Chapter X

Mamercus Guards the Door

I

Agias left Phaon in the clutches of the landlord and his subordinates and was reasonably certain that since the freedman had not a farthing left with which to bribe his keepers, he was out of harm's way for the time being. The moon was risen, and guided by its light the young slave flew on toward Praeneste without incident. Whatever part of the conspirator's plans depended on Phaon was sure to collapse. For the rest, Agias could only warn Drusus, and have the latter arm his clients and slaves, and call in his friends from the town. With such precautions Dumnorix could hardly venture to risk himself and his men, whatever might be the plot.

Thus satisfied in mind, Agias arrived at the estate of the Drusi, close to Praeneste, and demanded admittance, about two hours before midnight. He had some difficulty in stirring up the porter, and when that worthy at last condescended to unbar the front door, the young Greek was surprised and dismayed to hear that the master of the house had gone to visit a farm at Lanuvium, a town some fifteen miles to the south. Agias was thunderstruck; he had not counted on Drusus being absent temporarily. But perhaps his very absence would cause the plot to fail.

"And what time will he return?" asked Agias.

"What time?" replied the porter, with a sudden gleam of intelligence darting up in his lack-lustre eyes. "We expect he will return early to-morrow morning. But the road from Lanuvium is across country and you have to skirt the Alban Mount. He may be rather late in arriving, drives he ever so hard."

"Hercules!" cried the agitated messenger. "My horse is blown, and I don't know the road in the dark. Send, I pray you--by all the gods--to Lanuvium this instant."

"Aye," drawled the porter, "And wherefore at such an hour?"

"It's for life and death!" expostulated Agias.

The porter, who was a thick-set, powerful man, with a bristly black beard, and a low forehead crowned by a heavy shock of dark hair, at this instant thrust out a capacious paw, and seized Agias roughly by the wrist.

"Ha, ha, ha, young cut-throat! I wondered how long this would last on your part! Well, now I must take you to Falto, to get the beginning of your deserts."

"Are you mad, fellow?" bawled Agias, while the porter, grasping him by the one hand, and the dim lamp by the other, dragged him into the house. "Do you know who I am? or what my business is? Do you want to have your master murdered?"

"_Perpol!_ Not in the least. That's why I do as I do. Tell your story to Falto. _Eho!_ What's that you've got under your cloak?" And he pounced upon a small dagger poor Agias had carried as a precaution against eventualities. "I imagine you are accustomed to use a little knife like this." And the fellow gave a gleeful chuckle.

It was in vain that Agias expostulated and tried to explain. The porter kept him fast as a prisoner, and in a few moments by his shouts had aroused the whole sleeping household, and stewards, freedmen, and slaves came rushing into the atrium. Candelabra blazed forth. Torches tossed. Maids screamed. Many tongues were raised in discordant shout and question. At last order was in some measure restored. Agias found himself before a tribunal composed of Falto, the subordinate _villicus_,[111] as chief judge, and two or three freedmen to act in capacity of assessors. All of this bench were hard, grey-headed, weazened agriculturists, who looked with no very lenient eye upon the delicate and handsome young prisoner before them. Agias had to answer a series of savagely propounded questions which led he knew not whither, and which he was almost too bewildered to answer intelligently. The true state of the case only came over him by degrees. These were the facts. Drusus had known that there was a conspiracy against his life, and had taken precautions against poisoning or being waylaid by a small band of cut-throats such as he imagined Ahenobarbus might have sent to despatch him. He had not expected an attack on the scale of Dumnorix's whole band; and he had seen no reason why, accompanied by the trusty Mamerci and Cappadox, he should not visit his Lanuvian farm. The whole care of guarding against conspirators had been left to Marcus Mamercus, and that worthy ex-warrior had believed he had taken all needed precautions. He had warned the porter and the other slaves and freedmen to be on the lookout for suspicious characters, and had let just enough of the plot--as it was known to him--leak out, to put all the household on the _qui vive_ to apprehend any would-be assassin of their beloved young master. But with that fatuity which often ruins the plans of "mice and men," he had failed to inform even his subordinate Falto of the likelihood of Agias arriving from Rome. It had obviously been desirable that it should not be bruited among the servants that Cornelia and Drusus were still communicating, and when Agias was haled into the atrium, his only identification was by some over-zealous slave, who declared that the prisoner belonged to the familia of Lentulus Crus, the bitter foe of their master.

[111] Farm steward.

With senses unduly alert the porter, as soon as he was aroused from his slumbers, had noticed that evening that Agias had come on some unusual business, and that he was obviously confused when he learned that Drusus was not at home. With his suspicions thus quickened, every word the luckless Greek uttered went to incriminate him in the mind of the porter. Agias was certainly an accomplice in the plot against Drusus, sent to the house at an unseasonable hour, on some dark errand. The porter had freely protested this belief to Falto and his court, and to support his indictment produced the captured dagger, the sure sign of a would-be murderer. Besides, a large sum of gold was found on Agias's person; his fast Numidian horse was still steaming before the door--and what honest slave could travel thus, with such a quantity of money?

Agias tried to tell his story, but to no effect; Falto and his fellow-judges dryly remarked to one another that the prisoner was trying to clear himself, by plausibly admitting the existence of the conspiracy, but of course suppressing the real details. Agias reasoned. He was met with obstinate incredulity. He entreated, prayed, implored. The prejudiced rustics mocked at him, and hinted that they cared too much for their patron to believe any tale that such a manifest impostor might tell them. Pausanias, the Mamerci, and Cappadox, the only persons, besides Drusus, who could readily identify him, were away at Lanuvium.

The verdict of guilty was so unanimous that it needed little or no discussion; and Falto pronounced sentence.

"Mago," to the huge African, "take this wretched boy to the slave-prison; fetter him heavily. On your life do not let him escape. Give him bread and water at sunrise. When Master Drusus returns he will doubtless bid us crucify the villain, and in the morning Natta the carpenter shall prepare two beams for the purpose."

Agias comforted himself by reflecting that things would hardly go to that terrible extremity; but it was not reassuring to hear Ligus, the crabbed old cellarer, urge that he be made to confess then and there under the cat. Falto overruled the proposition. "It was late, and Mamercus was the man to extort confession." So Agias found himself thrust into a filthy cell, lighted only by a small chink, near the top of the low stone wall, into which strayed a bit of moonlight. The night he passed wretchedly enough, on a truss of fetid straw; while the tight irons that confined him chafed his wrists and ankles. Needless to add, he cursed roundly all things human and heavenly, before he fell into a brief, troubled sleep. In the morning Mago, who acted as jailer, brought him a pot of water and a saucer of uncooked wheat porridge;[112] and informed him, with a grin, that Natta was making the beams ready. Agias contented himself by asking Mago to tell Drusus about him, as soon as the master returned. "You are very young to wish to die," said the Libyan, grimly. Agias did not argue. Mago left him. By climbing up a rude stool, Agias could peer through the loophole, which by great luck commanded a fairly ample view of the highway. Drusus he naturally expected would come from the south, toward Praeneste. And thence every moment he trembled lest Dumnorix's gang should appear in sight. But every distant dust-cloud for a long time resolved itself sooner or later into a shepherd with a flock of unruly sheep, or a wagon tugged by a pair of mules and containing a single huge wine-skin. Drusus came not; Dumnorix came not. Agias grew weary of watching, and climbed painfully down from the stool to eat his raw porridge. Hardly had he done so than a loud clatter of hoofs sounded without. With a bound that twisted his confined ankles and wrists sadly, Agias was back at his post. A single rider on a handsome bay horse was coming up from the direction of Rome. As he drew near to the villa, he pulled at his reins, and brought his steed down to a walk. The horseman passed close to the loophole, and there was no mistaking his identity. Agias had often seen that pale, pimpled face, and those long effeminate curls in company with Lucius Ahenobarbus. The rider was Publius Gabinius, and the young Greek did not need to be told that his coming boded no good to Drusus. Gabinius looked carefully at the villa, into the groves surrounding it, and then up and down the highway. Then he touched the spur to his mount, and was gone.

[112] _Puls_, the primitive Italian food.

Agias wrung his manacled hands. Drusus would be murdered, Cornelia's happiness undone, and he himself would become the slave of Lucius Ahenobarbus, who, when he had heard Phaon's story, would show little enough of mercy. He cursed the suspicious porter, cursed Falto, cursed every slave and freedman on the estate, cursed Mamercus for not leaving some word about the possibility of his coming from Rome. Agias's imprecations spent themselves in air; and he was none the happier. Would Drusus never come? The time was drifting on. The sun had been up three or more hours. At any instant the gladiators might arrive.

Then again there was a clatter of hoofs, at the very moment when Agias had again remounted to the loophole. There were voices raised in questions and greetings; slave-boys were scampering to and fro to take the horses; Drusus with Pausanias and the Mamerci had returned from Lanuvium. Agias pressed his head out the loophole and screamed to attract attention. His voice could not penetrate the domestic hubbub. Drusus was standing shaking hands with a couple of clients and evidently in a very good humour over some blunt rustic compliment. Mago was nowhere to be seen. Agias glanced up the road toward Praeneste. The highway was straight and fairly level, but as it went over a hill-slope some little way off, what was that he saw upon it?--the sun flashing on bright arms, which glinted out from the dust-cloud raised by a considerable number of men marching!

"Drusus! Master Drusus!" Agias threw all his soul into the cry. As if to blast his last hope, Drusus hastily bowed away the salves and aves of the two clients, turned, and went into the villa. Agias groaned in agony. A very few moments would bring Dumnorix to the villa, and the young slave did not doubt that Gabinius was with the lanista to direct the attack. Agias tore at his chains, and cursed again, calling on all the Furies of Tartarus to confound the porter and Falto. Suddenly before the loophole passed a slave damsel of winning face and blithesome manner, humming to herself a rude little ditty, while she balanced a large earthen water-pot on her head. It was Chloe, whom the reader has met in the opening scene of this book, though Agias did not know her name.

"By all the gods, girl!" he cried frantically, "do you want to have your master slaughtered before your very eyes?"

Chloe stopped, a little startled at this voice, almost from under her feet.

"Oh, you, Master Assassin!" she sneered. "Do you want to repeat those pretty stories of yours, such as I heard you tell last night?"

"Woman," cried Agias, with all the earnestness which agony and fear could throw into face and voice, "go this instant! Tell Master Drusus that Dumnorix and his gang are not a furlong[113] away. They mean to murder him. Say that I, Agias, say so, and he, at least, will believe me. You yourself can see the sun gleaming on their steel as they march down the hill."

[113] About 606-3/4 English feet.

Perhaps it was the sight which Agias indicated, perhaps it was his earnest words, perhaps it was his handsome face--Chloe was very susceptible to good looks--but for some cause she put down the pot and was off, as fast as her light heels could carry her, toward the house.

II

Drusus had ridden hard to get back early from Lanuvium and write some letters to Cornelia, for he had expected that Agias would come on that very afternoon, on one of his regular, though private, visits; and he wished to be able to tell Cornelia that, so long a time had elapsed since he had been warned against Ahenobarbus and Pratinas, and as no attempt at all had been made on his life, her fears for him were probably groundless and the plot had been for some cause abandoned. Drusus himself was weary, and was glad to shake off the little knot of clients and retire to his chamber, preparatory for a bath and a change of clothes. He had seen Falto, but the latter deemed it best not to trouble his patron at the time by mentioning the prisoner. Mago, too, concluded that it was best to defer executing his promise. Drusus was just letting Cappadox take off his cloak, when the shrill voice of Chloe was heard outside the door, expostulating with the boy on guard.

"I must see the dominus at once. It's very important."

"Don't you see, you idiot, that you can't while he's dressing?"

"I _must!_" screamed Chloe. And, violating every law of subordination and decorum, she threw open the door.

Cappadox flew to eject her, but Chloe's quick tongue did its work.

"A lad who calls himself Agias is chained in the ergastulum. He says some gladiators are going to attack the house, and will be here in a moment! Oh, I am so frightened!" and the poor girl threw her mantle over her head, and began to whimper and sob.

"Agias!" shouted Drusus, at the top of his voice. "In the ergastulum? _Per deos immortales!_ What's this? Mamercus! Falto!"

And the young master rushed out of the room, Cappadox, who like lightning had caught up a sword, following him.

Falto came running from the stables; Mamercus from the garden. Drusus faced his two subordinates, and in an eye's twinkling had taken in the situation. Mamercus, who felt within himself that he, by his oversight, had been the chief blunderer, to vent his vexation smote Falto so sound a cuff that the under villicus sprawled his full length.

"Go to the ergastulum and fetch Agias this instant," cried Drusus, in thundering accents, to the trembling Mago, who had appeared on the scene.

Mago disappeared like magic, but in an instant a din was rising from the front of the house,--cries, blows, clash of steel. Into the peristylium, where the angry young master was standing, rushed the old slave woman, Lais.

"_Hei! hei!_" she screamed, "they are breaking in! Monsters! a hundred of them! They will kill us all!"

Drusus grew calm in an instant.

"Barricade the doors to the atrium!" he commanded, "while I can put on my armour. You, Mamercus, are too old for this kind of work; run and call in the field-hands, the clients, and the neighbours. Cappadox, Falto, and I can hold the doors till aid comes."

"I run?" cried the veteran, in hot incredulity, while with his single hand he tore from its stout leather wall-fastenings a shield that had been beaten with Punic swords at the Metaurus.[114] "I run?" he repeated, while a mighty crash told that the front door had given way, and the attackers were pouring into the atrium. And the veteran had thrust a venerable helmet over his grizzled locks, and was wielding his shield with his handless left arm, while a good Spanish short-sword gleamed in his right hand.

[114] The great battle won in 207 B.C. over Hasdrubal.

The others had not been idle. Cappadox had barred both doors leading into the front part of the house. Drusus had armed, and Falto,--a more loyal soul than whom lived not,--burning to retrieve his blunder, had sprung to his patron's side, also in shield and helm.

"They will soon force these doors," said Drusus, quietly, growing more composed as closer and closer came the actual danger. "Falto and I will guard the right. Cappadox and you, Mamercus, if you will stay, must guard the left. Some aid must come before a great while."

But again the veteran whipped out an angry oath, and thundered, "You stay, you soft-fingered Quintus! You stay and face those German giants! Why, you are the very man they are after! Leave fighting to an old soldier! Take him away, Cappadox, if you love him!"

"I will never leave!" blazed forth Drusus. "My place is here. A Livian always faces his foes. Here, if needs be, I will die." But before he could protest further, Cappadox had caught him in his powerful arms, and despite his struggles was running with him through the rear of the house.

Pandemonium reigned in the atrium. The gladiators were shivering fine sculptures, ripping up upholstery, swearing in their uncouth Celtic or German dialects, searching everywhere for their victim in the rooms that led off the atrium. A voice in Latin was raising loud remonstrance.

"_AEdepol!_ Dumnorix, call off your men! Phaon hasn't led our bird into the net. We shall be ruined if this keeps on! Drusus isn't here!"

"By the Holy Oak, Gabinius," replied another voice, in barbarous Latin, "what I've begun I'll end! I'll find Drusus yet; and we won't leave a soul living to testify against us! You men, break down that door and let us into the rest of the house!"

Mamercus heard a rush down one of the passages leading to the peristylium. The house was almost entirely deserted, except by the shrieking maids. The clients and freedmen and male slaves were almost all in the fields. The veteran, Falto, and Pausanias, who had come in, and who was brave enough, but nothing of a warrior, were the only defenders of the peristylium.

"You two," shouted Mamercus, "guard the other door! Move that heavy chest against it. Pile the couch and cabinet on top. This door I will hold."

There was the blow of a heavy mace on the portal, and the wood sprang out, and the pivots started.

"Leave this alone," roared Mamercus, when his two helpers paused, as if to join him. "Guard your own doorway!"

"Down with it!" bellowed the voice of the leaders without. "Don't let the game escape! Strike again!"

Crash! And the door, beaten from its fastenings by a mighty stroke, tumbled inward on to the mosaic pavement of the peristylium. The light was streaming bright and free into that court, but the passageway from the atrium was shrouded in darkness. Mamercus, sword drawn, stood across the entrance.

"By the god Tarann!"[115] shouted Dumnorix, who from the rear of his followers was directing the attack. "Here is a stout old game-cock! Out of the way, greybeard! We'll spare you for your spirit. Take him, some of you, alive!"

[115] The Gallic thunder-god.

Two gigantic, blond Germans thrust their prodigious bodies through the doorway. Mamercus was no small man, but slight he seemed before these mighty Northerners.

The Germans had intended to seize him in their naked hands, but something made them swing their ponderous long swords and then, two flashes from the short blade in the hand of the veteran, and both the giants were weltering across the threshold, their breasts pierced and torn by the Roman's murderous thrusts.

"_Habet!_" cried Mamercus. "A fair hit! Come on, you scum of the earth; come on, you German and Gallic dogs; do you think I haven't faced the like of you before? Do you think your great bulks and fierce mustaches will make a soldier of Marius quiver? Do you want to taste Roman steel again?"

And then there was a strange sight. A phantasm seemed to have come before every member of that mad, murderous band; for they saw, as it were, in the single champion before them, a long, swaying line of men of slight stature like him; of men who dashed through their phalanxes and spear hedges; who beat down their chieftains; whom no arrow fire, no sword-play, no stress of numbers, might stop; but who charged home with pilum and short-sword, and defeated the most valorous enemy.

"Ha! Dogs!" taunted Mamercus, "you have seen Romans fight before, else you were not all here, to make sport for our holiday!"

"He is Tyr,[116] the 'one-armed,' who put his left hand in the jaws of Fenris-wolf!" cried a German, shrinking back in dread. "A god is fighting us!"

[116] A Germanic war-god.

"Fools!" shouted Gabinius from a distance. "At him, and cut him down!"

"Cut him down!" roared Dumnorix, who had wits enough to realize that every instant's delay gave Drusus time to escape, or collect help.

There was another rush down the passage; but at the narrow doorway the press stopped. Mamercus fought as ten. His shield and sword were everywhere. The Roman was as one inspired; his eyes shone bright and clear; his lips were parted in a grim, fierce smile; he belched forth rude soldier oaths that had been current in the army of fifty years before. Thrusting and parrying, he yielded no step, he sustained no wound. And once, twice, thrice his terrible short-sword found its sheath in the breast of a victim. In impotent rage the gladiators recoiled a second time.

"Storm the other door!" commanded Dumnorix.

The two defenders there had undertaken to pile up furniture against it; but a few blows beat down the entire barrier. Falto and Pausanias stood to their posts stoutly enough; but there was no master-swordsman to guard this entrance. The first gladiator indeed went down with a pierced neck, but the next instant Falto was beside him, atoning for his stupid folly, the whole side of his head cleft away by a stroke from a Gallic long-sword.

"One rush and we have the old man surrounded," exhorted Dumnorix, when only Pausanias barred the way.

There was a growl and a bound, and straight at the foremost attacker flew Argos, Mamercus's great British mastiff, who had silently slipped on to the scene. The assailant fell with the dog's fangs in his throat. Again the gladiators recoiled, and before they could return to the charge, back into the peristylium rushed Drusus, escaped from Cappadox, with that worthy and Mago and Agias, just released, at his heels.

"Here's your man!" cried Gabinius, who still kept discreetly in the rear.

"Freedom and ten _sestertia_[117] to the one who strikes Drusus down," called Dumnorix, feeling that at last the game was in his hands.

[117] About $400.

But Mamercus had made of his young patron an apt pupil. All the fighting blood of the great Livian house, of the consulars and triumphators, was mantling in Drusus's veins, and he threw himself into the struggle with the deliberate courage of an experienced warrior. His short-sword, too, found its victims; and across Falto's body soon were piled more. And now Drusus was not alone. For in from the barns and fields came running first the servants from the stables, armed with mattocks and muck-forks, and then the farm-hands with their scythes and reaping hooks.

"We shall never force these doors," exclaimed Gabinius, in despair, as he saw the defenders augmenting.

Dumnorix turned to his men.

"Go, some of you. Enter from behind! Take this rabble from the rear. In fair fight we can soon master it."

A part of the gladiators started to leave the atrium, Gabinius with them. An instant later he had rushed back in blank dismay.

"Horsemen! They are dismounting before the house. There are more than a score of them. We shall be cut to pieces."

"We have more than fifty," retorted Dumnorix, viciously. "I will sacrifice them all, rather than have the attack fail!--" But before he could speak further, to the din of the fighting at the doors of the peristylium was added a second clamour without. And into the atrium, sword in hand, burst Caius Curio, and another young, handsome, aquiline-featured man, dressed in a low-girt tunic, with a loose, coarse mantle above it,--a man known to history as Marcus Antonius, or "Marc Antony "; and at their backs were twenty men in full armour.

The courage of the lanista had failed him. Already Drusus's reinforcements in the peristylium had become so numerous and so well armed that the young chieftain was pushing back the gladiators and rapidly assuming the offensive. Gabinius was the first to take flight. He plunged into one of the rooms off the atrium, and through a side door gained the open. The demoralized and beaten gladiators followed him, like a flock of sheep. Only Dumnorix and two or three of his best men stood at the exit long enough to cover, in some measure, the retreat.

Once outside, the late assailants gained a temporary respite, owing to the fact that the defenders had been disorganized by their very victory.

"We have lost," groaned Gabinius, as the lanista drew his men together in a compact body, before commencing his retreat.

"We are alive," growled Dumnorix.

"We cannot go back to Rome," moaned the other. "We are all identified. No bribe or favour can save us now."

"A robber's life is still left," retorted Dumnorix, "and we must make of it what we can. Some of my men know these parts, where they have been slaves, before coming to my hands. We must strike off for the mountains, if we live to get there."

All that day the country was in a turmoil. The Praenestean senate had met in hasty session, and the _decurions_[118] ordered the entire community under arms to hunt down the disturbers of the peace. Not until nightfall did Dumnorix and a mere remnant of his band find themselves able, under the shadow of the darkness, to shake off the pursuit. Gabinius was still with him. Curio and Antonius had chased them down with their horsemen; many of the gladiators had been slain, many more taken. For the survivors only the life of outlaws remained. The fastnesses of the Apennines were their sole safety; and thither--scarce daring to stop to pillage for victuals--they hurried their weary steps.

[118] Local municipal magistrates.

III

Lucius Ahenobarbus spent that day in frightful anxiety. One moment he was fingering Drusus's money bags; the next haunted by the murdered man's ghost. When he called on Cornelia, her slaves said she had a headache and would receive no one. Pratinas held aloof. No news all day--the suspense became unendurable. He lived through the following night harassed by waking visions of every conceivable calamity; but toward morning fell asleep, and as was his wont, awoke late. The first friend he met on the street was Calvus, the young poet and orator.

"Have you heard the news from Praeneste?" began Calvus.

"News? What news?"

"Why, how Dumnorix's gang of gladiators attacked the villa of your distant relative, Quintus Drusus, and were beaten off, while they tried to murder him. A most daring attempt! But you will hear all about it. I have a case at the courts and cannot linger."

And Calvus was gone, leaving Ahenobarbus as though he had been cudgelled into numbness. With a great effort he collected himself. After all, Dumnorix's gladiators were nothing to him. And when later he found that neither Dumnorix, nor Gabinius, nor Phaon had been taken or slain at Praeneste, he breathed the easier. No one else except Pratinas, he was certain, knew _why_ the lanista had made his attack; and there was no danger of being charged with complicity in the conspiracy. And so he was able to bear the stroke of ill-fortune with some equanimity, and at last rejoice that his dreams would no longer be haunted by the shade of Drusus. He was in no mood to meet Pratinas, and the smooth Greek evidently did not care to meet him. He went around to visit Cornelia again--she was still quite indisposed. So he spent that morning with Servius Flaccus playing draughts, a game at which his opponent was so excessively stupid that Ahenobarbus won at pleasure, and consequently found himself after lunch[119] in a moderately equable humour. Then it was he was agreeably surprised to receive the following note from Cornelia.

[119] _Prandium_.

"Cornelia to her dearest Lucius, greeting.

I have been very miserable these past two days, but this afternoon will be better. Come and visit me and my uncle, for there are several things I would be glad to say before you both. Farewell."

"I think," remarked Lucius to himself, "that the girl wants to have the wedding-day hastened. I know of nothing else to make her desire both Lentulus and myself at once. I want to see her alone. Well, I cannot complain. I'll have Drusus's bride, even if I can't have his money or his life."

And so deliberating, he put on his finest saffron-tinted synthesis, his most elegant set of rings, his newest pair of black shoes,[120] and spent half an hour with his hairdresser; and thus habited he repaired to the house of the Lentuli.

[120] Black shoes were worn as a sort of badge by _equites_.

"The Lady Cornelia is in the Corinthian hall," announced the slave who carried in the news of his coming, "and there she awaits you."

Lucius, nothing loth, followed the servant. A moment and he was in the large room. It was empty. The great marble pillars rose cold and magnificent in four stately rows, on all sides of the high-vaulted apartment. On the walls Cupids and blithesome nymphs were careering in fresco. The floor was soft with carpets. A dull scent of burning incense from a little brazier, smoking before a bronze Minerva, in one corner of the room, hung heavy on the air. The sun was shining warm and bright without, but the windows of the hall were small and high and the shutters also were drawn. Everything was cool, still, and dark. Only through a single aperture shot a clear ray of sunlight, and stretched in a radiant bar across the gaudy carpets.

Lucius stumbled, half groping, into a chair, and seated himself. Cornelia had never received him thus before. What was she preparing? Another moment and Lentulus Crus entered the darkened hall.

"_Perpol!_ Ahenobarbus," he cried, as he came across his prospective nephew-in-law, "what can Cornelia be wanting of us both? And in this place? I can't imagine. Ah! Those were strange doings yesterday up in Praeneste. I would hardly have put on mourning if Drusus had been ferried over the Styx; but it was a bold way to attack him. I don't know that he has an enemy in the world except myself, and I can bide my time and pay off old scores at leisure. Who could have been back of Dumnorix when he blundered so evidently?"

Ahenobarbus felt that it was hardly possible Lentulus would condemn his plot very severely; but he replied diplomatically:--

"One has always plenty of enemies."

"_Mehercle!_ of course," laughed the consul-elect, "what would life be without the pleasure of revenge! But why does my niece keep us waiting? Jupiter, what can she want of us?"

"Uncle, Lucius, I am here." And before them, standing illumined in the panel of sunlight, stood Cornelia. Ahenobarbus had never seen her so beautiful before. She wore a flowing violet-tinted stola, that tumbled in soft, silky flounces down to her ankles, and from beneath it peered the tint of her shapely feet bound to thin sandals by bright red ribbons. Her bare rounded arms were clasped above and below the elbow and at the wrists by circlets shaped as coiled serpents, whose eyes were gleaming rubies. At her white throat was fastened a necklace of interlinked jewel-set gold pendants that shimmered on her half-bare shoulders and breast. In each ear was the lustre of a great pearl. Her thick black hair fell unconfined down her back; across her brow was a frontlet blazing with great diamonds, with one huge sapphire in their midst. As she stood in the sunlight she was as a goddess, an Aphrodite descended from Olympus, to drive men to sweet madness by the ravishing puissance of her charms.

"Cornelia!" cried Lucius, with all the fierce impure admiration of his nature welling up in his black heart, "you are an immortal! Let me throw my arms about you! Let me kiss you! Kiss your neck but once!" And he took a step forward.

"Be quiet, Lucius," said Cornelia, speaking slowly and with as little passion as a sculptured marble endued with the powers of speech. "We have other things to talk of now. That is why I have called you here; you and my uncle."

"Cornelia!" exclaimed the young man, shrinking back as though a sight of some awful mystery had stricken him with trembling reverence, "why do you look at me so? Why do your eyes fasten on me that way? What are you going to do?"

It was as if he had never spoken. Cornelia continued steadily, looking straight before her.

"Uncle, is it your wish that I become the wife of Lucius Ahenobarbus?"

"You know it is," replied Lentulus, a little uneasily. He could not see where this bit of affection on the part of his niece would end. He had never heard her speak in such a tone before.

"I think, uncle," went on Cornelia, "that before we say anything further it will be well to read this letter. It was sent to me, but both you and Lucius will find it of some interest." And she held out two or three wax tablets.

Lentulus took them, eager to have done with the by-play. But when he saw on the binding-cords the seal--which, though broken, still showed its impression--he gave a start and exclamation.

"_Perpol!_ The seal of Sextus Flaccus, the great capitalist."

"Certainly, why should it not be from him?"

Lentulus stepped nearer to the light, and read: Lucius standing by and hanging on every word, Cornelia remaining at her previous station rigid as the bronze faun on the pedestal at her elbow. Lentulus read:--

"Sextus Fulvius Flaccus, to the most noble lady Cornelia:--

If you are well it is well with me.

Perhaps you have heard how the plots of the conspirators against my dear friend and financial client Quintus Drusus have been frustrated, thanks, next to the god, to the wit and dexterity of Agias, who has been of late your slave. Drusus as soon as he had fairly beaten off the gladiators sent at once for me, to aid him and certain other of his friends in taking the confession of one Phaon, the freedman of Lucius Ahenobarbus, whom Agias had contrived to entrap in Gabii, and hold prisoner until the danger was over. Phaon's confession puts us in complete possession of all the schemes of the plotters; and it will be well for you to inform that worthy young gentleman, Lucius Ahenobarbus, that I only forbear to prosecute him, and Pratinas, who really made him his supple tool, because I am a peaceable man who would not bring scandal upon an old and noble family. If, however, anything should befall Drusus which should indicate that fresh plots against his life were on foot, let Ahenobarbus be assured that I can no more regard him so leniently. I may add that since it was through a marriage with you that Ahenobarbus expected to profit by the murder, I have already advised Drusus that, according to the decisions of several of the most eminent _jurisconsulti_,[121] a property provision such as his father inserted in his will would not be binding, especially in view of the present facts of the case. Drusus has accordingly prepared a new will which, if questioned, I shall defend in the courts with all my power. Farewell."

[121] Expounders of the Roman law.

Lentulus turned and glared with sullen amazement at his niece. That Ahenobarbus should conspire against Drusus seemed the most natural thing in the world. That the news that the conspiracy had failed should come from such a quarter, and through the hands of his own niece, at once terrified and angered him. Lucius was standing gaping, in half horror, half fascination, at Cornelia. Had she not urged him on? Had she not almost expressed her wish for Drusus's blood? The name of Flaccus fell on his heart like a stone; for the great banker never went back when he had taken a stand, and was rich enough to corrupt the most lax and merciful jury. Ahenobarbus felt a trap snap upon him, and yet he had no hope of revenge.

"Cornelia," cried Lentulus, regaining at last the powers of speech, "why was this letter sent to you? What to you is that wretched youth, Quintus Drusus, who escaped a fate he richly deserved? Why do you not condole with your lover on his misfortune? What do you mean by your stony stare, your--"

"I mean," retorted Cornelia, every word coming as a deep pant from her heaving chest, while her fingers clasped and unclasped nervously, and the blood surged to her pallid cheeks, "I mean that I need no longer profess to love what I hate; to cherish what I despise; to fondle what I loathe; to cast soft looks on that which I would pierce with daggers!" And she in turn took a step, quick and menacing, toward her wretched lover, who cowered and shrank back into the shadow of a pillar.

"But you yourself said you hoped I would soon rid you of Drusus," howled Lucius.

"Fool!" hissed the woman, through her clenched teeth. "Didn't you know that all that I said, all that I did, all that I thought, was for this end--how might I save Quintus by learning the plans of the wretch who thirsted for his blood? Do you feel paid, now, for all your labours to secure the wealth of a man whose name should not be uttered beside that of yours?"

"And you do not love me!" screamed Ahenobarbus, springing at her, as if to force his arms around her neck.

"Dog!" and Cornelia smote him so fairly in the face that he shrank back, and pressed his hand to a swelling cheek. "I said I hated and despised you. What I despise, though, is beneath my hate. I would tread on you as on a viper or a desert asp, as a noxious creature that is not fit to live. I have played my game; and though it was not I who won, but Agias who won for me, I am well content. Drusus lives! Lives to see you miserably dead! Lives to grow to glory and honour, to happiness and a noble old age, when the worms have long since finished their work on you!"

"Girl," thundered Lentulus, fiercely, "you are raving! Ahenobarbus is your affianced husband. Rome knows it. I will compel you to marry him. Otherwise you may well blush to think of the stories that vulgar report will fasten around your name."

But Cornelia faced him in turn, and threw her white arms aloft as though calling down some mightier power than human to her aid; and her words came fast:--

"What Rome says is not what my heart says! My heart tells me that I am pure where others are vile; that I keep truth where others are false; that I love honourably where others love dishonourably. I knew the cost of what I would do for Drusus's sake; and, though the vilest slave gibber and point at me, I would hold my head as proudly as did ever a Cornelian or Claudian maiden; for I have done that which my own heart tells me was right; and more than that or less than that, can no true woman do!"

Ahenobarbus felt the room spinning round him. He saw himself ruined in everything that he had held dear. He would be the laughing-stock of Rome; he, the hero of a score of amorous escapades, the darling of as many patrician maidens, jilted by the one woman to whom he had become the abject slave. Courage came from despair.

"Be silent!" he gasped, his face black with fury. "If every word you say were true, yet with all the more reason would I drag you in my marriage procession, and force you to avow yourself my wife. Never have I been balked of woman; and you, too, with all your tragic bathos, shall learn that, if you won't have me for a slave, I'll bow your neck to my yoke."

"I think the very noble Lucius Ahenobarbus," replied Cornelia, in that high pitch of excitement which produces a calm more terrible than any open fury, "will in person be the protagonist in a tragedy very sorry for himself. For I can assure him that if he tries to make good his threat, I shall show myself one of the Danaides, and he will need his funeral feast full soon after the wedding banquet."

"Woman!" and Lentulus, thoroughly exasperated, broke in furiously. "Say another word, and I with my own hands will flog you like a common slave."

Cornelia laughed hysterically.

"Touch me!" she shouted; and in her grasp shone a small bright dagger.

Lentulus fell back. There was something about his niece that warned him to be careful.

"Wretched girl!" he commanded, "put down that dagger."

"I will not," and Cornelia stood resolutely, confronting her two persecutors; her head thrown back, and the light making her throat and face shine white as driven snow.

There was very little chivalry among the ancients. Lentulus deliberately clapped his hands, and two serving-men appeared.

"Take that dagger from the Lady Cornelia!" commanded the master. The men exchanged sly glances, and advanced to accomplish the disarming.

But before they could catch Cornelia's slender wrists in their coarse, rough hands, and tear the little weapon from her, there were cuts and gashes on their own arms; for the struggle if brief was vicious. Cornelia stood disarmed.

"You see what these mock heroics will lead to," commented Lentulus, with sarcastic smile, as he observed his order had been obeyed.

"_You_ will see!" was her quick retort.

"_Hei! hei!_" screamed one of the slaves an instant later, sinking to the floor. "Poison! It's running through my veins! I shall die!"

"You will die," repeated Cornelia, in ineffable scorn, spurning the wretch with her foot. "Lie there and die! Cease breathing; sleep! And that creature, Ahenobarbus, yonder, shall sleep his sleep too, ere he work his will on me! Ha! ha! Look at my handiwork; the other slave is down!"

"Girl! Murderess!" raged Lentulus. "What is this? You have slain these men."

"I have slain your slaves," said Cornelia, resolutely folding her arms; "the poison on the dagger was very swift. You did excellently well, Lucius, not to come near me." And she picked up the dagger, which the slave, writhing in agony, had dropped.

"Do you wish to attack me again? _Phy!_ I have more resources than this. This venom works too quickly. See, Syrax is already out of his misery; and his fellow will soon be beyond reach of woe. When I strike _you_, Lucius Ahenobarbus, you shall die slowly, that I may enjoy your pain. What need have I of this weapon?" And she flung the dagger across the carpet so that it struck on the farther wall. "Pick it up, and come and kill me if you wish! Drusus lives, and in him I live, for him I live, and by him I live. And you--and you are but as evil dreams in the first watch of a night which shall be forgotten either in sweet unending slumbers, or the brightness of the morning. And now I have spoken. Do with me as it lies in your power to do; but remember what power is mine. _Vale!_"

And Cornelia vanished from the darkened hall. The two men heard the click of the door, and turned and gazed blankly into one another's faces.

"The gods defend me, but I shall be yoked to one of the Dirae!" stammered Ahenobarbus.