She placed one trembling, toil-worn hand on Nola"s shoulder and said gently:
"Nola, thou hast heard what my lady"s grace hath deigned to speak. A humble life but yet a free one awaits thee in thy mother"s home on the Aventine; a life of luxurious slavery doth my lady"s grace offer thee.
She deigns to say that thou alone shalt choose thy way in life. Thou wast born a slave, Nola, and shouldst know how to obey. Obey my lady then. Choose thy future, Nola. The humble and free one which I, thy mother, have earned for thee, or the golden cage in which this proud lady would deign to keep her latest whim in bondage!"
Her voice, which at first had been almost steady, died down at the end in a pitiful quiver. It was the last agony of her hopes, the real parting from her child, for even whilst Menecreta"s throat was choked with sobs, Nola hung her head and great heavy tears dropped from her eyes upon her clasped hands. The child was crying and the mother understood.
She no longer moaned with pain now. The pain was gone; only dull despair remained. Her heart had hungered for the one glad cry of joy: "Mother, I"ll come to thee!" It was left starving even through her daughter"s tears.
But those who watched this unwonted scene could not guess what Dea Flavia felt, for her eyes were veiled by her long lashes, and the mouth expressed neither triumph nor pity. Menecreta now once more tried to steady her quivering voice; she straightened her weary back and said quite calmly:
"My lady"s grace has spoken, and the great lords here a.s.sembled have uttered words of praise for an exquisite act of pity. My lady"s grace hath spoken and hath told the poor slave, Nola, to choose her own life.
But I, the humble freedwoman, will speak in my turn to thee, O Dea Flavia of the imperial house of immortal Caesar, and looking into thine eyes I tell thee that thy pity is but falsehood and thine eloquence naught but cruelty. By thy words thou didst take my child from me as effectually as if thou already hadst bought and paid for her. Look at the child now! She hangs her head and dares not look on me, her mother.
Oh! thou didst well choose thy words, oh daughter of imperial Caesar, for thy honeyed words were like the nectar which hid the poison that hath filtrated into my daughter"s heart. Thou hast said it right--her life with me had been one of toil and mayhap of misery, but she would have been content, for she had never dreamed of another life. But now she has heard thee speak of marble halls, of music and of flowers, of a life of ease and of vanity, and never again would that child be happy in her mother"s arms. Be content, O Augusta! the girl is thine since thy caprice hath willed it so. Even though she chose her mother now, I would not have her, for I know that she would be unhappy in that lonely hut on the Aventine; and though I have seen much sorrow and endured much misery, there is none greater to bear than the sight of a child"s sorrow. Take her, Dea Flavia! thine eloquence has triumphed over a mother"s broken heart."
Strangely enough, and to the astonishment of all those present, Dea Flavia had listened patiently and silently whilst the woman spoke, and now she said quite gently:
"Nay! thou dost wrong thine own child, Menecreta; see how lovingly she turns to thee!"
"Only because in her shallow little heart there has come the first twinge of remorse," replied the woman sadly. "Soon, in the lap of that luxury which thou dost offer her, she will have forgotten the mother"s arms in which she weeps to-day."
"That"s enough," suddenly interposed the praefect harshly. "Menecreta, take thy child; take her, I say. Dea Flavia hath relinquished her to thee. Be not a fool and take the child away!"
But with a gesture of savage pride the freedwoman tore herself away from Nola.
"No!" she said firmly, "I"ll not take her. That proud lady here hath stolen the soul of my child; her body, inert and sad, I"ll not have the while her heart longs to be away from me. I"ll not have her, I say! let the daughter of Caesar account to the G.o.ds above for her tempting words, her honeyed speech and her lies."
"Silence, woman!" ordered Dea Flavia sternly.
"Lies, I tell thee, lies," continued the woman who had lost all sense of fear in the depth of her misery; "the life of luxury thou dost promise this child--how long will it last? thy caprice for her--when will it tire? Silence? nay! I"ll not be silent," she continued wildly in defiant answer to angry murmurs from the crowd. "Thou daughter of a house of tyrants, tyrant thyself! a slave to thy paltry whims, crushing beneath thy sandalled feet the hearts of the poor and the cries of the oppressed! Shame on thee! shame on thee, I say!"
"By the great Mother," said Dea Flavia coldly, "will no one here rid me of this screaming vixen?"
But even before she had spoken, the angry murmurs around had swollen to loud protestations. Before the praefect"s lictors could intervene the crowd had pushed forward; the men rushed and surrounded the impious creature who had dared to raise her voice against one of the divinities of Rome: Augusta the G.o.ddess.
One of Dea Flavia"s gigantic Ethiopians had seized Menecreta by the shoulder, another pulled her head back by the hair and struck her roughly on the mouth, but she, with the strength of the vanquished, brought down to her knees, frenzied with despair, continued her agonised cry:
"A curse upon thee, Dea Flavia, a curse spoken by the dying lips of the mother whom thou hast scorned!"
How she contrived momentarily to free herself from the angry crowd of lictors and of slaves it were impossible to say; perhaps at this moment something in Menecreta"s wild ravings had awed their spirit and paralysed their hands. Certain it is that for one moment the freedwoman managed to struggle to her feet and to drag herself along on her knees until her hands clutched convulsively the embroidered tunic of Dea Flavia.
"And this is the curse which I p.r.o.nounce on thee," she murmured in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, which, rising and rising to higher tones, finally ended in shrieks which reached to the outermost precincts of the Forum. "Dea Flavia, daughter of Octavius Claudius thou art accursed. 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 to thy cry. Hear me, ye G.o.ds--hear me!... Magna Mater, hear me!... Mother of the stars--hear me!"
Superst.i.tion, deeply rooted in every Roman heart, held the crowd enthralled even whilst Menecreta"s trembling voice echoed against the marble walls of the temples of the G.o.ds whom she invoked. No one attempted to stop her. Dea Flavia"s slaves dared not lay a hand on her.
It seemed as if Magna Mater herself, the great Mother, had thrown an invisible mantle over the humble freedwoman, shielding her with G.o.d-like power.
"Menecreta, raise thyself and come away," said a harsh voice in tones of command. The praefect had at last with the vigorous help of his lictors managed to push his way through the crowd. It was he now who attempted to raise the woman from her knees. He sharply bade his own men to silence the woman and to take her away.
Dea Flavia had remained silent and still. She had not attempted to interrupt the frenzied woman who called this awful curse upon her; only once, when Menecreta invoked the G.o.ds, did a shudder pa.s.s through the delicate body, and her heavy lids fell over her blue eyes, as if they were trying to shut out some awful vision which the woman"s ravings had conjured up.
Then in a sudden her mood seemed to change, her serenity returned, and when the praefect interposed she put out a restraining hand, warning the lictors not to approach.
She bent to Menecreta and called her by name, her mellow voice vibrating with tender tones like the chords of the harp that are touched by a master hand, and her blue eyes, veiled with tears, looked down with infinite tenderness on the prostrate figure at her feet.
"Menecreta," she said gently, "thy sorrow hath made thee harsh. The G.o.ds, believe me, still hold much happiness in store for thee and for thy daughter. See how they refuse to register thy curse which had been impious were it not the dictate of thy poor frenzied mind. See, Menecreta, how thou didst misjudge me; what I did, I did because I wished to test thy love for thy child. I wished to test its true selflessness. But now I am satisfied and Nola need no longer choose, for she shall have the luxury for which her young heart doth pine, but she shall never by me be deprived of her mother"s love."
Even while she spoke, Menecreta struggled to her knees. Her wide-open eyes, over which a mysterious veil seemed to be slowly descending, were fixed on the radiant vision above her. But comprehension had not yet reached her mind. Her spirit had not yet been dragged from the h.e.l.l of despair to this glorious sight of heaven.
"Menecreta," continued the gentle voice, "thou shalt come to my house. A free woman, thou shalt be my friend and thy daughter shall be thy happy bondswoman. I"ll give thee a little home in which thou shalt dwell with her and draw thy last breath in her arms; there shall be a garden there which she will plant with roses. Thy days and hers will be one continuous joy. Come to me now, Menecreta! Take thy daughter by the hand and come and dwell with her in the little house which my slaves shall prepare for thee."
Her face now was almost on a level with that of Menecreta, whose hollow eyes gazed upwards with a look of ecstatic wonder.
"Who art thou?" murmured the freedwoman; "there is a film over my eyes--I cannot see--art thou a G.o.ddess?"
"Nay!" replied Dea Flavia gently, "only a lonely maiden who has no friends e"en in the midst of all her riches. A lonely maid whom thou didst try to curse, asking the G.o.ds that her every act of mercy be turned to bitter sorrow. See, she takes thee to her heart and gives thee back thy daughter, a home and happiness."
"My daughter?" murmured Menecreta.
"She shall dwell with thee in the house which shall be thine."
"A home?" and the trembling voice grew weaker, the hollow eyes more dim.
"Aye! in the midst of a garden, with roses and violets all around."
"And happiness?" sighed Menecreta.
And her head fell back against Dea Flavia"s arm; her eyes, now veiled by the film of death gazed, sightless, up at the dome of blue.
"Menecreta!" cried Dea Flavia, horror-stricken as she felt the feeble body stiffening against her with the approaching rigidity of death.
"Mother!" echoed Nola, striving to smother her terror as she threw herself on her knees.
"The woman is dead," said the praefect quietly.
CHAPTER VI
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."--REVELATIONS XXII. 13.
And after that silence and peace.
Silence save for the moanings of the child Nola, who in a pa.s.sionate outburst of grief had thrown herself on the body of her mother.
Dea Flavia stood there still and calm, her young face scarce less white than the clinging folds of her tunic, her unfathomable eyes fixed upon the pathetic group at her feet: the weeping girl and the dead woman.
She seemed almost dazed--like one who does not understand and a quaint puzzled frown appeared upon the whiteness of her brow.