CHAPTER XII

REUS

“Master!” said the old slave, moving uneasily on his stiff joint, before the even more nervously agitated master, “Master, there is the freedwoman Glyceria below, who comes in charing. She has brought an idol of Tarranus under her cloak, and offers to set that with a lamp before the door. She is not a believer, she worships devils, but is a good soul and would save us. She awaits your permission.”

The deacon was profoundly moved.

“It must not be! It may not be! I—I am a deacon of the Church. This is known to be a Christian household. The Church is in my house, and here the divine mysteries are celebrated. If she had not asked my leave, and had—if—but no, I cannot sanction this. God strengthen me, I am distracted and weak.” The slave remained. He expected that his master in the end would yield.

“And yet,” stammered Baudillas, “He hath compassion on the infirm and feeble. He forgave Peter. May He not pardon me if—? Glyceria is a heathen woman. She does not belong to my family. I did not propose this. I am not responsible for her acts. But no—it would be a betrayal of the truth, a dishonor to the Church. He that confesseth me before men—no, no, Pedo, it may not be.”

“And now it is too late,” said the slave. “They are at the door.”

Blows resounded through the house, and the roar of voices from the street surged up over the roof, and poured in through the opening over the _impluvium_. It was as though a mighty sea were thundering against the house and the waves curled over it and plunged in through the gap above the court.

“You must open, Pedo. I will run upstairs for a moment and compose myself. Then—if it must be—but do not suffer the rabble to enter. If a prefect be there, or his underling and soldiers, let them keep the door. Say I shall be down directly. Yet stay—is the _posticum_ available for escape?”

“Sir—the mob have detailed a party to go to the backs of the houses and watch every way of exit.”

“Then it is God’s will that I be taken. I cannot help myself. I am glad I said No to the offer of Glyceria.”

The deacon ascended a flight of limestone steps to the upper story. The slabs were worn and cracked, and had not been repaired owing to his poverty. He entered a room that looked out on the street, and went to the window.

The street above his doorway was dense with people, below it was completely empty. Torches threw up a glare illumining the white façades of the houses. He saw a sea of heads below. He heard the growl of voices breaking into a foam of coarse laughter. Curses uttered against the Christians, blasphemies against Christ, words of foulness, threats, brutal jests, formed the matter of the hubbub below. A man bearing a white wand with a sprig of artificial mistletoe at the end, gave directions to the people where to go, where to stop, what to do. He was the head of the branch of the guild of the Cultores Nemausi for that portion of the town.

Someone in the mob lifting his face, looked up and saw the deacon at the window, and at once shouted, “There! there he is! Baudillas Macer, come down, sacrilegious one! That is he who carried the maiden away.”

Then rose hoots and yells, and a boy putting his hands together and blowing produced an unearthly scream.

“He is one of them! He is a ringleader! He has an ass’s head in the house to which he sacrifices our little ones. He it was who stuck needles into the child of the potter Fusius, and then gnawed off the cheeks and fingers. He can inform where is the daughter of Aulus Harpinius who was snatched from the basin of the god. Let us avenge on him the great sacrilege that has been committed. It was he who struck off the head of the god.”

Then one flung a stone that crashed into the room, and had not Baudillas drawn back, it would have struck and thrown him down stunned.

“Let the house be ransacked!” yelled the mob. “We will seek in it for the bones of the murdered children. Break open the door if he will not unfasten. Bring a ladder, we will enter by the windows. Someone ascend to the roof and drop into the _atrium_.”

Then ensued a rush against the valves, but they were too solid to yield; and the bars held them firm, run as they were into their sockets in the solid wall.

The slave Pedo now knocked on the inside. This was the signal that he was about to open.

The soldiers drew up across the entrance, and when the door was opened, suffered none to enter the house save the deputy of the prefect with four of his police, and some of the leaders of the Cultores Nemausi. And now a strange calm fell on the hitherto troubled spirit of Baudillas. He was aware that no effort he could make would enable him to escape. His knees, indeed, shook under him as he went to the stairs to descend, and forgetting that the tenth step was broken, he stumbled at it and was nearly precipitated to the bottom. Yet all wavering, all hesitation in his mind was at an end.

He saw the men in the court running about, calling to each other, peering into every room, cubicle, and closet; one called that the cellar was the place in which the infamous rites of the Christians were performed and that there would be found amphoræ filled with human blood. Then one shouted that in the _tablinum_ there was naught save a small table. Immediately after a howl rose from those who had penetrated to the _triclinium_, and next moment they came rushing forth in such excitement that they dragged down the curtain that hung before the door and entangled their feet in it. One, not staying to disengage himself, held up his hands and exhibited the broken head of the statue, that had been brought there by Marcianus, and by him left on the floor.

“It is he who has done it! The sacrilegious one! The defacer of the holy image!” howled the men, and fell upon the deacon with their fists. Some plucked at his hair; one spat in his face. Others kicked him, and tripping him up, cast him his length on the ground, where they would have beaten and trampled the life out of him, had not the deputy of the ædile interfered, rescued him from the hands of his assailants and thrust him into a chamber at the side of the hall, saying: “He shall be brought before the magistrate. It is not for you to take into your hands the execution of criminals untried and uncondemned.”

Then one of the officers of the club ran to the doorway of the house, and cried: “Citizens of Nemausus, hearken. The author of the egregious impiety has been discovered. It is Cneius Baudillas Macer, who belongs to an ancient, though decayed, family of this town. He who should have been the last to dishonor the divine founder has raised his parricidal hand against him. He stands convicted. The head of the god has been found in the house; it is that recently broken off from the statue by the baths. Eheu! Eheu! Woe be to the city, unless this indignity be purged away.”

A yell of indignation rose as an answer.

The slave Pedo was suffered to enter the bedroom, on the floor of which lay his master bruised and with his face bleeding; for some of his front teeth had been broken and his lips were cut.

“Oh master! dear master! What is to be done?” asked the faithful creature, sobbing in his distress.

“I wonder greatly, Pedo, how I have endured so much. My fear is lest in the end I fall away. I enjoin you—there is naught else you can do for me—seek the bishop, and ask that the prayers of the Church may go up to the Throne of Grace for me. I am feeble and frail. I was a frightened shy lad in old times. If I were to fall, it would be a shame to the Church of God in this town, this Church that has so many more worthy than myself in it.”

“Can I bring thee aught, master? Water and a towel?”

“Nay, nothing, Pedo! Do as I bid. It is all that I now desire.”

The soldiers entered, raised the deacon, and made him walk between them. A man was placed in front, another behind to protect him against the people. As Baudillas was conveyed down the _ostium_, the passage to the door, he could see faces glowering in at him; he heard angry voices howling at him; an involuntary shrinking came over him, but he was irresistibly drawn forward by the soldiers. On being thrust through the doorway before all, then a great roar broke forth, fists and sticks were shaken at him, but none ventured to cast stones lest the soldiers should be struck.

One portion of the mob now detached itself from the main body, so as to follow and surround the deacon and assure itself that he did not escape before he was consigned to the prison.

The city of Nemausus, capital of the Volcæ Arecomici, though included geographically in the province of Narbonese Gaul, was in fact an independent republic, not subject to the proconsul, but under Roman suzerainty. With twenty‐four _comæ_ or townships under it, it governed itself by popular election, and enjoyed the _lex Italica_. This little republic was free from land tax, and it was governed by four functionaries, the Quatuor‐viri, two of whom looked after the finances, and two, like the _duum‐viri_ elsewhere, were for the purpose of maintaining order, and the criminal jurisdiction was in their hands. Their title in full was _duum viri juri dicendo_, and they were annually elected by the senate. Their function was much that in small of the Roman consuls, and they were sometimes in joke entitled consuls. They presided over the senate and had the government of the town and state in their hands during their tenure of office. On leaving their office they petitioned for and received the right to ride horses, and were accounted knights. They wore the dignified _præ texta_, and were attended by two lictors.

Baudillas walked between his escort. He was in a dazed condition. The noise, the execrations cast at him, the flashing of the torches on the helmets and breastplates of the guard, the glittering eyes and teeth of the faces peering at him, the pain from the contusions he had received combined to bewilder him. In the darkness and confusion of his brain, but one thought remained permanent and burnt like a brilliant light, his belief in Christ, and one desire occupied his soul, to be true to his faith. He was too distracted to pray. He could not rally his senses nor fix his ideas, but the yearning of his humble soul rose up, like the steam from a new turned glebe in the sun of a spring morning.

In times of persecution certain strong spirits had rushed to confession and martyrdom in an intoxication of zeal, such as Baudillas could not understand. He did not think of winning the crown of martyrdom, but he trembled lest he should prove a castaway.

Thrust forward, dragged along, now stumbling, then righted by the soldiers sustaining him, Baudillas was conveyed to the forum and to the basilica where the magistrate was seated.

On account of the disturbance, the Duum‐vir—we will so term him though he was actually one of the Quatuor‐viri—he whose turn it was to maintain order and administer justice, had taken his place in the court, so as to be able to consign to custody such as were brought in by the guard on suspicion of being implicated in the outrage; he was there as well for the purpose of being ready to take measures promptly should the mob become unmanageable. So long as it was under control, he did not object to its action, but he had no thought of letting it get the upper hand. Rioters, like children, have a liking for fire, and if they were suffered to apply their torches to the houses of Christians might produce a general conflagration.

Although the magistrates were chosen by popular election, it was not those who constituted the rabble who had votes, and had to be humored, but the citizen householders, who viewed the upheaval of the masses with jealous suspicion.

That the proceedings should be conducted in an orderly manner, instructions had been issued that no arrest was to be made without there being someone forthcoming to act as accuser, and the soldiers were enjoined to protect whosoever was menaced against whom no one was prepared to formulate a charge which he would sustain in court.

In the case of Baudillas there would be no difficulty. The man—he was the treasurer of the guild—who had found the mutilated head was ready to appear against him.

The court into which the deacon was brought rapidly filled with a crowd, directly he had been placed in what we should now call the dock. Then the accuser stood up and gave his name. The magistrate accepted the accusation. Whereupon the accuser made oath that he acted from no private motive of hostility to the accused, and that he was not bribed by a third person to delate him. This done, he proceeded to narrate how he had entered the house of Baudillas, surnamed Macer, who was generally believed to be a minister of the sect of the Christians; how that in searching the house he had lighted on a mutilated head on the pavement of the _triclinium_. He further stated that he well knew the statue of the god Nemausus that stood by the fountain which supplied the lower town, and that he was firmly convinced that the head which he now produced had belonged to the statue, which statue had that very night been wantonly and impiously defaced. He therefore concluded that the owner of the house, Baudillas Macer, was either directly or indirectly guilty of the act of sacrilege, and he demanded his punishment in accordance with the law.

This sufficed as preliminary.

Baudillas was now _reus_, and as such was ordered to be conveyed to prison, there to be confined until the morning, when the interrogation would take place.