A Friend of Caesar Part 7

"You say he's from Praeneste," said Gabinius, "and yet can he speak decent Latin? Doesn't he say '_conia_' for '_ciconia_,' and '_tammodo_' for '_tantummodo_'_?_ I wonder you invite such a boor."

"Oh! he can speak good enough Latin," said Lucius. "But I invited him because he is rich; and it might be worth our while to make him gamble."

"Rich!" lisped Servius Flaccus. "Rich (h)as my (h)uncle the broker?

That silly straightlac(h)ed fellow, who's (h)a C(h)ato, (h)or worse?

For shame!"

"Well," said Lucius, "old Cra.s.sus used to say that no one who couldn't pay out of his own purse for an army was rich. But though Drusus cannot do quite that, he has enough sesterces to make happy men of most of us, if his fortune were mine or yours."

"(H)its (h)an (h)outrage for him to have (h)it," cried Servius Flaccus.

"It's worse than an outrage," replied Ahen.o.barbus; "it's a sheer blunder of the Fates. Remind me to tell you about Drusus and his fortune, before I have drunk too much to-night."

Agias went away rejoicing with his new master. Drusus owned an apartment house on the Vicus Longus, and there had a furnished suite of rooms. He gave Agias into the charge of the porter[56] and ordered him to dress the boy's wounds. Cappadox waited on his master when he lunched.

[56] Porter--_Insularius._

"Master Quintus," said he, with the familiar air of a privileged servant, "did you see that knavish-looking Gabinius following Madame Fabia all the way back to the Temple of Vesta?"

"No," said Drusus; "what do you mean, you silly fellow?"

"Oh, nothing," said Cappadox, humbly. "I only thought it a little queer."

"Perhaps so," said his master, carelessly.

Chapter IV

Lucius Ahen.o.barbus Airs His Grievance

I

The pomp and gluttony of Roman banquets have been too often described to need repet.i.tion here; neither would we be edified by learning all the orgies that Marcus Laeca (an old Catilinian conspirator) and his eight guests indulged in that night: only after the dinner had been cleared, and before the Gadesian[57] dancing girls were called in, the dice began to rattle, and speedily all were engrossed in drink and play.

[57] From Cadiz, Spain.

Lucius Ahen.o.barbus soon lost so heavily that he was cursing every G.o.d that presided over the n.o.ble game.

"I am ruined next Ides," he groaned. "Phormio the broker has only continued my loan at four per cent a month. All my villas and furniture are mortgaged, and will be sold at auction. _Mehercle_, destruction stares me in the face!"

"Well, well, my dear fellow," said Pratinas, who, having won the stakes, was in a mood to be sympathetic, "we must really see what can be done to remedy matters."

"I can see nothing!" was his answer.

"Won't your father come to the rescue?" put in Gabinius, between deep pulls on a beaker.

"My father!" snapped Ahen.o.barbus. "Never a sesterce will I get out of him! He's as good as turned me adrift, and Cato my uncle is always giving him bad reports of me, like the hypocritical Stoic that Cato is."

"By the bye," began Gabinius again, putting down the wine-cup, "you hinted to-day that you had been cheated out of a fortune, after a manner. Something about that Drusus of Praeneste, if I recollect.

What's the story?"

Lucius settled down on his elbow, readjusted the cushions on the banqueting couch, and then began, interrupted by many a hiccough because of his potations.

"It is quite a story, but I won't bore you with details. It has quite as much to do with Cornelia, Lentulus Crus's pretty niece, as with Drusus himself. Here it is in short. s.e.xtus Drusus and Caius Lentulus were such good friends that, as you know, they betrothed their son and daughter when the latter were mere children. To make the compact doubly strong, s.e.xtus Drusus inserted in his will a clause like this: 'Let my son Quintus enjoy the use of my estate and its income, until he become twenty-five and cease to be under the care of Flaccus his _tutor_.[58] If he die before that time, let his property go to Cornelia, the daughter of Caius Lentulus, except;' and here s.e.xtus left a small legacy for his own young daughter, Livia. You see Drusus can make no will until he is five-and-twenty. But then comes another provision. 'If Cornelia shall marry any person save my son, my son shall at once be free to dispose of my estates.' So Cornelia is laid under a sort of obligation also to marry Quintus. The whole aim of the will is to make it very hard for the young people to fail to wed as their fathers wished."

[58] Commercial adviser required for young men under five-and-twenty.

"True," said Gabinius; "but how such an arrangement can affect you and your affairs, I really cannot understand."

"That is so," continued Ahen.o.barbus, "but here is the other side of the matter. Caius Lentulus was a firm friend of s.e.xtus Drusus; he also was very close and dear to my father. Caius desired that Cornelia wed young Drusus, and so enjoined her in his will; but out of compliment to my father, put in a clause which was something like this: 'If Quintus Drusus die before he marry Cornelia, or refuse to marry Cornelia at the proper time, then let Cornelia and all her property be given to Lucius, the second son of my dearly loved friend, Lucius Domitius Ahen.o.barbus,' Now I think you will begin to see why Quintus Drusus's affairs interest me a little. If he refuse to marry Cornelia before he be five-and-twenty, she falls to me. But I understand that Lentulus, her uncle, is badly in debt, and her dowry won't be much.

But if Drusus is not married to her, and die before he is twenty-five, _his property is hers and she is mine._ Do you understand why I have a little grudge against him?"

"For what?" cried Laeca, with breathless interest.

"For living!" sighed Ahen.o.barbus, hopelessly.

The handsome face of Pratinas was a study. His nostrils dilated; his lips quivered; his eyes were bright and keen with what evidently pa.s.sed in his mind for a great discovery.

"Eureka!" cried the Greek, clapping his hands. "My dear Lucius, let me congratulate you! You are saved!"

"What?" exclaimed the young man, starting up.

"You are saved!" repeated Pratinas, all animation. "Drusus's sesterces shall be yours! Every one of them!"

Lucius Ahen.o.barbus was a debauchee, a mere creature of pleasure, without principle or character; but even he had a revulsion of spirit at the hardly masked proposal of the enthusiastic Greek. He flushed in spite of the wine, then turned pale, then stammered, "Don't mention such a thing, Pratinas. I was never Drusus's enemy. I dare not dream of such a move. The G.o.ds forefend!"

"The G.o.ds?" repeated Pratinas, with a cynical intonation. "Do you believe there are any?"

"Do you?" retorted Lucius, feeling all the time that a deadly temptation had hold of him, which he could by no means resist.

"Why?" said the Greek. "Your Latin Ennius states my view, in some of your rather rough and blundering native tetrameters. He says:--

"'There's a race of G.o.ds in heaven; so I've said and still will say.

But I deem that we poor mortals do not come beneath their sway.

Otherwise the good would triumph, whereas evil reigns to-day.'"

"And you advise?" said Ahen.o.barbus, leaning forward with pent-up excitement.

"I advise?" replied Pratinas; "I am only a poor ignorant h.e.l.lene, and who am I, to give advice to Lucius Domitius Ahen.o.barbus, a most n.o.ble member of the most n.o.ble of nations!"

If Pratinas had said: "My dear Lucius, you are a thick-headed, old-fashioned, superst.i.tious Roman, whom I, in my superior wisdom, utterly despise," he would have produced about the same effect upon young Ahen.o.barbus.

But Lucius still fluttered vainly,--a very weak conscience whispering that Drusus had never done him any harm; that murder was a dangerous game, and that although his past life had been bad enough, he had never made any one--unless it were a luckless slave or two--the victim of bloodthirsty pa.s.sion or rascality.