CHAPTER VII.

DARK DEATH.

A few days after Fabiola’s return from the country, Sebastian considered it his duty to wait upon her, to communicate so much of the dialogue between Corvinus and her black slave, as he could without causing unnecessary suffering. We have already observed, that of the many noble youths whom Fabiola had met in her father’s house, none had excited her admiration and respect except Sebastian. So frank, so generous, so brave, yet so unboasting; so mild, so kind in act and speech, so unselfish and so careful of others, blending so completely in one character nobleness and simplicity, high wisdom and practical sense, he seemed to her the most finished type of manly virtue, one which would not easily suffer by time, nor weary by familiarity.

When, therefore, it was announced to her that the officer Sebastian wished to speak to her alone, in one of the halls below, her heart beat at the unusual tidings, and conjured up a thousand strange fancies, about the possible topics of his interview. This agitation was not diminished, when, after apologizing for his seeming intrusion, he remarked with a smile, that, well knowing how sufficiently she was already annoyed by the many candidates for her hand, he felt regret at the idea that he was going to add another, yet undeclared, to her list. If this ambiguous preface surprised, and perhaps elated her, she was soon depressed again, upon being told it was the vulgar and stupid Corvinus. For her father, even, little as he knew how to discriminate characters out of business, had seen enough of him at his late banquet to characterize him to his daughter by those epithets.

Sebastian, fearing rather the physical, than the moral activity of Afra’s drugs, thought it right to inform her of the compact between the two dabblers in the black art, the principal efficacy of which, however, seemed to consist in drawing money from the purse of a reluctant dupe. He of course said nothing of what related to the Christians in that dialogue. He put her on her guard, and she promised to prevent the nightly excursions of her necromancer slave. What Afra had engaged to do, she did not for a moment believe it was ever her intention to attempt; neither did she fear arts which she utterly despised. Indeed Afra’s last soliloquy seemed satisfactorily to prove that she was only deceiving her victim. But she certainly felt indignant at having been bargained about by two such vile characters, and having been represented as a grasping avaricious woman, whose price was gold.

“I feel,” she said at last to Sebastian, “how very kind it is of you, to come thus to put me on my guard; and I admire the delicacy with which you have unfolded so disagreeable a matter, and the tenderness with which you have treated every one concerned.”

“I have only done in this instance,” replied the soldier, “what I should have done for any human being,--save him, if possible, from pain or danger.”

“Your friends, I hope you mean,” said Fabiola, smiling; “otherwise I fear your whole life would go, in works of unrequited benevolence.”

“And so let it go; it could not be better spent.”

“Surely, you are not in earnest, Sebastian. If you saw one who had ever hated you, and sought your destruction, threatened with a calamity, which would make him harmless, would you stretch out your hand to save, or succor, him?”

“Certainly I would. While God sends His sunshine and His rain equally upon His enemies, as upon His friends, shall weak man frame another rule of justice?”

At these words Fabiola wondered; they were so like those of her mysterious parchment, identical with the moral theories of her slave.

“You have been in the East, I believe, Sebastian,” she asked him, rather abruptly; “was it there that you learnt these principles? For I have one near me, who is yet, by her own choice, a servant, a woman of rare moral perceptions, who has propounded to me the same ideas; and she is an Asiatic.”

“It is not in any distant country that I learnt them; for here I sucked them in with my mother’s milk; though, originally, they doubtless came from the East.”

“They are certainly beautiful in the abstract,” remarked Fabiola; “but death would overtake us before we could half carry them out, were we to make them our principles of conduct.”

“And how better could death find us, though not surprise us, than in thus doing our duty, even if not to its completion?”

“For my part,” resumed the lady, “I am of the old Epicurean poet’s mind. This world is a banquet, from which I shall be ready to depart when I have had my fill--_ut conviva satur_[113]--and not till then. I wish to read life’s book through, and close it calmly, only when I have finished its last page.”

Sebastian shook his head, smiling, and said, “The last page of this world’s book comes but in the middle of the volume, wherever ‘death’ may happen to be written. But on the next page begins the illuminated book of a new life--without a last page.”

“I understand you,” replied Fabiola, good-humoredly; “you are a brave soldier, and you speak as such. _You_ must be always prepared for death from a thousand casualties; _we_ seldom see it approach suddenly; it comes more mercifully, and stealthily, upon the weak. You no doubt are musing on a more glorious fate, on receiving in front full sheaves of arrows from the enemy, and falling covered with honor. You look to the soldier’s funeral pile, with trophies erected over it. To you, after death, opens its bright page the book of glory.”

“No, no, gentle lady,” exclaimed Sebastian, emphatically. “I mean not so. I care not for glory, which can only be enjoyed by an anticipating fancy. I speak of vulgar death, as it may come to me in common with the poorest slave; consuming me by slow burning fever, wasting me by long lingering consumption, racking me by slowly eating ulcers; nay, if you please, by the still crueller inflictions of men’s wrath. In any form let it come; it comes from a hand that I love.”

“And do you really mean that death, so contemplated, would be welcomed by you?”

“As joyful as is the epicure, when the doors of the banqueting-hall are thrown wide open, and he sees beyond them the brilliant lamps, the glittering table, and its delicious viands, with its attendant ministers well girt, and crowned with roses; as blithe as is the bride when the bridegroom is announced, coming with rich gifts, to conduct her to her new home, will my exulting heart be, when death, under whatever form, throws back the gates, iron on this side, but golden on the other, which lead to a new and perennial life. And I care not how grim the messenger may be, that proclaims the approach of Him who is celestially beautiful.”

“And who is He?” asked Fabiola, eagerly. “Can He not be seen, save through the fleshless ribs of death?”

“No,” replied Sebastian; “for it is He who must reward us, not only for our lives, but for our deaths also. Happy they whose inmost hearts, which He has ever read, have been kept pure and innocent, as well as their deeds have been virtuous! For them is this bright vision of Him, whose true rewards only then begin.”

How very like Syra’s doctrines! she thought. But before she could speak again, to ask whence they came, a slave entered, stood on the threshold, and respectfully said:

“A courier, madam, is just arrived from Baiæ.”[114]

“Pardon me, Sebastian!” she exclaimed. “Let him enter immediately.”

The messenger came in, covered with dust and jaded, having left his tired horse at the gate; and offered her a sealed packet.

Her hand trembled as she took it; and while she was unloosening its bands, she hesitatingly asked:

“From my father?”

“About him, at least,” was the ominous reply.

She opened the sheet, glanced over it, shrieked, and fell. Sebastian caught her before she reached the ground, laid her on a couch, and delicately left her in the hands of her handmaids, who had rushed in at the cry.

One glance had told her all. Her father was dead.