The Roman Traitor Volume Ii Part 22

who is he?-"

"Aulus-"

"Ha! villain! villain! He shall die by my hand!" burst from Arvina's lips with a stifled cry, and drawing his sword as he spoke, he made toward him.

But Caius Fulvius, and several others of the clients threw themselves into the way, and the former said quietly but very firmly, "No-no, my Paullus, that must not be. His life is devoted to a baser doom; nor must his blood be shed by a hand so n.o.ble! But wherefore-Ha!" he exclaimed, interrupting himself in mid speech. "Ha! Julia, I remember-I remember-would to the G.o.ds I could have rescued her."

For one second's s.p.a.ce Paullus Arvina glared upon the speaker, as if he would have stabbed him where he sat on his horse motionless and unresisting; then, shaking his head with an abrupt impatient motion as if to rid himself of some fixed image or impression, he said,

"You are right, Caius. But tell me! by the G.o.ds! was she with him? saw you aught of her, as you took him?"

"She was in his power, my poor Paullus, as we were told at Sutrium; but when we overtook him, he had sent forward all his band but a small party, who fought so hard and handled us so roughly, that, he once taken, we dared not set on them again. But, be of good cheer, my Paullus. There is a gallant youth on the track of them; the same youth who went to save her at the Latin villa but arrived too late; the same who brought us the tidings of yon villain's flight, who led us in pursuit of them. He follows still, and swears that he will save her! The G.o.ds grant it?"

"A youth, ha! who is he?"

"I know not. He refused to tell us, still saying that he was nameless. A slight slender black-eyed youth. Exceeding dark-complexioned, but handsome withal. You would have said, to look on him, he would lack strength to ride an hour; yet, by the G.o.d of Faith! he was in the saddle incessantly for nearly forty hours, and shewed less weariness than our st.u.r.diest men.

Never saw I such fiery will, and resolute endurance, in one so young and feeble."

"Strange!" muttered Paullus-"strange! why came he not to me?"

"He did go to your mansion, but found you not. You were absent on state business-then came he to the father of this demon, who sent us in pursuit, and we have, as I tell you, succeeded. May you do so likewise! He charged me to say to you 'there was one on her track who would die to save her.'"

"'Tis pa.s.sing strange! I may not even guess who it should be," he added musing, "the G.o.ds give him strength. But tell me, Caius, can I, by any speed, overtake them?"

"I fear me not, Paullus, ere they have reached the camp. They were nigh to Volsinii at noon yesterday; of course they will not loiter on the way."

"Alas!" replied the unhappy youth, "Curses! curses! ten thousand curses on his head!" and he glanced savagely upon Aulus as he spoke-"to what doom do ye lead him?"

"To an indignant father's pitiless revenge!"

"May he perish ill!-may his unburied spirit wander and wail forever upon the banks of Acheron, unpardoned and despairing!"

And turning suddenly away, as if afraid to trust himself longer in sight of his mortal enemy, he plunged his spurs deep into his charger's flank, and gallopped away in order to overtake his troop, with which he was proceeding to join the army which Antonius the consul and Petreius his lieutenant were collecting on the sea-coast of Etruria in order to act against Catiline.

Meanwhile the others rode forward on their gloomy errand toward the Fulvian House.

They reached its doors, and at the trampling of their horses' feet, before any summons had been given, with a brow dark as night and a cold determined eye, the aged Senator came forth to meet his faithful clients.

At the first glance he cast upon the party, the old man saw that they had succeeded; and a strange expression of satisfaction mixed with agony crossed his stern face.

"It is well!" he said gravely. "Ye have preserved the honor of my house. I give ye thanks, my friends. Well have ye done your duty! It remains only that I do my own. Bring in your prisoner, Caius, and ye, my friends, leave us, I pray you, to our destiny."

The young man to whom he addressed himself, leaped down from his horse with one or two of the clients, and, unbuckling the thong which fastened his cousin's legs under the belly of the beast he rode, lifted him to the ground; for in a sort of sullen spite, although unable to resist, he moved neither hand nor foot, more than a marble statue would have done; and when he stood on the pavement, he made no step toward the door, and it was necessary to carry him bodily up the steps of the colonnade, and through the vestibule into the atrium.

In that vast hall a fearful group was a.s.sembled. On a large arm chair at the upper end sat an aged matron, perfectly blind, with hair as white as snow, and a face furrowed with wrinkles, the work of above a century. She was the mother of the Senator, the grandmother of the young culprit. At her right hand stood another large chair vacant, the seat of the master of the house; and at her left sat another lady, already far advanced in years, yet stately, firm, and unflinching-the wretched, but proud mother.

Behind her stood three girls of various ages, the youngest not counting above sixteen years, all beautiful, and finely made, but pale as death, with their superb dark eyes dilated and their white lips mute with strange horror.

Lower down the hall toward the door, and not far removed from the altar of the household G.o.ds, near the impluvium, stood a black wooden block, with a huge broad axe lying on it, and a grim-visaged slave leaning against the wall with folded arms in a sort of stoical indifference-the butcher of the family. By his trade, he little cared whether he practised it on beasts or men; and perhaps he looked forward with some pleasurable feelings to the dealing of a blow against one of the proud lords of Empire.

No one could look upon that mute and sad a.s.semblage without perceiving that some dread domestic tragedy was in process; but how dreadful no one could conceive, who was not thoroughly acquainted with the strange and tremendous rigor of the old Roman Law.

The face of the mother was terribly convulsed, as she heard the clanging hoof tramps at the door; and in an agony of unendurable suspense she laid her hand upon her heart, as if to still its wild throbbing.

Roman although she was, and trained from her childhood upward in the strictest school of Stoicism, he, on whom they were gathered there to sit in judgment, was still her first-born, her only son; and she could not but remember in this hour of wo the unutterable pleasure with which she had listened to the first small cry of him, then so innocent and weak and gentle, who now so strong in manhood and so fierce in sin, stood living on the verge of death.

But now as the clanging of the horse hoofs ceased, different sounds succeeded; and in a moment the anxious ears of the wife and mother could discern the footsteps of the proud husband, and the fallen child.

They entered the hall, old Aulus Fulvius striding with martial steps and a resolute yet solemn brow toward the chair of judgment, like to some warlike Flamen about to execute the wrath of the G.o.ds upon his fated victim; the son shuffling along, with downcast eyes and an irregular pace, supported on one hand by his detested cousin, and on the other by an aged freedman of the house.

The head of the younger Aulus was yet veiled with the lappet of his gown; so that he had seen none of those who were then a.s.sembled, none of the fatal apparatus of his fore-ordered doom.

But now, as the old man took his seat, he made a movement with his hand, and Caius, obedient to the gesture, lifted the woollen covering from the son's brow, and released his hold of his arm. At a second wafture, the nephew and the freedman both departed, glad to be spared the witnessing a scene so awful as that which was about to ensue.

The sound of their departing footsteps fell with an icy chill on the stout heart of the young conspirator; and although he hated the man, who had just left the room, more than any living being, he would yet willingly have detained him at that crisis.

He felt that even hatred was less to be apprehended than the cold hard decision of the impa.s.sive unrelenting father, in whose heart every sentiment was dead but those of justice and of rigorous honor.

"Aulus, lift up your eyes!"

And, for the first time since he had entered the hall, the culprit looked up, and gazed with a wild and haggard eye on the familiar objects which met his glance on every side; and yet, familiar as they were, all seemed to be strange, altered, and unusual.

The statues of his dead ancestors, as they stood, grim and uncouth in their antique sculpture, between the pillars of the wall, seemed to dilate in size, and, become gigantic, to frown stern contempt on their degenerate descendant. The grotesque forms of the Etruscan household G.o.ds appeared to gibber at him; the very flames upon the altar, before them, cast lurid gleams and ominous to his distempered fancy.

It was singular, that the last thing which he observed was that, which would have been the first to attract the notice of a stranger-the block, the axe, and the sullen headsman.

A quick shudder ran through every limb and artery of his body, and he turned white and livid. His spirit was utterly appalled and broken; his aspect was that of a sneaking culprit, a mean craven.

"Aulus, lift up your eyes!"

And he did lift them, with a strong effort, to meet the fixed and searching gaze of his father; but so cold, so penetrating was that gaze, that his glance fell abashed, and he trembled from head to foot, and came well nigh to falling on the earth in his great terror.

"Aulus, art thou afraid to die?-thou, who hast sworn so deeply to dye thine hands in _my_ gore, in the gore of all who loved their country? Art thou afraid to die, stabber, adulterer, poisoner, ravisher, parricide, Catilinarian? Art thou afraid to die? I should have thought, when thou didst put on such resolves, thou wouldst have cast aside all that is human! Once more, I say, art thou afraid to die?"

"To die!" he exclaimed in husky tones, which seemed to stick in his parched throat-"to die! to be nothing!"

And again the convulsive shudder ran through his whole frame.

But ere the Senator could open his lips to reply, the blind old grandam asked, in a voice so clear and shrill that its accents seemed to pierce the very souls of all who heard it-

"Is he a coward, Aulus Fulvius? Is he a coward, too, as well as a villain?

The first of our race, is he a coward?"

"I fear it," answered the old man gloomily. "But, cowardly or brave, he must disgrace our house no farther. His time is come! his fate cries out for him! Aulus must die! happy to die without the taint of public and detected infamy-happy to die unseen in his father's house, not in the base and sordid Tullianum."

"Mother! mother!" exclaimed the wretched youth in a paroxysm of agony.

"Sisters, speak for me-plead for me! I am young, oh, too young to die!"

"The mother, whom thou hast sworn to murder-the sisters, whose virgin youth thou hast agreed to yield to the licentious arms of thy foul confederates!" answered the old man sternly; while the women, with blanched visages, convulsed with agony, were silent, even to that appeal.