Chapter VII: Part I: I (6)

The army began its march. The road through the forest was painful. Masses of trees embarrassed every step. The day promised to be a very hot one. The army had only done half its journey, and there remained more than one and twenty Roman miles to cover to reach the camp of the German barbarians (Alemanni) which lay on the left bank of the Rhine in a great plain, near the town Argentoratum.

The soldiers were worn out. As soon as they had crossed the forest and reached open ground Julian assembled them round himself in a great circle, like spectators in an amphitheatre, so as himself to be the centre of the centurions and cohorts, extending from him like the spokes of a huge wheel. This was the custom of the Roman army, so that the greatest possible number could hear the words of their general.

Julian explained to the legions in a few brief and simple sentences that fatigue might prevent success, that it would be safer to camp for that night in the field where they were, to rest, and attack the barbarians the following morning, with vigour renewed.

Discontented murmurs ran through the army; the rank and file struck their shields with lances--a sign of impatience--clamouring that Julian should lead them without delay to the field of battle. The Cæsar understood by the general expression on faces around him that in resisting he would commit a grave mistake. He felt in the crowd that thrill of ferocity with which he was so familiar, which was so indispensable to victory, and by the least maladroitness so easily to be changed into mutiny. He leapt on horseback and gave the signal to continue the march. Peals of enthusiasm answered him and the army moved off.

When the sun was beginning to sink they reached the plain of Argentoratum. There the Rhine was shining between low hills. To the south rose the sombre mass of the Vosges Mountains, and swallows were sweeping over the surface of the majestic German river.

Suddenly, on the nearest hill, three riders appeared; they were the Alemanni.

The Romans halted, and disposed themselves in battle-order. Julian, surrounded by six hundred steel-clad horsemen, the Clibanarii, commanded the horsemen of the right wing. On the left extended the infantry, under the orders of Severus. Julian himself was also under the command of this general.

The barbarians opposed their cavalry to that of Julian. At their head rode the Alemannic king Chlodomir. Fronting Severus, Agenaric, the young nephew of Chlodomir, led the German infantry.

War-horns, trumpets, and fifes resounded; ensigns and flags inscribed with the names of cohorts, the purple dragons and Roman eagles, assembled at the head of the legions. In the van strode axe-bearers, chief centurions, and _primipilares_, men bred to victory. Their regular and heavy tread shook the earth. Suddenly the foot soldiers of Severus halted. The barbarians, who had been lurking in a trench, sprang from their ambuscade and attacked the Romans. Julian from a distance saw the confusion that ensued and galloped up to restore order. He attempted to calm the soldiers, speaking hastily now to one cohort, now to another, in something of the concise style of Julius Cæsar. When he uttered the words, "_Exurgamus viri fortes_" or "_Advenit, socii, justem pugnandi jam tempus,_" this young man of twenty-two was thinking with pride: "At last I am like such and such a famous soldier!" Even in the very fire of action he never forgot his books, and rejoiced to enact over again familiar scenes of Livy, Plutarch, and Sallust. The well-tried Severus restrained his ardour, and, while giving a certain liberty to Julian, retained the general direction of the action. Arrows whizzed and barbarian javelins, dragging long cords; and war-engines flung huge stones hundreds of yards.

The Romans now found themselves face to face at last with the terrible and mysterious inhabitants of the North, about whom so many incredible legends were afloat. Some wore bear-skins on their backs, and on their shaggy heads the gaping jaws of wolves. Others had their helms adorned with the horns of stag and bull. The Alemanni were so contemptuous of death that, keeping only lance and sword, they frequently flung themselves into battle stark naked.

Their reddish hair was knotted on the top of their heads and fell back on the neck in a thick mass or plaited mane. They wore long sweeping broad moustaches and their skins were deeply bronzed. A great number were so savage that, unfamiliar with the use of steel, they fought with bone-tipped lances dipped in violent poison. A scratch from this primitive barb was sufficient to produce a slow death in terrible agony. From head to foot, instead of armour they wore thin scales pared from the hoofs of horses and sewn on linen, a kind of horny mail. In this array the barbarians seemed strange monsters, clad in birds' feathers and fish scales.

There were also Saxons with pale blue eyes, men for whom the sea had no terrors, but who feared the land.

The foremost _primipilares_, locking their shields together, formed a compact wall of steel, and advanced steadily, slowly, almost invulnerable to blows. The Alemanni rushed upon this wall with ferocious cries, like the hoarse growls of bears. The main fight began, breast against breast, shield against shield. Dust was so thick over the plain that the sun was darkened. At this moment on the right wing the iron-clad horses of the Clibanarii began rearing and taking fright. The stampede threatened to crush the legions of the rearguard. Through the cloud of arrows and lances, the fire-coloured scarf of the gigantic king Chlodomir was shining in bright sunlight.

Julian in the nick of time galloped up on his black charger, bespattered with foam. He grasped the situation. The barbarian foot-soldiers, placed for the purpose between their horsemen, were slipping under the legs of the Roman horses, and disembowelling them; the horses fell, dragging down in their fall the _cataphracti_, or men in scale-armour, who, overwhelmed under its weight, were unable to rise. Julian placed himself directly behind the flying horsemen; it was a question of either stemming the flight or being crushed himself. The tribune of the Clibanarii came into collision with him. Pale with shame and terror, he recognised Julian. Julian's forehead flushed purple, he forgot his classical books, leaned over, seized the flying man by the throat, and shouted with a voice which appeared to himself strangely savage--

"Coward!"

Then he faced the tribune round to the enemy. The _cataphracti_ halted, glanced at the purple dragon, the Imperial ensign, and remained motionless. In a moment the mass of iron recoiled and swept back anew against the barbarians. The fight became a wild confusion. A lance struck Julian full in the breast; he owed his safety to his breastplate. An arrow hissed by his ear, grazing his cheek with its feathers. Severus now sent the legions of the Cornuti and Brakathi, half-savage allies of the Romans, to succour the wavering cavalry. They were wont to sing their war-hymn, the Barrith, only when their blood was up in the joy of battle, intoning it in a low and plaintive voice. The first notes were calm as the nocturnal sighing of woods; but little by little the Barrith became louder, more solemn, and terrible, until at last, raising a furious and deafening roar like a stormy sea, all the singers were beside themselves.

Julian ceased to see or understand the surge of battle round him; he was conscious only of intolerable thirst and a sharp aching in the bones of his sword hand; he had lost all reckoning of time. But Severus kept all his presence of mind, and directed the fight with incomparable skill. Perplexed and heart-broken, Julian perceived the orange scarf of Chlodomir in the midst of the legions; the barbarians had penetrated obliquely into the centre of the Roman army. Julian thought "All is lost!" He remembered the unfavourable presages of the morning and addressed a last prayer to the gods of Olympus--

"Come, help me! For who is there but I to restore you to power upon earth?"

In the centre of the army were stationed the old veterans of the Petulant legion, so called on account of their rashness. Severus counted on them, and his reliance was not in vain. One of them shouted--

"_Viri fortissimi!_ Bravest of the brave, let us not betray Rome and our Cæsar! Let us die for Julian! Glory and prosperity to Cæsar Julian!"

"For Rome ... for Rome..." stern voices responded, and these tried legions, grown grey under the flag, once again went to meet death, steady and cheery. The inspiring breath of great Rome swept over the whole army.

Julian, his eyes full of enthusiastic tears, rode towards the veterans to die along with them. Again he felt the force of sheer affection, the force of the people lifting him on its wings to carry him to victory.

Then terror seized the barbaric masses; they trembled, broke, and fled; and the eagles of the legions, their rapacious beaks and outspread wings glittering in the sun, swooped down again amongst the routed tribes, proclaiming the victory of the Eternal City.

The Alemanni and Franks perished fighting to the last gasp.

Kneeling in a pool of blood, the savage would wield his sword or lance with a slackening hand, but in his troubled eyes were to be seen neither fear nor despair, only thirst for vengeance and contempt for his conquerors. Even those who were left for dead arose, half-crushed, and fixed their teeth in the legs of their enemies. Six thousand barbarians fell in that battle or were drowned in the Rhine.

The same evening, as Julian Cæsar stood on the hill, enveloped by the rays of the setting sun, King Chlodomir, who had been made prisoner on the bank of the river, was led before him. He was breathing with difficulty, his face livid and sweating, his enormous hands bound behind his back. He knelt down before his conqueror, and the young Cæsar of twenty-two laid his slight hand upon the shaggy head.

XIX

It was the time of vintage; all day songs had been echoing along the hill-sides around the pleasant Gulf of Naples.

In the favourite country of the Romans, at Baiæ, famous for its sulphur-baths, Baiæ of which the Augustan poets used to say,

_Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amoenis,--_

idle folk were delighting in the country and Nature; there fairer and more voluptuous than man.

It was an inviolate corner of that charming country, where the imaginations of Horace, Propertius, and Tibullus lingered yet. Not a single shadow of the monkish age had yet dulled that sunny littoral between Vesuvius and Cape Misenum. Christianity it is true was not denied there; but it was smilingly put by. Feminine sinners there were not yet repentant. On the contrary honest women grew shy of virtue as old-fashioned. When news of the Sibyl's prophecies arrived, menacing the decrepit world with earthquake, or when came news of fresh crimes and bigotries of Constantius, or of Persians invading the East, or barbarians threatening the North, the lucky inhabitants of Baiæ, closing their eyes, inhaled their delicious breeze full of the odour of Falernian half-crushed in the wine-press, and consoled themselves with an epigram. To forget the misfortunes of Rome and soothsay about the end of the world, all that they needed was to send each other gifts of pretty verses--

_Calet unda, friget æthra,
Simul innatat choreis
Amathusium renidens
Salis arbitræ et vaporis,
Flos siderum Dione!_

On the faces of the gayest Epicureans could be seen something at once senile and puerile. Neither the fresh salt water of the sea bath nor the warm sulphurous springs of Baiæ could completely cure the bodies of these withered and chilly young men, bald and old at twenty, not through their own debauches, but through sins of their ancestors; youths on whom women, wisdom, and literature had begun to pall; witty and impotent young men, in whose veins ran the blood of too late a generation.

In one of the most flowery and pleasant nooks between Baiæ and Puteoli and under the dark slopes of the Apennine, rose the white marble walls of a villa.

Near the wide window, opening directly on the sea, so that from the chamber sky and sea alone were visible, Myrrha was lying on a bed.

The doctors had not understood her malady; but Arsinoë, who watched her sister day by day losing strength and vitality, had brought her from Rome to the sea-coast.

Notwithstanding her illness Myrrha would clean and arrange her chamber with her own hands, in imitation of nuns and hermits; and would herself bring water, and attempt to wash linen, and do her own cookery. For weeks, and to the very last stage of her illness, she obstinately refused to go to bed, spending whole nights in prayer. One day the terrified Arsinoë found a hair-shirt on the weak body of her sister. Myrrha had taken all articles of luxury from her little chamber, stripping it of curtains and ornaments, and leaving nothing but a bed and a coarse wooden crucifix. The bare-walled room was "her cell." She also fasted strictly and Arsinoë found it difficult to oppose the gentle obstinacy of her will.

From the life of Arsinoë all listlessness had disappeared. She wavered continually between hope of restoring Myrrha to health and despair at losing her. And although she could not love her sister more passionately than before, yet, dominated by the fear of their eternal separation, she understood her own love more clearly.

Sometimes, with motherly pity, Arsinoë would gaze upon that wasted face, and the little body in which so fierce a fire was burning. When the sick girl refused wine and food prescribed by the physician, Arsinoë would say in vexation--

"Do you think I am blind, Myrrha? Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"Are not life and death equal in our eyes?" answered the young girl, with such earnestness that Arsinoë could only reply--

"You do not love me!..."

But Myrrha used to say caressingly--

"Beloved, you do not know how much I love you! Oh, if you could only..."

The invalid would never finish the sentence, nor ask her sister if she held the faith. But in her sad glance at Arsinoë, as if not daring utterance, Arsinoë read reproach. Nevertheless, she was herself unwilling to speak about that faith, not having the courage to communicate her doubt, for fear of perhaps robbing her sister of the mad hope of immortality.

Myrrha weakened from day to day, waning like the wax of a taper; but from day to day grew more joyous and more calm.

Juventinus, who had quitted Rome lest his mother should follow him, was waiting at Naples with Didimus for the departure of the ship for Alexandria. He came to see the sisters every evening. He used to read aloud the Gospels and tell legends of the saints.... Oh, how Myrrha longed to journey to those dark caves and live near those great and holy lives! The desert to her appeared not dull and sterile, but flowery, a wondrous earthly paradise, lighted by a light such as shone on no other region. Indoors she grew stifled; and sometimes, fevered by the pains of sickness, and languishing after the Thebaïd, she used to watch the white sails of ships disappear in the distance and stretch out her pale hands towards them. Oh, to flee after them and breathe the pure air and silence of the desert! Many a time she would try to rise, declaring she felt better, would soon be well, and in secret kept hoping that they would allow her to set sail with Didimus and Juventinus, on the ship for Alexandria.

Anatolius, Arsinoë's faithful admirer, was also living at Baiæ. The young Epicurean used to organise delightful excursions in his gilded galley from the Bay to the Pæstan Gulf, with gay companions and pretty women. What he loved most was to see the purple sails bowing over the sleepy sea; hues of twilight melting on the cliffs of Capreæ and Ischia, looking like enormous amethysts lying in the water. It pleased him to ridicule his friends about their faith. The fragrance of wines and the intoxicating kisses of courtesans pleased him also.

But every time he went into Myrrha's quiet little cell he would become aware that another side of life also lay open to him. The innocent grace and the pale countenance of the young girl touched him deeply. He longed to believe in anything in which she believed: the gentle Galilean, and the miracle of immortality. He would listen to the tales of Juventinus, and the life of desert anchorites he, too, thought sublime. Anatolius observed with surprise that for himself truth existed both in the intoxication of life and in its renunciation; both in the triumph of matter and in the triumph of soul; both in chastity and in voluptuousness. His intelligence remained clear, and his conscience without remorse.

Even doubt had for him its pleasure, like a kind of new game. These deep and gentle waves of opinion, transitions from Christianity to Paganism, lulled his soul rather than distressed it.

One evening Myrrha fell asleep before the open window. On awakening, she said to Juventinus with a bright smile--

"I've had a strange dream...."

"What was it?"

"I don't remember. But it was happy. Do you think that the whole world will gain salvation?"

"All the righteous; sinners will be punished."

"Righteous? sinners?... That is not my idea," answered Myrrha, still smiling, as if she was trying to remember the dream. "Do you know, Juventinus, that all, all shall be saved, and that God will not suffer one to be lost!"

"So the great master Origen believed. He used to say, 'My Saviour cannot rejoice so long as I am in iniquity.' But that is a heresy...."

Myrrha, not listening, went on--

"Yes! yes! that must be so. I understand it at last. All shall be saved, to the very last. God will not allow one of His creatures to perish."

"I wish I too could believe it," murmured Juventinus, "but I should be afraid...."

"One must fear nothing; where there is love, fear is cast out. I do not fear anything."

"And He?" demanded Juventinus.

"Who?"

"He, the Unnameable, the Arch-rebel!"

"He also, He also!" cried Myrrha, with strong conviction. "So long as there shall be even a soul that has not gained salvation, no creature can enjoy full felicity. If there be no bounds to Love, if Love is infinite, then all shall be in God, and God in all. Friend, will not that be happiness? We have not yet taken full account of that. Every soul must be blessed, do you understand?"

"And Evil?"

"There is no evil, if there is no Death."

Through the open window came the echo of the Bacchic songs of the friends of Anatolius, making merry in their purple galleys on the blue twilight sea.

Myrrha pointed to them--

"And that is also beautiful, and that is also to be blest," she murmured.

"What? These vicious songs?" asked Juventinus, dreading her reply.

Myrrha shook her head--

"No! all is well, all is pure. Beauty comes from God. Friend, what are you afraid of? To love, one must be unspeakably free!... Fear absolutely nothing. You are still ignorant what happiness life can give!"

She drew a deep sigh and added--

"And what happiness death gives too!"

It was their last talk together. Myrrha lay in bed for several days, motionless and silent, without opening her eyes. She may have suffered much, for her brows would sometimes contract with pain; but a gentle smile of resignation would follow; not a groan, not a complaint escaped the closed lips.

Once, at midnight, she called Arsinoë, who was sitting beside her. The sick girl spoke with difficulty; she asked, without opening her eyes--

"Is it yet day?"

"No, night still," answered Arsinoë, "but the sun will soon rise."

"I cannot hear.... Who are you?" Myrrha murmured indistinctly.

"It is I, Arsinoë."

The invalid suddenly opened her wide luminous eyes and gazed fixedly on her sister.

"It seemed to me," said Myrrha with an effort, "it seemed to me that it was not you ... that I was utterly alone."

Then very slowly, with great difficulty, being scarcely able to move, she brought her transparent hands together, with an imploring look of fear. The corners of the lips trembled, the eyebrows moved.

"Do not abandon me! When I die, do not think that I am no more!"

Arsinoë leaned towards her, but Myrrha was too weak to kiss her, although she tried to do so. Arsinoë brought her cheek closer to the great eyes, and the young girl softly caressed her face with the long lashes. Arsinoë felt on her cheek a touch light as butterfly's velvety wings. It was a trick invented by Myrrha in childhood.

That last caress brought back to Arsinoë all their life together, all their mutual affection. She fell on her knees and, for the first time for years, sobbed irresistibly, as if the tears were melting her inmost heart.

"No, Myrrha," she said, "I will not abandon you.... I will stay with you always!"

Myrrha's eyes grew animated and joyous; she faltered--

"Then you----"

"Yes; I long to believe; _I will believe!_" exclaimed Arsinoë, and immediately wondered. Those words appeared a miracle to herself, and no deception. She had no wish to recall them.

"I will go into the desert, Myrrha; like you, instead of you," she continued in a transport of wild love; "and, if God exists, He must grant that there shall be no death between us; so that we _shall_ be always together."

Myrrha closed her eyes, listening to her sister. With a smile of infinite peace, she murmured--

"Now, I will go to sleep. I want nothing more. I am well."

She never opened her eyes or spoke again; her face was calm and severe as the face of the dead; and in this state she lived on several days longer.

When a cup of wine was brought near to her lips, she would swallow a few mouthfuls. If her breathing became nervous and irregular, Juventinus would chant a prayer or some divine hymn, and then, as if soothed, Myrrha began to breathe more easily.

One evening, when the sun had set behind Ischia and Capreæ, while the motionless sea was melting into heaven, and the first dim star trembling, Juventinus was singing to the dying girl--

_Deus creator omnium
Polique rector vestiens,
Diem decore lumine
Noctem sopora gratia._

Perhaps Myrrha's last sigh was breathed to the sound of that solemn hymn. None knew when she died. There seemed no change. Her life mingled painlessly with the impalpable, inviolable, the Eternal, as the warmth of a fair twilight melts into the coolness of night.

Arsinoë buried her sister in the catacombs, and with her own hand engraved on the slab, "_Myrrha, vivis!_" ("Myrrha, thou livest.")

She scarcely wept. But she bore in her heart contempt for the world, and the resolve to believe in God, or at least to do all she could to attain belief in Him. She desired to distribute her fortune to the poor, and to set out for the Thebaïd. On the very day Arsinoë informed her indignant guardian of these intentions she received from Gaul a curt and enigmatic letter from Cæsar Julian--

"Julian, to the most noble Arsinoë, happiness! Do you remember the matter about which we spoke together at Athens, in front of the statue of Artemis? Do you remember our alliance? Great is my hate, but greater yet is my love. It may be that the lion shall fling away the ass's skin soon. Meantime, let us be gentle as doves and wise as serpents, according to the counsel of the Nazarean Christ."

XX

Composers of Court epigrams, who mockingly nicknamed Julian "Victorinus" or "the little Conqueror," were astonished to receive, time after time, news of the Cæsar's continual victories. The laughable gradually became the terrible. General discussion arose about witchcrafts and secret dæmonic forces backing the fortunes of the friend of Maximus of Ephesus.

Julian had conquered and restored to the Roman Empire Argentoratum, Bracomagum,[2] Tres Tabernæ,[3] Noviomagus,[4] Vangiones,[5] Moguntiacum.[6]

[2] Brumat near Strasburg.

[3] Saverne (Vosges).

[4] Spires.

[5] Worms.

[6] Mayence.

The soldiers worshipped him as much as ever; and Julian became more and more convinced that the Olympians were protecting him and advancing his cause. But, for prudential reasons, he continued to attend Christian churches, and in the town of Vienna on the banks of the river Rhodanus he had been present at an especially solemn mass.

In the middle of December the conquering Cæsar was returning after a long campaign to winter quarters in his beloved Parisis-Lutetia on the banks of the Seine.

Night was closing in. The southern soldiers were marvelling at the pale green lights of the northern sky. New-fallen snow sounded crisply under the tread of the soldiers. Lutetia, built on a little island, was surrounded by wide river-channels. Two wooden bridges connected the town with steep banks. Its houses were built in the Gallo-Roman style, with broad glazed galleries, instead of the open porticoes of southern countries. The smoke of a multitude of chimneys hung over the town, and the trees were hoar with frost.

Fig-trees carefully swaddled in straw, and brought by the Romans from the south, clung to the southward-facing walls of the gardens, like children dreading the cold.

This year, in spite of occasional thawing winds from the south, the winter had been severe. Huge blocks of ice, crashing and grinding together, were floating down the Seine. The Greek and Roman soldiers used to watch these in surprise, and Julian too wondered at the beauty of the blue and green transparent masses, and compared them to Phrygian marble, with its emerald-hued veins.

There was something in the sad beauty of the North which, like a distant remembrance, haunted and thrilled his heart, as now he and his troop arrived at the palace, of which the brick arcades and turrets rose in sharp black outline against the twilight sky.

Julian went into the library. The cold was intense; a great fire was kindled on the hearth, and letters which had arrived at Lutetia during his absence were brought to him. One of these from Asia Minor came from Iamblicus. Julian thought that the fragrance of the East came with it.

Outside a hurricane was raging, and the wind roaring by struck violent blows on the closed shutters. Shutting his eyes, Julian dreamed of marble porticoes and gleaming temples veiled in obscurity, sweeping away to the horizon to disappear like golden clouds.

He shivered, rose, and noticed that the fire had gone out. He could hear a mouse gnawing the parchments in the library.

Julian suddenly felt a longing to see a human face. With a half-humorous smile he remembered that he had a wife. She was a relative of the Empress Eusebia, named Helena, whom the Emperor had forced to marry Julian shortly before his departure for Gaul. Julian cared nothing for Helena. Although more than a year had elapsed since their marriage he had scarcely seen her; he knew nothing of her, and had never passed a night under the same roof. His wife had remained a virgin.

From youth up, her dream had been to become the spouse of Christ. The idea of marriage filled her with disgust. At first she had thought all was lost, but, seeing afterwards that Julian asked from her no conjugal caresses, she grew calmer and lived in her apartment, morose, placid, dressed in black, the life of a nun. In her prayers Helena had vowed perpetual chastity.

On this night a mischievous curiosity drove Julian to the tower in which his wife was praying. He opened the door without knocking, and went into the feebly lighted cell; the virgin was kneeling before a lectern above which hung a large crucifix.

Julian approached, and screening the flame of the lamp with one hand, gazed at his wife for some minutes, frowning. She was so absorbed in devotion that she did not notice him. He said--

"Helena!"

She uttered a cry and turned her pale severe face towards Julian.

"How you startled me!"

He looked wonderingly at the great crucifix, the gospel, and the lectern, and murmured--

"Are you always praying?"

"Yes! I pray for you also, well-beloved Cæsar."

"For me? Really!... Confess that you believe me to be a great sinner?"

She lowered her eyes without answering. His frown became deeper.

"Do not be afraid; speak out. Don't you believe that I am specially guilty, in some manner, before God?"

She answered in a low voice--

"Specially?... Yes, I think so. Do not be angry...."

"I was sure of it.... Now tell me what it is? I must repent me of my crimes."

Helena resumed, in a yet lower voice, and more severely--

"Do not laugh! I have to answer for your soul before the Eternal----"

"You ... for mine?"

"We are joined for ever."

"By what?"

"The sacrament of marriage."

"Religious marriage? But up till now we are strangers to one another, Helena!"

"I fear for your soul, Julian," she repeated, fixing on him her innocent eyes.

Placing his hand on her shoulder, he gazed mockingly at the pale face, so cold in its chastity. The small and lovely mouth, with its rosy lips half parted with an expression of fear and inquiry, was in strange contrast to the rest of the face. Julian leaned towards her, and before she had time to regain her presence of mind, kissed her on the lips.

She started and rushed to a far corner of the room, hiding her face in her hands. Then gazing at Julian, her eyes wild with fear, she hastily crossed herself, murmuring--

"Away, away, O evil one! I know thee; thou art not Julian, but the Devil. In the name of the most Holy Cross, I conjure thee ... disappear!"

Anger seized Julian; he turned to the door and bolted it; then approaching Helena with a smile he said--

"Be yourself, Helena; I am a man--I am your husband--and not the Devil! The Church has blessed our union." He gazed upon her with strangely warring emotions. She slowly drew her hands from her eyes.

"Forgive me ... it seemed to me ... you frightened me so, Julian.... I know that you desire nothing evil ... but I have had visions.... Just now I believed.... He haunts this place at night. Twice I have seen him.... He said to me ill things about you. Since then I have been afraid. He told me you bore on your face the mark of Cain.... Why do you look at me so, Julian?"

She was trembling and leaning against the wall; he approached and put his arm round her waist.

"What are you doing? Let me go, let me go!"

She tried to cry out, to call the servant.

"Eleutheria! Eleutheria!"

"Why are you calling? Am I not your husband?"

She began to weep bitterly.

"Brother, this must not be.... I am the bride of Christ!... I believed that you...."

"The bride of the Roman Cæsar cannot be the bride of Christ!"

"Julian!... If you believe in Him...."

He smiled.

"I abhor the Galilean!"

In a supreme effort she strove to repulse him, exclaiming, "Away, Devil!... Why hast thou abandoned me, Lord?"

With his impious hands he tore off the black vestment. His soul was full of fear, but never before in his life had he known such intoxication in evil-doing. Ironically, with a smile of defiance, the Roman Cæsar gazed at the opposite corner of the cell, where in the feeble flicker of the lamp-light hung the great black crucifix....

XXI

More than two years had elapsed since the victory of Argentoratum. Julian had delivered Gaul from the barbarians. At the beginning of spring, when still at Lutetia for his winter quarters, he had received an important letter from the Emperor Constantius brought by the tribune Decensius.

Each new victory achieved in Gaul harried the soul of Constantius, and stabbed his vanity to the quick. This "street-urchin," this "magpie," this "monkey in the purple," this "pocket conqueror," to the indignation of Court scoffers had turned into a veritable victor.

Constantius writhed with jealousy. At the same time he sustained defeat after defeat in his own campaign against the Persians in the Asiatic provinces. He grew thin, sleepless, lost his appetite, and twice suffered from terrible attacks of vomiting. The Court physicians were in dismay.

Sometimes, during nights of insomnia, lying in bed under the sacred standard of Constantine, the Emperor mused:

"Eusebia deceived me! But for her I should have followed the wise counsel of Mercurius.... I should have had his throat cut in some dark corner! I should have exterminated this serpent from the Flavian nest!... Imbecile that I was!... It was I, myself, who let him escape! And who knows?... Perhaps Eusebia herself was his mistress?"

A long-delayed jealousy made his envy bitterer still. He could not revenge himself on the Empress Eusebia, who was dead. His second wife, Faustine, was an empty-headed little woman for whom he felt nothing but contempt.

Constantius tore the hair on which hairdressers still spent such infinite pains, and shed tears of rage. Had he not protected the Church? Had he not swept all heresies to destruction? Had he not built and adorned monastery after monastery? Did he not regularly accomplish all due rites and offices? And now what reward was granted him? For the first time the master of the world felt his soul swelling in indignation against the Master of the universe. A dark imprecation rose to his lips.

To assuage his jealousy he had recourse to unusual means. He sent letters to all great cities,--"letters of victory," adorned with laurels, and announcing the triumphs granted by the grace of God to the Emperor Constantius. These letters were to the effect that it was Constantius and not Julian who had four times crossed the Rhine,--Constantius (who was really frittering away his army at the other end of the world). It was Constantius, and not Julian, who had almost perished from arrows at Argentoratum! Constantius who had taken Chlodomir prisoner; Constantius who had pierced marshes and impracticable forests, hewn roads, stormed fortresses and endured hunger, thirst, heat; who, more wearied than the soldiers, had allotted to himself less sleep than they.

Julian's name was never mentioned in these despatches, as if that Cæsar were no longer in existence. The people applauded Constantius as conqueror of the Gauls, and in all the churches, bishops and archbishops chanted prayers and thanksgivings for victory granted to him over the barbaric Alemanni.

Julian on hearing of these follies contented himself with a smile. But the Emperor's gnawing jealousy was not sated. He decided to rob Julian of his best soldiers, and then by imperceptible steps and fleeting pretences to disarm him, as Gallus had been disarmed; to draw him into the toils and deal him the mortal blow.

With this intention he sent with a letter to Lutetia a certain skilful official, the tribune Decensius. He was forthwith to select the most trusted legions, namely, the Heruli, Batavians, Petulants, and Celts; and to despatch them into Asia for the Emperor's own use. Moreover, this dignitary was to deflower each remaining legion of its three hundred bravest warriors; and Cintula, tribune of the Imperial stables, was instructed to take the pick of the porters and baggage-carriers, and, having thus crippled Julian's transport, to bring these men to the East.

Julian warned Decensius, and proved to him that rebellion was inevitable among the savage legions raised in Gaul, who would almost certainly prefer to die rather than quit their native soil. But that obstinate official, preserving an imperturbable haughtiness on his wily yellow face, took no account of these observations.

At right angles to one of the wooden bridges which joined the island of Lutetia to the river-banks, stretched long, low barrack buildings. All the morning the soldiery had been excited and tumultuous. The stern and wise discipline hitherto observed by Julian alone restrained them.

The first cohorts of Petulants and the Heruli had departed on the previous night. Their comrades the Celts and Batavians were preparing to follow them. Cintula issued his orders in a peremptory tone. Savage murmurs were running through the crowd. An insubordinate soldier had just been beaten to death. Decensius strode hither and thither, pen behind ear, documents in hand. In the great courtyards, under a dark sky, thick-wheeled covered chariots were waiting for the soldiers' wives and children. Women, parting from the country where they were born, were stretching out their arms to the woods and fields. Others were kissing the maternal soil, and weeping at the thought that their dust should be buried in a strange land. Others, more resigned and sullen in their pain, had wrapped handfuls of earth in little bundles, to carry with them as tokens. A lean dog, with ribs to be counted through his skin, was licking the grease of an axle-tree. Suddenly he darted away and began to howl, muzzle in the dust. Everybody, thrilled by the sound, turned round to watch him. A legionary angrily thrashed the poor beast, who fled into a field with his tail between his legs, and, halting there, renewed his howlings in a yet more plaintive key. This dog's cry, wailing through the impressive silence of the twilight, shook the nerves of all who heard it. The Sarmatian Aragaris belonged to the number chosen to leave the north. He was bidding farewell to the faithful Strombix--

"Oh, cousin, cousin! why are you leaving me?" whined Strombix, between mouthfuls of soup, which Aragaris had given up to him. Grief had taken away his own appetite.

"Be quiet, fool!" the consolatory Aragaris was remarking; "there are too many women groaning already!... It would be more useful if you, who belong to the country, would tell me what forests we shall have to pass through?"

"What do you mean, cousin? There are no forests there; only sand and rocks."

"And how does one get shelter from the sun?" asked the incredulous Aragaris.

"It's a desert! It's as hot there as under a cook's oven, and there's not a drop of water."

"What! No water? And how about beer?"

"They don't even know what beer means!"

"You're lying!"

"May I be struck blind, cousin, if in all Mesopotamia and Syria you find a keg of beer or of honey."

"Then it's all over, brother! If it's hot there, and there's neither water, beer, nor honey, they're simply hunting us to the end of the world like oxen to the slaughter!"

"Hunting you on to the horns of the Devil, cousin!" and Strombix wept yet more bitterly.

At that moment there came a distant rumble, and din of voices. The two friends ran out of the barracks; a crowd of soldiers were rushing over the wooden bridge towards Lutetia. The cries came nearer; wild agitation seized the garrison; the soldiery poured out upon the road in a dense shouting mass, in spite of the orders, threats, and even blows of the centurions.

"What has happened?" asked a veteran.

"Twenty soldiers have been beaten to death!"

"What? Twenty! Why, it was a hundred!"

"They're going to cudgel every man in turn; it's the order!"

Suddenly a legionary with torn clothes and terrified demeanour rushed into the crowd shouting--

"Comrades! quick, to the palace!... quick! Julian's just been beheaded!"

These words fell like a spark on tinder. The long-smouldering flame burst into destructiveness. The faces of the soldiers took on an expression of animal ferocity. No one understood nor wished to hear, but all shouted--

"Where are the rascals? Kill the hounds!"

"Who?"

"The envoys from the Emperor Constantius!"

"Down with the Emperor!"

"Ah, the idiots!--to think they've killed such a leader!"

Two innocent centurions who were passing were seized, thrown to earth, trampled upon and almost rent in pieces. At the sight of the gushing blood the mutineers became yet more ferocious. Another mob coming over the bridge swept up to the barracks, and there rose a deafening cry--

"Glory to the Emperor Julian! Glory to Augustus Julian!"

"He is slain! He is slain!"

"Hold your peace, fools; Augustus is alive! We've just seen him!"

"The Cæsar's alive!"

"He's no longer Cæsar, but Emperor!"

"Who said he was killed?"

"Where is the blackguard?"

"They tried to kill him!"

"Who?"

"Constantius!"

"Down with Constantius! Down with all cursed eunuchs!"

Someone on horseback rode by so quickly as almost to escape recognition--

"Decensius! Decensius! Catch the ruffian!"

Still with pen behind his ear and ink-flask dangling from his girdle, accompanied by insults and laughter, he disappeared from sight. The crowd grew thicker and thicker, and the mutinous army was like a raging flood; but their anger was turned into glee when the Herulian and Petulant legions, who had marched the evening before, and also mutinied, were seen in the distance on their way back. They, their wives, and their children were kissed with emotion, as after a long separation. Some shed tears of joy, others struck their shields; and great bonfires were kindled. The fountains of oratory were unloosed. Strombix, who in his youth had been a buffoon at Antioch, felt himself inspired, and, hoisted with wild gesticulations on the shoulders of his comrades, began--

"_Nos quidem ad orbis terrarum extrema ut noxii pellimur et damnati...._"

"They're sending us to the other end of the world like criminals; and our families, whom we bought back from slavery with the price of our blood, will fall back into the hands of the Alemanni----"

He was unable to finish; the barracks were ringing with piercing cries, and the noise, familiar to soldiers, of scourges scoring the back. The legionaries were lashing the detested centurion Cedo Alteram, and the soldier who was administering the lashes to his superior flung away the bloody rod, and to the general amusement, imitating the cheery voice of the centurion, called out--

"_Cedo Alteram!_ Give me another!"

"To the palace! To the palace!" yelled the crowd. "Let us make Julian, Augustus! Let us crown him with a diadem!"

The mob rushed off, leaving in the courtyard the half-dead centurion weltering in blood. Through the dark clouds the stars sparkled here and there, and a cold wind lifted the dust. The barred windows, doors, and shutters of the palace were all hermetically sealed. The building seemed tenantless.

Foreseeing the revolt, Julian had not left his quarters nor shown himself to the soldiers, being occupied in divinations. For two days and two nights he had waited for a miracle. Clothed in the long white robe of the Pythagoreans, lamp in hand, he was ascending the steps which led to the highest tower. There the assistant of Maximus of Ephesus was awaiting him, and observing the stars. This assistant was no other than Nogodarès, who once in the tavern owned by Syrax at the foot of Mount Argæus had foretold the future to the tribune Scuda.

"Well?" Julian asked anxiously.

"There's nothing to be seen! It looks as if heaven and earth were conspiring."

A bat swooped by.

"Look, look! Perhaps some prediction can be made from the manner of its flight?"

The night-wandering creature almost brushed Julian's face with its cold wings, and vanished.

"Someone's soul approaches," murmured Nogodarès. "Remember! this night something great will be accomplished...."

The indistinct cries of the mutineers were borne faintly up the wind.

"If a sign appears, come to me," said Julian as he went down to his library.

With irregular restless strides he walked up and down the room, halting every now and then to listen. It seemed as if someone was following him; that a curious cold air was blowing on the nape of his neck. He wheeled round, but discovered nothing. He felt the blood beating strongly in his temples. He resumed his walk, and again it seemed that someone was murmuring into his ear words that he had not time to understand.

A servant entered, and announced that an old man from Athens desired to see the Cæsar on urgent business. Julian uttered a cry of elation and ran to meet the new-comer. He thought he should see Maximus; but he was mistaken. It was the high-priest of the mysteries of Eleusis, whom also he had impatiently expected.

"Father!" exclaimed Julian, "save me! I must know the will of the gods!... Let us come quickly, for all is prepared."

Round the palace resounded deafening cries from the revolted army, shaking the old brickwork of the walls. But when a baggage-carrier, livid with fear, ran in exclaiming, "Mutiny! The soldiers are breaking in the iron gates!" Julian said with an imperious gesture, "Fear nothing! We will arrange that matter presently. Let no one come into my presence!" and taking the high-priest by the hand he hastily led him into a dark underground vault, and closed the heavy iron door. All was there ready. Torch-flames were glittering over the silver image of the Sun-god, and tripods fuming; the holy vessels, full of water, wine, and honey, stood prepared, with salt and flour to be sprinkled on the bodies of the victims. Geese, doves, hens, an eagle, and a white lamb which bleated plaintively, stood round in different cages.

"Quicker, quicker!" exclaimed Julian, giving a long dagger to the priest.

The old man, who was panting heavily, began hurriedly to mutter prayers; he killed the lamb, put a portion of the flesh and fat upon the coals of the altar, and with mysterious exorcisms began the inspection of its organs. With expert hands he drew forth the liver, heart, and lungs, and scanned them from every side.

"The powerful shall be overthrown!" he said, pointing to the heart, which was still warm; "a terrible death...."

"Whose?" Julian asked. "His or mine?"

"I know not."

"You know not?"

"Cæsar," said the old man, "be not hasty. Decide nothing to-night; wait for the day; the presages are doubtful...."

He did not finish his sentence, but took another victim, a gander, and then an eagle. Overhead the noise of the crowd at the gates swept like the roar of a torrent. Blows of a battering-ram shook the iron doors, but Julian heard nothing. He examined the bloody organs with eager curiosity.

The old sacrificial priest repeated:

"Decide nothing to-night; the gods are silent."

"But now is the moment!" cried Julian in vexation.

Nogodarès came in, and solemnly spoke:

"Julian, rejoice! to-night your destiny is decided ... but make haste! Afterwards it will be too late."

The soothsayer looked at the hierophant; the hierophant at the soothsayer.

"Wait!" said the priest of Eleusis.

"Dare!" said Nogodarès.

Julian stood between the two, in perplexity scrutinising both.

The faces of the augurs remained impenetrable.

"What is to be done?" he murmured to himself. Then he remembered, and exclaimed joyfully:

"One moment! I have an ancient book in my library, _Concerning Contradiction in Auguries_; we shall see!"

He hurried to the library; but in a passage he encountered the bishop Dorotheus, in sacerdotal dress, bearing the crucifix and the sacred Viaticum.

"What is this?" asked Julian.

"The Viaticum for your wife, who is dying, O Cæsar!"

Dorotheus looked with severity at the robes of Julian, his pale face, and his blood-stained hands.

"Your wife," continued the bishop, "desires to see you before her death. Will you come?"

"Yes!... yes! later!... O gods!... another ill omen."

He entered the library and began to rummage among the parchments. Suddenly he heard a voice murmuring distinctly in his ear:

"Dare! dare! dare!"

"Maximus, it is thou!" exclaimed Julian, wheeling round.

There was no one in the dark apartment.

Julian's heart beat so strongly that he pressed his hand against his side; a cold sweat stood on his forehead.

"This--this is what I was waiting for!" murmured Julian. "The voice was 'his'; now, all doubt is over!... I will go!"

The barred gates had given way with a crash. Legionaries were pouring into the atrium, thrilling the old palace with their cries, while the crimson glare of the torches shone through the chinks of shutters like the light of a conflagration. Not a minute was to be lost. Casting away his white robes, Julian donned his armour, paludamentum, war cloak, and helmet, buckled on his sword, and ran down the principal staircase leading to the entrance. He opened the door and presented himself to the soldiers with a calm and unshaken demeanour. All doubts had disappeared. While in action his will never vacillated; but never up to that day had he been conscious of such a fulness of inward force, such clearness and self-possession of mind. In a moment the crowd felt that supremacy. The pale face of Julian was imperial and awe-striking, and at a gesture from him the mob was silenced. Julian spoke to the soldiers, asking them to restore order; he would neither abandon them nor permit that they should be taken from Gaul; on that head he would convince his well-beloved brother, the Emperor Constantius.

"Down with Constantius!" interrupted the legionaries. "Down with him who slew his brother! Thou art our Emperor! Glory to Augustus Julian, the Invincible!"

Admirably did Julian affect surprise, and, as if startled, lowered his eyes and turned aside his head with a deprecating gesture of his lifted palms, as putting away from him so criminal a gift. The shouts redoubled.

"What is this?" said Julian, feigning dismay. "You are ruining me and you are ruining yourselves. Do you think that I can betray my sovereign?"

"Yes! your brother's murderer!" shouted the men.

"Silence!" answered Julian, striding towards the crowd. "Do you not know that we are sworn...?"

Every movement was a hypocritical ruse. When the soldiers surged round him he drew his sword from its sheath and pointed it against his own breast as if to fall on it.

"Bravest of the brave! better die for Cæsar than betray him!"

But the men, seizing his hands, disarmed him, and many, falling at his feet, kissed them, weeping--

"Ah! we are willing to die for you!"

Others stretched out their hands, groaning--

"Have pity on us; be our Augustus!"

The heart of Julian was thrilled. He loved these rough faces, the barrack-atmosphere, and the unrivalled enthusiasm in which he felt his own power.

He saw that the mutiny was dangerous and in earnest, observing that the legionaries did not interrupt each other, but shouted unanimously, and became suddenly hushed, as if their action had been concerted beforehand.

There was either a deafening hubbub, or absolute silence.

Finally, Julian, with an effort that might well have been thought sincere--

"My children! my dear comrades! behold me ... I am yours in life and in death. I can refuse you nothing!"

"Crown him! The diadem!" they cried, triumphantly.

But no diadem was to be found.

Strombix proposed--

"Let Augustus order that his wife's necklet of pearls be brought here!"

Julian answered that a woman's ornament would be unfitting, and an ill presage with which to inaugurate a reign.

But the men were unsatisfied. They insisted on seeing a sign of regality shining on the head of their chosen, to make him their Emperor indeed. One of the legionaries snatched from his war-horse the phaleræ, or forehead trapping, with its string of metal disks, for the crowning of Augustus.

But neither did this please him, for the ornament stank with the sweat of the horse. Everyone cast about to find another decoration, and at last the standard-bearer of the Petulant legion, the Sarmatian Aragaris, pulled from his neck the metal chain denoting his rank, and Julian wound it twice round his own head. This chain made him Emperor of Rome.

"Hoist him on a shield! on a shield!" shouted the soldiery.

Aragaris tendered his round buckler. Hundreds of arms heaved the Emperor. He saw a sea of helmeted heads, and heard, like the rolling of thunder, the exultant cry--

"Glory to Julian, the divine Augustus!"

It seemed the will of destiny. One by one the torches were extinguished. The clamour died away; and the eastern sky was barred with soft white bands. The dark and dull mass of the palace-towers became clear in all its ugliness; a single lighted window was still visible. Julian guessed that this must be the light in the cell where Helena lay dying.

And when at dawn the wearied army dispersed, he went to the bedside of his wife. It was too late. The dead woman lay quietly on her virgin couch; the lips severely closed. Julian felt no remorse, but painful curiosity moved him as he gazed at the dark face of his wife, wondering--

"What was that last desire? What did she wish to say to me?"

XXII