Читать книгу Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213 - S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould - Страница 5

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When the lot had fallen, then a cry rang from among the spectators, and a woman, wearing the white cloak of widowhood, would have fallen, had she not been caught and sustained by a man in a brown tunic and lacerna (short cloak).

“Be not overcome, lady,” said this man in a low tone. “What thou losest is lent to the Lord.”

“Baudillas,” sobbed the woman, “she is my only child, and is to be sacrificed to devils.”

“The devil hath no part in her. She is the Lord’s, and the Lord will preserve His own.”

“Will He give her back to me? Will He deliver her from the hands of His enemies?”

“The Lord is mighty even to do this. But I say not that it will be done as thou desirest. Put thy trust in Him. Did Abraham withhold his son, his only son, when God demanded him?”

“But this is not God, it is Nemausus.”

“Nemausus is naught but a creature, a fountain, fed by God’s rains. It is the Lord’s doing that the [pg 15]lot has fallen thus. It is done to try thy faith, as of old the faith of Abraham was tried.”

The poor mother clasped her arms, and buried her head in them.

Then the girl thrust aside such as interposed and essayed to reach her mother. The priestesses laid hands on her, to stay her, but she said:

“Suffer me to kiss my mother, and to comfort her. Do not doubt that I will preserve a smiling countenance.”

“I cannot permit it,” said the high priestess. “There will be resistance and tears.”

“And therefore,” said the girl, “you put drops of oil or water into the ears of oxen brought to the altars, that they may nod their heads, and so seem to express consent. Let me console my mother, so shall I be able to go gladly to death. Otherwise I may weep, and thereby mar thy sacrifice.”

Then, with firmness, she thrust through the belt of priestesses, and clasped the almost fainting and despairing mother to her heart.

“Be of good courage,” she said. “Be like unto Felicitas, who sent her sons, one by one, to receive the crown, and who—blessed mother that she was—[pg 16]encouraged them in their torments to play the man for Christ.”

“But thou art my only child.”

“And she offered them all to God.”

“I am a widow, and alone.”

“And such was she.”

Then said the brown-habited man whom the lady had called Baudillas:

“Quincta, remember that she is taken from an evil world, in which are snares, and that God may have chosen to deliver her by this means from some great peril to her soul, against which thou wouldst have been powerless to protect her.”

“I cannot bear it,” gasped the heart-broken woman. “I have lived only for her. She is my all.”

Then Perpetua gently unclasped the arms of her mother, who was lapsing into unconsciousness, kissed her, and said:

“The God of all strength and comfort be to thee a strong tower of defence.” And hastily returned to the basin.

The young man who before had noticed Perpetua, turned with quivering lip to his companion, and said:

[pg 17]

“I would forswear Nemausus—that he should exact such a price. Look at her face, Callipodius. Is it the sun that lightens it? By Hercules, I could swear that it streamed with effulgence from within—as though she were one of the gods.”

“The more beautiful and innocent she be, the more grateful is she to the august Archegos!”

“Pshaw!” scoffed the young man; his hand clutched the marble balustrade convulsively, and the blood suffused his brow and cheeks and throat. “I believe naught concerning these deities. My father was a shrewd man, and he ever said that the ignorant people created their own gods out of heroes, or the things of Nature, which they understood not, being beasts.”

“But tell me, Æmilius—and thou art a profundity of wisdom, unsounded as is this spring—what is this Nemausus?”

“The fountain.”

“And how comes the fountain to ever heave with water, and never to fail. Verily it lives. See—it is as a thing that hath life and movement. If not a deity, then what is it?”

“Nay—I cannot say. But it is subject to destiny.”

[pg 18]

“In what way?”

“Ruled to flow.”

“But who imposed the rule?”

“Silence! I can think of naught save the innocent virgin thus sacrificed to besotted ignorance.”

“Thou canst not prevent it. Therefore look on, as at a show.”

“I cannot prevent it. I marvel at the magistrates—that they endure it. They would not do so were it to touch at all those of the upper town. Besides, did not the god Claudius——”

“They are binding her.”

“She refuses to be bound.”

Shrieks now rang from the frantic mother, and she made desperate efforts to reach her daughter. She was deaf to the consolations of Baudillas, and to the remonstrances and entreaties of the people around her, who pitied and yet could not help her. Then said the ædile to his police, “Remove the woman!”

The chief priest made a sign, and at once the trumpeters began to bray through their brazen tubes, making such a noise as to drown the cries of the mother.

“I would to the gods I could save her,” said [pg 19]Æmilius between his teeth. He clenched his hands, and his eyes flashed. Then, without well knowing what he did, he unloosed his toga, at the same time that the priestesses divested Perpetua of her girded stole, and revealed her graceful young form in the tunic bordered with purple indicative of the nobility of the house to which she belonged.

The priest had bound her hands; but Perpetua smiled, and shook off the bonds at her feet. “Let be,” she said, “I shall not resist.”

On her head she still wore a crown of white narcissus. Not more fresh and pure were these flowers than her delicate face, which the blood had left. Ever and anon she turned her eyes in the direction of her mother, but she could no longer see her, as the attendants formed a ring so compact that none could break through.

“Elect of the god, bride of Nemausus!” said the chief priestess, “ascend the balustrade of the holy perennial fountain.”

Without shrinking, the girl obeyed.

She fixed her eyes steadily on the sky, and then made the sacred sign on her brow.

“What doest thou?” asked the priestess. “Some witchcraft I trow.”

[pg 20]

“No witchcraft, indeed,” answered the girl. “I do but invoke the Father of Lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

“Ah, Apollo!—he is not so great a god as our Nemausus.”

Then at a sign, the trumpeters blew a furious bellow and as suddenly ceased. Whereupon to the strains of flutes and the tinkling of triangles, the choir broke forth into the last verse of the hymn:

“Thou, the perennial, loving tender virgins,

Do thou accept the sacrifice we offer;

May thy selection be the best and fittest,

Father Nemausus.”

As they chanted, and a cloud of incense mounted around her, Perpetua looked down into the water. It was green as glacier ice, and so full of bubbles in places as to be there semi-opaque. The depth seemed infinite. No bottom was visible. No fish darted through it. An immense volume boiled up unceasingly from unknown, unfathomed depths. The wavelets lapped the marble breasting as though licking it with greed expecting their victim.

The water, after brimming the basin, flowed away over a sluice under a bridge as a considerable stream. [pg 21]Then it lost its sanctity and was employed for profane uses.

Perpetua heard the song of the ministers of the god, but gave no heed to it, for her lips moved in prayer, and her soul was already unfurling its pure wings to soar into that Presence before which, as she surely expected, she was about to appear.

When the chorus had reached the line:

“May thy selection be the best and fittest,

Father Nemausus!”

then she was thrust by three priestesses from the balustrade and precipitated into the basin. She uttered no cry, but from all present a gasp of breath was audible.

For a moment she disappeared in the vitreous waters, and her white garland alone remained floating on the surface.

Then her dress glimmered, next her arm, as the surging spring threw her up.

Suddenly from the entire concourse rose a cry of astonishment and dismay.

The young man, Æmilius Lentulus Varo, had leaped into the holy basin.

Why had he so leaped? Why?

[pg 22]