The Unwilling Vestal Part 40

The outer wall of the Atrium towards the Palace is all blank wall to the cornice, not even a ventilation hole anywhere."

"I know," she rebuked him; "keep still and listen. I'll run into the third room from the corner. All that end of the Atrium is of brick and cement, not a beam anywhere and the ceilings are vaulted; the fire will be a long time reaching me there. You go up Pearl Dealers' Lane to the corner of the New Street. From the corner measure thirty-eight feet along the New Street. At that point have a hole smashed through the wall. There are hordes of firemen about with their axes, sledge-hammers and pick-axes. They'll hack a hole through for you in no time. The wall is thin there; we had a temporary door made there three years ago for the plumbers when they were putting in the new bath-rooms.

"Now, every moment is precious. Hold my hand and help me to make my dash for the portal, but drop my hand and turn back at the portal; no man may enter the Atrium, except a Pontiff or a workman. When I squeeze your fingers, drop my hand and make your dash back.

"Don't try to check me, husband; self last and patriotism first, for every Roman of us all. We have waited thirty years for each other and we've hardly had time for three kisses yet. But if we must lose each other to save Rome, then we must.

"If I fail, good-bye!" Then she turned and called the trembling slaves to come nearer.

She ordered:

"Dash that water over us, one over him, one over me. Don't waste any, pour it on our heads. Now go where you please!"

Dripping, hand in hand, they ran over the cinder-strewn pavement, under the rain of blazing fragments, up the Sacred Street, between the furnace-hot walls.

Under the long arcade they were safe.

At its further end she had to face a dash of some ten yards through the blazing brands, the very air seeming on fire.

"I'm afraid!" she cried. "Be brave, Almo, and give me courage!" Her fingers pressed his, their hands parted.

Her hands over her face she dashed forward.

He saw her vanish through the portal.

He ran back.

Inside the Atrium Brinnaria turned to her right, pa.s.sed through a small door, traversed four dark rooms and groped, kneeling on the floor.

Her fingers found five earthenware caskets in a row.

Swiftly she felt them.

The third she opened.

Carefully she fingered the statuette inside, running the tips of her finger-ends along the carved folds of the gown, over the helmet, over the fingers clasping the spear.

With the statuette in her hands she stood up. Tearing off her veil she wrapped the statuette in it.

Back she went to the peristyle, and ran round it to her right. Under the roof of the colonnade she was safe from the rain of brands, but even in there the heat was appalling. She felt as if the very marble columns must crumble beside her as she ran.

At the far corner of the courtyard she dashed through a door and ran up two flights of stairs; a short flight in front of her, and a longer flight to her left from the landing of the first. At the top of the stairs she pa.s.sed through four rooms. In the fifth, lighted from behind her through a door by an orange glow from the glare of the conflagration, she sank down on the floor against its farther wall.

Almost at once she was on her feet, recoiling from the wall. It quivered with the shock of blows from the outside.

A shower of plaster and bits of brick stung her face and spattered all over her.

She saw the point of a pick-axe shine an instant in the fire-glare.

"I'm here," she called. "I'm safe. Take your time. It's not hot in here yet." The excited blows thudded on the wall. The sledges broke a hole as big as her head, four times as big as her head.

"Take your time!" she repeated. "There is no hurry now." Soon she could see the torches outside, the faces of the firemen, Almo's face.

"No!" she said, "I won't be dragged through a crevice. There is plenty of time. Dig that hole bigger!" When it was large enough to suit her she bade her rescuers back away.

"No man must touch what I carry," she warned.

Outside, in Almo's arms, she was hurried through winding alleys, up narrow stone stairways, to the Palace.

At the end of a deep, dark pa.s.sageway between high walls Lutorius, with some of the Emperor's aides, was waiting for them at a small door. He guided them to where they were eagerly expected. As they threaded the corridors, they heard, at first far off, then closer and closer, the sound of a child wailing, bawling, blubbering. Even in the Palace, Campia was an irrepressible cry-baby.

In the chapel of the Statue of Victory they found the Vestals, the Empress and the Emperor.

"I've got it safe," Brinnaria proclaimed.

"I'm a frightful-looking bride," she added, "wet as a drowned pup, scorched all over, all my hair burnt off; I must look a guy."

"Never mind that," said Commodus; "you can't get home to-night, the conflagration is still spreading. I doubt if the firemen can save the Colosseum. It would take you till daylight to work your way round the districts which are in confusion. You'll sleep here. I've had Trajan's own private suite made ready for you two, as soon as the first messenger told me of your gallantry. You'll find an army of maids and such waiting for you. Go make yourselves comfortable.

"The bedroom of Rome's greatest Emperor is none too good for you.

Nothing is too good for you, Brinnaria.

"You've saved the Palladium, and me, and the Empire and the Republic and Rome."