The sky lurid and dark, the soil trembling beneath the feet of thousands of men and women, and there, far away, outlined against that sky, a figure stretched out upon a Cross. The head was bent in agony, the eyes half-closed, the lips livid and parted, the body broken with torments had the rigidity of death. But the arms were stretched out, straight and wide, as if with one last gesture of appeal and of longing, and in this storm-laden air there floated tender words, intangible and soft as a memory.
"Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you."
It was but a vision, swift as the lightning flash that conjured it and the words had already died on the stillness of the air.
But the tortured soul had found its anchorage. Taurus Antinor"s hands fell from before his face.
"In Thy service, O Jesus of Galilee!" he said, and the mighty effort of subjection brought the perspiration to his brow and caused his limbs to tremble. "I saw Thine agony, Thy sacrifice; it should be so easy to do this for Thy sake. Give me the strength to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar"s, and do Thou take from me all that is Thine."
She heard his words, she saw the look and knew that she had failed.
Back on the cruel wings of remembrance came the words of Menecreta the slave.
"May thine every deed of mercy be turned to sorrow and to humiliation, thine every act of pity prove a curse to him who receives it, until thou on thy knees art left to sue for pity to a heart that knoweth it not, and findest a deaf ear turned unto thy cry!"
And the curse of the broken-hearted mother seemed like the tangible response to the defiance which she, in her arrogance and her pride, had hurled against him who was called Jesus of Nazareth. She would have blessed Menecreta and Menecreta was dead; she would have given her life for the Caesar and the Caesar was a cowardly fugitive, and now on her knees she had sued for pity, and the heart which she had fought for to possess had turned from her as if it knew neither mercy nor love, and whilst her very soul had cried with longing she had found a deaf ear turned to her cry.
That unknown Galilean who died upon the cross had been stronger than her love. It was he who was filching it from its allegiance, he who was brushing and crushing this heart ere he wrested it finally from her--Dea Flavia Augusta of the imperial House of Caesar!
The Galilean had accepted her challenge and he had conquered, and she was naught in the heart of the one man she would have given her whole life to call her own.
She gave a cry like a wounded bird, she jumped to her feet, and for one moment stood up, splendid, wrathful, pagan to the heart.
"Curse thy G.o.d," she cried wildly, "curse him, I say, for a jealous, cruel G.o.d.... Go thy ways, O follower of the Galilean! go thy ways! and when lonely and wretched thy footsteps lead thee along that way which thou hast deified, then call on him, I say--thou"lt find him silent to thy prayer and deaf unto thy woe!"
Her body swayed, an ashen pallor spread over her cheeks, she would have fallen backwards like a log had he not caught her in his arms.
Reverently he carried her to the couch and there he laid her down, wrapping her grey shroud-like tunic closely round her feet.
He bent over her and kissed her golden hair, each blue-veined lid closed in unconsciousness, the perfect lips pallid now and still.
"In the name of Him Who died before mine eyes, take her in Thy keeping, O G.o.d!" he murmured fervently.
Then without another glance on her, he fled precipitately from the room.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
"Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of G.o.d, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."--EPHESIANS VI. 13.
Without looking to right or left he strode across the atrium.
"A cloak quickly," he commanded as Dion and Nolus, obedient and expectant of orders, rushed forward at his approach.
From the triclinium on the right came the sound of loud laughter and the strains of a bibulous song, voices raised in gaiety and pleasure: Taurus Antinor recognised that of Caius Nepos, fluent and mellow, and that of my lord Hortensius Martius resonant and clear.
To what their revelries meant he did not give a thought. Dea had told him why these men had come to her house. The intrigues hatched two days ago over a supper-table were finding their culmination now. The Caesar was a fugitive and the people rebellious: the golden opportunity lay ready to the hand of these treacherous self-seekers: and Dea Flavia was to be their tool, their puppet, until such time as they betrayed her in her turn into other hands that paid them higher wage.
Taurus Antinor wrapped the dark cloak which Dion had brought him closely around his person. He gave the slaves a mute, peremptory sign of silence and then quickly walked past the janitors, through the vestibule and out into the open street.
The midday light had yielded to early afternoon. It still was grey and lurid, with a leaden mist hanging over the distance and moisture rising up from the rain-sodden ground. The worst of the storm had pa.s.sed from over the city, but the thunder still rolled dully at intervals above the Campania and great gusts of wind drove the heavy rain into Taurus Antinor"s face.
It seemed to him, as he walked rapidly down the narrow street in front of the Augusta"s palace, that the noise from the Forum below had gained in volume and in strength. When the raging tempest of rebellion was at its height earlier in the day, he had lain in a drugged sleep, unconscious of the shouts, the threats, the groans which had resounded from palace to palace on the very summit of the Palatine. When he awoke these terrifying sounds were already more subdued. The people had been driven by the storm-fanned conflagration which they themselves had kindled, to seek shelter under the arcades of the tabernae in the Forum below. But now, after a couple of hours of enforced inactivity, they were ready once more for mischief: in compact groups of a dozen or so they were slowly emerging from beneath the shelters, and it only needed the amalgamation of these isolated groups for the fire of open insurrection to be ablaze again.
Time, therefore, was obviously precious. At any moment now, if the rain ceased altogether, the populace--in no way cooled by the drenching--would once more storm the hill and would discover the fugitive Caesar in his retreat. Already from afar there came to the lonely pedestrian"s ear the roar of a mighty wave composed of many sounds, which, gathering force and fury, was ready to dash itself anew upon the imperial hill.
But up here on the summit there still reigned comparative quietude.
True that as he walked rapidly along Taurus Antinor spied from time to time groups of excited, chattering men congregated at street corners or under the shelter of a jutting portico; whilst now and then from behind the huge piles of builders" materials, which littered this portion of the Palatine, darkly swathed figures would emerge at sound of the praefect"s footsteps on the flagstones, and as quickly vanish again. But to these Taurus Antinor paid no heed; they were but the remote echoes of the angry storm below.
Soon the majestic pile of Augustus" palace loomed before him on the left, with its unending vistas of marble and porphyry colonnades. On the right was the temple of Jupiter Victor on the very summit of the hill.
An undefinable instinct led the man"s footsteps to that lonely height.
He skirted the temple and anon stood looking down on the panorama of Rome stretched out at his feet: the Palatine sloping downwards in a gentle gradient--covered with the dwellings of the rich patricians which formed here a network of intricate and narrow streets; below these the great Circus redolent of the memories of the past four-and-twenty hours; beyond it the Aventine and the winding ribbon of the Tiber now lost in a leaden-coloured haze.
The streets from the valley upwards all round the hill were swarming with men, who from this distance looked like pygmies, fussy and irresponsible, spectral too in the rain-laden mist as they appeared to be running hither and thither in compact groups, but with seeming aimlessness, whilst shouting, always shouting, that perpetual call for vengeance and for death.
The watcher looked down in silence, for that crowd of Pygmies was the people of Rome, who at a word from him would proclaim him Caesar and master of the world. The immensity of the sky was above him, the far horizon partly hidden in gloom, but down there were the people whose voice was raised to deify their chosen hero in the intervals of demanding the death of a tyrant.
And the people were the lords of Rome just now. Entrenched in the narrow streets a crowd--one hundred thousand or more strong--held the imperial hill in a solid blockade. Down below, in and around the Circus, steel and bronze glittered in the distant vapours. One thousand men of the praetorian guard, cut off from the Caesar, had been unable to forge a way through the serried ranks of the populace.
Dark ma.s.ses--that lay immovable and stark in the open s.p.a.ce around the Circus--spoke mutely of combats that had been fierce and b.l.o.o.d.y: but the people had remained victorious; the people held their ground. One hundred thousand fists and staves, a few agricultural and building implements had a.s.serted their mastery over one thousand swords and shields.
The people were the masters of Rome, and they had chosen their Caesar in the hero whom they had already deified.
Taurus Antinor"s gaze swept over the vista that lay stretched out before him: it pictured the entire political situation of the world-city. With treachery lurking on the hill and a determined mob in the valley, the murder of the Caesar was but a question of hours.
And after that?
After that the Empire of Rome and the dominion of the world for this man who stood here on the watch. He had but to say the word and that Empire would be his. He had but to go back now, to find his way with softly treading footsteps to the couch where Dea Flavia"s exquisite body lay stretched out in semi-unconsciousness. He had but to take her once more in his arms, to murmur the words of love that--unspoken--seared his lips even now; he had but to close his ears to the still small voice that was G.o.d"s, and Rome, the mistress of the world, and Dea Flavia, the peerless woman, would be his at the word.
Rome and Dea Flavia! the two priceless guerdons of the earth! They called to him now on the wings of the distant storm, from over the hills and from across the grey, dull mist that obscured the sky.
The man stretched out his arms with a gesture of pa.s.sionate longing. How easy it were to take all! How impossible it seemed to give up everything that made life glorious and sweet.
A voice low and insinuating trembled in the air.
"Take all!" it said, "it is thine for the taking. Thine by the will of thousands, thine by the call of one pair of perfect lips ... Rome, the unconquered queen ... Dea Flavia holding in her white hands a cup br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with happiness ... all are thine at the word."
The silent watcher cried out in his loneliness and his agony; he held his hands to his ears, for the voice grew more insidious and more real:
"The Empire of the world and Dea Flavia ... and in the balance what?...
an oath rendered to a tyrannical madman, the scourge and terror of mankind ... an oath which reason itself doth repudiate with scorn ...
even thy G.o.d would not exact obedience from thee at such a price...."
His head fell upon his breast and his knees bent to the earth. It was all so difficult ... it seemed well-nigh impossible now....