Soon someone cut my ankle-thongs and the cords about the quilt, also my arm-thongs. The quilt was twitched from my face and I was a.s.sisted to my feet. The amphitheater was full of the yells of the populace, affirming my innocence and the manifest intervention of the G.o.ds in my behalf. I rolled my gaze around the audience and sought to interpret the demeanor of the Imperial retinue.
Then, as I gazed at the Emperor, too far off for me to make out his expression, the yells altered their quality.
I turned round.
I saw, running towards me across the sand, Agathemer!
Behind him was an official in the robes of a magistrate!
Behind him six more human shapes, four lictors convoying two bound prisoners.
Agathemer embraced me and I him.
"Saved," he breathed, "we"ve got "em and most of the loot. Enough to convict "em and clear you!"
As we loosed our embrace I looked at the approaching magistrate.
He was Flavius Clemens!
Before the shock of recognizing him had pa.s.sed I forgot him entirely.
For I had recognized the two prisoners.
Though I had seen them but once and that by moonlight, and that eight years before, I recognized the two drunken robbers who had helped us to our couriers" equipment and sent us off galloping to Ma.r.s.eilles.
Indubitably they were Carex and Junco!
While still numb with amazement I felt upon me the cold gaze of Flavius Clemens. I looked him full in the face. He was no less astonished than I and I could read in his expression both amazement and suspicion. I was acutely aware that Ravilla.n.u.s, by having my hair and beard clipped, had made me readily recognizable to anyone and everyone who had known me in the days of my prosperity. I was even more acutely aware of the keen intuition which every lover feels toward any actual or potential rival. I dreaded that Clemens not only recognized me for myself, but had a glimmering inkling as to why his suit of Vedia had twice failed. But he said nothing except:
"You are cleared of every imputation in connection with the murder of Pompeia.n.u.s Falco. You are free to go where you please."
Agathemer took off his robe, and threw it around me and led me to a postern. In the vaulted corridor we were met by Tanno, who embraced me and congratulated me, and Galen, who also embraced me and felicitated me.
Tanno said:
"Vedia kept up till Agathemer nabbed the criminals, then she fainted; but she declares the faint relieved her and that she is entirely herself."
In one of the cells under the hollow of the amphitheater I was given strong wine, all I wanted, and then washed with warm water already prepared for me, and afterwards thoroughly ma.s.saged. Then I was clad in garments of my own.
"I feel like myself," I remarked.
Just then Flavius Clemens entered, his expression entirely too intelligible for me. Looking me full in the eyes he said:
"You have been pa.s.sing as an art-amateur of Greek ancestry, under the name of Phorbas, with the status of a slave. Before that you were among the helpers at the Choragium, held as a slave belonging to the _fiscus_, by the name of Festus. It seems to me that you are no Greek, nor of Greek blood, even to the smallest degree, I take you for a full-blooded Roman. I think I recognize you. Are you not Andivius Hedulio?"
"I am," I acknowledged.
He saluted me courteously and bade me a polite farewell, without any other word.
Tanno and Galen made no comment, nor did Agathemer. They a.s.sisted me out to Tanno"s waiting litter. In it I was borne off to the lodgings which I had occupied eight days before, between my two trials. There I found a tempting meal ready for me and ate liberally. Then I was put to bed and at once fell into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion and slept through till long after daylight next day.
When I woke I found that Dromo himself was by my bedside, as well as Agathemer. They tended me, washed me, plied me with wine and fed me with dainties, a.s.serting that Galen had given orders that I was on no account to stir from my bed or sit up in it.
I slept again and, when I woke early in the afternoon, insisted on getting up and being dressed. I was no sooner clad than there entered the apartment a big, florid, youthful Pannonian sergeant and four legionaries.
I was yet again rearrested!
They led me away, forbidding Agathemer to exchange a word with me, or to follow us. Through the brilliant July sunlight they led me, along its northeast flank, up the Steps of Groaning, and to the Mamertine Prison!
There I was handed over to four of the a.s.sistants to the Public Executioner. They stripped me of my outer garments, leaving me naked except for my tunic. Then they haled me to the trap-door, lifted the trap, pa.s.sed ropes under my armpits and lowered me into the dreaded lower dungeon, the horrible Tullianum!
CHAPTER x.x.xIX
THE TULLIANUM
Gloomy as is the upper cell of the Mamertine Prison there is light enough there for my eyes to have been utterly blinded by it as I was lowered into the black pit beneath. I saw nothing in the brief period while I was being let down, while the ropes were being drawn up, while the trap-door was shut down and fitted into place. Then I was in the pitchest darkness, into which no ray, no glimmer of light could penetrate. I saw nothing whatever, yet I seemed to feel a presence, seemed to hear a faint footfall, seemed to be aware of another human being standing close to me. Then I heard a deep, resonant, healthy, pleasant-sounding voice ask:
"Brother in misfortune, who are you?"
I was past any impulse towards dissimulation or any belief in its utility.
"I am Andivius Hedulio."
"You are?" the big, cheerful male voice exclaimed. "You really are? You amaze me! I am Galvius Crispinillus, lately and for many a year King of the Highwaymen! Give me your hand!"
Now, whatever distaste I felt for giving my hand to such a criminal, however great was my repugnance, however utterly I felt myself lost, however certain I was of the inevitable doom hanging over me, however short a respite I antic.i.p.ated before my inescapable death, I was not fool enough to antagonize my companion in misery, presumably a powerful and ferocious brute. I held out my hand. His grasped it. Mine returned the grip.
"Come this way!" he said. "This pit is damp and chilly, but even here a bed of stale straw is better than the rock floor or the patches of mud on it or the heaps of filth. I know every inch of this hole and I know the least uncomfortable place to sit. Come along!"
He guided me in the utter blackness to a pile of damp straw. On it we sat down, half reclining.
"If you are thirsty," he said, "I can guide you to the well. There is a spring in here and plenty of good water."
"I thank you," I said. "I shall be thirsty enough before long. Just now I am far more interested to hear how you came here. n.o.body believed that you would ever be caught."
"No more did I!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I had so easily defied the utmost efforts of the government and officials under Aurelius, of the incompetents under Commodus, of his vaunted Highway Constabulary; had so prospered, had so come and gone as I pleased and robbed whom I pleased from the Po to the Straits, that I thought no man could lay for me any snare I could not foresee, thought myself impeccably wary and prescient, though I had always taken and would always take all necessary precautions.
"But I was a fool. I comprehended Aurelius and Commodus and their magistrates and officials and constabulary; I was right in fearing nothing from Pertinax and Julia.n.u.s; but I was an a.s.s to think I could cope with Septimius Severus. That man is deeper than the deepest abyss of mid-ocean!
"I thought I was certain of months of disorder, confusion and laxity in which I could go where I pleased, act as I pleased, garner a rich harvest and escape unscathed. Do you know, before he had left Aquileia, perhaps before he had pa.s.sed the Alps, possibly before he had set out from Sabaria, that man had despatched not one but a dozen detachments to ascertain my whereabouts, consider how best to take me unawares, lie in wait for me, nab me and hunt down my bands. I believe he had thought out, far back in that head of his, long before Pertinax was murdered, perhaps even long before Commodus died, every measure he would initiate if he became Emperor, down to the smallest detail. He had all his plans framed and thought out, I"ll wager!
"His emissaries were no fools! They, first among those despatched against me, knew their business. I was trapped near Sentinum, on the Kalends of this month. Never mind how; even in this plight I"m ashamed of it. They just missed nabbing Felix Bulla along with me. But he got away that time.
And I prophesy that now he is warned of his danger and knows the cleverness of the men on his trail, he"ll show himself yet cleverer. He is a marvel, is Felix Bulla, and promises to outdo even my record."
He broke off, breathing audibly.