"By the way," he went on, "are you hungry? I have part of a loaf of bread in here, not yet stale and no damper than it must get in this foul air. It hasn"t fallen on the floor. It"s eatable."
"I"ll be hungry enough before long," I replied, "but I am not hungry now.
I had eaten all I wanted and of the best just before I was haled here."
"Speak when you want any," he said. "It will be share and share alike here for us till they come to finish us.
"And now, tell me about yourself. I have always been curious about you. I heard all about you when you first got into trouble and I was told that the official report of your death was fict.i.tious, invented by underlings too clumsy to capture you and fearful of the consequences of their incompetence. Also I heard unimpeachable testimony that you were alive later and had been seen in Rome with Maternus and outside Rome, the next summer, with the mutineers from Britain. I have often wondered how you got into such company. Tell me how you came to be with Maternus."
I saw no utility in any further dissimulation of anything or in any reticence; I began with our springtime stay at the farm in the mountains, and told my story in detail, from that hour.
When I came to my visit, along with Maternus, to the Temple of Mercury and mentioned how Maternus had warned me that we were being watched, and how I had shot one glance towards the watchers and had recognized one of them, he interrupted me and, without enquiring where I had seen him before, asked for a description of the watcher I had recognized. I gave it as well as I could and he said:
"That was my brother, Marcus Galvius Crispinillus, now dead. It was he who told me that he had seen you with Maternus. Go on."
Again, when I spoke of recognizing Crispinillus by the wayside as I pa.s.sed with the mutineers he interjected:
"Yes, he told me he saw you there."
And later, when I spoke of being found with Agathemer after the ma.s.sacre, separated from him and led off to the _ergastulum_ at Nuceria he remarked:
"I can"t conceive how my brother missed you. Nor could he. He looked for you among the corpses and went over the survivors twice in search of you."
"I did not see him after the ma.s.sacre," I declared.
"Mercury protected you," was his comment.
When I finished the story of my giving warning of the plot in the _ergastulum_ at Nuceria I paused.
"Go on, lad!" he urged. "You have had adventures and you narrate them tellingly."
I hesitated and then, utterly reckless, I blurted out:
"If I am to go on with my story you might as well know right now, that I am not only Andivius Hedulio, but also Felix the Horse-Wrangler."
He swore a great oath.
"Boy!" he cried, "I love you! I have admired you since I listened to Bulla"s account of his one failure. At first I was furious at your having spoiled the best plan I ever laid and the most brilliant chance I ever had, at your preventing me from making the biggest haul of booty I ever had hopes of. But, as years pa.s.sed, my resentment has abated and my admiration has warmed. I bear you no grudge. I have often thought I should like to meet you and find out why on earth you desired to thwart me and how you managed to do it. Go on! Tell me the rest."
I resumed my tale.
When I came to my outlook from the crag and explained my former acquaintance with Vedia he interrupted.
"Of course, if you knew the lady and she was an old flame of yours, I don"t wonder that you intervened to save her. My lads were so rough and fierce-looking that they had a worse reputation than they deserved. When they captured prisoners rich enough to pay any profitable ransom they treated them with the most scrupulous deference. Business is business and we were not brigands for fun, but for profit. Also they all dreaded me and my orders were explicit and emphatic. Your sweetheart would have been as respected with them as in her own home. But, of course, you couldn"t feel that way. Go on with your story."
I demurred, a.s.serting that I felt sleepy. He a.s.sented and we composed ourselves on the straw. How long I slept or when I wakened I do not know: I was roused by the opening of the trap-door and by the light which entered from above. Food was lowered to us; pork-stew, still warm, in a two-handled, wide-mouthed jug; bread; olives, not wholly spoiled; and a small kidskin of thin, sour wine. Galvius received the dole and safeguarded the containers: the ropes were drawn up, the trap-door reset and we were again in utter darkness.
To my astonishment I felt entirely myself and very hungry. We drank and ate deliberately and again drank. Galvius was a careful husbander of the wine, and we drank mostly water from the spring.
Afterwards, nestled in the not unendurably damp straw, chilly, but not shivering, we sat or lay side by side and he urged me to continue my story. I began where I had left off, and, going into the smallest details, brought my history down to the hour of my consignment to our dungeon.
When I paused he sighed, but not gloomily.
"You have had marvellous adventures," he said, "and marvellous luck, both good and bad. I knew that Marcia had belonged to your uncle. I was informed of the existence of Ducconius Furfur, of his likeness to Commodus, of his presence in the Palace, of his utilization as a dummy Emperor, to set Commodus free to masquerade as Palus, and I heard that he had been your neighbor.
"Now go back, begin your tale at the beginning. Tell me of your getting into trouble at the first, of how you escaped in the first place. I have often wondered how you managed it."
"Give me a respite," I demurred, "my voice is tired. It is your turn to talk. Tell me how you learned about Ducconius Furfur and about Commodus masquerading as Palus and about Marcia."
"Why," he said, "I had friends in one or more towns when I first took to the woods. They gave me tips that helped me to make fine hauls on the highways. As I prospered I made more friends; they helped me and my growing success gained more, till I had friends in every town in Italy and in Rome itself and an organized service of road-messengers. Why, Imperial couriers often carried letters and packets, destined for me, from one town to another, or even carried onward letters from me to distant friends or parcels of my booty.
"In Rome itself I had many agents and chiefly my sister, Galvia Crispinilla, a professional procuress and poisoner, who knew the worst secrets of the lives of all Rome"s wealthy and n.o.ble debauchees, and our brother, Marcus Galvius Crispinillus, a professional informer and a valued member of the Imperial Secret Service. I never knew why he had a spite against you, but he had and it was false information given by him that caused your proscription and ruin and thrust you into your years of misery. I always felt that you did not deserve what you have suffered, but his grudges were none of my business.
"He is dead, as is Galvia, for she kept poison about her and gave a supply to him and to me to use in case of capture. I was caught without mine, for I was certain that no danger threatened me. He and she took the poison when they saw capture inevitable, as it will be for most evil-doers all over the Empire under the sway of such a man as Septimius Severus."
He paused and I meditated awhile, puzzling as to how I could have incurred the vindictive rancor of any secret-service agent.
Presently I said:
"Tell me how you came to be King of the Highwaymen."
"My boy," he said, "my case is far different from yours. You had an honorable origin and an honorable past. Nor were any of your adventures discreditable to you, even if some situations you have been in were distressing then and are humiliating to remember. You have nothing to be ashamed of unless it be such a trifling peccadillo as impersonating Salsonius Salinator.
"My origin I shall never disclose, not even to a brother in misfortune. My life has been one long series of perjuries, murders, robberies, debaucheries and ruthless cruelties. I have been deaf to all considerations of decency, pity and mercy; as unmoved by such feelings as will be the savage beasts which spared you but will rend me to shreds. I am at the end of my crimes; let me hide them. My doom is at hand. Why should I defile your ears with the tale of my atrocities? Let them remain untold."
"You slander yourself," I demurred. "You cannot make me believe that a man capable of condoning my balking of your great coup on the Flaminian Highway, capable of guiding me to this bed of straw and of offering me a share of his bit of stale bread can be all bad. There must be much in your past life less dark than you indicate."
He ruminated.
"Frankly," he said, "I cannot recall anything I ever did at which a man like you would not shudder. I have been a good sport, that is why I could not but chuckle, after my first wrath cooled, at your spoiling my great coup, as you call it. But, all my life, I have gloried in my treacheries and cruelties. I have hated all mankind and been merciless to foes, if they came into my power, and have pretended friendliness I did not feel so as to make use of those who thought me friendly.
"I can well recall only one human being I really loved: my wife. She had her weak points, for she was a despiser of the G.o.ds, mocking all religion and addicted to some contemptible Syrian cult of superst.i.tion and puerilities. But I loved her in spite of that failing, for, in every other way, she was a paragon. She is dead now and spared the agonies she would have suffered at my capture and fate. Our two daughters are safe; both healthy, both with the full status of citizens of the Republic, both well provided with possessions, each married to a good, reliable husband, though the younger is almost too young to be a wife. I feel at peace about them.
"I really loved my wife and in a way, her two girls. But, except for them, I have cheated, ensnared, robbed and killed without pity or remorse."
"You have no regrets?" I queried.
"No remorse," he corrected me. "I should do it all over again if I were back as I was when I took to brigandage.
"Of course, while my wife was alive and I hoped for an old age with her, I had a dream of investing my savings in a house in some out-of-the-way town and in an estate near it and living at ease on the proceeds of my robberies. But that was always far off in the future; I laid up a h.o.a.rd to make it possible, but I was never anywhere near ready to make use of that h.o.a.rd. Now it has been divided between my daughters, for, after their mother"s death, I realized that no life but brigandage was possible for me. If I had not been captured I should have gone on as I was, I should go on now, could I escape and resume my old life. I feel no remorse.
"But I confess to one regret. I have, all my life, requited every helper and paid off every grudge. But one benefactor, my greatest benefactor, I have not repaid, although, when I learned of his inestimable service to me, I swore a great oath to requite him, if it ever was in my power. I have never been able to learn who he was, or even whether he is yet living. If he is, I hate to die without requiting him as he deserves, in so far as I might.
"And I own that I was and am keenly curious to learn who he was. The mere curiosity gnaws at me. Perhaps you understand."
"I do," I said. "I also am extremely curious about a mystery I encountered in the earlier part of my adventures. That memory urges me to comply with your request for the former half of my story."
And, beginning with my uncle"s death, I narrated all my earlier adventures. When I told of the cloaked and hatted horseman by the roadside in the rain, the day of the brawl in Vediamnum and the affray near Villa Satronia, he cut in with: