“You are wrong, my boy; I do know,” cried Cracis; “and I may answer you and say, neither do you know what it is for me to give up my happy home and all belonging to me, to go hence never to return.”
“Oh, I do, I do, father! I can feel that it must be terrible,” cried the boy, excitedly; “but there is no need for you to go alone. I know how young I am, but I could be of great help to you. I am sure I could. So pray, pray don’t leave me behind.”
“Is that all you have to say, Marcus?” said Cracis, sternly.
“Ye–e–es, father,” faltered the boy, in a despairing tone, for he could read plainly enough in his father’s eyes that his appeal had been in vain.
“Then leave me now, boy, and do not make my task harder by speaking like this again. I have my duty to do towards my country and my home. My duty to my country is to follow Caius Julius in the great venture he is about to attempt; my duty to my home and son is to leave you here and not expose you, at your age, to the horrors of this war.”
“But father!” cried the boy, wildly.
“Silence, boy!” said Cracis, firmly. “Obey me. I will hear no more. Go!”
Marcus’ lips parted to make one more appeal, but, as his eyes met his father’s where Cracis stood pointing towards the door, his own fell again, and feeling mastered, crushed in his despair, he moved slowly towards the door, his heart seeming to rise to his throat to strangle him in the intense emotion from which he suffered; but, as soon as he was outside, his elastic young spirit seemed to spring up again, and he hurried to his room, to stand there thinking, with the resolve to make one more strong effort to move his father’s determination.
“He does not—he cannot know what I feel,” he said to himself with energy. “I did not half try. I should have thrown myself at his feet and prayed to him. No, no,” said the boy, mournfully, as he felt more and more the hopelessness of his cause. “It would have been no good. Father is like iron in his will; he is so strong, I am so weak—He a great man—I only a poor, feeble boy to be left behind to mind the house, as if I were a girl! Oh, it’s of no use; I must stay—I must stay!” he half groaned, in his despair. “When perhaps I might help him so, I and Serge, when he was in the fight, or—oh, if he were wounded! Suppose he were cut down and bleeding, perhaps dying, and I not there to help him! Oh, it’s of no use to despair; I must—I will go. I know! I’ll appeal to Caius Julius; he will hear me, I feel sure.”
Full of enthusiasm once more, he hurried out of his room to seek for the visitor, who had wrought such a change in their quiet home; but, as he caught sight of him pacing slowly up and down the little inner court close to the fountain, the boy’s heart failed him again, for he recalled the angry passage that had taken place between them the previous day—their visitor’s half-mocking words, and his own burst of passion, which had roused him into forgetting the sacred rites of hospitality and raising his hand to strike.