Unto Caesar Part 35

Her eyes had become quite accustomed to the darkness beyond the light.

She could see clearly the powerful figure on bended knees, the wide shoulders with the bandages disposed over them by the physician for the healing of those horrible wounds, and the fingers linked together in a manner which she had never seen before. And now the hands stirred ever so slightly, the light caught the fingers more directly, and Dea Flavia saw that--clasped between them--there was a small wooden cross.

And she knew now--all in a moment--that the answer to her questions lay there before her, not in the man's face, for that she could not see, but in his clasped hands and in the cross which they held. She knew that it was because of it--or rather because of that which had gone before, and of which that little cross was the tangible memory--that he had been ready to give his life for an enemy, and to give up all ambition and all pride for the sake of his allegiance to Caesar!

A sigh must have escaped her lips, or merely just the indrawing of her breath; certain it is that something caused the kneeling man to stir. He raised his head very slowly, and then looked up straight across the light--to her.

For one second he remained quite still, on his knees and with that white vision before him, ghost-like and silent, against the crimson background of the curtain. Then softly, as a sigh, one word escaped his lips:

"Dea!"

He rose to his feet but already she had fled, noiselessly as she had come, but swiftly across the studio and the atrium and back to her room, but even while she fled it seemed to her that on the silent night air there still trembled the sound of a voice, vibrating with longing and with pa.s.sion, mournful as a sigh, appealing as the call of a bird to its mate:

"Dea!"

CHAPTER XXVI

"There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked."--ISAIAH XLVIII. 22.

When after a few hours of light and troubled sleep Dea Flavia woke to partial consciousness, it seemed to her as if Phoebus Apollo had been driving his chariot through a sea of blood; for through the folds of the curtains over the windows she caught a glimpse of the sky, and it was of vivid crimson.

The heat was oppressive, and as the young girl tossed with ever increasing restlessness on the pillows, beads of moisture rose on her forehead and matted the fair curls against her temples.

She felt too tired to get up, even though she vaguely marvelled how wonderful must be the dawn, since its reflection was of such lurid colour. She lay back drowsy and with nerves tingling; she closed her eyes for they ached and burned intolerably.

Gradually to her half-aroused consciousness sounds too began to penetrate. It seemed to her that the usual stately quietude of her house was gravely disturbed this morning, shuffling footsteps could be heard moving across the atrium, voices--scarce subdued--were whispering audibly, and the shouts of the overseers echoed from across the peristyle, and through it all a dull, monotonous sound, distant as yet and faint, came at long intervals, the sound of Jove's thunder over the Campania far away.

Dea Flavia listened more intently, and one by one through the veil which kindly sleep had drawn over her memory, the events of the past day and night knocked at the portals of her brain.

She remembered everything now, and with this sudden onrush of memory of the past, came fuller consciousness of the present.

Through the hum of varied noises which filled her own house, she distinguished presently more strange, more ominous sounds that came from afar, like the thunders of Jove, and like them sounded weird and threatening in her ear; hoa.r.s.e cries and shouts which seemed like peremptory commands, and groans that rose above the m.u.f.fled din with calls of terror and of pain.

In a moment Dea Flavia had put her feet to the ground. She ran to the window, drew back the curtains and peered into the narrow street which, at this point, separated her house from the rear of the Palace of Tiberius.

A dull grey light enveloped the city in its mantle of gloom, and it was not the torch of Phoebus which had spread the rosy gleam of dawn over the sky! As Dea Flavia looked, she saw a canopy of dull crimson over her head, and from beyond the Palace of Tiberius there rose at intervals heavy banks of purple smoke.

Dea Flavia stood there for one moment at the window, paralysed with the dread of what she saw and of what she guessed, and even as a cry of horror died within her throat, Licinia, with grey hair flying loosely round her pale face, and hands held out before her with an agonised gesture of fear, came running into the room.

"The miscreants! the miscreants!" she shouted as she threw herself down on to the floor before her young mistress and squatted there on her heels, wringing her hands and uttering moans of terror. "They have set fire to the palace! They are on us, my beloved! Save thyself! Save thy house! Oh ye G.o.ds! protect us all!"

The awesome news which Licinia thus blurted out was but a confirmation of what Dea had already feared. Every drop of blood within her seemed to turn to ice, horror gripped her heart, the oncoming catastrophe appeared suddenly before her, vivid, swift and inevitable. But she contrived to steady her voice and to appear outwardly calm as she said:

"I do not understand thee, Licinia, speak more clearly. What is it that hath happened?"

"The rabble are invading the Palatine," said Licinia, to the accompaniment of many groans. "They are on us I tell thee."

"On us!" retorted Dea Flavia scornfully. "Tush, woman! they'll not heed us.... But the Caesar ... Hast news of the Caesar?"

"No! no! my beloved, I have no news. I only know what the watchmen say."

"What do they say?"

"That the rabble is invading the hill. The miscreants have forced their way into the Forum. They have surrounded the palace of the Caesar and set fire within its precincts."

"Ye G.o.ds!..." exclaimed Dea Flavia.

"Dost hear their shouts? the villains! the villains! Dost hear Jove's thunder, my beloved? His vengeance is nigh! May his curse descend on the villains and on their children."

"Silence, woman!" commanded the Augusta peremptorily. "Get me a robe--quickly--no, no! not that one," she added, as Licinia, with trembling hands had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the gorgeous jewel-studded gown which Dea Flavia had worn the day before, "a dark robe--haste, I tell thee! go thou fetch it and send Blanca quickly to me."

Moaning and trembling, the woman endeavoured to obey and to make as much speed as her limbs, paralysed with terror, would allow her. She called to Blanca, who together with the Augusta's tire-women had her quarters close at hand, and the young girl hastened to her mistress's room whilst Licinia went in search of a dark-coloured robe.

"The praefect?" whispered Dea Flavia quickly, as soon as she felt a.s.sured that she was quite alone with her slave. "Hast seen Dion or Nolus?"

"My brother spoke to me in the atrium just now, gracious mistress,"

replied Blanca, who seemed scarce less excited than her mistress, "he and Dion heard a thud in the night, which roused them from a brief sleep which they had s.n.a.t.c.hed, for they were very tired ... their long hunt in the Amphitheatre...."

"Yes! yes! go on! I know that they slept ... and they heard a thud ...

what was it?"

"They ran to the resting-chamber, gracious lady, and found the praefect of Rome lying senseless on the floor."

"Great Mother!... and what did they do?"

"They lifted him as best they could; for the praefect is over tall and mightily powerful. But they succeeded in laying him back on to the couch, and Dion ran to rouse the physician."

"And now?"

"The physician hath given the praefect a drug to make him sleep, for it seems that fever was upon him with the pain of his wounds and he talked incoherently like one bereft of reason."

"Hush!..." interrupted Dea Flavia hurriedly, "not before Licinia."

Even as she spoke the old woman returned, carrying a robe of dove grey cloth, the darkest one that she could find. She had collected the tire-women round her, and they flocked in her wake like frightened sheep that have been driven into a pen. Licinia herself was evidently the prey of abject terror, for her teeth were chattering, and all the while that she helped her mistress to make a hasty toilet, she uttered low moans as if she were in pain.

"The traitors! the miscreants!" she murmured at intervals.

But Dea Flavia paid no heed to her. Her women had brought her fresh water, perfumes and fine cloths, and she was hastily bathing her face and hands. Then, she slipped on the dull-coloured robe and Licinia's trembling fingers fastened a girdle round her waist.

And all the while, from far away, came the dull sound of Jove's thunders hurled by his wrath, and above it as a constant din, like the roaring of a tempestuous sea, the hoa.r.s.e cries which--borne upon the wings of the oncoming storm--seemed to gain distinctness as their echo reached this distant house.

"Dost hear the cries, Blanca?" asked Dea Flavia, as the young slave, leaning out of the narrow window tried to peer out into the street.

"I hear them, gracious lady," replied the girl in an awed whisper.

"And canst distinguish any words?"