Valerius. A Roman Story

by J. G. Lockhart

As we advanced among the funereal monuments which line the Appian Way on either side, Dromo stood still every now and then for a moment, as if to listen; but whatever he might have heard, or expected to hear, I perceived nothing, except here and there the howl of a dog, or the lazy hooting of the night-owl, from the top of some of the old cypresses that rose between us and the moon.

At last he seemed to catch the sound he had been expecting, for he started suddenly; and laying his finger on his lip, crept to the parapet.

The ground behind was more desolate of aspect than any part of that which we had traversed—stoney and hard, with here and there tufts of withered fern; and immediately below the wall two human figures were visible. The one was sitting on the ground, wrapped in a dark cloak which entirely concealed the countenance: the other was a half-naked boy, holding in a string a little new-shorn lamb, which with one of his hands he continually caressed. But forthwith the sitter arose, and throwing away the cloak, displayed the gray tangled tresses of an old woman, and two strong boney arms, one of which was stretched forth with an impatient gesture towards the stripling, while the other was pointed upwards to the visible moon. “Strike,” said she, “strike deeply—beware lest the blood tinge your feet or your hands;”—and I recognized at once the voice of the same Pona that had [pg 203]attracted my notice in the morning, at the foot of the Palatine.

The boy drew forth instantly a knife from his bosom, whose glittering blade was buried in the throat of the yearling, and it was then first that I perceived a small ditch dug between the boy and the woman, into which, the lamb’s throat being held over it, the blood was made to drop from the wound. So surely had the blow been given, that not one bleat escaped from the animal, and so deeply, that the blood flowed in a strong stream, dashing audibly upon the bottom of the trench. And while it was dropping, the old woman muttering a sort of chant to Hecate, as I gathered, showered from her girdle I know not what of bones or sticks, mingled with leaves and roots, which afterwards she seemed to be stirring about in the blood with one of the tall strong stems of the fern that grew there. The wildness of her gestures was such, that I could not doubt she had herself some faith in the efficacy of the foul charms to which she had resorted; nor could I see her stirring that trench of innocent blood, without remembering the still more ruthless charms, whose practice the poets of Italy have ascribed to such hoary enchantresses. The dreariness of the midnight wind, too, as it whistled along the bare and steril soil around us, and the perpetual variations in the light, by reason of the careering of those innumerable clouds, and the remembrance of the funereal purposes for which, as it seemed, all this region was set apart—the whole of this together produced, I know not how, a certain pressure upon my spirits, and I confess to you, I felt, kneeling there by the side of my now trembling Cretan, as if I owed him no [pg 204]great thanks for having brought me that night beyond the Capene Gate.

It seemed as if the goddess, to whom the witch’s song had been addressed, did not listen to it with favourable ear; for the clouds gathered themselves more thickly than ever, while the wind howled only more loudly among the tombs, and the half-scared owl sent up a feebler hooting. Notwithstanding, the old woman continued fixed in the same attitude of expectation, and the stripling still held the well-nigh drained throat of his lamb above the trench. By degrees, however, the patience of both seemed to be exhausted; and there arose between them an angry altercation. “Infernal brat of Hades!” quoth the witch, “look ye, if you have not stained your filthy hands, and if the thirsty shadows be not incensed, because you have deprived them of some of the sweet blood which they love!”—“Curse not me, mother,” replied the boy—“Did you think, in truth, that the blood of a stolen lamb would ever propitiate Hecate?”—“Imp!” quoth she, “Hold thy peace, or I will try whether no other blood may make the charm work better!”—“Beware!” quoth the boy, leaping backwards—“beware what you do! I am no longer so weak that I must bear all your blows.”

“Stop,” cried I, “for there are eyes that you think not of, to take note of your wickedness;” and in my vehemence I shook one of the great loose stones that were on the top of the wall, which rolled down and bounded into the ditch beside them; and the woman, huddling her cloak over her head, began to run swiftly away from us, along the wall over which we were leaning. The boy only stood still for a moment, and [pg 205]looked upwards towards the place where we were, and then he also fled, but in the opposite direction; and Dromo said to me in a very piteous whisper, but not till both were out of sight,—“Heaven and earth! was ever such madness as to scare the witch from her incantation? Alas! for you and for me, sir—and, most of all, alas for Sextus—for I fear me after this we shall have no luck in counteracting the designs of Rubellia.”

“Rubellia! what? can you possibly imagine Rubellia to have any thing to do with this madness?”

“Imagine?” quoth he; “do you need to be told, that if things had gone well with that woman and her ditch, we should never have been able to preserve Sextus from her clutches?”

“By the rod of Hermes, good Dromo!” said I, “this will never do. I shall believe much on your credit, but not things quite so extravagant as this.”

He made no reply save a long, incredulous, and, I think, contemptuous whistle, which seemed to reach the ears of every owl between us and the Appian; with such a hooting and screeching did they echo its note from every cypress. And when Dromo heard that doleful concert, his dread redoubled within him, for he shook from head to foot, while I held his arm in mine; until, at last, he seemed to make one violent effort, and springing on his feet, said—“Come, Master Valerius, let us behave after all like men!”—I smiled when he said so—“The hour has not yet come, if my Calabrian friend is to be trusted, at which the lady was to visit Pona in her dwelling. It is but daring a little more. If she has seen and known us already, then nothing can endanger us farther; and if she hath not, we may [pg 206]escape again.”—“Well spoken,” said I, “most shrewd Dromo, and like yourself; but what is it that you would have us to do?”—“The first thing,” he replied, “is what has already been too long delayed.”