Quintus Claudius, Volume 1

CHAPTER XXII

“Do not be uneasy, Quintus,” Aurelius whispered, as Cneius Afranius dismounted and threw the bridle to his slave. “By all the gods, this man is as trustworthy as you and I are! It would be perfect madness, not to give him an opportunity for an interview with Eurymachus. His fight with Stephanus is in the interest of common humanity, and particularly in that of our protégé.”

“It is all the same; I do not like the business at all.”

“Then, so far as you personally are concerned, you can keep altogether aloof.”

Quintus looked enquiringly at him.

“Why are you so surprised?” Aurelius continued. “It seems to me a very simple matter. I will put myself forward as his protector, and you can play the part of entire innocence. You need not frown, as if I had suggested some cowardly action; if the whole matter ever comes to be known, it will make wonderfully little difference, whether Afranius is in possession of the whole or only of half the truth. You will save yourself nothing but immediate embarrassment. I, for my part, am so perfectly intimate with Afranius, so completely his friend…”

“If you suppose…”

“Only explain the case to your slave, Blepyrus. He must not be implicated. Your best way to avoid difficulties will be not to come on board. I could not even have invited you to come on with me, if I had not felt it a duty to inform you of my intentions.”

Quintus nodded.

“Very good,” he said thoughtfully. “Then tell our friend, Eurymachus, not to mention my name. I, meanwhile, will part from Afranius as though I had business to attend to, and I will wait for you on shore. How long will you remain on board?”

“Twenty minutes. Afranius must get through his examination as quickly as possible.”

This brief dialogue had been carried on in haste and in a whisper. Afranius had been giving instructions to his slave, as to how to treat his hired nag, which was somewhat overtired, and he now joined Quintus, while Aurelius hurried off to the two slaves, who carried, rather than led, Eurymachus. Three words sufficed to explain the situation. The wounded man cast a look of mournful gratitude at his preserver, Quintus, who bowed to him with feigned indifference; then he released Blepyrus, and rested his arm on the Batavian’s shoulder. Blepyrus turned to follow his master, who went off with long strides landwards along the high-street.

By every human calculation the perilous work was now happily finished; all the rest might be considered and carried out at leisure. If Stephanus could be really unmasked in all his villany, they might yet succeed in bending the severity of the law in procuring the fugitive’s return, and in securing him the happiness of a free and independent existence. Quintus drew a deep breath; that would be a worthy end to his bold beginning. He felt that Eurymachus, now that he had seen him again, was far more to him than a high-souled slave. He felt a spiritual sympathy, a sort of ideal friendship for him, like that of a disciple for his master. His last struggle to resist the overpowering urgency of this sentiment had died effete.

After walking about ten minutes, Quintus turned back again, and just as he reached the strand the boat came to shore with Afranius, Aurelius, and the Goth. Eurymachus, then, was safe on board, and if the lawyer’s radiant expression did not belie him, his interview with the fugitive had yielded a rich harvest. As the men stepped on land, he turned eagerly to Aurelius and asked him when the trireme was to start.

“Everything was made ready yesterday,” replied Aurelius. “In five minutes they will be off with all the oars plied.”

He looked across the waters, and raised his right hand to wave a farewell.

“Good-luck go with you!” he said in a low voice, but loud enough for Quintus to hear him. “Greet Trajectum fondly from me.”

In a few minutes the trireme began to move. Slowly at first she made her way through the crowd of merchant and fishing-vessels, which lay at anchor. But the captain’s hammer-strokes beat faster and faster, and the oars dipped deeper and more strongly in the dashing waves. Now, gliding past the jetty at the end of the quay, the trireme was afloat on the open sea, and rode the broad blue waters like a swan. The men still stood gazing after the proud and beautiful vessel – Aurelius, for his part, not altogether without a vague and melancholy homesick feeling. Although he knew, that within a few hours the trireme would turn aside from her course and steer for the roads of Antium, still, the dear north-country and the image of the mother he had left behind him, suddenly seemed brought nearer to him. He had but spoken the name of his home – but it had filled his soul with yearning. He thought of the immediate future. – Ere long he too might be a fugitive, weary and persecuted like Eurymachus, escaping on board that very ship, and thanking the gods if he might only flee unrecognized. And then Rome, and all that it contained of dear and fair, would be closed against him forever. All – Claudia? the thought sank down on his soul like lead. Claudia in Rome, and he hundreds of miles away, with the fearful certainty of never seeing her again! But if she loved him – then indeed…! If she would follow him, as Peponilla378 had followed her banished husband, amid the ice-hills of Scandia, or on the barren shores of Thule,379 spring would blossom for him more exquisite than the rose-gardens of Paestum! But what was there to justify his hopes of such immeasurable happiness? She had given him proofs of her friendship, no doubt, and when he was reading the Thebais, or when he spoke to her of his northern home, she had a way of listening – it had often brought light and warmth to his soul like a ray of promise – but then the revulsion had been all the more violent; her greeting would sound distant and measured, her smile would seem cold and haughty. Oh! if only he might have time to conquer this indifference.

But a voice was now calling him to the scene of action, and if that action were to result in failure! – He almost regretted having so unresistingly yielded to the eloquence of Cinna and to his own passionate patriotism – though indeed, as he told himself, his eager passion for Claudia was not the least of the motives that urged him to action, nay, but for that passion he might still have been hesitating. As it was, it had dragged him with the force of a possession into the whirlpool of conspiracy. He longed to stand before her – his chosen love – as a victor over tyranny, as a liberator of the empire, and say to her: “Now, noble heart, I may sue for thy love, for I have a grand advocate in the gratitude of my country.”

All this swept through his mind like a waking dream, as he gazed in silence at the immeasurable sea. Then, coming to himself, and turning round, his eyes met those of Quintus. They were the very eyes – those dear, beautiful, unforgettable eyes – of his loved Claudia, only less sweetly thoughtful, less tenderly dreamy. Suddenly his resolve was taken. As soon as it should be possible, this very day if it might be, he would learn his fate from the woman he loved, and make an end of this miserable uncertainty.

“Was all prepared?” asked Quintus, as Cneius Afranius withdrew to one side and wrote some notes on his tablets.

“All quite ready,” replied Aurelius. “He will be cared for, as if he were my own brother.”

“And what did he tell Afranius?”

“I do not know; they were alone together. Afranius begged to keep it secret, until he had everything ready to complete his case against Stephanus.”

Afranius seemed to be entirely absorbed in thinking over what he had learnt on board the trireme, and Aurelius had to call him twice by name, before he roused him from his reverie.

They were now walking along the quay in the direction previously taken by the chariot The two-wheeled cisium, which had been waiting on the opposite side of the market-place in front of a tavern, followed them with Magus and Blepyrus, while Afranius’ slave led the grey hack and his own mule.

“What a tremendous crowd and bustle!” exclaimed the lawyer. “Not such an emporium as Puteoli, to be sure, but busy enough and not less noisy! Look at that barge with those gigantic blocks of marble – each big enough to fill an average store-room! And there – that is really stupendous!”

He pointed to a spot on the quay, where the crowd was thickest. A crane there stood up, from which a gigantic rhinoceros was hanging in mid-air, supported by broad bands and girths.

“A cargo of beasts for the centennial games,"380 said Quintus. “There, to the left, are a dozen of iron cages ready to receive them. Half Asia and Africa have been plundered for the amphitheatres.”

They went nearer, for an interest in wild beasts was a natural instinct, in all who had ever breathed the air of Rome. The hum and clatter of the seaport were dully drowned now and again by a hoarse roar – the growl of one of the lions from Gaetulia, restlessly pacing up and down behind the bars of their prison, which had just been landed.

“That is something like a cageful!” said the Batavian.

“The freight of two vessels,” remarked Quintus, glancing at the two large ships, one of which had already unloaded and gone to its moorings. “Our gladiators may pray for good-luck.”

Another deep roar, as wild and hungry as ever resounded through the midnight desert, drowned his voice. They were now within a few paces of the landing-place, and from hence they could command a complete view of the enormous array of cages, loaded on low trucks, which were waiting to be transported to their destination by road. Hyrcanian tigers pressed their glossy striped coats against the iron bars; Cantabrian bears, standing on their hind legs, poked their sharp muzzles between the railings; leopards from Mauritania, hyænas, panthers and lynxes gnashed their blood-thirsty jaws; aurochs and buffaloes whetted their sheathless horns, or stared in lazy indifference on the strange surroundings. There were a few rhinoceroses too, a great rarity at Rome; and some enormous crocodiles, which excited the astonishment and curiosity of the maritime populace. Farther off, fastened together in long rows, were numbers of wild asses from the hills of Numidia, wild horses, giraffes and zebras; for even such beasts as these had their part in the mighty fights in the Flavian amphitheatre.

Quintus and Aurelius lounged idly towards the cages, while Afranius studied the movements of the crane, which was now beginning to lower the grotesque monster. The two young men came to a stand in front of a lion of unusual size, which was snorting at the bars of its cage, and standing in a haughty and threatening attitude, its head and tangled mane held high in the air. It was, in fact, the same beast as had just now sent out that terrific roar. His keeper, leaning against the corner of the cage at a respectful distance, had tried to coax and pacify the brute, and as the two gentlemen approached the cage he respectfully withdrew to one side. The lion watched him as he moved, and then, as he turned his head and perceived the two strangers so close to the bars, he drew back a pace as if startled, bellowed out for the third time his thundering and appalling roar; and blind with fury, rushed at the iron railing.

Quintus and Aurelius smiled and looked at each other – but they had both turned pale at the brute’s unexpected onslaught.

“He seems to have some personal objection to me,” said Quintus. “His fiery glare is steadily fixed on me. My word! but it increases my respect for our gladiators; to stand face to face with such a beast in the arena, must have an unpleasant effect on the nerves. Here we see nature in all its unmitigated ferocity.”

The lion was, in fact, standing with a burning eye fixed on Quintus, as though in him he recognized an old enemy.

“Let us go,” said the young man, frowning. “It is only a dumb, unconscious brute, and I am ashamed to have been so shaken by his mere roar. Aye, blink away, you hairy old villain. Thirty inches of steel between your ribs will reduce even you to silence, and that must be your fate at last, however wildly you may rage and foam over bleeding men first.”

“That is a thorough bad one,” said the negro keeper, who spoke Latin with difficulty. “I have tamed more than fifty; but all trouble is thrown away on this one. He is one of the mountain lions, and his father was a magician. I saw that at once, when the hunters brought him, that black tuft on his forehead shows it plainly.”

And, in fact, a tangled lock of black hair hung from the brute’s mane between his eyes.

“Is it your business to tame lions?” asked Quintus.

“I tame the mildest, and the fierce ones are kept for the fights. I have brought up three tame ones for the centennial games – as high as this – and they do the most wonderful things that have ever been shown in Rome. They take live hares381 in their jaws and carry them three times round the arena, without even squeezing them.”

But Quintus was not listening; he had turned away. The brute’s scowl, as he kept his glaring eyes fixed on him, filled him with an uneasy feeling. Cneius Afranius appealed to him, too – with a pressing reminder, that a welcome was awaiting him – not to forget the young ladies and his mother in favor of rhinoceroses and giraffes; so they got away from the crowd and back to the high-road, where the chariot was waiting with the slaves.

The venerable Fabulla had received her guests at the garden gate, and had conducted them with repeated effusions of delight and gratitude to her pretty little house, almost hidden among olives and holm oaks, and bowered in ivy and vines. Here the young girls were seated under an autumn-tinted arbor-porch, and helped themselves to the grapes which hung within reach overhead. In front of them, on a round-table of pine-wood, stood a wicker basket of sweet-smelling wheat-bread, a half-emptied bowl of milk, and a dish of apples and pears. Near them lay a distaff, tied round with scarlet ribbons, and a spindle, for Fabulla was never for an instant idle, and spun her yarn even in the presence of such illustrious strangers.

“Children,” said Cneius Afranius, “this is the true Elysium… The shade, the dull green of the olives, the vine-garlands, the delicious air, the fresh milk – it is superb! But to feel fully equipped for the enjoyment of it all, I must first get rid of all my business; for the present, then, I leave you to your fate. I must drink a cup of this milk – and then farewell. We shall live to meet again! Within an hour I shall be here again.” And with the tragic air of an actor playing the dying Socrates, he took up one of the red clay cups and solemnly lifted it to his lips.

“Stop, stop!” cried the good mistress. “You are taking mistress Lucilia’s cup.”

“Ah!” cried Afranius, replacing the cup he had drained on the table with mock penitence. "Mistress Lucilia will not be too severe, I hope, to forgive the mistake on the ground of my thirst and absence of mind… Mother, your cows are improving, decidedly improving. Never did this nectar taste so truly Olympian as to-day. Great Pan himself must bless them."382

And with these words he quitted them.

When Quintus and Aurelius had also refreshed themselves, they all rose to wander through the garden under Fabulla’s guidance. Quintus and Cornelia led the way, followed by Aurelius and Claudia. The mistress of the house came last with Lucilia, who was in the highest spirits, and never tired of praising the beautiful curly kale and the splendid heads of lettuce, or of singing fantastical rhapsodies in praise of the autumn pears and late figs. She had at once detected the happy pride, with which Fabulla regarded the pretty little estate, a pride which found an unmistakable echo in Afranius’ jesting praises. A strange impulse prompted her to humor this natural vanity, and give the worthy lady, whom she found particularly attractive, a simple and genuine pleasure. At the bottom of her heart agriculture and horticulture were as absolutely indifferent to her as any other form of human industry; but she had a happy gift of throwing herself into sympathy with every sphere of feeling. She spoke with delight of the charms of a country-life, and declared quite seriously, that the noise of the city was irritating and exhausting – an assertion to which her blooming appearance emphatically gave the lie.

Fabulla was perfectly enchanted with the girl’s ways and manners; she had never thought it possible, that so fresh, sweet, and unpretending a creature could come out of Rome – that den of wickedness and perversion – still less out of the house of a Senator, and under the very thunder-bolts, so to speak, of the Capitoline Jupiter. She took the bright, young creature to her heart with all the fervor of a convert; all the more eagerly because Claudia, though beautiful, was somewhat taciturn, and Cornelia, with all her graciousness, was still the unapproachable great lady, mysteriously shut up within an invisible wall against the advances of strangers.

Lucilia was, in fact, absolutely overflowing with amiability and graciousness. When, after a quarter of an hour of wandering, Fabulla explained that she must now go indoors to make some arrangements for their mid-day meal, Lucilia begged to be allowed to make herself of use, and to take the opportunity for seeing the kitchen, the store-rooms, and the slaves’ apartments. Fabulla was enchanted; she pressed a kiss on her new friend’s brow, and said in a tone of melancholy:

“You are just like-my sweet Erotion!383 She was not so pretty as you are, to be sure, nor so elegant, but her eyes were like yours, and she was just as bright, and had the same love for the garden and for house-keeping. – Ah! and such a good heart! How often have I dreamed of future happiness for her when she has come, tired out with play, and sat on my lap and laid her head on my breast. Then she would go to sleep, and I would sing some old song, and sit dreaming and hoping till darkness fell. But the gods would not have it so! A handful of ashes in a marble urn is all that is left me of my sweet little girl.”

She ceased speaking, and wiped her kind, honest eyes with the back of her hand. Lucilia gazed thoughtfully at the ground.

“It is a long time since,” Fabulla added presently. “Twenty-two years next March; but every now and then a feeling comes over me, as if I had lost the dear child only yesterday.”

“Poor mother!” sighed Lucilia.

Fabulla affectionately stroked her thick, waving hair.

“Do not mind me!” she said; “such dismal reflections do not suit well with the gaiety of youth.”

“Mirth and sadness dwell side by side,” replied Lucilia, “and to enjoy what is pleasant and endure what is sorrowful is the only sensible way.”

Then they went on between the box-hedged garden-beds.

The two couples meanwhile had wandered apart. Quintus and Cornelia were sitting at the farthest side of the orchard, on a rough stone bench in the deepest shade of the fruit trees, while Aurelius and Claudia remained meditatively pacing up and down the main walk.