CHAPTER XX.
TREACHERY.
The young Greek had had a narrow escape with his life. Two wounds--oneon the head, producing a severe concussion of the brain; the other onthe thigh, causing an almost fatal loss of blood--had well-nigh finishedhis career. For nearly forty-eight hours he remained in a state ofcomplete unconsciousness; then the brain slowly began to resume itsfunctions. But the weakness of extreme exhaustion still continued. Helay for days dimly conscious of his existence, but content to accept hissurroundings, to swallow the food and drink which were offered him, andto sleep without asking any questions.
Then a certain curiosity began to awake in him. The place in which hefound himself was unfamiliar, and he lazily wondered where he was. Thevoices about him were strange--his sight was still too weak todistinguish faces--and the speech which they used was strange. His firstattempt to move was followed by a feeling of absolute helplessness; hisfirst effort at speech produced a sound so far-away that he hardlyrecognized his own voice.
It was on the morning of the seventh day, after an unusually long andrefreshing sleep, that he felt equal to the task of realizing where hewas. The physician, who luckily happened to be paying him his morningvisit, at once recognized the improvement in his patient.
"Hush!" he said, when the young man attempted to speak. "Be quiet tillyou have had some food. You are better, I see, but you want somerefreshment. Then you may ask questions, and listen to what is told you,but only for as long as I allow."
He clapped his hands, and an attendant entered the room, carrying a cupof broth which had been fortified with a cordial. Cleanor, who was stillso helpless that he had to be fed like an infant, swallowed it with anexcellent appetite, and was sorry when the last spoonful had beenadministered.
"Good!" said the man of science; "we have positively brought a littlered into your cheeks. You shall have another allowance when that has runitself out three times;" and he turned, as he spoke, a water-clock whichstood on a table by the bedside. "Meanwhile, you can receive a friendwho has been waiting for some days to renew his acquaintance with you."
He nodded to the attendant, and the man pushed aside the curtain whichhung over the entrance to the tent. The next moment the expected visitorappeared. Cleanor recognized in him the young officer, kinsman toScipio, whose life he had saved in the attack on the Megara.
"The gods be thanked," said the young Roman, "that I see you yourselfagain!"
"That I am myself I must believe," replied Cleanor, "but of everythingelse I feel doubtful. Tell me what has happened."
Scipio looked to the physician with a tacit inquiry whether the subjectwas permitted.
"Speak on; it will worry him more, now that he has begun to think, to beleft in ignorance."
"To begin, then," said Scipio, "when did you see me last?"
"Now I come to think of it, a dim remembrance of your face is about thelast thing I can recall. But between that and the present there is agulf of forgetfulness."
"And no wonder; if you hadn't had a head of adamant that same gulf wouldhave swallowed you up for good. Well, do you remember anything about abattle?"
"Yes, yes; the things begin to come back to me; you were on a bay horse.I remember thinking what a skeleton it was."
"No wonder; these African pastures are terribly bare."
"And now I remember that I thought of something else. It was thoseverses in Homer, the verses that Diomed says to Glaucus when they meeton the battle-field, and find that they are old family friends."[40]
The young Roman laughed aloud. "Now, this is curious," he cried. "We arebound to be friends, if thinking the same things be a mark offriendship. I remember that the very same thought about Glaucus andDiomed occurred to me. You have not forgotten everything, it is clear."
"Come, my dear sir," interposed the physician, "you must not let himtalk so much. Tell him your story, and then leave him to get a littlerest."
"Well," said Scipio, "what I have to say is very soon told. You willremember the discharge from the walls of the fort that checked ouradvance. It was admirably calculated; but, of course, when the fightingwas so close as it was at the time, and the front ranks of the twoarmies were actually mixed together, it could not damage us withoutdoing some harm to you. I saw two or three of your men struck down,manifestly, from the way in which they fell, by some missile from thewalls. One of them I noticed particularly, because he was close to you.There could be no mistake, for there was a clear space round you. Ourmen had fallen back, and yours were making the best of their way to thegates. You two were rather behind the rest. I saw you stoop as if tolift your companion from the ground. You were looking towards us, for Iparticularly remember that I saw your face. You raised the man from theground, but then your foot seemed to slip, and you fell forwards. Thenyou raised the man again. Several of us were watching you, and I haveheard from them since that their recollections agree exactly with mine.And of this, too, I am quite certain, there was not a hand raisedagainst you from our side of the field of battle. Well, we all saw yourise again with the man in your arms. You got him over your shoulder,for that, of course, was the easiest way of carrying him, but you stillhad your face looking our way. And before you turned you were struckby--"
"I SAW YOU STOOP AND LIFT YOUR COMPANION FROM THEGROUND."]
"Before I turned?" interrupted the sick man, who had been listening withrapt attention to the narrative. "Before I turned, you say; you are surethat I was struck by my friends behind me?"
"As sure," replied Scipio, "as that I am sitting here and speaking toyou at this moment."
"Go on, then."
"Before you turned you were struck from behind. The first blow was onthe back of your leg. I saw you put your hand to the place. And you hadhardly done that when you were felled to the ground by a second blow.That was on your head. We guessed as much from the way you fell; andwhen we came to examine you afterwards, we found it to be as I havesaid. Your good physician here will tell you the particulars."
"Yes," said the leech, "I will at the proper time. But for the presentmy patient has heard enough. Indeed, unless I am very much mistaken, hehas heard too much."
"Whether it is enough or too much," said Cleanor, "I must hear it all.It would be ten times worse to be left in this suspense. I can onlyjudge from what you say that I must have been struck from behind, thatis by my own friends. But that treachery I can't believe. What do yousay, sir," he went on, looking to the physician; "can you throw anylight on the matter?"
"Be calm, be calm, my friend," said the physician. "You will undo allthe good that we have been doing you for the last ten days. Here, let mefeel your pulse.... It is just as I thought," he went on, "a regularbounding pulse. I would have given anything for you to have had such apulse when I first took you in hand. But now it means fever, and fevermeans I don't know what."
"Still, I must have the whole story now," persisted Cleanor. "Do youthink I can sleep with this doubt regarding my friends hanging overme?"
"Well, a wilful man will have his way, but, mind, I wash my hands of thewhole business. I am not responsible for what may happen. And itpromised to be such a beautiful cure, too!"
"For heaven's sake go on! Tell me how I came to be wounded?" cried thepatient, with an emphasis of which no one would have thought him capablehalf an hour before.
"Well," replied the physician, "I will tell you what I know, but it isunder protest. You see this"--he produced from his pocket a leadenbullet of the kind commonly used in slings--"I extracted this from thewound on your hip. A nasty wound it was, and had caused a terrible lossof blood. You see that mark? It is not a Roman mark, certainly. Do yourecognize it? Unless I am very much mistaken, it is the Carthaginianletter that answers to what we Greeks call _alpha_. What do you say?"
"You are right," said Cleanor. "I have myself given them out to theslingers from the stores. Yes, it is a Carthaginian bullet."
"Then there is another thing," the physician went on. "When they werestripping you to pu
t you into bed, this stone that I hold in my handfell out of a fold in your clothes. There were some fragments of hairupon it, and I recognized the hair as yours. See, they are here still;"and he produced a small piece of papyrus in which they were wrapped."Now, where did that bit of stone come from? It has got, if you lookclosely at it, a little mortar on one side. At some time it has beenbuilt into a wall. You don't find such things lying about on the openplain. No; that bit of stone came from somewhere inside Nepheris. I havegot some ten or twelve other pieces of stone very like it, that werepicked up near the place by a boy whom I sent to search the next day.They are much of a size, and, I should say, though I don't profess toknow much about such things, that they came from a catapult. Nothingelse could have sent them so far. Now I have told you all I know."
"Many thanks, sir!" said the Greek in a low voice. "I am convinced thatthere has been treachery; indeed you leave no room for doubt. But Icould almost wish," he added with a melancholy smile, "I could almostwish that you had been less skilful, and my friends here lessaffectionate. I hardly feel as grateful to you as I ought to be. It is agrievous thing for a man to feel that he has been wounded in the houseof his friends."
"Come, come," said the kindly physician, "it may have been only anaccident or a mistake after all! However, you have had excitementenough, and more than enough, for the day. Take this, and it will sendyou to sleep;" and producing a small phial of poppy-juice from hiswallet he poured a potent dose into a cup of wine, and gave it to hispatient.
"Thanks, doctor!" murmured Cleanor, but added in a whisper, "Yes, sleep,but if only there could be no waking!"
FOOTNOTE:
40: "E'en in the turmoil of battle each other's spears will we shun: I shall find many a Trojan, and allies many an one To slay, whom my feet shall o'ertake, or a god deliver to me; And for thee be Achaians enow, to smite as thy strength shall be."
Lords of the World: A story of the fall of Carthage and Corinth Page 22
