Chapter IV: Book II: The Garden of Dreams (1)

I

The years went on,--misty Springs, golden Summers, flaming Autumns, Winters stark and chill, leaving each its tale on the unrolling scroll of time. For in those years the consul departed from Britain with his forces, and the cities ruled themselves, each in a state of feudal independence, now warring amongst themselves, now making common cause against their common foes.

Were history to write itself more often with a view to cumulative dramatic effect, there would be small need for the romance of imagination. One would have history a tale, of swift climax and excitement, when it is in fact a scattered medley--a battle here, a bit of statecraft there; here a burning Rome, yonder a new God; and between these the commonplace round of human life and toil and death, the inevitable dead level of the tale. It is because of the long lapses between cause and effect, the revolutions slow and of secret tardy growth instead of by fire and sword, that men turn to Imagination to bridge the gap. Events, grand and stirring, woven, one believes, into the very fabric of history, are proved to be the pleasant tale of some ancient ardent romancer, with an eye for dramatic effect. And often it is the bit choicest and most intimate of detail, binding the chronicle into a dramatic whole, which the iron pick of Research digs from the heap of bones, and wise men say: "That brilliant hero never lived; this great battle was but a skirmish; some old monk wrote that--it never happened." Many a glowing jewel, cherished tenderly and shining bravely through the dust of ages, has turned, in the white light of knowledge, to worthless glass. So do the old gods perish.

Thus came the chronicle of Saxon conquest down to us,--a brave and lusty tale, scarred with battles, written in blood, picturing a horde of savage foe-men that swarmed over the Walls and swept through a blood-drenched land. In fact and deed, it was a conquest of absorption rather than extermination, dramatic only in its vast significance; a gradual amalgamation of two forces, in which the stronger, cleaner Norse blood triumphed over worn-out and depleted Roman stock. As weeds, rank and sturdy, overrun a garden, choking out other plants, so in Britain, Saxon life overgrew Roman life, inch by inch, almost imperceptibly. The conquest was by no means bloodless. Towns were sacked and men were slain; here was an explosion, there an outbreak of lawlessness; but for the most part the change was wrought with deadly slowness and a sureness which nothing could check.

In these years Nicanor grew tall and strong and long of limb, and his voice ceased to play him false with strange pipings which had filled him with wrath and dire dismay. He learned to use eyes and ears as well as tongue; he worshipped at the altars of strange gods, and laughed at them. He lived from day to day as the birds live, picking up a crumb here and yonder. In the workshop he spent as little time as might be, restless, not content with what he had, ever eager for that which he had not, devoured by the curiosity which would lay hands on the strange throbbing thing called Life, and probe its inmost hidden meaning.

And as time went on, the unrest deepened which possessed him. He was unhappy, and he could not tell why. He wanted something, and he knew not what. His shyness developed into fierce aggressiveness, unreasonable, alarming. He prowled continually among the camps, sullen and quarrelsome, vaguely miserable, and blaming his misery upon all the world. He took to spending much time, with small profit to himself, among the chained gangs of slaves, where were cruel sounds and crueller sights. At the hiss and cut of the lash on bared backs and thighs he thrilled with savage exultation; he took morbid delight in the sight of pain inflicted; and this he could not at all understand. At this season his tales were all of war and blood and violence, of treachery and despair. When night came he slept fitfully or not at all, with uneasy half-formed dreams. And in these dreams he was always searching for a thing which had no name, starting over the river-ford upon the high southern bank, ending nowhere under gray skies and desolation. He neglected his carving, waged bloody battles with his fellow workmen, bullied Master Tobias like any slave-driver. Lonely and shy and sullen, he fought through his crisis by himself, not knowing that it was a crisis, nor why it had come upon him.

No one took the trouble to help him; he would not have thanked them if they had. Outwardly he was taller, more gaunt, with a certain rough virility which impressed. Men knew that he was savage, and baited him even while they feared him; himself only knew that he was miserable,--more miserable, because he could not understand why he should be so at all. He lived the wild life of the camps, drinking, brawling, making fierce love with a vague notion that this was what he wanted, ever finding the fruit of desire change to ashes in his mouth. Always the power within him grew; and always he despised those upon whom he wrought his magic. For it was nothing to master these, to do with them as he willed; all his art was lost upon them since they could not understand.

He was then at work with Master Tobias upon a book-cover for the gospels, which was for Saint Peter's, and very much interested he was and pleased with his share in it. In the morning he went to work right willingly, with no thought other than to do as best he might with all his skill. So he got his tools, and the oil and glass-paper for the first polishing, and, Master Tobias not having yet appeared, started to go on himself with the bit of scroll he had begun the day before. Seeing it with fresh eyes after a lapse of hours, it struck him that a change might be made in one place with much advantage from the design which they had planned. So he made the change, and was still more pleased. When Master Tobias entered, Nicanor pointed to what he had done, and said:

"Is not this a better way, good sir? That corner needs balancing, and it is in my mind that the design should work up this way--" he illustrated with his burin--"and so bring into harmony--"

And then it was that the unexpected happened. For Master Tobias rose from his stool and stood over him, and said:

"Hast thou changed the design I made?"

Nicanor replied that he had, and wished to show the advantage of his new idea. But Master Tobias struck his hand aside, and shrill with rage, exclaimed:

"Thou good-for-nothing clod! Thou hast spoiled the work with thy clumsy handling! Why canst not leave alone what thou dost not understand? Who gave permission to change? Body of me! Must I stand over thee every hour in the day and switch thy hands for disobedience?"

"But it is not spoiled!" Nicanor protested with indignation.

Master Tobias stormed.

"I say it is! I say it is, and must be smoothed out and changed. And thou'lt stay within and do it, until all is as it was before. I'll show thee my designs are not to be altered thus unwarrantably!"

And herein he made a mistake. For when he said "Thou shalt!" Nicanor's impulse was "I will not!" and as yet he acted upon impulse. Master Tobias could have flogged him if he wished; Nicanor cared not a rap for flogging. He rose in open rebellion and pushed away his stool.

"Not I!" he said. "The design is false, and I will not put into my work what is not as it should be!"

He turned and marched out of the room--leaving Master Tobias dumb with astonishment and rage--surly and savage and very bitter, with his hand against every man because he thought that every man's hand was against him.

And then, quite suddenly, there swept over him the fierce, insistent longing for change which wrestles with every man at some time or other in his life; the hot desire to fling himself out of the rut into which that life inevitably must settle, to encounter anything, good or bad, so long as it brought a change. And because he was still too young to see that this is the very one thing which may not be; the one thing of which Fate says: "Come and go, and plan as ye will, but remember that I hold the leading-strings; for my name men call Circumstance, and my law is that man shall do not what he will, but what he must,"--because as yet he could not see this, he left Thorney that day for Londinium, saying no word of his grievance to any man, with his bundle tied to a stick upon his shoulder.

It was on the road to Londinium that he overtook one journeying in the same direction, who kept pace with him persistently, let him go fast or slow. This was a venerable man, with a long beard of white, and wise, all-seeing eyes that smiled and smiled beneath the penthouse of his brows. Nicanor came to hate him vindictively, with no reason at all, as he hated all the world just then.

Nicanor stopped at evening by the roadside, and sat down to eat the food he had brought with him. And this ancient man stopped also, and sat upon a stone near by, and watched him. Nicanor, with meat and black bread in his hands, glanced up, ready to scowl, and met the old man's eyes, smiling at him. It was so long since any man had done other than revile him--since one's own mood will reflect itself like an image in clear water upon the minds of those around one--that Nicanor was surprised into smiling back, uncertainly, it is true, but still smiling. Then it was as though a bit of that outer crust of moroseness melted, and left something of his old boyish shyness in its place. Without stopping in the least to think why he did it, he broke the bread and meat into two portions, and held out one, in silence, awkwardly, as a child who does not know whether his gift will be accepted or cast upon the ground.

Now if that old man, perhaps not understanding, had not taken what he offered, turning from him then, it must surely have been that Nicanor would have shrugged his shoulders, and flung the food upon the road, and shut up once more within his shell of surliness, with his opinion of mankind fully justified in his own mind. But whether he wanted it or not, the old man took his gift, with eyes grave yet always smiling upon his lowering, half-shamed face, and said in a voice like a deep-toned bell, so clear was it and vibrant:

"I thank thee, my son."

He ate the food, slowly; and Nicanor watched him slyly, as he ate his own supper, fancying himself vastly indifferent to all ancient smiling strangers. But deep down in his rough shy heart he was pleased for that he had succeeded in not turning another soul away from him--so small a thing has power to change the balance sometimes; and when the old man spoke he did not wish to repulse him, as often. The stranger said, quite as though he had a right to know:

"Son, art sure that it will be well for thee to go to Londinium? Is what thou seekest there?"

Nicanor answered with immense surprise:

"I seek nothing."

"So?" the old man said, and smiled. "Now I thought that surely thou wert seeking something, and very near to black despair because thou hadst not found it."

And at once, like an echo from another world, there came to Nicanor the memory of a time when he had wandered seeking for something which he could not name, upon the downs, under gray skies and desolation. And he did not know if this had really happened or had been but a dream. But he began to think the old man very strange and rather to be feared. He said:

"Old man, how may you tell that I seek for what I cannot find; and why would it be not well for me in Londinium?"

The old man's face changed then, so that for an instant Nicanor was frightened. For into it there came a high far look of utter peace, such as the face of a holy saint who has suffered all might wear, if he awakened. And while Nicanor stared, not knowing what to think about it, the old man said gently:

"Son, I may tell by right of having known myself what thou art knowing now. For the faces of men are as an open scroll to those who have learned to read what is writ therein, and thy story is upon thee very clear. Thou art in a world of thine own creation, but this world of men hath also claims upon thee, which thou canst not ignore. And I say to thee, go again to that place which thou hast left, for to find what thou art seeking, one need not go afield. And when thou hast found that thing, which is in this world of men, seek thou sanctuary, which is holy love."

Nicanor said: "I do not understand! What hath love to do with it?"--and told of the love that he had seen, which was all he knew. The old man listened, with unchanging eyes upon him, and said:

"Now truly I see thou dost not understand. This be not love, but a blast of furnace heat which scorcheth. But some time thou wilt come to understand the meaning of my words, and then shalt thou find sanctuary and peace. Ay, peace--that is what men cry for in the dark days that are passing; and they shall seek refuge and find none, and the bitterness of death shall be upon them. For it shall be said even as by the prophet of Babylon, mother of old evil--'Rome the Mighty is fallen--is fallen!'"

He swayed gently as he sat, with hands uplifted and eyes no longer smiling; and to Nicanor's eyes his long white beard and hair were as a mist of silver around his head.

"Thou also shalt pass through the Valley, for the Black Dog of trouble is upon thee; and thou shalt work out thine own unhappiness and thine own salvation. For thy way is the way of loneliness, and of misunderstanding, and of the Cross. And this is as it must be, since the price of heart's blood and heart's desire is pain, and for what thou gainest, thou must pay the price."

He ceased, and his hands fell to his sides and his white head drooped. He leaned to Nicanor, groping, old, and suddenly very feeble, and whispered:

"Son of men, I too have trod the path which thou art treading now. And I say to thee, seek thou sanctuary while yet there may be time, for no man knoweth what the end shall be. And when thou art entered in, all else on earth shall matter nothing, for thou shalt be at peace. This I know, O Youth, and tell thee, for--I did not enter in."

He rose and laid a withered hand on Nicanor's bent, shaggy head.

"Unto each his own appointed work, and his own appointed fate, and the reward which he hath merited. Now peace be with thee!"

He turned away and passed onward into the falling night.

Thereafter the world unrolled itself between them, for they never met again.

Wrapped in his cloak, Nicanor lay and stared at the stars above him, and pondered those things which he had heard. And, because again he could not understand, he put upon them his own interpretation. But he at once began to make a tale about that old man, with his silver beard and his smiling eyes; and so he fell asleep, thinking that that was all there was in it.

When he awoke at break of dawn, he was inclined to think the whole a dream. But there was a new and softer mood upon him, greatly surprising to himself, and the black soul within him was tamed and stilled. So, in blindly superstitious obedience to the word of the strange old man, he turned his face away from Londinium and all that he longed to find there, back toward the life which was his, and the work which was his, and the Isle of Brambles in the fords.

And so came Fate, hard following on his heels.

II

For out of the gray mists of morning came soldiers, six or eight, with ring of weapons and shuffling thud of feet; and with them was a centurion in command. These overtook Nicanor where he went slowly back toward Thorney; and the centurion laid a rough hand upon him and bade him halt. Nicanor turned; but before he could ask angrily why they had stopped him, his wrists were fast in handcuffs and he was a prisoner in chains. He turned upon the centurion.

"Now what is this? I have done no wrong. I demand release!"

"Demand if it please thee," the soldier said. "But in truth I think thee something more than fool to let thyself be thus caught doddering by the way. To escape once, and baffle all the great lord Eudemius's searchers, and then be stumbled upon like any sheep--faugh! I expected better things of thee!"

"Now have I naught at all to do with the lord Eudemius!" said Nicanor. He explained, carefully, who he was, and whence he came and to whom he belonged, and they turned a deaf ear to him. He was the man they sought, even the slave of Eudemius, escaped three days ago, with a reward out for his capture. This last explained it, but that Nicanor could not know. They insisted that they were in the right; all he could say and do would not convince them otherwise.

They skirted around Londinium by a street lined widely with tombs, and struck a road leading south and slightly west, which the men, talking among themselves, named the Noviomagus road. Ten miles, and they reached the station known by that name, and here took horse, with Nicanor mounted behind a guard. The road led through the neck of the great forest of Anderida, and came out again into the open, and they followed it until three hours after noon. Then they turned aside into a narrower branch road, and so rode easily for another hour until they entered a grove of ilex trees. To the farther end of this they came abruptly, and saw before them open country, a broad and gentle slope of hill; and on its summit a great stately house, white-walled, with outbuildings in the copse around it. In the centre of the blank wall of the front of the house which confronted them, was a gateway, with gates of bronze, and a porter's lodge. Here the porter, looking through his wicket, asked their business, and, being told, directed them around to the rear. So they entered at another smaller gate, and were in a court, open to the sky and surrounded on all sides by buildings, where slaves were working. This, Nicanor learned from the soldiers' talk, was in the quarters of the slaves.

And here the centurion found the overseer, and talked with him long and earnestly. The overseer paid over the reward, and the centurion, as Nicanor saw without at all understanding the transaction, returned certain broad pieces, which the steward hid away upon himself with a furtive glance around. The soldier then departed with his men, his tongue in his cheek; and the overseer came to where Nicanor stood in chains, and looked at him. He was a very fat man, with little eyes sunk in unwholesome flesh, and was far haughtier than the great lord Eudemius himself. When he saw Nicanor's face, he began unexpectedly to curse and bluster, and said:

"How now, fellow! Is this a trick thou and thy mates have played upon me, to obtain my master's gold? Thou art not he who escaped three days ago."

But light had broken upon Nicanor, and he answered:

"So I told them, and so thou couldst have seen if thou hadst looked before thou didst pay--and receive back--thy master's gold. If this be thy practice, sure thy lord must be the poorer for thy loyal service!"

But the overseer was talking very fast, without paying heed at all.

"By my head, but this is a scurvy trick to play a man! But now thou art here, here shalt thou stay in that other's place; for it would go hard with me were my lord to learn that reward had been paid for nothing--and a slave is a slave to him."

Nicanor turned on him in a blaze of wrath, and the fat overseer, wary of the lean strength of him, called his men.

"Take him to the armorer's and have put upon him the collar. And on pain of punishment let no man say he is not the one who went away."

So they put upon him the brazen collar of slaveship, with the name of Eudemius engraved thereon; and set him to work among the household slaves. And he, being alone, was helpless, and could do no more than bide his time as best he might.

But at first, when his bonds galled, he stormed, raging in fury at his impotence and the high-handedness of those who had betrayed him to his servitude. Finding that this brought him but blows and curses, and was of no manner of good, he calmed down and simmered inwardly. Then--and herein he surprised himself--he began to take an interest in this new life into which he had been cast. He had abiding faith in himself, and this is a thing of which every man has need; he was undergoing a new experience, which at the outset was interesting. When he became tired of it--well, he would then find means of escape. The work was not over hard, since there were many hands to lighten it; he was brought into contact with a magnificence of which he had never dreamed. As always, he kept his eyes and ears open; with his strange, sure prescience that all he could see and hear and know would be useful to him, somehow, somewhen, he set out to learn all he could of the life of the great mansion and of those who dwelt therein.

So he found out many things; and one day he found Varia, the great lord's daughter.

The house was so vast that one might lose himself with ease among its many halls and courts and passages if he did not know its plan. Nicanor, sent one day on an errand to the kitchens, reached them in safety; and then took the wrong way back, and found himself wandering in a part of the house new to him. This did not trouble him, for by then he was well known among the household servants, and was sure of soon meeting some one who would set him right. So, quite without thought, he pushed open a door at random, and then abruptly lost all his wits through sheer amazement and delight.

For he was in a garden, beautiful to his eyes beyond all words, with broad terraces and gleaming marble steps where peacocks strutted; with at one end a fountain banked in a tangle of roses, where sprays of water fell with silvery splash and tinkle; with marble seats and statues gleaming from the cool gloom of trees. Around the garden were high walls, vine-hung, with the surrounding buildings of the villa for a broken background. An untamed profusion of green life rioted here; pale flowers of night, whose fragrance hung heavy on the air, swam in a sea-green dusk; ivy clung and clambered along the crannies of gray walls; roses sprawled in a red torrent of perfume over the yellowing images of old gods and heroes. In one corner a placid lake gazed still-eyed at the sky, with white swans floating on its mirrored black and silver. Nicanor drew breath with a quick pleasure which was almost pain; here one might think great thoughts and dream great dreams. For it was as a bit of that Forgotten Land of dreams, through which all men have journeyed, though the road to it is lost, with a glamour of mystery and a charm upon it which held him spellbound.

Out of the velvet shadow into the still evening light, one came toward him, in silence, with dark hair hanging in heavy braids on either side of her pale face, with dusky eyes and scarlet lips and jewels that glimmered in the folds of her perfumed robes. He bowed before her, keeping his eyes upon her face; for though he was a slave, he was first a man, and next a poet, which means a lover of all things beautiful, and he had never seen a woman like her in all his life before.

"Who art thou?" she said. And though she was a great lady and the daughter of that noble house, she was yet a girl, and scarce beyond her childhood, and she drooped her head before his glance.

"Nicanor, thy slave," he answered, but his voice was not a slave's voice.

"Why art thou here?" she asked him. "This is mine own place, where none but I and my women come."

"I crave thy pardon, lady," he said; and told her how he came. In turn, her eyes rested on his face; and he, meeting them, felt his pulses leap to a sudden shock which sent the blood back pounding to his heart. For they were wandering eyes, awake and seeing, yet which slept, with no light of reason in them. So then he understood why the name of their lady was spoken throughout the household in hushed tones as of one dead; why she was so closely hidden from the eyes of the world. And she was the Lady Varia,--the lord Eudemius's only child,--the last of his great house, fair, futile flower.

"Nicanor," she repeated, with a pretty halting on the word. Her voice was low and dreaming, more tender than a dove's. "Where have I heard that name? Why, Nerissa hath told me thou art he who telleth tales to the men and maids at evening. See, it is evening now. Wilt not tell me too a tale? I should like it, for sometimes I am very lonely."

She was far above him as the stars; but she was a woman, and he a man--and the first tale was told within a garden. She held out a hand to him, and he took it and touched it to his forehead, and it fluttered in his and then lay still. She led him to a bench by the sleeping lake, a child whose will might not be thwarted, and bade him tell her tales such as he told her men and maidens. This the sure instinct of his art taught him he might not do, since those tales which held them thralled were not for such as she. But he locked his hands about his knee, and thought an instant, his head flung back and his eyes intent and eager, with an odd shining deep within them.

So his tale began, in the deep-voiced chant which had rung out by moor and camp-fire, hushed now, that the peace of the evening's stillness might not be broken. She sat quite still beside him, her hands clasped childlike in her lap, listening with parted lips. The dusk deepened, and the golden moon hung over the surrounding wall and flooded the garden in wan hoary light. The pool lay a lake of silver in a black fringe of trees. The night flowers breathed forth drowsy perfume, making heavy the summer air. Nicanor's voice rolled on, endlessly through the scented darkness....

Until Nerissa, the old nurse, came upon them suddenly, clamoring for her charge. Varia sprang to her and kissed her, with fond coaxing arms about her, so that she relented, since her lady's will was law. She dismissed Nicanor, and he crossed his arms before his face, and went away from Paradise.

Varia hid her face on her nurse's shoulder--poor groping soul that found its happiness in things so small--and said:

"He hath told me tales, Nerissa, so strange and wonderful that never was aught like them in all the world. I will have him to come again, for I am so happy--so happy! And thou shalt not tell, for then he could not come, and he is not to suffer for it. Promise, Nerissa, dear Nerissa--it is but a little thing!"

Thus Varia.

And Nicanor--ah, Nicanor! That night there opened to him a new world,--a world of beauty and of sweetness and of pain. He, a son of the soil, knowing his roughness, his uncouthness, his bondage, never giving them a thought till then, had led her by the hand, a daughter of the stars, for a little space, the barriers down between them. One bit of common ground they had; beyond it, distance immeasurable and impassable.

* * * * *

That night Nicanor was once more seeking, always seeking, for something vague and left unnamed; past the river-ford of Thorney, where ever that night-long search began; and so through all the world to where a garden lay in moonlight. Here also he would have sought, for he knew that what he strove to find was waiting. But a web of moonlight held him back from entering; and from the outer darkness an old man's voice came to him, clear as a deep-toned bell, which said:

"The price of heart's blood and heart's desire is pain, and for what thou gainest, thou must pay the price."

III

In the garden was a little narrow door, vine-hung, which led to the outer world. No one ever used this door; for long years it had stood locked, and the key to it was lost,--so long lost that no one ever thought to look and see that the lock was clean and newly oiled that it might turn without noise; and the vines which half hid it on the inner side could tell no tales.

Marcus, oldest of all the many household slaves, white-headed and shrunken, and bent with the toil of years, squatted by the fire in the court of the slaves' quarters, cleaning a copper pot with a swab of twigs soaked in oil to pliancy. Within the house a feast was in progress, so that all the slaves were there on service, and Marcus had the fire to himself. He crooned softly as he scrubbed; and the flames struck gleams of light from the collar of brass about his neck and the round shining sides of the kettle, as it turned and twisted in his hands.

Presently Nicanor came into the circle of firelight, staggering under the weight of a great cask upon his back, with sweat-matted hair that streaked his face, and straining muscles. Out of the zone of light he passed, with only the panting of labored breath and the pad of naked feet; and the darkness swallowed him. Following came another, also laden; and another, with a squat stone jar upon his shoulder; and yet another, each giving out every ounce of power within him, straining like a beast of burden beneath the yoke, that those in the great house might be served perfectly and without fault. They passed; and from the kitchens came a rattle of crockery, a hiss of burning fat, the shrill voices of cooks and scullery women.

Marcus flung his mop into the fire, got himself to his feet, and went after them, kettle in hand. The fire, left to itself, cast wavering gleams upon the dark walls about the court, the bare trodden ground, the covered well in its centre.

Marcus, seeking Nerissa to give the kettle to her, came to the garden, and stood in the entrance and looked across it. Further than this even he dared not venture, since all the space within was sacred to the lord's daughter and her women. Opposite him, across the open lawn, were the wide steps, white in the moonlight, leading to the tessellated walk above. Beyond this, light shone softly from Lady Varia's chamber, half screened by the tall slender columns of the gallery. The two windows, reaching to the floor and giving upon the terrace, were open to the warm air; in the room the lights were low. Marcus saw suddenly the Lady Varia herself enter the room alone, walking slowly, like one unwilling or tired. Then he would have gone, lest he be reprimanded; but even as he turned, the vines along the farther wall rustled, though no wind stirred. So that Marcus, faithful old watch-dog, drew back in the shadows and waited, thinking no danger, yet bound to see that all was well.

This was what he saw: Lady Varia moving within the low-lighted room, pausing before her dressing-table near the tall silver lamp, to remove the weight of jewels which loaded her, aimless, and with slow uncertain steps like a child too weary to know rightly what it does. And from the darkness by the wall a figure coming with swift silent strides across the turf to the marble steps, black as a shadow in the moonlight, lean and lithe and with an untamed shock of hair. The figure stood upon the lowest step and called softly,--a tender, wordless call which drifted low across the night and scarcely reached to Marcus's ears. Marcus felt for the knife-hilt at his belt. But the Lady Varia, within the lighted room, heard the call, and stepped across the threshold with head raised and hands hanging at her sides like any sleep-walker, and crossed the pavement where the moonlight lay in silver, and came down the steps, slowly, yet hesitating never at all. Marcus, watching in wonder and fright and awe, saw the black figure lift her hand and kiss it; saw the two walk hand in hand across the garden into the dusky jungle of tall shrubbery. So that Marcus was in two minds,--whether to give the alarm at once, and have the intruder captured, or whether to go up quietly himself and find out what was going on.

In the end he crept along through the shadow beneath the walls; and presently, as he came, heard a voice speaking softly, yet with passion. The words were plainly audible, and Marcus heard, and crept closer yet and listened,--listened to words such as in all his stunted life he had never heard before; words which stirred forgotten memories of other things once known, once loved and lost, which he understood in part, and felt more than he understood. He crouched in the shelter of a wide-leaved plant, seeing only the outline of a black figure on the stone bench, and a white one half lost in the darkness beside it. The spell of the voice wrapped him round, deep-toned, vibrant, yet hushed into accord with the stillness of the night. Bent on capture, he found himself all at once held captive, his mind swayed as grass in the wind to the sweep of that other's fancy. But abruptly the voice ceased, and the stillness settled deeper. Marcus heard a rustle of soft garments upon the bench; a low voice saying:

"More--more! Cease not, I pray thee, friend!"

And that other voice, answering:

"Nay, lady; what use? Something is wanting--the words will not come. I know not why, whether it be in me, or whether--"

"Nay, but I'll have one more. Once thou didst begin to tell of a youth who was poor and lowly, who lived in the country of the north--"

"Does she, then, remember that?" Marcus muttered, "she, whose mind is water, where an image fades with the changing light? Eh, thou black-headed slaveling, what miracle hast thou wrought?"

"Wouldst have that tale?" Nicanor asked. "Ay, lady, once I did begin, and dared not finish. Dare I now? My faith! the trouble will not be for lack of words in this! So then; it was even as thou hast said. The youth lived in the gray northlands, up by the Great Wall, where gray hills roll over all the earth and gray skies look down upon them. He tended sheep upon these hills for his father's lord, and lived upon black porridge and sour bread, and went clad in a sheepskin. And because he had never known that life held other things than these, it was all to him as it should have been. But there came a time when this youth went out into the world. He left his flocks and herds, with his lord's permission, and went down the long road to the south, past great cities where men lived in luxury and ease and other men toiled and sweated that this might be. He saw many strange faces, heard the babble of many tongues; and it seemed to him that each face was seeking for a thing which had no name, and each tongue was calling for what might not be found. And after a while the youth knew that he too was seeking what he could not find, and he wondered if it might be that same thing for which those stranger faces hungered. In the end, he came to a fair house, and dwelt there, among those ones who sat in luxury and ease and those others who toiled for them. And in this house was a certain place, of which was said: 'This spot is holy ground. Here none may enter rashly.' But the youth was rash, and entered."

His voice faltered. On the seat beside him the Lady Varia leaned forward.

"And then?--" she said softly.

"And there he found what he had been seeking," said Nicanor, very low. "What every soul upon this earth has a right to search for, but not every soul has a right to take. The name of this thing, O lady of mine, was Happiness; and some there be who call it also Love, and others there be who know that it is Pain. For in the garden dwelt one fair and pure and holy,--a daughter of the great ones of the earth. And because she was fair he loved her; and because she was great he might not woo her; and because she was pure he would not stain her. For she had taught him to love as a woman may teach a man."

"He loved her?" Lady Varia said. Her voice was low and dreaming under the spell of his.

"Ay, lady of mine, he loved her!" Nicanor said; and in place of the vibrant tenderness of his voice was a swift fierce triumph. "He loved her, and nothing could do away with that." Once more his tones were hushed.

"On earth, between man and woman, are two kinds of love, my lady,--one which a man may teach a woman, which is quick desire and the bitter sweetness of passion, the meaning of a kiss, the thrill of a caress: and this, when all is said and done, is of earth, and of the flesh; and one which a woman may teach a man: and this is reverence, and tenderness, and holiness, and of the spirit. And she taught the youth this kind of love, my lady; taught him to revere and honor what in other women he had ever held lightly; taught him that because she was weak she was so strong that nothing he might do could prevail against her. And so--he went away."

"And she?" said the dreaming voice. "Did she love him?"

There fell a pause. In the bushes, close at hand, one strained his ears to listen, a naked knife gleaming in his hand.

"Ay," Nicanor answered slowly. He turned to her, not touching her, yet so close that he felt her breath on his sleeveless arm. "She loved him. And she did not know it."

"Not know it?" Varia said. She turned her face toward him, and the moonlight fell full on the warm whiteness of her throat. "I think she should have known. And then, she being great, and he so lowly, I think she should have told him that she knew."

"If--if you were she," said Nicanor, and his voice shook, "would you have told him?"

"Oh, I should have told him!" Varia said, and her voice was low and strained. "I should have said--'I want you to love me! I want you to love me and stay with me always--'"

Nicanor bowed his face forward on his hands. Lady Varia, leaning forward, put her hand upon his shoulder.

"Were I that woman, I should have wanted to love him if he had been like that," she said, tremulously, yet very sweetly.

Nicanor straightened up and caught both her hands.

"Ah, no, my lady, you would not!" he said hoarsely. "You would have driven him from you and been angered beyond forgiveness. You would have hated and despised him, because--oh, don't you understand, it is the only thing you could have done! If she had said that--how could--how could he have left her?"

"But why did he leave her?" Varia asked. "Could he not have stayed always in the garden?"

Nicanor mastered himself with an effort.

"No," he said thickly. "Because he was only a man--and some day--it would be more than he could endure. If he saw that in her sweet innocence she did not realize the temptation she held out to him, he might--he might have done that which always after he must regret."

He raised her face with one hand and looked at her. Her eyes were closed, her red mouth quivered. He hesitated, his breath coming hard; then he bent his head and kissed her. As he took her in his arms, she shivered, crying softly:

"I am afraid! Oh, what is this that you would do!"

But when he loosened his hold she clung to him, murmuring:

"Nay, I am not afraid! I love your kisses. Oh, you must not go as did that youth--always you must stay within this garden--"

Then Marcus crept from his shelter and stood before them, silent, his knife gleaming in his hand. Nicanor, lifting his head, saw him suddenly, and started, for this meant death by tortures no man might name. He sprang to his feet and thrust Lady Varia behind him in the same motion, so that in the darkness his body hid her as she crouched upon the bench. Marcus snarled, like an aroused watch-dog, and said:

"Thou more than fool! Dost know what this night's work will bring thee?"

Nicanor, his heart pounding hard, his hands clenched, answered nothing, glancing about him to see if the old man might be alone. But the garden lay silent. Then he sprang, as a wolf springs, straight for the old slave's throat, and felled him. Lady Varia screamed,--a quick, shrill sound which stabbed the night stillness like a knife, and cried:

"Oh, kill him not--kill him not! I pray thee, kill him not!"

"Hush thee, dear lady, or the house will be upon us!" Nicanor exclaimed, his words rushing through locked teeth. "Get quickly to thy chamber and leave all things to me."

She sped away over the turf, panting with fear and excitement, and flitted up the steps and across the marble walk and into her room, and closed the window. Nicanor, kneeling on the slave's chest, gagging him with a wad torn from his own garment, heard the doors shut with a gasp of relief. He tied the old man's arms tightly with his girdle, trussing him as he had trussed the carcasses of sheep to be loaded upon mules. Then, having him bound and helpless, he rose and stood over him, whetting his knife on his hand, with senses keyed to hear footsteps in every stir of leaf and sigh of wind. But the garden lay always silent under the moon's cold eye. He spoke to his captive, in a voice which grated just above a whisper.

"I'll not kill thee now, since she begged thy life, old man. But while thou'rt above the ground there's no more peace for me. Now what to do with thee?"

He stood over his prisoner, motionless in meditation, muttering his thoughts aloud.

"There's no place within the house to keep thee safe. And if that clacking tongue of thine betrays us, it needs not much to fancy what will happen then. This is what comes to pass when one serves a brutal master, old man; one must e'en be a brute one's self. I cannot kill thee; they'd miss thee and start a search--besides, my lady said me nay. Ha, that makes thee squirm? Ay, she'd be mine for the lifting of my finger--even I, Nicanor, thy master's slave, have but to say to her, thy master's daughter, 'Go thither!' and she goes, and 'Come!' and she comes to me as I will. Hearest thou that, old man? Her lips have been defiled by a slave's kisses; she hath lain unresisting in a slave's arms, to the unending shame of her proud lord father. And why do I tell thee this, old man? To see thee writhe, thou also, at that shame; to have thee know the whole, and never profit by thy knowledge. Again I say, I cannot kill thee, but none the less I'll stop that tell-tale mouth of thine. Look you, it's the choice between my life and thy eager tongue which even now yearns to blab the tale of my sin and her disgrace. Therefore--"

He knelt above his captive, who glared at him with bloodshot eyes that glittered in the moonlight. He tested the keenness of his blade, shook back his shaggy hair, and with a sudden twist removed the gag from the old man's jaws, choking back, at the same moment, with pitiless hands, the cry which rose to his lips. Then he bent over, so that the bulk of him hid from the moonlight his victim and his work. There was a single glint of steel, a convulsion of the thin figure on the ground; a faint click, and a choked and gurgling cry, instantly suppressed. Then Nicanor cleaned his blade by driving it thrice deep into the soft ground, and stood up; and Marcus rolled over and over in agony at his feet, with inarticulate animal cries which scarcely rose above the silence of the night. Nicanor unloosed his bonds and touched him with his foot.

"Hereafter thou'lt hold thy peace, old man! Neither good nor ill wilt thou ever prate of mortal more, for I've drawn thy sting. Once thou wert kind to me; twice, in return, did I steal for thee, and once took a beating from thy shoulders. But thou wert more loyal to thy master than thou wert friend to me--and in a matter such as this, I take no chances. As I have served thee, so will I serve any man who crosses me. Now go. Wash thy mouth with cold water and chew pounded leaves of betel. It will stop the blood."

He left the garden with noiseless strides, a black shadow in the moonlight. Marcus got himself slowly to his feet, moaning like an animal in pain. He shook his fist at the vanishing figure, with uncouth and terrible sounds which had once been speech, but even then were none the less a curse. So, shuddering and crying, he crept from the sleeping garden, where all was still and peaceful, and where pain and sorrow should have had no place.

* * * * *

And never again was that garden so peaceful and so still, for Life had entered it, by the little narrow door, bringing with it what Life must bring.

IV

Nicodemus, the freedman, one-eyed, short, immensely broad, beetle-browed, and grizzled, stood in the door of his wine-shop and watched the crowding press of travellers at the marsh-ford, fore-runners of the throng which nightly descended upon Thorney. Behind him, in the dim recesses of the smoky shop, his wife, Myleia, hawk-nosed and slatternly, prepared food for the strangers who would soon be upon them clamoring for bed and board. It was early evening, with a faint twilight haze still tinged with pink and primrose; but already lights were twinkling here and there among the clustered houses, and fires had been started on the beach.

There was no more excitement at the ford than was usual at that hour; the noise was no greater, the confusion no more profound; yet Nicodemus watched it all intently, as though he had not seen it every night before. His one eye, small and hotly blue beneath its bushy brow, glinted over the bustling scene; watched a dozen men flogging a horse that had slipped in mid-stream and fallen with its pack, blocking a long file of animals and carts behind it; followed three half-drunken soldiers lurching through the shallow water, using their pikes as staves; lingered over a bloody battle between two carters whose wheels had locked; and suddenly sobered into gravity at sight of a figure striding through the ford, in worn leathern jerkin and brazen cap, with a ponderous leaf-shaped sword swinging at its side. At sight of this one, Nicodemus turned and went within.

The shop, lighted dimly by an evil-smelling lamp, showed small and low-ceiled. Jars of cheap wine and casks of ale and beer, with an array of drinking-cups of all shapes and sizes, stood on shelves along the wall at one side. A trestled board, much scarred and hacked, ran down the centre of the room, flanked by rows of stone stools. Built around two sides of the room was a series of rude bunks. Over the edge of one of these a head of rough and matted black hair was visible. An odor of stale liquor, scorched meat, and pungent wood-smoke hung heavy in the air. Myleia entered, from the kitchen beyond, with a tray of half-cooked beef. Nicodemus went to the bunk and shook the occupant ungently.

"Valerius is here!" he said. His voice, like himself, was rough and brusque, rumbling hollow from the depths of his cavernous chest. The figure in the bunk stirred and muttered. Nicodemus turned his head.

"He'll not sleep this off for another six hours," he growled. "Wife, some water."

The hawk-nosed woman came to his side with a jug of water. As she gave it to him, she put one hand, gnarled, distorted by work, hairy as a man's, on his broad shoulder, and he put his own hand up over it. They stood silent, looking down at the black head buried in the dingy blankets. The lamplight fell soddenly on their faces, throwing them into relief against the murky gloom of the room. Nicodemus grunted, and without warning emptied the water over the black head. Myleia laughed huskily. The remedy was partially effectual. The head rose dripping from the blankets, with dazed and drunken eyes.

"Pull thyself together, Nicanor, lad!" Nicodemus said sharply. "Valerius is coming for thee. Thou hast overstayed thy leave; he is to take thee back to the house of thy lord. Dost understand?"

Nicanor, answering nothing, sat upright with an effort, pressing his hands to his head, his body swaying slightly from the hips. Nicodemus put a hand on his shoulder.

"Come!" he urged.

Nicanor looked at him, blinking stupidly. Still he did not speak, but moistened his lips with a swollen tongue. He began to sink slowly back into the blankets, supine and inert. Nicodemus sat on the edge of the bunk and passed a long gorilla arm about his shoulders. He motioned to his wife, who stood watching, arms akimbo, her face expressive of lively sympathy. She went to the shelves where stood the jars of liquor, returning with a brimming horn cup. Nicodemus took this, tilted back the heavy head at his shoulder, and started to pour its contents down Nicanor's throat. Nicanor choked, gasped, and swallowed automatically.

A black figure blocked out the twilight in the door.

"Peace be with ye, friends! What's all this?" said a hearty voice. Valerius entered; saw the face of the patient, and stopped short.

"Nicanor!" he exclaimed. "Why, I'm come for him. He should have been back last night. Hito--prince of overseers--hath a black mark against him. Drunk again?"

Nicodemus nodded casually. "Bide a bit, friend, and I'll have him in shape. He's awake now."

Nicanor, slowly recovering his sodden wits, looked at Valerius, recognizingly, opened his mouth to speak, found the exertion too great, and shut it again. He let his head sink back against Nicodemus. Presently, with his eyes closed, he said thickly:

"You, Valerius? What now?"

"I want you, my friend," said Valerius, promptly. "It would seem you forget the trifling fact that Hito commanded your return last night. While you wear the collar, you'll have to heed the word of him who holds the chain--mark you that. You're in for a flogging as it is--best not let your case get to higher quarters." He turned to Nicodemus. "Can we get him started, think you?"