CHAPTER V.
I had hurried along the darkening streets, and up the ascent of the Capitoline, scarce listening to the story of the Cretan. On reaching the summit, we found the courts about the Temple of Jupiter already occupied by detachments of foot. I hastened to the Mammertine—and before the postern opened to admit us, the Prætorian squadron had drawn up at the great gate. Sabinus beckoned me to him. “Caius,” said he, stooping on his horse, “would to heaven I had been spared this duty! Cotilius comes forth this moment, and then we go back to the Palatine; and I fear—I fear we are to guard thither your Athanasia. If you wish to enter the prison, quicken your steps.”
We had scarcely entered the inner-court, ere Sabinus also, and about a score of his Prætorians, rode into it. Silo and Boto were standing together; and both had already hastened towards me; but the jailer, seeing the Centurion, was constrained to part from me with one hurried word:—“Pity me, for I also am most wretched. But you know the way—here, take this key—hasten to my dear lady, and tell her what commands have come.”
Alas! I said I to myself, of what tidings am I doomed [pg 315]ever to be the messenger!—but she was alone; and how could I shrink from any pain that might perhaps alleviate hers? I took the key, glided along the corridors, and stood once more at the door of the chamber in which I had parted from Athanasia. No voice answered to my knock; I repeated it three times, and then, agitated with indistinct apprehension, hesitated no longer to open it. No lamp was burning within the chamber, but from without there entered a wavering glare of deep saffron-coloured light, which shewed me Athanasia extended on her couch. Its ominous and troubled hue had no power to mar the image of her sleeping tranquillity. I hung over her for a moment, and was about to disturb that slumber—perhaps the last slumber of peace and innocence—when the chamber-walls were visited with a yet deeper glare. “Caius,” she whispered, as I stepped from beside the couch; “why do you leave me? stay, Valerius.” I looked back, but her eye-lids were still closed; the same calm smile was upon her dreaming lips. The light streamed redder and more red. All in an instant became as quiet without as within. I approached the window, and saw Cotilius standing in the midst of the court; Sabinus and Silo near him; the horsemen drawn up on either side, and a soldier close behind resting upon an unsheathed sword. I saw the keen blue eye as fierce as ever. I saw that the blood was still fervid in his cheeks: for the complexion of this man was of the same bold and florid brightness so uncommon in Italy, which you have seen represented in the pictures of Sylla, and even the blaze of the torches seemed to strive in vain to heighten its natural scarlet. The soldier had lifted his sword, and [pg 316]my eye was fixed, as by fascination, when suddenly a deep voice was heard amidst the deadly silence—“Cotilius!—look up, Cotilius!”
Aurelius, the Christian priest, standing at an open window, not far distant from that at which I was placed, stretched forth his fettered hand as he spake:—“Cotilius! I charge thee, look upon the hand from which the blessed water of baptism was cast upon thy head. I charge thee, look upon me, and say, ere yet the blow be given, upon what hope thy thoughts are fixed?—Is this sword bared against the rebel of Cæsar, or a martyr of Jesus?—I charge thee, speak; and for thy soul’s sake speak truly.”
A bitter motion of derision passed over his lips, and he nodded, as if impatiently, to the Prætorian. Instinctively I turned me from the spectacle, and my eye rested again upon the couch of Athanasia—but not upon the vision of her tranquillity. The clap with which the corpse fell upon the stones had, perhaps, reached the sleeping ear, and we know with what swiftness thoughts chase thoughts in the wilderness of dreams. So it was that she started at the very moment when the blow was given; and she whispered—for it was still but a deep whisper—“Spare me, Trajan, Cæsar, Prince—have pity on my youth—strengthen, strengthen me good Lord!—Fie! fie! we must not lie to save life. Felix—Valerius—come close to me, Caius—Fie! let us remember we are Romans—’Tis the trumpet——”
The Prætorian trumpet sounded the march in the court below, and Athanasia, starting from her sleep, gazed wildly around the reddened chamber. The blast of the trumpet was indeed in her ear—and Valerius [pg 317]hung over her—but after a moment the cloud of the broken dream passed away, and the maiden smiled as she extended her hand to me from the couch, and began to gather up the ringlets that floated all down upon her shoulder. She blushed and smiled mournfully, and asked me hastily whence I came, and for what purpose I had come; but before I could answer, the glare that was yet in the chamber seemed anew to be perplexing her: and she gazed from me to the red walls, and from them to me again: and then once more the trumpet was blown, and Athanasia sprung from her couch. I know not in what terms I was essaying to tell her what was the truth, but I know that ere I had said many words, she discovered my meaning. For a moment she looked deadly pale, in spite of all the glare of the torch-beams; but she recovered herself, and said in a voice that sounded almost as if it came from a light heart,—“But Caius, I must not go to Cæsar, without having at least a garland on my head. Stay here, Valerius, and I shall be ready anon—quite ready.”
It seemed to me as if she were less hasty than she had promised, yet many minutes elapsed not ere she returned. She plucked a blossom from her hair as she drew near to me, and said, “Take it: you must not refuse one token more; this also is a sacred gift. Caius, you must learn never to look upon it without kissing these red streaks—these blessed streaks of the Christian flower.”
I took the flower from her hand, and pressed it to my lips; and I remembered that the very first day I saw Athanasia, she had plucked such an one, when apart from all the rest, in the gardens of Capito. I told her [pg 318]what I remembered; and it seemed as if the little circumstance had called up all the image of peaceful days; for once more sorrowfulness gathered upon her countenance. If the tear was ready, however, it was not permitted to drop; and Athanasia returned again to her flower.