Under the five tall cypresses, and partly reclining on the bank that sloped to the bright Hyader, sat the group from which those sounds proceeded. It was separated, indeed, into two distinct parts; for--with a very short space of green turf between them and those they served--lay stretched out in various attitudes, some raising the head upon the hand, some reclining the chest upon the folded arms, some supported on the elbow, eight or nine slaves of both sexes.
There was nothing, however, in the countenances of any there which spoke of the bitterness of slavery. There were no signs in their faces or their demeanour of the iron entering into their soul; and though, perhaps, no portion of human nature is originally so debased, and no condition of bondage can be rendered so gentle, that the chain will not gall and the load will not oppress, yet the lot was then common, and the accursed name of slave comprehended nearly, if not fully, one half of the earth's denizens. In the faces of those who lay stretched easily but not intrusively beside those to whom they were bound by that inhuman tie, there might be traced a line of care--perhaps a shade, it might be, of melancholy--gathered by long-preserved and fruitless remembrances of scenes, and objects, and persons far away; and on none, but the countenance of one white-teethed Nubian girl, and a young glad boy, whose life was in the present hour, and to whose mind the past and the future were but a vapoury cloud, was seen the light and laughing merriment of a heart which has known no sorrows in the past. With all the rest, contentment with their lot seemed chastened by griefs experienced and gone by. They could smile, they could sing when occasion called for mirth. Their minds were not irresponsive to sights or sounds of joy; but with them it was from the well, not the fountain, that the sweet waters of enjoyment sprung: they sparkled not up spontaneously, but required to be drawn forth by the hand of another.
Yet if one, remembering their bondage, turned to gaze upon the group near which they sat, the condition of their feelings was easily understood; for the forms and faces that were there--not in the outward lineaments alone, but in the beaming forth of the divine spirit, as much expressed in the air and movements of the whole body as in the heart's interpreter, the face--told that the taskmasters were of that kindly nobility of soul which, in after years, won for a whole class (that did not always merit the distinction) that most expressive name of gentle.
Under the cypresses, not exactly where the shade fell--for the sun, near the horizon, had lost his meridian heat, and the western breeze swept over the cool bright waters of the Adriatic--were seated three women and a boy of some fourteen years of age. They were evidently of the highest race of the land in which they lived; and had nothing else bespoken their rank, the broad deep border of purple, of triple die, which edged the snowy robe of the eldest of the party, would have distinguished her as a Roman lady of patrician blood. She was scarcely beyond the middle age; and time had treated her beauty leniently. Somewhat of the elastic grace, and all the slight pliant outline of early youth, was gone, but in contour and dignity much, too, had been gained; and the eye, more calm and fixed, was as bright and lustrous, the teeth as white and perfect, as ever. The hair, drawn up and knotted on the crown of the head, was still full and luxuriant; but, meandering through its dark and wavy masses, might here and there be seen a line of silver gray; while the cheek, which had once been as warm and glowing as the morning dawn of her own radiant land, sorrows calmly borne, but not the less deeply felt, had rendered as pale as the twilight of the evening just ere night reigns supreme.
Her dress was plain and unadorned, of the finest materials and the purest hues; but the gems and ornaments then so common were altogether absent. The consciousness of beauty, which she might once have felt, was now altogether forgotten; its vanity she had never known. As much grace as health, perfect symmetry of form, and noble education from infancy could give, she displayed in every movement; but it was the calm and matronly grace, where all is ease, and tranquillity, and self-possession. The same placid charm reigned in the expression of her countenance. She seemed to look with benevolence on all. Nay, more, as if the sorrows which had reached her in her high station had taught her that in every bosom, however well concealed, there is, or will be, some store of grief, some memory, some regret, some disappointment, there mingled with the gentleness of her aspect an expression of pity, or, perhaps, its better name were sympathy, which existed really within, and formed a tie between her heart and that of every other human thing.
She was, indeed, to use the beautiful words of the poet, "kind as the sun's bless'd influence."[[2]] Yet the bright dark eye, the proud arching lip, and the expansive nostrils, seemed to speak of a nature originally less calm, of days when the spirit was less subdued. Time and grief, however, are mighty tamers of the most lion-like heart; and it was with that look of pity, mingling with tender pleasure, that she gazed down upon a beautiful girl of, perhaps, thirteen years of age, who, leaning fondly on her knees, as the hymn concluded, looked up in her face for sympathetic feelings, while the sweet sounds still trembled on her full rosy lips.
Between the matron and the girl there was little resemblance, except inasmuch as each was beautiful; and though the lineaments, perhaps, regarded as mere lines, took in some degree the same general form, yet there were too many shades of difference to admit the idea that those two fair beings stood in the dear relationship of mother and child, although the fond, relying, clinging affection displayed in the looks of the younger, and the tender anxiety of the matron's smile as she gazed down upon her companion's face, argued affections no less strong between them than such a tie might have produced.
Eudochia--for so was the younger called--offered a lovely specimen of that sort of beauty which, however rare in Italy even now, when the native blood of the children of the land has been mingled with that of many of the fair-haired nations of the north, we find from the writings of Petronius to have been not uncommon in his days. Her hair was of a light brown, with a golden gleam upon it, as if, wherever it bent in its rich wavy curls, it caught and shone in the bright rays of the sun. Her eyes were of a soft hazel, though the long, sweeping black lashes made them look darker than they were: but her skin was of that brilliant fairness which did indeed exceed the
"Expolitum ebur indicum;"
and the rose glowed through it on the cheeks, as pure and clear as in those lands where the veiled sun shines most soft and tenderly. Her features were, indeed, more Greek than Roman; but her complexion spoke, and not untruly, of a mixture in her veins of what was then called barbarian blood by the proud children of the empire. Her mother had been the daughter of a German prince in alliance with Rome; but the Romans of that day had learned to envy the noble Paulinus his success with the beautiful child of the wealthy and powerful barbarian chief. Too short a time, indeed, had their union lasted; for though Eudochia had drawn her first nourishment from her mother's bosom, yet, six months after her birth, the fair wife of Paulinus had left him to mourn her death with two motherless children. He had continued to hold her memory in solitary affection, filling up, as is so common with man, the vacant place left by love in the shrine of his heart with the darker and sterner form of ambition; and while he led forward his son Theodore in the same path, he left his daughter on the Dalmatian shore, with one whose kindred blood and generous nature ensured to the fair girl all a mother's tenderness and a mother's care. For her alone the lips of Eudochia had learned to pronounce those sweetest of words, my mother--for her alone had her heart learned to feel the thrill of filial love.