Part 19

What though the liquid serpent of the deep Between lie coil’d in many a glittering ring: Not unobserved of your pale eyes we weep, Nor to deaf ears this doleful chant we sing; Strong is the voice of blood through night to go, Through night and hell, and all the realms below.

Then hear us, kindred spirits—stately Sire And pensive Mother! wheresoe’er ye glide; If ever solemn pile and soaring fire In freedom sped you to the Stygian tide,— Have pity on your children: let the breath Of living sorrow melt the frozen ear of death.

For Her that, sprung like us from your high line, Hath mingled in the sacrifice of guilt, Ye know that angry star, her natal sign, To expiate whose curse this blood is spilt; If not suffices this atoning blood, Oh, steep the thought of her in Lethe’s flood.

Beneath that current lazy and serene, In whose unfathomable waters lie The slumbering forms of horrors that have been In Hades, and in Ocean, Earth, and Sky— With long forgotten curse and murder old, Steep that lost daughter’s errors manifold.

Once more for you an hallowed flame there burns. Once more for you an hallowed stream there flows; Despise not our lustrations of your urns, Nor let unhoused Manes be our foes! Above the children of your lineage born, Hover not, awful ghosts, in anger and in scorn.

These words were sung, as I have said, by the whole of this kindred there assembled together; the first part of them distinctly, though not loudly; but the last verses in a note so low, that no one, unless quite near, (like ourselves,) could have comprehended their meaning. But as for the young Sempronia, when they came to that part of the chant in which reference was so particularly made to Athanasia, not only did her lips refuse to join in the words, but her agitation was such that I thought the poor maiden would have screamed outright, had she not been controlled by the eye, and the hand also, of her aunt the Priestess. Sobs, however, and low hysterical groans, could not be stifled; and at last so great was her agony, that even the haughty Priestess was compelled to give way to it.

“Bring water,” said she; “dash ye water upon the foolish thing: methinks it seems almost as if she had partaken in the frenzy of her unhappy——”

And before she could finish the sentence, one or two of the females that were present did take hold of Sempronia, and began, seeing there was no water nearer at hand, to bear her slender form towards the small stream of which I have already spoken, and which flowed immediately behind the clump of pine trees, amongst which the Centurion and I were standing.

She was quite passive in their hands; and they dragged her without resistance or difficulty to the place where we were standing; but they could not pass without seeing us: and no sooner did the eyes of Sempronia fall upon me, than she burst by one unexpected effort from the arms of those that were sustaining her, and ere I or any one could suspect what she was to do, there lay she at my feet, clinging with her arms around my knees. “Oh, Valerius,” said she—“Oh, dear Valerius, they curse Athanasia! Where is my Athanasia? whither have they taken her? Oh, tell me, that I may go to her—that I may go to comfort Athanasia!”

“Peace!” said, before I could answer, the Priestess of Apollo—“Peace, mad, wretched thing,—has infatuation blasted the whole of our line?” And she seized Sempronia by the arm, and compelled her to spring from her knees. But the maiden still clung by her hands to me, and continued, with looks and words of misery, to demand from me that knowledge which, alas! I would myself have given so much to possess. Sabinus, however, smote me on the shoulder, as if to make me recollect myself; and I had resolution enough not to betray the feelings with which I listened to Sempronia’s frantic supplication.

“What is this, sir?” then said the Priestess—“What is it that you know of Athanasia? and why is it that you have presumed to witness the secret sacrifice of a noble race?—Speak—or is there no meaning in this poor girl’s frenzy? And yet, methinks I have seen you before, and that, too, in the presence of——”

“It was,” said I, hastily—“it was indeed in the presence of Athanasia; but that circumstance, if you please to remember, was altogether accidental. I was with the lady Rubellia when you found her in the Temple of Apollo——”

“Yes,” said she, “it was that same day when she refused to name the name of Phœbus in his own precincts! Ha! little did I imagine what thoughts were in her breast—else might we at least have been spared this open degradation. And yet you, methinks, saluted Athanasia.—What is your name, sir?—Know you, in truth, whither the lady Athanasia has been conveyed?”

“He was with her!—he was with her!” exclaimed Sempronia,—“he was with her in the tower when the soldiers came.—O Valerius! tell me where she is now,—into what dungeon have they cast my friend—my sister——”

“Ha!” quoth the Priestess, “he was with her in the tower!—Romans—kinsmen—Lucius—Marcus—hear ye this? I charge ye, seize upon this treacherous blasphemer!—It is he that has deceived Athanasia; and now must he come here to taint the smoke of our sacrifice, and pollute our prayers with his presence.—Seize him!”—And she herself grasped my cloak as she spake—“Seize, I charge ye, this accursed Christian!”

But Sabinus, when he saw the Priestess thus furious, stept forward, and said to her kinsmen, who were standing in perplexity behind her, “Sirs, I beseech you, be not you also carried away with this madness.—My friend here knows nothing of the lady Athanasia, except that she was borne away by soldiers from the very place where we are standing. I myself witnessed it also, being here with the Prætorians. Valerius is no more a Christian than she who accuses him.”

“I know not, sirs, how we are to understand all this,” said one of the Sempronii, in a calm voice. “Is this young man the same Valerius who is living in the house of Licinius?—Yet it must be he. I have been with Licinius this very day; and if this be he, whatever he may have known before, I am sure he knows nothing of where Athanasia is now,—and, sister, I am well assured he is no Christian.”

“It is the same, sir,” said Sabinus. “He is the same Caius Valerius of whom you spake, and I am Sabinus, a Centurion of the Prætorians.”

“We have all heard of your name,” said Sempronius, respectfully; “I perceive there is some mistake in all this matter. If it please you, let us walk aside, and understand each other.”

So saying, he withdrew Sabinus to a little distance, and beckoned to me to accompany him. “Valerius,” said the old man, when he perceived that we were out of hearing, “I crave you, in the first place, to forget all this trouble which has been occasioned to you by the violence of my daughter, on the one hand, and of my sister on the other. They are women; and, for different reasons, the violence of both is excusable. I have been for a considerable part of this day with Licinius, and have heard from him enough to satisfy me how guiltlessly you yourself have been involved in this affair; and your speedy liberation from confinement is more than enough to confirm my belief of all that he said. Yet there is much which I do not understand. I pray you speak openly, and fear nothing—you have, indeed, nothing to fear. Was it in consequence of any private meeting with my niece—nay, I mean not to suspect you of any thing amiss—in one word, how was it that you happened to be taken into custody with that unhappy girl?”

“Sir,” I replied, “you are a noble Roman, and the near kinsman of Athanasia. You have a right to put these questions, and whatever reluctance I may have to overcome, I feel that I have no right to refuse an answer.” And so I told Sempronius, plainly and distinctly, the story both of my unwilling entrance into the mausoleum, and of my forcible abduction from it. In short, I saw no reason to conceal any thing from the person who was most likely to be able to serve Athanasia, if any thing to serve her were possible.

“It is well,” he said; “you speak as becomes a man of the Valerian blood. But as for poor Athanasia, I swear to you I cannot yet bring myself to believe that she hath in reality been privy to such things as have been discovered concerning these Christians.”—“Discovered!” said I. “I pray you, what has been discovered concerning them? If you allude to any of the wild stories that are circulated about their religion, you may depend upon it, it is all mere madness to believe a word of it. I have read in their sacred books myself, and I swear to you, that, so far as I have seen, nothing can be more simple, benign, humane, than the morality inculcated by their leader.”

“Young man,” he answered, “I was not thinking of their creed, which, for aught I know or care, may be sublime enough; for there was always a mysterious sort of philosophy current among those old Asiatic nations. But I speak of the designs of these men; in one word, I speak of their conspiracy.”—“Conspiracy!—What? How? Against whom? I will pledge my life, no conspiracy was sheltered beneath yon tower that night. I swear to you, they are simple people, and were thinking of nothing but their worship.”—“Worship!” quoth he; “I promise you it will not be so easy to persuade me that Cotilius has suddenly become a man of so much piety, either to our gods, or to the deities (if they have any) of the Christians.—What, Cotilius? By Jove, Rome does not hold at this moment a more bold, daring, godless rascal. You may as soon try to make me believe that Capaneus came to Thebes with a hymn in his mouth. No, no—the sworn friend of Domitian will not easily gain credit for his new-sprung sanctity.”—“Cotilius? That was the very name of the man that seized me, as I have told you.”—“I should have guessed as much,” said he;—“Yes, I promise you, how little soever Athanasia might have known, secrets they had; and Cotilius was well aware at what peril they should be revealed.”

“The late example,” said I, “must indeed have alarmed him.”—“What,” said he, “do you speak of that fanatic Syrian? You know little of Cotilius. No, no—had the worst of his fears been the necessity to worship all the deities between Euphrates and Rhine, he would have slept soundly.”—“But surely,” said I, “you do not believe that Athanasia had any knowledge of the man’s secret designs, if he had any. He may have used Christianity, or desired to use it, as a weapon against the State; but be certain, neither she nor any of those really attached to their religion, had any notion of his purpose.”

“It may be so, indeed,” he answered;—“Heaven grant it may. As for Cotilius, I will speak to you more at length of him anon. I will bid adieu to my sister, and take order about my daughter; and then, if it so please you, we shall walk together to the city.”

To this I agreed, but Sabinus rode on to the camp of the Prætorians. He whispered to me, however, that unless he were most necessarily detained, he should be, ere long, at the house of Licinius.

“To you,” said the Senator, as we went on, “who have so lately come from your island, the whole of this expiatory spectacle is probably quite new; but I am sure Sabinus could not have been aware what was its purpose, otherwise he would not have been guilty of so grievously offending the feelings of my sister, and some of the rest of my kindred, by remaining a witness of these most private rites. The Priestess is indeed inconsolable, and her grief has set half her other passions in motion likewise. Athanasia was as dear to her as if she had been her daughter; so, in truth, she was to us all, ever since her parents died. But Cotilius, this knave Cotilius, has, I fear, blasted her hopes and ours.”—“It occurs to me,” said I, “and I should have mentioned it to you before, that there seemed to be no great understanding between this Cotilius and Athanasia. She was evidently displeased with many things he both said and did; and he, on his part, did not appear to relish her interference.”—“True,” he continued, “you have already hinted as much; and I assure you, these are some of the circumstances in the whole case that tend most to excite my hopes. Great Heavens! what would Caius have said had he dreamt that his orphan was to be suspected of having sympathy with any of the dark designs of that shame to Roman knighthood! But you, of course, are a stranger to this man’s history.”—“With its end, at least,” I replied, “it is like we may all be soon enough acquainted.”

“Yes,” said he, “Heaven grant we have not cause too deeply to remember it! but I have known him from the beginning. I told you already that he was in great favour with Domitian.”—“And the reverse, of course,” said I, “both with Nerva and Trajan.”

“Even so,” he continued, “and with reason; for in all the disturbances which occurred on the accession of the last sovereign, and, in particular, in those foul intrigues among the Prætorians, which at one time brought Nerva’s own life into immediate danger and compelled him to bare his neck to the soldiery at his gate, this Cotilius was more than suspected to have had a deep concern. When Petronius and Parthenius(2) were hacked in pieces, it needed no great witchcraft to detect some of the moving spirits that produced their catastrophe; but proof there was none at the time; and even had there been proof enough, the good old man would have been too timid to act upon it. These things, however, could not be forgotten either by Nerva or his successor. Hitherto, the strong hand has repressed every rebellious motion; but be sure that no man ever lived more an object of suspicion, than this man has done ever since Nerva adopted Trajan.”

“And you think,” said I, “that, among other intrigues, it had occurred to this man to make his own use of the Christians; despised and persecuted though they be, there can, indeed, be no doubt that their numbers are considerable, and that their faith is a strong bond of cohesion.”

“It is even so,” said the Senator. “But as yet the treason even of Cotilius rests on suspicion only, and report; and, after all, even if he were proved guilty of having nourished such schemes, the account you give of what you saw and heard at their assembly, inspires me with considerable doubts whether he can be supposed to have ever as yet ventured to invite their participation;—unless, indeed, they practised deception while you were with them. The moment I heard of what had happened, I went to the Palatine, in hopes of attaining either assistance from Urbicus, or mercy, if that were all we could look for, from Trajan. But Urbicus could give me no satisfaction, except that my niece was in a solitary and safe place. The charges, he said, against one of the leaders (he meant Cotilius) were heavy; and until these were sifted, it was impossible that access could be afforded to any one who had been thrown into confinement. The Emperor had shewn unusual symptoms of anxiety, and had even, so he hinted, been in person investigating the matter at a distance from the city, during great part of the preceding night and day. To tell you the truth, Valerius, till this thing fell out, I was wont to consider the new violence about the Christians as somewhat unworthy of the enlarged intellect of Trajan: it had not occurred to me, how easily the resources of such a superstition might be enlisted in the cause of discontent.”

“Of course,” said I, “nothing will be done in regard to Athanasia until all circumstances have been examined.”

“Done!” said he; “has not enough been done already to justify almost in a man more than you have seen among our women? Has not a whole family been disgraced? Has not the mausoleum of their fathers been prostituted for the unholy purposes of this barbarian sect? If the Senate should be summoned, with what countenance should I shew myself among my friends?—Unhappy girl! How little did she know in what trouble she was to involve those that love her the best.”

By this time we had come within sight of the house of Licinius, and the Senator took leave, with a promise that I should see him on the morrow.

I found Sextus alone in his chamber, where he embraced me with all the ardour of juvenile affection. “Alas!” said he, “my dear Caius, at any other time I might have found fault with you for taking so great a part in my griefs, and yet keeping so many of your own to yourself. But if it be indeed as Sempronia has said, I should be a strange friend to choose this hour for complaining of such trifles as regard only myself.”

“Sextus,” I replied, “it was only because of the greatness of your own distresses that I concealed from your kindness any of mine.”

“My Valerius,” he answered, “we shall talk at length to-morrow; at present, I have only time to say, that the misfortune of Athanasia was communicated to Sempronia almost immediately, by an old freedwoman, who had been in the habit of attending her when she went from home in secret, and who, going to the mausoleum to accompany her on her return, arrived there just in time to see what befel her. She saw you also, (how she knew who you were, I know not,) and when she had told her story to Sempronia, the poor girl, before speaking even with her father, sent for me to come to her in the gardens. I did so; all that passed I need not repeat; but I hope my advice was the right one. At all events, I acted for the best, and my father, who is now aware of every thing, seemed to approve of what I had done. O Valerius! were Athanasia free, and you happy, many things have occurred to make me much more at ease than when you left us. My father is evidently shocked with what Dromo told about Rubellia; and as for Xerophrastes, he had not once spoken to him either yesterday or to-day. Indeed, neither of them have been much here. My father is continually exerting himself concerning Athanasia; and Xerophrastes, I suppose, is afraid of a discovery. As for me, I am sorry I must leave you, for I promised to meet Sempronia; and although I have nothing to tell her, I cannot fail in my appointment. She must have returned before this time from the mausoleum, where an expiatory sacrifice was to be made at sunset.”

Sabinus by this time had hastened to me once more, according to his kind promise. I told him that my kinsman was not at home, and that I proposed, in the meantime, accompanying his son a part of the way towards the Suburban of Capito. The Centurion insisted on going with us, saying, that he could not think of returning to the camp without having spoken with Licinius.

_CHAPTER II._

The Centurion, in virtue of his office, had free access to the gardens of Trajan; so he led us by both a more delightful and a nearer path towards the Salarean Gate. Young Sextus then quitted us; and we returned slowly through the beautiful groves of the Imperial Villa, in hopes of finding my kinsman by the time we should reach his mansion. But as we were walking very quietly along one of the broad green terraces, we heard voices in an adjoining alley, separated from us by luxuriant thickets of myrtle, and Sabinus, whispering to me, “Hush, let us see what we have got here,” insinuated himself with great dexterity among the verdant shrubs. I followed him with as little noise as was possible, and having found a convenient peeping place, we soon perceived two figures at some little distance from us in the moonlight.—“Come, Sabinus,” I whispered, “they are lovers perhaps—I don’t see what right we have to overhear.”—“Peace,” quoth he, “if you stir, they will detect us, and it is nothing unless it be known.”

With some reluctance I remained where I was; but my scruples were at an end the moment I perceived who they were.

“Most noble, most illustrious lady,” said Xerophrastes, “this matter has indeed been conducted unfortunately, yet no reason see I why you should give way to so many groundless apprehensions. The only thing, after all, that you have lost, if indeed you have lost it, is the good opinion of Licinius; for, as to that foolish boy——”—“Name him not,” replied Rubellia, “name not the stripling. Surely madness alone can account for my behaviour.”—“Madness!” quoth the Stoic; “yes, truly, and who, at certain moments, is free from such madness? As Euripides has expressed it, Venus, if she come in wisdom, is the wisest; if otherwise, the most frenzied of influences. The greatest have not been exempt from such visitations. Banish it from your heart, noble lady, or replace it by something more worthy of your discernment. There is, I think, but one pair of eyes in Rome that could have been blind to such perfections.”—“O Xerophrastes!” said she, “speak not to me of perfections. Alas! I was born under a deceitful star—a star of apparent splendour and real misery.”—“Noble lady,” he replied, “I swear to you that what tincture of philosophy I have imbibed, is unable to sustain my serenity when I hear such words from your lips. You are surrounded by all that externals can minister. It is your part to compose your mind, and then how should it be possible for you to taste of unhappiness? Think no more of that boy.”

The philosopher took her hand with an air of the deepest sympathy, and at the same time drew the end of his mantle over his face, as if to conceal the extent of his participation in her distresses.—“Alas! lady, this is, after all, a miserable world. There is no rest but in the affections, and behold how they are harassed on every hand by the invidious accidents of life. Philosophy proclaims her antidote, but the poison is every where; and it is all one course of being wounded to be cured, and being cured only to be more easily wounded again.”

Our friend continued in an attitude of pensive contemplation. The moonbeams fell full on his high brow and the large massy features of his countenance, and on the robust limbs which emerged from below the stately folds of his mantle; and I could not help thinking that there was something almost heroic, which I had never before remarked, in the whole of his appearance. Rubellia kept her eyes fixed steadfastly upon him.

“I should have known nothing of it,” he resumed, “had I never deserted my paternal valley for the vain pleasures of Athens, and the magnificence of Rome.”—“You repent,” said she, “that you ever visited Italy? I pray you deal with me openly. If it be your wish to leave Rome, speak, and I shall put it in your power to retire to Greece as handsomely as you could ever have hoped to do from the family of Licinius. Of wealth, as you well know, I have enough both for myself and for my faithful friends, among whom, be sure, I place you in the first rank. Control your feelings, I pray you once more—and speak freely.”

Hastily and fervently he pressed his lip upon the beautiful hand of Rubellia, and whispered something into her ear. She started, and I think blushed in the moonlight; but neither seemed offended very deeply with what he had said, nor with the gesture he had used.—“Softly, softly,” whispered the Centurion, “be not ashamed, fair lady, of the love of thy servant.”

But (whether the echo of his Horatian parody had reached her ear or not, I cannot tell,) scarcely had these words been uttered, ere Rubellia started from her seat, and began to move pretty quickly down the shaded alley, as if towards the entrance of the gardens. Xerophrastes sate still for a moment, even after the lady had arisen, covering his eyes, and part of his broad forehead with his hands, as if buried in his own thoughts too deeply to be with ease affected with a sense of things passing around him. Then, at last, he arose, and uttering an exclamation of surprise, walked after the noble dame, taking heed, however, (it did not escape our observation,) to arrange, as he rapidly followed her, the massive folds of his mantle into a graceful drapery.