Читать книгу The Gladiators - George J. Whyte-Melville - Страница 12

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IT is time to give some account of Esca's anomalous position in the capital of the world—to explain how the young British noble (for that was indeed the rank he held in his own country) found himself a slave in the streets of Rome. In order to do so it is necessary to take a glimpse at the interior of a patrician's house about the hour of supper; perhaps also to intrude upon the reflections of its owner, as he paces up and down the colonnade in the cool air of sunset, absorbed in his own thoughts, and deep in the memories of the past.

His mansion is of stately proportion, and large size, but all its ornaments and accessories are chastened by a severe simplicity of taste. An observer might identify the man by the very nature of the objects that surround him. In his vestibule the columns are of the Ionic order, and their elaborate capitals have been wrought into the utmost degree of finish which that style will allow. In the smaller entrance-hall or lobby, which leads to the principal apartments, and which is guarded by an image of a dog, let into the pavement in mosaic, there are no florid sculptures nor carvings, nor any attempt at decoration beyond the actual beauty of the stonework and the scrupulous care with which it is kept clean. The doors themselves are of bronze, so well burnished as to need no mixture of gold or silver inlaid to enhance its brightness; whilst in the principal hall itself, the room in which friends are welcomed, clients received, and business transacted, the walls, instead of frescoes and such gaudy ornaments, are simply overlaid with entablatures of white and polished marble. The dome is very lofty, rising majestically towards the circular opening at the top, through which the sky is visible; and round the fountain or cistern immediately below this are ranged four colossal statues, representing the elements. These, with the busts of a long line of illustrious ancestors, are the only efforts of the sculptor's art throughout the apartment. A large banqueting-hall, somewhat more luxuriously furnished, opens from one side of the central room, and as much as can be seen of it displays considerable attention to convenience and personal comfort. Frescoes, representing scenes of military life, adorn the walls, and at one end stands a trophy, composed of deadly weapons and defensive armour, arranged so as to form a glittering and conspicuous ornament. Large flagons and chalices of burnished gold, some of them adorned with valuable jewels, are ranged upon a sideboard; but it is evident that no guests are expected to-night, for near the couch against the wall has been drawn a small table, laid for one person only, with a clean napkin, and a cup and platter of plain silver thereon. That person is none other than the master of the house, bodily pacing up and down his own colonnade in Rome, mentally gazing on a fair expanse of wood and vale and shining river, drinking in the cool breezes, the fragrant odours, and the wild luxuriant beauty of distant Britain.

Five-and-twenty years! and yet it seems but yesterday. The brow wrinkles, the hair turns grey, strength wastes, energy fails, the brain gets torpid, and the senses dull, but the heart never grows old. Business, ambition, pleasure, dangers, duties, difficulties, and successes have filled that quarter of a century, and passed away like a dream; but the touch of a hand, the memory of a face, have outlived them all. Caius Lucius Licinius, Roman patrician, general, praetor, consul, and procurator of the Empire, is the young commander of a legion once more, with the world before him, and the woman he loves by his side. This is what he sees now, as he has seen it so often in his dreams by night, and his waking visions by day.

An old oak-tree, a mossy sward soft and level as velvet, delicate fern bending and whispering in the summer breeze, fleecy clouds drifting across the blue sky, and a graceful form, in its white robes, coming shyly up the glade, with faltering step, and sidelong glance, and timid gesture, to keep her tryst with her Roman lover. She is in his arms now. The rich brown curls are scattered over his breastplate, and the blue eyes are looking up into his own, liquid with the love-light that thrills to a man's heart but from one pair of eyes in a lifetime. She is, indeed, no contemptible prize, in the glory of her beauty and the pride of her blooming womanhood. With the rounded form, the noble features, and the dazzling colour of her nation, she possesses the courage and constancy of a high-born race, and a witchery half imperious, half playful, peculiarly her own. There are women who find their way to the core of a man's heart, who pervade it all, and saturate it, so to speak, with their influence.

"Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem Testa diu—" [You may break, you may ruin, the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.]

The vessel that has once held this rich and rare liquid is ever after impregnated with its fragrance, and even when it has been spilt every drop, and a fresh infusion poured in, the new wine smacks strangely and wildly of the old. She is one of them; he knows it too well.

They should have nothing in common, these two, the British chieftain's daughter and the Roman conqueror. But there is a truce between the nations; a truce in which the elements of discord are nevertheless smouldering, ready to blaze out afresh at the first opportunity, and they have seen each other accidentally, and been thrown together by circumstances, till curiosity has become interest, and interest grown into liking, and liking ripened into love. The British maiden might not be won lightly, and many a tear she wept in secret, and sore she strove against her own heart; but when it conquered her at last she gave it, as such women will, wholly and unreservedly. She would have lived for him, died for him, followed him to the end of the world. And Licinius worshipped her as a man worships the one woman who is the destiny of his life. Most men have at some time or other experienced this folly, infatuation, madness, call it what you will. They are not likely to forget it. Possibly—alas! probably—the bud they then watched opening has never expanded into bloom, at least for them. The worm may have destroyed it, or the cold wind cut it to the earth, or another's hand may have borne it away in triumph to gladden another's breast; but there is something in the May mornings that reminds them of the sweet flower still, and they wander round the fairest gardens of earth rather drearily to-day, because of the memory that has never faded, and the blank where she is not.

Licinius holds the British maiden to his breast.

Licinius holds the British maiden to his breast, and they discourse of their own happiness and revel in the sunny hour, and plan schemes for the future—schemes in which each is to the other all in all, and dream not that when to-day is past for them there will be no to-morrow. The woman, indeed, heaves a gentle sigh at intervals, as though in the midst of her happiness some foreboding warned her of the brooding tempest; but the man is hopeful, buoyant, and impetuous, playful in his tenderness, and joyous in his own triumphant love. They parted that evening more reluctantly than usual. They lingered round the oak, they found excuse after excuse for another loving word, another fond caress. When at last they went their several ways, how often Licinius turned to look after the receding form that carried with it all his hope and all his happiness! Little did he think how, and when, and where, he would see Guenebra again.

Ten years went heavily by. The commander of a legion was the chief of an army now. Licinius had served Rome in Gaul, in Spain, in Syria. Men said he bore a charmed life; and, indeed, while his counsels showed the forethought, the caution, and the patience of a skilful officer, his personal conduct was remarkable for a reckless disregard of danger, which would have been esteemed foolhardy in the meanest soldier. It was observed, too, that a deep and abiding melancholy had taken possession of the once light-hearted patrician. He only seemed to brighten up into his former self under the pressure of imminent danger, in the confusion of a repulse, or the excitement of a charge. At other times he was silent, depressed, preoccupied; never morose, for his kindly heart was open to the griefs of others, and the legionaries knew that their daring general was the friend of all who were in sorrow or distress. But the men talked him over, too, by their watch-fires; they marvelled, those honest old campaigners, how one who was so ready in the field could be so sparing of the winecup; how the leader who could stoop to fill his helmet from the running stream under a storm of javelins, and drink composedly with a jest and a smile, should be so backward in the revel, should show such a disinclination to those material pleasures which they esteemed the keenest joys of life.

One old centurion, who had followed his fortunes from the Thames to the Euphrates, from the confines of Pannonia to the Pillars of Hercules, averred that he had never seen his chief discomfited but once, and that was on the day when he had been accorded a triumph for his services in the streets of Rome. The veteran used to swear he never could forget the dejected look upon those brows, encircled with their laurel garland, nor the weary listlessness of that figure, to which all eyes were directed in its gilded chariot; the object of admiration to the whole city, and, for that day, scarcely second even to Caesar himself. It was a goodly triumph, no doubt; the spoils were rich, the car was lofty, the people shouted, and the victims fell. But what was glory without Guenebra? and the hero's eye could not rest in peace on one of all those gazing thousands, for lack of the loving face framed in its rich brown hair.

On the very night Licinius and Guenebra parted, a long-meditated rising had broken out among the islanders— conquered, but not subdued. Nothing but the cool courage of its young commander, and the immovable discipline of the legionaries, saved the Roman camp. Ere morning, Guenebra had been forced away by her tribe many miles from the scene of action; the Britons, too, retired into their strongholds, those natural fastnesses impregnable by regular troops. The whole country was once more in a state of open warfare. Prompt and decisive measures were taken; Publius Ostorius, the Roman general, in execution of a manoeuvre by which he preserved his line of operation, despatched Licinius and his legion to a different part of the island, and with all his exertions and all his influence, the young officer could never obtain tidings of Guenebra again. It was after this event that the change came over Licinius which was so commented on by the soldiers under his command.

Ten years of brilliant and successful services had elapsed when he returned to Britain. Nero had but lately succeeded to the purple, nor had he then degenerated into the monster of iniquity which he afterwards became. Until sapped by his ungovernable passions, the Emperor's administrative abilities were of no mean order; and he selected Licinius for the important post assigned to him, as being a consummate soldier, and experienced in the country with which he had to deal. The latter accepted the appointment with alacrity; through all change of time and fortune, he had never forgotten his British love. Under the burning skies of Syria, by the frozen shores of the Danube, at home or abroad, in peace or war, Guenebra's face was ever present to him, fond and trustful as when they last parted under the old oak-tree. He longed but to see it once more. And so he did. Thus

A partial insurrection had been quelled beyond the Trent. The Roman vanguard had surprised the Britons, and forced them to fly in great confusion, leaving their baggage, their valuables, in some cases even their arms, behind. When Licinius came up with the main body of his forces, he found, indeed, no prisoners taken, for everything animate had fled, but a goodly amount of spoil, over which Roman discipline had placed a strong guard. One of his tribunes approached him with a list of the captured articles; and when his general had perused it, the officer hesitated as though there was still some further report to make. At last he spoke out—

"There is a hut left standing within the lines of the enemy. I would not order it to be destroyed till I had provided for the burial of a dead body that lies beneath its shelter."

Licinius was counting the arms taken.

"A dead body!" said he carelessly; "is it an officer of rank?"

"'Tis a woman's corpse," answered the tribune; "a fair and stately woman, apparently the wife of some prince or chieftain at the least."

For Guenebra's sake, every woman, much more every British woman, was an object of respect and interest to Licinius.

"Lead on," said he. "I will give directions when I have seen it;" and the general followed his officer to the place already indicated.

It was but a rude hut made of a few planks and branches hastily thrown together. It seemed to have been erected at a moment's notice, probably to shelter an inmate in the last stage of dissolution. Through a wide rent in the roof the summer sun streamed in brilliantly, throwing a sheet of light on the dead face below. The prostrate form was swathed in its white robe, the bridal garment of the destroyer. A band of white encircled the head and chin, and the brown hair was parted modestly on the smooth forehead calm and womanly as of old. It was Guenebra's face that lay there so strangely still. Guenebra's face, how like and yet how changed! As he stooped over it, and looked on the closed eyes beneath their arching brows, the fair and noble features chiseled by the hand of death—the sweet lips wreathed even now with a chastened loving smile—he could not but mark that there were lines of thought upon the forehead, streaks of silver in the hair, the result it might be of regrets, and memories, and sorrows, and care for him.

Then the warm tears gushed up into the soldier's eyes, the pressure on his heart and brain seemed to be relieved. As when the spear is drawn out of a wound and the red stream spouts freely forth, the previous agony was succeeded by a dull hopeless resignation, that in comparison seemed almost akin to peace. He pressed his lips hard upon the cold dead forehead, and turned away—a man for whom from henceforth there was neither good to covet, nor evil to be feared.

And thus it was that here, on earth, Licinius looked once more upon his love.

Fresh victories crowned his arms in Britain—a fresh triumph awaited his return to Rome; but still as of old with Licinius, the glory seemed to count for nothing, the service seemed to be all-in-all. Only, now, the restless, eager look had left his face. He was always calm and unmoved, even in the uncertainty of conflict or the triumph of success. Still kindly in his actions, his outward demeanour was very stern and cold. He kept aloof from the intrigues, as from the pleasures, of the Court; but was ever ready to serve Rome with his sword, and on many occasions by his coolness and conduct redeemed the errors and incapacity of his colleagues or predecessors. Fortune smiled upon the man who was insensible to her frowns. Honours poured in on the soldier who seemed so careless of their attainment; and Caius Lucius Licinius was perhaps the object of more respect and less envy than any other person of his rank in Rome.

It fell out that shortly before the death of Nero, the general, in traversing the slave-market on the way from the Forum, felt his sleeve plucked by a notorious dealer in human wares, named Gargilianus, who begged him earnestly to come and examine a fresh importation of captives lately arrived from Britain. To mention their country was at once to excite the interest of Licinius, who readily acceded to the request, and spoke a few kind words in their native language to the unhappy barbarians as he passed through their ranks. His attention was, however, especially arrested by the appearance of one of the conquered, a fine young man of great strength and stature, who seemed to feel painfully the indignity of his position, placed as he was on a huge stone block, whereon his own towering height rendered him a conspicuous object in the throng. He had been severely wounded, too, in several places, as was apparent from the scars scarce yet healed over. Indeed, had it not been so, he would never probably have been here. There was something in his face, and the expression of his large blue eyes, that roused a painful thrill in the Roman general's breast. He felt a strange and undefinable attraction towards the captive, for which he could not account, and, pausing in his walk, scanned him with a wistful searching gaze, which was not lost on the practised perceptions of the dealer.

"He should have been shown in private," whispered Gargilianus, with an important and mysterious air. "Indeed, my man was just taking him away, when I saw you coming, my honoured patron, and I called to him to stop. Ay! you may examine him all over—tall, young, and healthy. Sound, wind and limb, and stronger than any gladiator in the amphitheatre. They are men of iron, these barbarians, that's the truth, and he has only just come over. There! look for yourself, noble general; you will see the chalk-marks3 on his feet"

"But he is badly wounded," observed Licinius, beginning to scan him, as the other instinctively felt, with the eye of a purchaser.

"That is nothing!" exclaimed Gargilianus. "Mere scratches, skin deep, and healed over now. You will not be able to run your nail against them in a week. Eyesores, I grant you, to-day, otherwise I would ask two thousand sesterces at least for him. These islanders are cheap at any price."

"I will give you a thousand," said Licinius quietly.

"Impossible!" burst out the dealer, with a quiver of his fingers, that expressed a most emphatic negative. "I should lose money by him, generous patron! What! A man must live. Caesar would give more for him to die in the circus. Look at his muscles! He would stand up for a good five minutes against the tiger!"

This last consideration was probably not without its influence. After a little more haggling, the British captive became the property of Licinius at the cost of fifteen hundred sesterces; and Esca found the most indulgent and the kindest-hearted master in Rome.

We must return to that master, pacing thoughtfully up and down the colonnade, in the cool and pleasant evening air.

It is, perhaps, one of the most consoling and merciful dispensations of Providence that the human mind is so constituted as to dwell on past pleasures, rather than past pain. The sorrow that is done with, returns indeed at intervals vividly and bitterly enough; but every fresh recurrence is less cruel than the last, and we can look back to our sufferings at length with a calm and chastened humility which is the first step towards resignation and eventual peace. But the memory of a great happiness seems so interwoven with the imperishable part of our being, that it loses none of its reality by the lapse of time, none of its brightness from the effect of distance. Anger, sorrow, hatred, contentions, fleet away like a dream; but the smile that gladdened us long ago, has passed into the very sunlight of noonday; the whisper that softened our sternest moods, steals with the breeze of evening to our heart, gently and tenderly as of yore, and we know, we feel, that while crime, and misery, and remorse, are the temporary afflictions of humanity, pardon, and hope, and love are its inheritance for evermore.

Licinius, pacing his long shadowy colonnade, dwells not on the anxieties, and the separation, and the sorrows of years; on the loss of his dearest treasure and its possession by another; not even on the calm dead face bound with its linen band. No; he is back in Britain once more with his living love, in the green glade where the bending ferns are whispering under the old oak-tree.

A step in the hall rouses him from his meditations, and a kind grave smile steals over the general's face at the approach of his favourite slave.

The Roman patrician looks what he is—a war-worn veteran, bronzed and hardened by the influence of many campaigns in many climates. He is not yet past the prime of his bodily vigour, and there is a severe beauty about his noble features, and beard and hair already touched with grey, that possesses considerable attraction still. Valeria, no mean judge, asserts that he is, and always will be, a handsome man, but that he does not know it. She respects him much, likes him a good deal, and he is the only person on earth for whose good opinion she has the slightest value. In truth, though she would not confess it even to herself, she is a little afraid of her good-hearted, brave, and thoughtful kinsman.

A man who has reached mature age without forming family ties is always to a certain extent in a false position. No amount of public interest will stop up the little chinks and corners, so to speak, which are intended by Nature to contain the petty cares and pleasures and vexations of domestic life. Without the constant association—the daily friction—of wife and children, a cynical disposition becomes selfish and morose; a kind one, melancholy and forlorn. Licinius feels a blank in his existence, which nothing he has yet found serves to fill; and he often wonders in himself why the barbarian slave should be almost the only creature in Rome for whom he entertains a feeling of interest and regard.

As he takes his place on the couch by the supper-table, Esca gives him to drink; and the patrician cannot help thinking the while, how he would like to have such a son, tall and handsome, with so warlike an air; a son whom he could instruct in all the intricacies of his glorious profession, whose mind he could educate, whose genius he could foster, and whose happiness he could watch over and ensure. They converse freely enough during the general's temperate meal—an egg, a morsel of kid, a few grapes, and a flask of common Sabine wine. Esca tells his master the encounter of the previous evening, and the friendship he had made in consequence, after nightfall. Licinius laughs at his account of the skirmish, and the eunuch's discomfiture.

"Nevertheless," says he. "I trust he did not recognise you. It can have been none other than Spado, whom you treated so unceremoniously; and Spado is just now a prime favourite with Caesar. I might find it difficult to protect you if he knew where to find you, for charms and philtres are deadlier weapons in such hands as his, than sword and spear in yours and mine. Did he take note of your person, think you, Esca, ere he went down?"

"I can hardly believe it," answered Esca. "The evening was dark, and the confusion great. Moreover, I fled with the poor girl they had surrounded, the very instant I could snatch her out of the throng."

"And you saw these Jews in their home, you say?" pursued Licinius gravely. "I have heard much of that people, and, indeed, served against them in Syria. Are they not morose, cruel, bloodthirsty? Slayers of men, devourers of children? Have they not fearful orgies in which they feast upon human flesh? And one day in the week that they devote to solitude and silence, and schemes of hatred against all mankind? Are you sure that your entertainers belonged to this detestable nation?"

"Christians and Jews," replied Esca, who had caught the sound of the former title in the course of his conversation with Calchas.

"Are they not the same?" returned Licinius, and to this question the barbarian was unable to furnish a reply.