We entered beneath a small portico—and Silo drew a key from his bosom. The lock, after two or three trials, yielded to its pressure. A large empty hall received us, the circumference of which was scarcely visible by the light of the newly-risen moon, streaming down from a cupola.
Another and another sombre chamber we in like manner traversed, till at length Silo opened one so comparatively light, that I started back, apprehending we had intruded farther than he intended. A second glance, however, seemed to indicate that we were still in the region of desolation, for a statue lay in the midst of the floor, one of its limbs snapped over, as if it had fallen and been permitted to remain.
“Where are we, Silo?” I whispered, “what means this unnatural light among so many symptoms of confusion?”
“Sir,” said the freedman, “this is the place in which alone Domitian used to eat and sleep, and walk about for the last months of his life, when he was jealous of all men; and he contrived these walls, covered all over [pg 322]with the shining Ethiopian stone, that no one might be able to approach him without being discovered. Even when a slave entered, he would start as if every side of the chamber had been invaded by some host of men; fifty different reflections of one trembling eunuch. It was, they say, behind this shattered piece of marble that he ran when he had felt the first treacherous blow. Yonder in the corner is the couch he slept upon, and he had always a dagger under his head, and he called to the little page that was waiting upon him to fetch it from the place; but the scabbard only remained; and then in came Parthenius and Claudianus, and the gladiator, and the rest, who soon finished what the cunning Stephanus had begun. Let us go on;—we have not yet reached the place to which I wished to bring you—but it is not far off now.”
With this Silo walked to the end of the melancholy chamber, and pressing upon a secret spring, where no door was apparent, opened the way into a room, darker and smaller than any of those through which we had come. He then said to me, “Now, sir, you must not venture upon one whisper more—you touch on the very heart of Domitian’s privacy. It is possible that the place I have been leading you to may have been shut up—it may exist no longer; but the state in which all things are found here makes me think it more likely that Trajan has never been master of its secret. And in that case, we shall be able both to see and to hear, without being either seen or heard, exactly as Domitian used to do, when there was any council held either in the Mars or the Apollo.”
I started at the boldness of the project which now, [pg 323]for the first time, I understood; but Silo laid his finger on his lip again,—cautiously lifted up a piece of the dark-red cloth with which this chamber was hung,—and essayed another spring in the pannelling beneath. Total darkness appeared to be beyond; but the jailer motioning to me to remain for a moment where I was, and to keep up the hanging, glided boldly into the recess. I wondered how he should tread so lightly, that I could not perceive the least echo; but this no longer surprised me, when I had the sign to follow. The floor felt beneath my foot as if it were stuffed like a pillow; and, after I had dropped the hanging, every thing was totally dark, as it had at first appeared to me, except only at certain points, separate and aloft, which let in gleams of light, manifestly artificial. Silo, taking hold of me by the hand, conducted me up some steps towards the nearest of these tiny apertures; and, as I approached it, I heard distinctly the voices of persons talking together in the room beyond. I did not draw my breath, you may well believe, with much boldness; but my eye was soon fixed at one of the crevices, and, after the first dazzle was over, I saw clearly. Silo took his station by my side, gazing through another of these loop-holes, which, that you may understand every thing, were evidently quite concealed among the rich carved-work of an ivory cornice.
The chamber was lighted by three tall candelabra of silver, close beside one of which was placed a long table covered with an infinity of scrolls and tablets. One person, who had his back turned towards us, was writing, and two others, in one of whom I instantly [pg 324]recognized the Emperor, were walking up and down on the other side.
“No, Palma,” said Trajan, for it was that old favourite whom he addressed—“I have made up my mind as to this matter. I shall never permit any curious inquisition as to private opinion. Every man has a right, without question, to think—to believe—exactly what pleases him; and I shall concede as much in favour of every woman, Palma, if you will have it so. But it is totally a different affair, when the fact, no matter how, is forced upon my knowledge, that a subject, no matter who or what he be—a subject of the Roman empire, refuses to comply with the first, the elemental, and the most essential of the laws. The man—aye or the woman—that confesses in my presence contempt for the deities whom the commonwealth acknowledges in every step of its procedure—that person is a criminal; and I cannot dismiss him unpunished, without injuring the commonwealth by the display of weakness in its chief. As for these poor fanatics themselves, it is the penalty of my station that I must control my feelings.”
“But you are satisfied, my lord,” said Palma, “that these people are quite innocent as to Cotilius’s designs; and as it was upon that suspicion they were apprehended, perhaps it may be possible——”
“Yes, Palma,” interrupted the Prince; “quite possible and quite easy, provided they will condescend to save themselves by the most trivial acknowledgment of the sort which, I repeat to you, I do and must consider as absolutely necessary. And women too—and girls forsooth—I suppose you would have me wait till the [pg 325]very urchins on the street were gathering into knots to discuss the nature of the Gods.—Do you remember what Plato says?”—