus; he felt that he was going, never to return. Say, tribune, say! was it not the emperor's deed?"
"Even so!" replied Marcian. "By the order of him whom he had served with unequalled fidelity and truth--the friend of his schoolboy hours, the companion of his high and noble studies--by the hands of those he thought his friends--hands that had been plighted to him in affection, and raised with his in battle--at his own social board, and in the hour of confiding tranquillity--was slain Paulinus, leaving not a nobler or a better behind."
Theodore again shed tears, but Flavia asked eagerly, "The cause, tribune! What was the cause--or rather, what the pretext for cause--reasonable cause there could be none for dooming to death one of the purest, noblest, least ambitious men that the world has ever yet seen."
"The cause was jealousy, lady," replied Marcian; "a cause that leads men ever to wild and madlike actions. In the gardens of the Cæsars, near their eastern capital, is a solitary tree, which bears fruit rarely; but when it does, produces an apple like that which hung in the garden of the children of Hesperus--small in size, golden in colour, and ambrosial to the taste. Paulinus had bestowed on Eudoxia a book, containing poems of Sappho, which no other manuscript can produce; and the empress, in return, had sportively promised her husband's friend the rarest thing that she could find to bestow. The tree of which I spoke had in the past autumn produced but one apple, and that was sent, on the entrance of the new year, by Theodosius to Eudoxia. She, in thoughtless innocence, sent it as the rarest of all things to Paulinus, and Chrysapheus took good heed that the fact should reach the emperor's ears, distorted to his purpose. Fury seized upon the heart of Theodosius; but the base eunuch had sufficient skill and power to make him conceal his suspicions and his hatred, for Chrysapheus well knew that an open accusation might produce a bold and successful defence. Paulinus was sent to Cæsarea; and there, unheard, without trial, and without justice, was put to death!"