Chapter II (1)

Our chronicle commences in Campania, with the Tyrrhenian Sea (now the southerly waters of the Gulf of Genoa) on a traveller's left hand if he looks north. It was a fair evening in autumn, as we have remarked, during that age and state of the world the broad outlines of which we have briefly given. Along the Appian, or, as it long afterward came to be also called, the Trajan Way, the queen of roads, a conveyance drawn by two horses, a carriage of the common hackney description, not unlike one species of the _vettura_ used by the modern Italians, was rolling swiftly northward between the stage of Minturnæ and the next stage, which was a lonely post-house a few miles south of the interesting town of Formiæ--not _Forum Appii_, or the _Three Taverns_, a place more than fifty miles away in the direction of Rome, and upon the same road.

Inside the carriage were a lady in middle life, whose face, once lovely, was still sweet and charming, and a very pale, beautiful female child, each dressed in a black _ricinium_,[2] or mourning robe, drawn over the top of the head. The girl was about twelve years old, or a little more, and seemed to be suffering much and grievously. She faced the horses, and on her side sat the lady fanning her and watching her with a look which always spoke love, and now and again anguish. Opposite to them, with his back to the horses, wearing a sort of dark _lacerna_, or thin, light great-coat, of costly material, but of a fashion which was deemed in Italy at that day either foreign or vulgar, as the case might be, sat a youth of about eighteen. The child was leaning back with her eyes closed. The youth, as he watched her, sighed now and then. At last he put both hands to his face, and, leaning his head forward, suffered tears to flow silently through his fingers. The _lacerna_ which he wore was fastened at the breast by two _fibulæ_, or clasps of silver, and girt round his waist with a broad, brown, sheeny leather belt, stamped and traced after some Asiatic mode. In a loop of this belt, at his left side, was secured within its black scabbard an unfamiliar, outlandish-looking, long, straight, three-edged sword, which he had pulled round so as to rest the point before his feet, bringing the blade between his knees, and the hilt, which was gay with emeralds, in front of his chest.

The Romans still very generally went bare-headed,[3] even out of doors, except that those who continued to wear the toga drew it over their heads as the weather needed, and those who wore the _penula_ used the hood of it in the same way. But upon the hilt of the sword we have described the youth had flung a sort of _petasus_, or deep-rimmed hat, with a flat top, and one black feather at the side, not stuck perpendicularly into the band, but so trained half round it as to produce a reckless, rakish effect, of which the owner was unconscious.

"Agatha," said the lady, in a low, tender voice, the delicate Greek ring of which was full of persuasion, "look up, beloved child! Your brother and I, at least, are left. Think no more of the past. The gods have taken your father, after men had taken his and your inheritance. But our part in life is not yet over. Did not your parents too, in times past--did not we too, I say, lose ours? Did you not know you were probably to live longer than your poor father? Are you not to survive me also? Perhaps soon."

With a cry of dismay the young girl threw her arms round the lady's neck and sobbed. The other, while she shed tears, exclaimed:

"I thank that unknown power, of whom Dionysius the Athenian, my young countryman, so sublimely speaks, that the child weeps at last! Weep, Agatha, weep; but mourn not mute in the cowardice of despair! Mourn not for your father in a way unbecoming of his child and mine. Mourn not as though indeed you were not ours. My husband is gone for ever, but he went in honor. The courageless grief, that canker without voice or tears, which would slay his child, will not bring back to me the partner of my days, nor to you your father. We must not dishearten but cheer your brother Paulus for the battle which is before him."

"I wish to do so, my mother," said Agatha.

"When I recover my rights," broke in the youth at this point, "my father will come and sit among the _lares_, round the ever-burning fire in the _atrium_ of our hereditary house, Agatha; and therefore courage! You are ill; but Charicles, the great physician of Tiberius Cæsar, is our countryman, and he will attend you. He can cure almost any thing, they say. And if you feel fatigued, no wonder, so help me! _Minime mirum mehercle!_ Have we not travelled without intermission, by land and by sea, all the way from Thrace? But now, one more change of horses brings us to Formiæ, and then we shall be at our journey's end. Meantime, dear child, look up; see yonder woods, and the garden-like shore."

And having first tried in vain to brighten the horn window at the side of the vehicle, _specular corneum_, (glass was used only in the private carriages of the rich,) he stood up, and calling over the hide roof of the carriage, which was open in front--the horses being driven from behind--he ordered the _rhedarius_, or coachman, to open the panels. The man, evidently a former slave of the family, now their freedman, quickly obeyed, and descending from his bench, pushed back into grooves contrived to receive them the coarsely-figured and gaudily colored sides of the travelling _carruca_.

"Is _parvula_ better?" he then cried, with the privileged freedom of an old and attached domestic, or of one who, in the far more endearing parlance of classic times, was a faithful _familiaris_--that is, a member of the family. "Is the little one better? The dust is laid now, little one; the evening comes; the light slants; the sun smiles not higher than yourself, instead of burning overhead. See, the beautiful country! See, the sweet land! Let the breeze bring a bloom to your cheeks, as it brings the perfumes to your mouth. Ah! the _parvula_ smiles. Fate is not always angry!"

"Dear old Philip!" said the child; and then, turning to her mother, she added,

"Just now, mother, you waked me from a frightful dream. I thought that the man who has our father's estates was dead; but he came from the dead, and was trying to kill Paulus, my brother there; and for that purpose was striving to wrest the sword from Paulus's hand; and that the man, or _lar_, laughed in a hideous manner, and cried out, 'It is with his own sword we will slay him! Nothing but his own sword!'"

The old freedman turned pale, and muttered something to himself, as he stood by the side of the vehicle; and while he kept the horses steady, with the long reins in his left hand, glanced awfully toward Paulus.

"Brother," continued the child, "I forget that man's name. What _is_ the name?"

"Never mind the name now," said Paulus; "a dead person cannot kill a living one; and that man is not in Italy who will kill me with my own sword, if I be not asleep. Look at the beautiful land! See, as Philip tells you, the beautiful land where you are going to be so happy."

The river Liris, now the Garigliano, flowed all gold in the western sun; some dozen of meadows behind them, between rows of linden-trees, oleanders, and pomegranates, with laurel, bay, and long bamboo-like reeds of the _arundo donax_, varying the rich beauty of its banks: "_Daphrones, platanones, et aëriæ cyparissi._" A thin and irregular forest of great contemplative trees; flowerless and sad beech, cornel, alder, ash, hornbeam, and yew towered over savannahs of scented herbs, and glades of many-tinted grasses. Some clumps of chestnut-trees, hereafter to spread into forests, but then rare, and cultivated as we cultivate oranges and citrons, stood proudly apart. A vegetation, which has partly vanished, gave its own physical aspect to an Italy the social conditions of which have vanished altogether; and were even then passing, and about to pass, through their last appearances. But much also that we in our days have seen, both there and elsewhere, was there then. The flower or blossom of the pomegranate lifted its scarlet light amidst vines and olives; miles of oleander trees waved their masses of flame under the tender green filigree of almond groves, and seemed to laugh in scorn at the mourning groups of yew, and the bowed head of the dark, widow-like, and inconsolable cypress. All over the leaves of the woods autumn had strewn its innumerable hues. In the west, the sky was hung with those glories which no painter ever reproduced and no poet ever sang; it was one of the sunsets which make all persons of sensibility who contemplate them dumb, by making all that can be said of them worse than useless. A magnificent and enormous villa, or _castellum_, or country mansion--palace it seemed--showed parts of its walls, glass windows, and Ionic columns, through the woods on the banks of the Liris; and upon the roof of this palace a great company of gilt, tinted, and white statues, much larger than life, in various groups and attitudes, as they conversed, lifted their arms, knelt, prayed, stooped, stood up, threatened, and acted, were glittering above the tree-tops in the many-colored lights of the setting sun.

"Ah! let us stop; let us rest a few moments," cried the child, smiling through her tears at the smiles of nature and the enchanting beauty of the scene; "only a few moments under the great trees, mother."

It was a group of chestnuts, a few yards from the side of the road; and beneath them came to join the highway through the meadows, and vineyards, and forest-land, a broad beaten track from the direction of the splendid villa that stood on the Liris.

Paulus instantly sprang from the _carruca_, and, having first helped his mother to alight, took his sister in his arms and placed her sitting under the green shade. A Thracian woman, a slave, descended meantime from the box, and the driver drew his vehicle to the side of the highway.

While they thus reposed, with no sound about them, as they thought, save the rustle of the leaves, the distant ripple of the waters, and the vehement shrill call of the cicala, hidden in the grass somewhere near, their destinies were coming. The freedman suddenly held up his hand, and drew their attention by that peculiar sound through the teeth, (_st_,) which in all nations signifies _listen!_

And, indeed, a distant, dull, vague noise was now heard southward, and seemed to increase and approach along the Appian road. Every eye in our little group of travellers was turned in the direction mentioned, and they could see a white cloud of dust coming swiftly northward. Soon they distinguished the tramp of many horses at the trot. Then, over the top of a hill which had intercepted the view, came the gleam of arms, filling the whole width of the way, and advancing like a torrent of light. The ground trembled; and, headed by a troop or two of Numidian riders, and then a couple of troops or _turmæ_ of Batavian cavalry, a thousand horse, at least, of the Prætorian Guards, arrayed, as usual, magnificently, swept along in a column two hundred deep, with a rattle and ring of metal rising treble upon the ear over the continuous bass of the beating hoofs, as the foam floats above the roll of the waves.

The young girl was at once startled from the sense of sickness and grief, and gazed with big eyes at the pageant. Six hundred yards further on a trumpet-note, clear and long, gave some sudden signal, and the whole body instantly halted. From a detached group in the rear an officer now rode toward the front; a loud word or two of command was heard, a slight movement followed, and then, as if the column were some monstrous yellow-scaled serpent with an elastic neck and a black head, the swarthy troops which had led the advance wheeled slowly backward, two instead of five abreast, while the main column simultaneously stretched itself forward on a narrower face, and with a deeper file, occupying thus less than half the width of the road, which they had before nearly filled, and extending much further onward. Meantime the squadrons which had led it continued to defile to the rear; and when their last rank had passed the last of those fronting in the opposite direction, they suddenly faced to their own right, and, standing like statues, lined the way on the side opposite to that where our travellers were reposing, but some forty or fifty yards higher up the road, or more north.

In front of the line of horsemen, who, after wheeling back, had been thus faced to their own right, or the proper left of the line of march, was now collected a small group of mounted officers. One of them wore a steel corselet, a casque of the same metal, with a few short black feathers in its crest, and the _chlamys_, or a better sort of _sagum_, the scarlet mantle of a military tribune, over a black tunic, upon which two broad red stripes or ribbons were diagonally sewn. This costume denoted him one of the _Laticlavii_, or broad-ribboned tribunes; in other words--although, to judge by the massive gold ring which glittered on the forefinger of his bridle hand, he might have been originally and personally only a knight--he had received either from the emperor, or from one of the two Cæsars then governing with and under Augustus, the senatorial rank.

The chlamys was fastened across the top of his chest with a silver clasp, and the tunic a little lower down with another, both being open below as far as the waist, and disclosing a tight-fitting chain-mail corselet, or shirt of steel rings. The chlamys was otherwise thrown loose over his shoulders, but the tunic was belted round the corselet at his waist by a buff girdle, wherein hung the intricately-figured brass scabbard of a straight, flat, not very long cut-and-thrust sword, which he now held drawn in his right hand. In his belt were stuck a pair of _manicæ_ or _chirothecæ_, as gloves were called, which seemed to be made of the same material as the girdle; buffalo-skin greaves on his legs and half-boots (the _calcei_, not the _soleæ_ or sandals) completed his dress. He was a handsome man, about five-and-thirty years old, brown hair, an open but thoughtful face, and an observant eye. He it was who had ridden to the front, and given those orders the execution of which we have noticed. He had now returned, and kept his horse a neck or so behind that of an officer far more splendidly attired, who seemed to pay no attention whatever to the little operation that had occurred, but, shading his eyes with one hand from the rays of the setting sun, gazed over the fields toward the villa or mansion on the Liris.

He was clad in the _paludamentum_, the long scarlet cloak of a _legatus_ or general, the borders being deeply fringed with twice-dyed Tyrian purple, (_Tyria bis tincta_, or _dibapha_, as it is called by Pliny;) the long folds of which flowed over his charger's haunches. This magnificent mantle was buckled round the wearer's neck with a jewel. His corselet, unlike that of the colonel or tribune already mentioned, was of plate-steel, (instead of rings,) and shone like a looking-glass, except where it was inlaid with broad lines of gold. He wore a chain of twisted gold round his neck, and his belt as well as the hilt of his sword, which remained undrawn by his side in a silver scabbard, glittered with sardonyx and jasper stones. He had no tunic. His gloves happening, like those of his subordinate, to be thrust into the belt round his waist, left visible a pair of hands so white and delicate as to be almost effeminate. His helmet was thin steel, and the crest was surmounted by a profuse plume of scarlet cock's feathers. But perhaps the most curious particular of his costume was a pair of shoes or half-boots of red leather, the points of the toes turned upward. These boots were encrusted with gems, which formed the patrician crescent, or letter C, on the top of each foot, and then wandered into a fanciful tracery of sparkles up the leg. The _stapedæ_, or stirrups, in which his feet rested, were either of gold or gilt.

The countenance of the evidently important personage whose dress has been stated was remarkable. He had regular features, a handsome straight nose, eyes half closed with what seemed at first a languid look, but yet a look which, if observed more closely, was almost startling from the extreme attention it evinced, and from the contrast between such an expression and the indolent indifference or superciliousness upon the surface, if I may so say, of the physiognomy. There was something sinister and cruel about the mouth. He wore no whiskers or beard, but a black, carefully-trimmed moustache.

After a steady gaze across the fields in the direction we have already more than once mentioned, he half turned his head toward the tribune, and at the same time, pointing to our travellers, said something. The tribune, in his turn, addressed the first centurion, (_dux legionis_,) an officer whose sword, like that of the legatus, was undrawn, but who carried in his right hand a thin wand made of vine-wood. In an instant this officer turned his horse's head and trotted smartly toward our travellers, upon reaching whom he addressed Paulus thus:

"Tell me, I pray you, have you been long here?"

"Not a quarter of an hour," answered Paulus, wondering why such a question was asked.

"And have any persons passed into the road by this pathway?" the centurion then inquired.

"Not since we came," said Paulus.

The officer thanked him and trotted back.

Meanwhile, Paulus and his mother and the freedman Philip had not been so absorbed in watching the occurrence and scene just described as to remove their eyes for more than a moment at a time from their dearly-loved charge, the interesting little mourner who had begged to be allowed to rest under the chestnut-trees. It was not so with Agatha herself. The child was at once astonished, bewildered, and enraptured. Had the spectacle and review before her been commanded by some monarch, or rather some magician, on purpose to snatch her from the possibility of dwelling longer amidst the gloom, the regrets, and the terrors under which she had appeared to be sinking, neither the wonder of the spectacle, nor the amenity of the evening when it occurred, nor the loveliness of the landscape which formed its theatre, could have been more opportunely combined. She had not only never beheld any thing so magnificent, but her curiosity was violently aroused.

Paulus exchanged with his mother and the old freedman a glance of intelligence and of intense satisfaction, as they both noted the parted lips and dilated eyes with which the child, half an hour ago so alarmingly ill, contemplated the drama at which she was accidentally assisting.

"_That's a rare doctor_," whispered Philip, pointing to the general of the Prætorian Guards.

"No doctor," replied Paulus in the same low tones, "could have prescribed for our darling better."

"Paulus," said Agatha, "what are these mighty beings? Are these the genii, and the demons of the mistress-land, the gods of Italy?"

"They are a handful of Italy's troops, dear," he said.

She looked from her brother to the lady, and then to the freedman, and this last, with a healing instinct which would have done honor to Hippocrates, began to stimulate her interest by the agency of suspense and mystery.

"Master Paulus, and Lady Aglais, and my little one too," he said, in a most impressive and solemn voice, "these be the genii and these be the demons indeed; but I tell you that you have not yet seen all the secret. _Something is going to happen._ Attend to me well! You behold a most singular thing! Are you aware of what you behold? Yonder, Master Paulus, is the allotted portion of horse for more than three legions: the _justus equitatus_, I say, for a Roman army of twenty thousand men. Yes, I attest all the gods," continued Philip in a low voice, but with great earnestness, and glancing from the brother to the sister as if his prospects in life were contingent upon his being believed in this. "I was at the battle of Philippi, and I aver that yonder is more than the right allotment of horse for three legions. Observe the squadrons, the _turmæ_; they do not consist of the same arm; and instead of being distributed in bodies of three or four hundred each to a legion, they are all together before you without their legions. Why is that, Master Paulus?"

"I know not," said Paulus.

"Ah!" resumed the freedman, "you know not, but you _will_ know presently. Mark that, little Mistress Agatha, and bear in mind that Philip the freedman has said to your brother that he will know all presently."

The child gazed wonderingly at the troops as she heard these mysterious words. "Who are those?" asked she, pointing to the squadrons of those still in column. "Who are those in leather jerkins, covered with the iron scales, and riding the large, heavy horses?"

"Batavians from the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt," answered the freedman, with a mysterious shake of the head.

"And those," pursued she, with increasing interest; "who are those whose faces shine like dusky copper, and whose eyes glitter like the eyes of the wild animals in the arena, when the proconsul of Greece gives the shows? I mean those who ride the small, long-tailed horses without any _ephippia_ (saddle-cloths,) and even without bridles--the soldiers in flowing dress, with rolls of linen round their heads?"

"They are the Numidians," replied Philip. "Ah! Rome dreaded those horsemen once, when Hannibal the Carthaginian and his motley hordes had their will in these fair plains."

As he spoke, a strange movement occurred. The general or _legatus_ dismounted, and, giving the bridle of his horse to a soldier, began to walk slowly up and down the side of the road. No sooner had his foot touched the ground than the whole of the Numidian squadron seemed to rise like a covey out of a stubble field; with little clang of arms, but with one short, sharp cry, or whoop, it burst from the high road into the meadow land. There the evolutions which they performed seemed at first to be all confusion, only for the fact that, although the horsemen had the air of riding capriciously in every direction, crossing, intermingling, separating, galloping upon opposite curves, and tracing every figure which the whim and fancy of each might dictate, yet no two of them ever came into collision. Indeed, fantastic and wild as that rhapsody of manœuvres into which they had broken appeared to be, some principle which was thoroughly understood by every one of them governed their mazy gallop. It was as accurate and exact as some stately dance of slaves at the imperial court. It was, in short, itself a wild dance of the Numidian cavalry, in which their reinless horses, guided only by the flashing blades and the voices of their riders, manifested the most vehement spirit and a sort of sympathetic frenzy. These steeds, which never knew the bridle, and went thus mouth-free even into battle--these horses, which their masters turned loose at night into the fields, and which came back bounding and neighing at the first call, were now madly plunging, wheeling, racing, and charging, like gigantic dogs at sport. Presently they began to play a strange species of leap-frog. A Numidian boy, who carried a trumpet and rode a pony, or at least a horse smaller and lower than the rest of the barbs, ("Berber horses,") suddenly halted upon the outside of the mad cavalry whirlpool which had been formed, and flung himself flat at full length upon the back of the diminutive animal. Instantly the whirl, as it circled toward him, straightened itself into a column, and every horseman rode full upon the stationary pony, and cleared both steed and rider at a bound, a torrent of cavalry rushing over the obstruction with wild shouts.

"That is Numidian sport, Master Paulus," said the freedman; "but there is not a rider among them to be compared to yourself."

"Certainly I can ride," said the youth; "but I pretend not to be superior to these Centaurs."

"Be these, then, the Centaurs I have heard of?" asked Agatha; "be these the wild powers?"

The hubbub had prevented her, and all with her, from noticing something. Before an answer could be given, the Numidians had returned to the highway as suddenly as they had quitted it, and the noise of their dance was succeeded by a pause of attention. The general was again on horseback, and our travellers perceived that two litters, one of carved ivory and gold, the other of sculptured bronze, borne on the shoulders of slaves, were beside them.

Two gentlemen on foot had arrived with the litters along the broad pathway already noticed, and a group of attendants at a little distance were following.

This new party were now halting with our travellers beneath the far-spreading shade of the same trees. In the ivory litter reclined a girl of about seventeen, dressed in a long _palla_ of blue silk, a material then only just introduced from India, through Arabia and Egypt, and so expensive as to be beyond the reach of any but the richest class. Her hair, which was of a bright gold color, was dressed in the fashionable form of a helmet, (_galerus_,) and was inclosed behind in a gauze net. She wore large _inaures_, or ear-rings, of some jewel, a gold chain, in every ring of which was set a gem, and scarlet shoes embroidered with pearls. The lady in the bronze litter was attired in the _stola_ of a matron, with a _cyclas_, or circular robe, thrown back from the neck, and a tunic of dark purple which descended to her feet. Her brown hair was restrained by bands, _vittæ_, which had an honorable significance among the Roman ladies, ("_Nil mihi cum vitta_," says the profligate author of the _Ars Amandi_.) She seemed somewhat past thirty years of age; she had a very sweet, calm, and matronly air; her countenance was as beautiful in features and general effect as it was modest in its tone and character.

Her companion,[4] in the litter of ivory and gold, was not more than half her age, was even more beautiful, with an immense wreath of golden hair, and with large blue eyes, darkening to the likeness of black as she gazed earnestly upon any object. But she had a less gentle physiognomical expression. Frequently her look was penetrating, brief, impatient, sarcastic, disdainful. She had a bewitching smile, however, and her numerous admirers made Italy echo with their ravings.

Lucius Varius, said the fashionable world, was at that very time engaged upon a kind of sapphic ode, of which she was to be the subject.

Scarcely had these litters or palanquins arrived and halted, when the general officer dismounted once more, and walked quickly toward the spot with his helmet in his hand. At a few yards' distance he stopped, and first bowed low to the elder of the two gentlemen who had accompanied the litters on foot, and then, almost entirely disregarding the other gentleman, made an obeisance not quite so long or so deep to the ladies. The man whom so splendid a personage as the legatus, wearing his flaming paludamentum, and at the head of his troops, thus treated with so obsequious a veneration, did not return the salute except by a slight nod and a momentary, absent-minded smile. His gaze had been riveted upon our travellers, and chiefly upon the youth and his young, suffering sister, upon both of whom, after it had quickly taken in Philip the freedman, the Thracian woman, and the Athenian lady, it rested long--longest and last upon Agatha.

"Sejanus," said he finally, "who are these?"

"I never saw them until just now, my commander and Cæsar; they were here when we halted, and while we waited for our master, the favorite of the gods, these travellers seemed to be resting where you behold them."

"As those gods favor me," said the other, "this is a fine youth. Can we not _edit_[5] him? And yonder girl--have you ever seen, my Sejanus, such eyes? But she is deadly pale. Are you always thus pale, pretty one, or are you merely ill? If but ill, as I guess, Charicles, my Greek physician, shall cure you."

Before this man had even spoken, the moment, indeed, when first his eyes fell upon her, Agatha had sidled close to her mother; and while he was expressing himself in that way to Sejanus, she returned his gaze with panic-stricken, dilated eyes, as the South American bird returns that of the reptile; but when he directly questioned her, she, reaching out her hand to Paulus, clutched his arm with a woman's grasp, and said in an affrighted voice,

"My brother, let us go."

Paulus, in a manner naturally easy, and marked by the elegance and grace which the athletic training of Athens had given to one so well endowed physically, first, merely saying to the stranger, "I crave your pardon," (_veniam posco_,) lifted Agatha with one arm, and placed her in the travelling carriage. Then, while the freedman and the Thracian slave mounted to their bench, he returned to where his mother stood, signed to her to follow Agatha, and, seeing her move calmly but quickly toward the vehicle, he took the broad-rimmed _petasus_ from his head, and bowing slowly and lowly to the stranger, said,

"Powerful sir, for I observe you are a man of great authority, my sister is too ill to converse. You rightly guessed this; permit us to take her to her destination."

The man whom he had thus balked, and to whom he now thus spoke, merits a word of description. He appeared to be more than fifty years old. The mask of his face and the frame of his head were large, but not fat. His complexion was vivid brick-red all over the cheeks, with a deeper flush in one spot on each side, just below the outer corners of the eyes. The eyes were bloodshot, large, rather prominent, and were closely set together. The nose was large, long, bony, somewhat aquiline. The forehead was not high, not low; it was much developed above the eyes, and it was broad. A deep and perpetual dint just over the nose reached half-way up the forehead. His hair was grizzled and close cut. His lips were full and fleshy, and the mouth was wide; the jaws were large and massive. His face was shaven of all hair. The chin was very handsome and large, and the whole head was set upon a thick, strong throat, not stunted, however, of its proper length. In person this man was far from ungainly, nor yet was he handsome. In carriage and bearing, without much majesty, he had nevertheless something steadfast, weighty, unshrinking, and commanding. His outer garment, not a toga, was all one color and material; it was a long, thick wadded silk mantle, of that purple dye which is nearly black--the hue, indeed, of clotted gore under a strong light. He wore gloves, and instead of the usual short sword of the Romans, had a long steel stylus[6] for writing on wax thrust into a black leathern belt. This instrument seemed to show that he lived much in Rome, where it was not the custom, when otherwise in civilian dress, to go armed.

As the reader will have guessed, this man was to be the next emperor of the Roman world.

"Permit you to take her to her destination?" he repeated slowly. "My Greek physician, I tell you, shall cure her. I will give directions about your destination." A slight pause; then, "Are you a Roman citizen?"

"I am a Roman knight as well as citizen," answered Paulus proudly; "and my family is not only equestrian, but patrician."

"What is your name?"

"Paulus Æmilius Lepidus."

The man in the black or gore-colored purple glanced at Sejanus, who, still unconcerned, stood with his splendid helmet in the left hand, while he smoothed his moustache with the right; otherwise perfectly still, his handsome face, cruel mouth, and intelligent eyes all alive with the keenest attention.

"And the destination to which you allude is--?" pursued the man in black purple.

"Formiæ," said Paulus.

"What relation or kinship exists between you and Marcus Æmilius Lepidus, formerly the triumvir, who still enjoys the life which he owes to the clemency of Augustus?"

Paulus hesitated. When he had given his name, the younger of the two ladies had raised herself suddenly in the litter of ivory and gold, and fastened upon him a searching gaze, which she had not since removed. The other lady had also at that instant looked at him fixedly. We have already stated that, when Sejanus approached the group, he had not deigned in any very cordial manner to salute or notice the second of the two gentlemen who had accompanied the litters on foot. This gentleman was very sallow, had hollow eyes, and a habit of gnawing his under lip between his teeth. He had unbuckled his sword, and had given it, calling out, "_Lygdus, carry this_," to a man with an exceedingly sinister and repulsive countenance. The man in question had now taken a step or two forward, and was standing on the left of Paulus, fronting the Cæsar, his shoulders stooping, his neck bent forward, his eyes without any motion of the head rolling incessantly from person to person, and face to face, but at once falling before and avoiding any glance which happened to meet his. He looked askant and furtively at every object with an eager, unhappy, and malign expression. Paulus did not need to turn his head to feel that this man was now intently peering at him. Behind the two courtly palanquins, and beyond the shade of the trees, was a third litter still more costly, being covered in parts with plate gold. Here sat a woman with a face as white as alabaster, and large prominent black eyes, watching the scene, and apparently trying to catch every word that was said.

Paulus, as we have observed, hesitated. The training of youth in the days of classic antiquity soon obliterated the inferiority of unreasoning, nervous shyness. But the strange catechism which Paulus was now undergoing, with all this gaze upon him from so many eyes, began to be a nuisance, and to tell upon a spirit singularly high.

"Have you heard my question?" inquired Tiberius.

"I have heard it," replied Paulus; "and have heard and answered several others, without knowing who he is that asks them. However, the former triumvir, now living at Circæi, about forty thousand paces from here, is my father's brother." (Circæi, as the reader knows, is now called Monte Circello, a promontory just opposite Gaeta.)

When Paulus had given his last answer, the ladies glanced at each other, and the younger looked long and hard at Tiberius. Getting some momentary signal from him, she threw herself back in her palanquin and smiled meaningly at the stooping, sinister-faced man, who had stationed himself in the manner already mentioned near Paulus's left hand.

"Your father," rejoined Tiberius, after a pause, "was a very distinguished soldier, and, as I always heard when a boy, he contributed eminently to the victory of Philippi. But I knew not that he had children; and, moreover, was he not slain, pray, at Philippi, toward the end of the battle, which he certainly helped to gain?"

"I hope," said Paulus, somewhat softened by the praise of his father, "I hope that Augustus supposed him to have died of his wounds, and that it was only under this delusion he gave our estates--which were situated somewhere in this very province of Campania, with a noble mansion like the castellum upon the river yonder--to that brave and able soldier Agrippa Vespasianus."

At this name a deep red flush over-spread the brow of Tiberius, and Paulus innocently proceeded.

"Certainly, the noble Agrippa, who was to have been Cæsar, had he lived, never would have accepted so unfair a bounty had he known that my father really survived his wounds, but that--despairing of the generosity, or rather despairing of the equity of Augustus--he was living a melancholy, exheridated exile, near that very battle-field of Philippi, in Thrace, where he had fought so well and had been left for dead."

"You dare to term the act of Augustus," slowly said the man in the gore-colored purple cloak, "_so unfair a bounty_, and Augustus himself _ungenerous, or rather unjust_?"

At this terrible rejoinder from such a man, the down-looking person whom we have mentioned passed his right hand stealthily to the hilt of the sword which he was carrying for his master, and half drew it. Paulus, who for some time had had this person standing at his left, could observe the action without turning his head. He was perfectly aware, moreover, that, should the other draw his weapon upon him, the very act of drawing it would itself become a blow, on account of their respective places, whereas to escape it required more distance between them, and to parry it in a regular way would demand quite a different position, besides the needful moment or two for disengaging his own rather long blade. Yet the youth stood completely still; he never even turned his head. However, he just shifted the wide-rimmed hat from his left to his right hand (the hand for the sword) and thereby seemed to be only more encumbered, unprepared, and defenceless than before. His left hand, with the back inward, fell also meantime in an easy and natural way upon the emerald haft of the outlandish-looking three-edged rapier, which, as he played with it, became loose in the scabbard, and _came and went_ some fraction of an inch.

"I never termed him so," said Paulus. "I said not this of Augustus. I am at this moment on my way to Augustus himself, who is, I am told, to be at Formiæ with his court for a week or two. I must, therefore, again ask your leave, mighty office-bearer, to continue my journey. I know not so much as who you are."

"I am Tiberius Cæsar," said the other, bending upon him those closely-set, prominent, bloodshot eyes with no very assuring expression. "I am Tiberius Cæsar, and you will be pleased to wait one moment before you continue the journey in question. The accusation against your father was this: that, after Philippi, he labored for the interests first of Sextus, the son of Pompey, and afterward of Mark Antony, in their respective impious and parricidal struggles; and the answer to this charge (a charge to which witnesses neither were nor are wanting) has always been, that it was simply impossible, seeing that Paulus Lepidus, your father, perished at Philippi before the alleged treasons had occurred. Wherefore, as your father had done good service, especially in the great battle where he was thus supposed to have fallen, not only was his innocence declared certain, but, for his memory's sake, Marcus Lepidus, the triumvir, your uncle, was forgiven. Yet now we learn from you, the son of the accused, that the only defence ever made for him is positively false; that your father, were he still living, would probably merit to be put to death; and that your uncle, at the same time, is stripped of the one protecting circumstance which has preserved his head. I must order your arrest, and that of all your party, in order that these things may be at least fully investigated."

As this was said, the lady in the litter of ivory and gold contemplated Paulus with that bewitching smile which she was accustomed to bestow upon dying gladiators in the hippodrome; while the other lady gazed at him with a compassionate, forecasting and muse-like look.

"I mean no disrespect whatever to so great a man as you, sir; but I will," said Paulus, "appeal from Tiberius Cæsar to Cæsar Augustus; to whom, I again remind you, I am on my way."

No sooner had he uttered the words, "I appeal from Tiberius," than, before he could finish the sentence, the malign-faced man on his left with great suddenness drew the sword hew as carrying for Cneius Piso, and, availing himself of the first natural sweep of the weapon as it left the scabbard, sought to bring the edge of it backward across the face of Paulus, exclaiming, while he did so, "_Speak you thus to Cæsar?_"

Had this man, who was the future assassin of Drusus, and slave to Cneius Piso, who was the future assassin of Germanicus, succeeded in delivering that well-meant stroke, the sentence which our hero was addressing to Tiberius could never have been said out; but said out, as we see, it was, and said, too, with due propriety of emphasis, although with a singular accompanying delivery. In fact, though not deigning to look round toward this man, Paulus had been vividly aware of his movements, and, swift as was the attack, the defence was truly electrical. Paulus's rapier, the hilt of which, as we have remarked, had been for some time in his left hand, leapt from its sheath, and being first held almost perpendicularly for one moment, the point down and the hilt a little higher than his forehead, met the murderous blow at right angles; after which the delicate long blade flashed upward, with graceful ease but irresistible violence, bearing the assassin's weapon backward upon a small semi-circle, and remaining inside of it, or, in other words, nearer to Lygdus's body than Piso's own sword, which he carried, was. It looked like a mere continuation of this dazzling parry, but was, in truth, a vigorous deviation from it, which none but a very pliant and powerful wrist could have executed; when the emerald pommel fell like a hammer upon the forehead of Lygdus the slave, whom that disdainful blow stretched at his length upon the ground, motionless, and to all appearance dead. As Piso was standing close, the steel guard of the hilt, in passing, tore open his brow and cheek.

The whole occurrence occupied only five or seven seconds, and meanwhile the youth finished his sentence with the words already recorded, "From Tiberius Cæsar to Cæsar Augustus, to whom, I again remind you, I am on my way."

An exclamation of astonishment, and perhaps some other feeling, escaped from Tiberius. Sejanus smiled; the woman with the pale face and black eyes, who sat in the unadorned plate-of-gold palanquin, screamed; and the other ladies laughed loudly. Among the prætorian guards, who from the road were watching with attention the group where they saw their general and the Cæsar, a long, low murmur of approbation ran. At this, Tiberius turned and looked steadily and musingly toward them. Paulus, instantly sheathing his weapon, said,

"I ask Cæsar's pardon, but there was no time to obtain his permission for what I have just done. My head must have been in two pieces had I waited but one moment."

"Just half a moment for each piece," said Tiberius; "but your left hand seems well able to keep your head. Are you left-handed?"

"No, great Cæsar," said Paulus; "I am what my Greek teacher of fence used to call two-handed, _dimachærus_; he tried to make all his pupils so, but my right remains far better than my left."

"Then I should like to see your right thoroughly exercised," said Tiberius.

Paulus heard a sweet voice here say, "As a favor to me, do not order the arrest of this brave youth;" and, turning, he beheld the beautiful creature in the litter of ivory and gold plead for him with Tiberius. The large blue eyes, darkening as she supplicated, smote the youth, and he could hardly take away his gaze.

"Young man, go forward with your mother and sister to Formiæ, under the charge of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune whom you see yonder upon the road. Remain in Formiæ till I give you leave to quit it. Report your place of residence to the tribune. Go!"

The last word was pronounced harshly. Tiberius made a signal with his hand to Paterculus. Then passing his arm through that of Sejanus, and speaking to him in a low tone, he led the general aside into the fields to a little distance; while--with the exception of two mounted troopers, (each leading a horse,) who remained behind, but considerably out of hearing--the prætorian guards, the three litters, and the travelling _biga_ began to move toward Formiæ, leaving the road to silence, and the evening landscape to peace.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Cicero, Legg. ii. 23.

[3] Plutarch in Pompey. Seneca, Epis. 64.

[4] Mother of Caligula, and grandmother of Nero, by her daughter Agrippina Julia.

[5] To produce a gladiator in the arena was to _edit_ him.

[6] Pliny, Epis. iii. 21.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.[7]

There is, after all, but slight exaggeration in the old saying, that a lie travels leagues while truth is putting on boots to pursue and overtake it. And even when overtaken, caught, and choked, how hard it dies! In our daily experience, how often does truthful exposure utterly extinguish false and evil report? Certainly not always, and probably but very seldom. In the intercourse of society, one may partially crush out a calumny by going straight to those who should know the truth and compelling them to listen to it.

But the lie historical cannot be so met. People in this busy world have no time to spend in reading long documents in vindication of men or women long since dead. But they have read the calumny? Certainly. The calumny is not so long as the refutation, and is more readable. It is attractive; it is piquant. Mary Stuart as an adulteress and a murderess is an interesting character. People never tire of hearing of her. But Mary Stuart, the upright queen, the noble and true woman, the faithful spouse and affectionate mother, has but slight attractions for the mass of readers. To hear her so proven must be dull reading. Nevertheless, with time comes truth; for although

"The mills of the gods grind slowly,
They grind exceedingly fine;"

which we take to be only a modern, heathenish way of saying, as we chant every Sunday at vespers,

"_Et justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi._"

Look at the Galileo story. Galileo died more than two hundred years ago. Yet it is only within a lifetime that the truth concerning him began to dawn upon the English mind.

Mary Queen of Scots surrendered her soul to God and her head to Elizabeth nearly three centuries ago, and the combat over her reputation to-day rages as hot as ever. In the case of the Florentine astronomer, there has been no strongly decided hereditary transmission of the falsehood. In that of the Queen of Scotland every inch of ground is obstinately fought, because her innocence means the shame of England, the disgrace of Knox, the condemnation of the ornaments of the Anglican and Puritan churches, and the infamy of Elizabeth.

These enemies of Mary yet live in transmitted prejudices and powerful hereditary interests. The very existence of all the boasting, pride, false reputation, hypocritical piety, and national vanity represented by the familiar catchwords of "Our Noble Harry," "Glorious Queen Bess," "The Virgin Queen," "Our Sainted Reformers," has its inspiration and life-breath in the maintenance of every calumny against Mary Stuart and the Catholic Church of that day; and we must do these supporters the credit of admitting that they are instant in season and out of season, and never weary in their work.

But their case was long since made up. They have said their last word, and shot all the arrows of their quiver. With each succeeding year Elizabeth's reputation fails, and is rapidly passing into disgrace. With the same rapidity Mary's fame grows brighter.

The books and pamphlets written in attack or defence of Mary would of themselves form a library. For the attack, the key-note is to be found in Cecil's avowed principle concerning the treatment of the dethroned queen, that _their purpose could not be obtained without disgracing her_. Hence, the silver-casket letters, and the so-called confessions of Paris. Hence, the issue, during every year of her long imprisonment of eighteen years, of some vile pamphlet, under Cecil's instructions, calculated to blast her character. Two men in particular powerfully contributed to defame the Queen of Scots--John Knox and George Buchanan. Knox by his sermons, in which, says Russel, (_History of the Reformation_, vol. i. p. 292,) "lying strives with rage;" Buchanan, by his writings, which have been made by Mary's enemies one of the sources of history. Buchanan was an apostate monk, saved from the gallows by Mary, and loaded with her favors. An eye-witness of her dignity, her goodness, and her purity, he afterward described her as the vilest of women. He sold his pen to Elizabeth, and has been properly described as "unrivalled in baseness, peerless in falsehood, supreme in ingratitude." His _Detection_ was published (1570) in Latin, and copies were immediately sent by Cecil to Elizabeth's ambassador in Paris with instructions to circulate them; "_for they will come to good effect to disgrace her, which must be done before other purposes can be obtained_."

This shameful work has been the inspiration of most of the portraits drawn of Mary. De Thou in France, Spotiswoode, Jebb, and many others in England, have all followed him. Holinshed too was deceived by Buchanan; but it is doubtful if he dared write otherwise than he did, between the terrors of Cecil's spies and Elizabeth's mace.

An English translation of Buchanan was first published in 1690, being called forth by the revolution of 1688. Jebb's two folio volumes appeared in 1725.

Two additional lives of Mary, by Heywood (1725) and Freebairn, were little more than translations from the French. In 1726, Edward Simmons published Mary's forged letters as genuine. Anderson's voluminous collection of papers (four large volumes) appeared in 1727 and 1728. Meantime, from the accession of a new dynasty and the rebellion of 1715, there arose in Edinburgh a sort of society having for its principal object the work of supporting Buchanan's credit and vilifying the Scottish queen. Later came the well-known and widely published histories of Scotland and of England by Robertson and Hume, which, read wherever the English language was known, may be said to have popularized the culpability of Mary. Until within comparatively few years, Hume's work was the only history of England generally read in the United States. Then came Malcolm Laing, who imagined he had closed the controversy against Mary in his bitter _Dissertation_. Mignet, in France, went further than Laing, while Froude, in his history of England, distancing all previous writers, portrays Mary in the blackest colors as one of the most criminal and devilish of women. For his material there is no statement so absurd, no invention so gross, no lie so palpable, no calumny so vile, provided only that it be to the prejudice of Mary Stuart, that does not find favor in his eyes. In his blind hatred of the Catholic queen, forgetting all historic dignity and even personal decency, he showers upon her such epithets as "panther," "ferocious animal," "wild-cat," "brute;" her persecutors being white-robed saints, such as "the pious Cecil," and "the noble and stainless Murray," and the virgin Queen Elizabeth appearing "as a beneficent fairy coming out of the clouds to rescue an erring sister."