“Where is Septimus?” exclaimed one of the slaves as he rushed into the hall; “a lion has escaped from the amphitheatre—” he said, and trembled with fear.
“And has been chasing you, or you are frightened,” I replied. “Why hesitate? the door is closed.” He looked up, as if imploring my patience.
“Worse, worse,—Mobilius was found on the road that leads to the temple of Venus, upon Lebanon, mangled,—” here he was completely overpowered. Indeed, it was dreadful news, and I asked the man no further questions. Placidia sank senseless upon a couch, while Lucretia, greatly affected, endeavored to support her tottering frame. As soon as she was partially restored, I departed, and meeting Lactantius, who had been more active in his enquiries, he cheered me by a most agreeable piece of news, as compared with the hopeless story I had heard. It was only the mantle of Mobilius that had been found, and there was no blood upon it. I hastened to relieve the anxieties of my friends, and was ushered into the presence of Placidia, by her maid, who stood waiting for me under the portico.
I hastily told her what I had heard. After expressing her joy, she broke to me her story. “Servilius, my friend, for you must permit me to call you such, from your many acts of kindness I shall never be able to repay—”
“You cannot repay,” I whispered to myself, “oh! cruel Placidia.”
“There is something, which greatly troubles me, and some hidden prompter seems to tell me that by unburdening to you the cause of my sorrow, I shall find the speediest relief.”
My heart now beat high with expectation, “dare I hope?” I said to myself.
“It cannot be a dream,” she said, with her eyes fixed, and half-musing, as if for the moment unconscious of my presence. “It cannot be a dream—but I no sooner beheld the face of Mobilius, than the recollection of youth rushed upon my memory, and I thought of my brother and my sister, who have long slept with the perished. They were wrecked upon the coast of Africa, and none escaped to bear to mourning friends the brief story of their fate, but one, who, floating on a fragment of the vessel, was taken up as he was on the point of relinquishing his hold, from utter weakness, by a Syrian galley. Messengers were despatched, and my uncle himself undertook the risk and toil of a journey on our behalf. But all was in vain.”
“There is still an expectation to be cherished,” I said.
“Do you give hope?” said she, faintly smiling through her tears, “affection once clung to the feeblest support, but it has long since despaired.”