The Mother of St. Nicholas Part 6

The vast mult.i.tude were greatly gratified in their feeling of the sensational. Yet a few were stirred to better thoughts and high resolves, who would never otherwise be influenced. Thus in the providence of G.o.d does the wrath of man work out His purpose and praise.

The applause was at its height. But, strange to say, Tharsos moved not. The officials that had gone to his aid removed the huge dead lion from his body. Still Tharsos moved not. Something appeared to be wrong, and the great noise stopped. The spectators leaned forward and looked anxious. Was the dauntless destroyer himself destroyed? The attendants turned him tenderly over--when, alas! there was a frightful gash in his naked side, from which the blood was flowing freely into the sand. His face and lips were white, with an expression of peace, as if in death.

t.i.ta.n.u.s, deeply anxious, arose and hastened away to get the best physician he could find. As he disappeared he glanced upward to the colonnade, but Coryna, the sister, was gone.

Carnion remained to see more of the stricken man, and of the pale woman in the centre, silent, unnoticed, and alone.

Promptly but gently the attendants lifted up Tharsos and carried him from the arena. And as he pa.s.sed from their sight the vast audience was hushed in regret.

CHAPTER XII.

DISCIPLINE.

Pathema also watched their movements and departure, fearing that the wounded youth was dead. Her heart yearned anxiously after him. Who was he that had so valiantly fought and bled for her? His name was Tharsos, and he was a brave, self-sacrificing n.o.bleman--that was all she could tell. It was enough. Self-sacrifice vividly recalled another sacrifice, greater, perfect, and for all. The flood-gate of feeling could not be kept closed. She held the lilies in her drooping hand, she raised them, looked at them tenderly for a moment, then buried her face in them, and wept.

A herald now approached Pathema and formally announced that she was free, at the same time pointing to the open door through which they had borne the bleeding hero. But to the sensual undiscerning mult.i.tude, Pathema was no heroine. She was only a woman; and in those days when heathenism prevailed, women were not honoured as they are now.

Besides, Pathema was to them a fanatic, a detested Christian, and at best but a stubborn, unbending, young woman. They knew not her supreme gentleness and modesty, which shrank from publicity like a sensitive plant from touch. They did not know that it was intense love and loyalty to her Head which gave her strength to dare even cruel death.

Pathema turned to leave the arena, but the tension and turmoil and reaction were now telling fast upon her fragile frame. As she walked away, her weakness was so great that she had the utmost difficulty to keep from falling, and it was only too visible; but she struggled on.

There was no sign of sympathy from the now talkative crowd, wailing for another scene of blood. They treated her with indifference--she was but a very secondary actor in the tragedy. Yet, though they knew her not, she was the greater victor, not that day alone, but in her past daily life of sacrifice. She was greater than he that slays a lion or takes a city!

Among the indifferent crowd there was one bright exception. Carnion, though not then a Christian, yet was fulfilling the beautiful words--"Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." As Pathema walked away with bowed head and faltering steps, the lad stepped to the edge of the balcony, and waiving his silken handkerchief, called out--"Thy G.o.d bless thee!" And the sufferer heard the boy's sweet, strengthening voice, and struggled on.

Misunderstood and unregarded by the heartless mult.i.tude, yet Pathema's discipline and victory were the work of G.o.d, and they, even the greatest of them, were but the willing, guilty instruments. She was being fashioned through suffering in the truest beauty and for the highest honour--the beauty of holiness, which endures for ever. She walked meekly and painfully on, she reached the little door, and then she pa.s.sed from their guilty presence,--a queen, though uncrowned.

CHAPTER XIII.

NIGHT.

The unconscious officer's wound was hastily but skilfully bound up and the blood stanched, he was raised in a _lectica_ or litter, and carried home with great care to his mansion. In the quietest chamber of the house, he was laid upon a costly bed, one of rare wood with feet of ivory and with purple coverlets curiously broidered with gold.

t.i.ta.n.u.s, having done his utmost, had gone away with Carnion, much cast down, the more so that he was under command by the emperor to leave Rome immediately on foreign service.

Coryna was left beside her brother, with the physician and a faithful intelligent slave. The depth of her feelings could not be sounded, yet there was staying power of a kind. Grief, admiration and anxiety surged around a will of rock. Within, a whirling storm: without, a pallid calm. She watched for the first signs of consciousness as the eagle watches for its prey.

Tharsos lay as if in death, with the soft light of serenity still on his manly face and cla.s.sic brow. He moved at last and opened his eyes.

"Where is the Christian maiden?" said he in dreamy feebleness, his expression changing into a look of anxiety.

Much relieved in tension, Coryna answered softly--

"Some kind one quickly conveyed her away, my brother, but I have sent several of our slaves over the city to find out her lodging-place and to enquire after her health."

A radiant joy covered his face, and he remained silent for a little.

Then he spoke with quiet earnestness:--

"My sister, thou knowest her worth. Look after her, I pray thee, for her own sake, and for the sake of Him she serves so well. But"--and here he halted, trying painfully to take a deep breath.

"Speak not, my brother," said Coryna soothingly.

Becoming calm, he resumed--"Hasten the search, Coryna; ask the maiden to come and see me before I die. Tell her that I shall regard her visit as a kindness and honour. I desire much to speak to her, my beloved sister, to place thee in her care, and then I shall die in peace." Tharsos spoke these last words very feebly, and then closing his eyes he sank bask into unconsciousness.

Coryna's heart was torn, but she would not renounce hope.

It was difficult to trace where Pathema had gone, humble Christian friends having taken her to a remote, obscure, but comfortable home.

One messenger, however, got word of her whereabouts late the same night, but too late to be prudent to call. When he knocked at the door next day he did not know that the object of his search was well informed through her friends concerning Tharsos' critical state, and that already there was a brief, beautiful, tablet-letter in her own handwriting, lying near his unconscious pillow.

Weakened by her cruel experience, Pathema was resting quietly upon a couch beside a small open window, her heart full of grat.i.tude to G.o.d for deliverance and of anxiety about her human deliverer.

"Is there a maiden named Pathema lodging here?" Marcellus, the messenger, enquired.

"There is, sir," said a little Roman maid, the daughter of the hostess, much excited as she looked out into the street and saw six slaves in red livery standing beside a grand palanquin.

"My master, Tharsos, is at the point of death, but he would like to see the Christian maiden ere he die."

Pathema overheard these words, and rose up at once. Though weak in body, she was resolute in mind, and she had enjoyed a providential night's rest. There was no delay in arranging matters, and she stepped into the _lectica_ calmly but as one about to go through a painful ordeal.

After elbowing their way through the streets, Marcellus leading, the slaves at length laid their burden down beside a statue of Caractacus in the vestibule before the door of the young n.o.bleman's mansion.

Like the usual Roman dwelling, the exterior was not prepossessing; but when Marcellus opened the door, the prospective view was peculiarly magnificent. The doors and curtains of successive courts were drawn aside, revealing active fountains, marble pillars with splendid statuary, and a lawn and shrubbery exposed above to the blue Italian sky.

Pathema ascended the marble steps, and pa.s.sing through the richly gilded door inlaid with tortoise-sh.e.l.l, she stood for a moment on the mosaic floor of the _ostium_ or entrance hall. Overhead, a parrot of brilliant plumage greeted her with the salutation, "Joy be with thee."

Going straight on for a few feet, she pa.s.sed into the _atrium_, a pillared court, where Coryna, the image of Tharsos in finer mould, met her and kissed her hand in touching silence.

Leading the way, Coryna went on through the _cavaedium_, a larger Corinthian-columned court, in whose centre stood a splashing fountain, shooting its crystal stream towards the open sky. Pa.s.sing the _tablinum_ or room of archives, they proceeded into the _peristylium_, a still larger transverse court or lawn with verdant shrubbery and a chaste towering fountain.

Here there was a Roman lady, elegantly dressed and richly jewelled.

Her dark-complexioned face was strikingly beautiful, yet marred by a lofty look of haughtiness. She walked around the lawn with the alert graceful movements of a panther. Evidently she was laboring under considerable excitement, and when Coryna and Pathema entered, her black eyes flashed out a deadly scorn.

Inwardly disturbed, yet meeting the lady's look with a smile, Coryna turned aside between the marble columns into one of the _exedrae_ or rooms for conversation. Guiding Pathema to a comfortable seat, she spoke for the first time, saying,

"Welcome to our home!"

"I thank thee for the honour," answered Pathema, "and I am glad to come, yet greatly pained."

"My brother did right," was the quiet response.

"Receive, I pray thee," said Pathema in tears, "my deepest grat.i.tude for thy brother's deed."

"Tharsos will yet receive it personally," was the happy answer.