CHAPTER XXV
"Watchman, what of the night?"--ISAIAH XXI. 11.
And far away beyond the noise and tumult which ranged around the foot ofthe Palatine, the honey-coloured moon illumined with her weird andghostly light the vast arena of the gigantic Amphitheatre, where acompany of the town guard, under the command of an aedile, were busycollecting the dead.
A narrow streak of those same ghostly rays found its way through thefolds of the curtains which spanned the window of Dea Flavia's room. Itpeeped in boldly, stirring up myriads of impalpable atoms and whippingthem into a living line of silver. It wandered further, and finding agolden head that tossed restlessly upon a silk-covered pillow, italighted on it, making the white face appear ghostlier still, and thewide eyes to shine like stars.
A timid step shuffled across the floor.
"Blanca, is it thou?" whispered Dea Flavia, as quickly she raisedherself up, squatting now upon the bed, with one hand pressed againstthe pillow and the other to her breast.
"Aye, mistress, it is I!" came in whispered response.
"Well? Have they returned?"
"Aye! gracious lady. Half an hour ago."
"Did they find him?"
"Yes."
"Is he...?"
There was a pause, whilst from afar came that strange low sound ofthousands of men murmuring, which is so akin to the booming of the wavesupon a rocky shore.
"The praefect of Rome was in a swoon when they found him in the imperialtribune," said the young slave-girl, still speaking under her breath."Nolus and Dion carried him to the litter, and once or twice he groanedwhilst they carried him."
A gentle breeze wafted the curtains into the room; the rays of thewaning moon fell full upon the huddled figure on the bed, with thestream of gold falling each side of the set, pale face, and the largeblue eyes now strangely veiled with tears.
"Where is ... where is the praefect now?" asked Dea Flavia.
"In the room out of thy studio, gracious mistress, as thou didst direct.Dion did prepare a couch for him there, and hath laid him down."
"And the physician?"
"The physician hath seen him. He saith that the praefect is weak withloss of blood. His shoulders, arms and legs have been torn by thepanther's claws, but these wounds are not deep."
"And ... and the dagger thrust?"
"The physician saith that the dagger must have glanced off the bone. Idid not quite understand what he said, and Dion explained it badly."
"He did not say that there was poison in the dagger?"
"I think not, gracious lady; for the physician said that the praefectwould soon be well if he were carefully tended. He is very weak withloss of blood."
"Did Nolus and Dion find it difficult to approach the praefect's body?"
"They had to parley with the aedile who was in command, and to give himall the money which my gracious mistress did entrust to them for thatpurpose."
"After which the aedile made no demur ... and asked no questions?"
"The aedile took the money, gracious lady, and Dion said that he askedno further questions, but allowed the praefect to be borne away."
"That is well," said Dea Flavia, after a brief moment of silence, whilstthe girl stood awaiting her further pleasure. "Thou, Blanca, hath servedme faithfully, so have Nolus and Dion, my slaves. Ye have earned yourreward, and though I am grieved to part from good servants like you, yetwill I fulfil my promise, even as I have given it to you. From thishour, thou, Blanca, art a freewoman, and Nolus thy brother, and Dion,thy future husband, are freemen, and the sum of six hundred aurei shallbe given unto you to-morrow--two hundred unto each--and may you livelong and prosper and be happy, for you have served me well."
Blanca fell upon her knees and kissed the coverlet on which reposed hermistress; but Dea Flavia did not seem to see her. She was squatting onher heels, with body and head erect, and slowly now, like the rosy kissof dawn upon the snow-clad hills of Etruria, a faint crimson glow spreadover her pale cheeks.
Blanca waited irresolute, not liking to leave her mistress before shecould be assured that sleep had descended at last on those weary lids.The hour was very late, close upon midnight, and yet the city was notasleep. That constant murmur--like unto the breaking of angrywaves--still sent its sinister echo through the still night air, andeven in the house of Dea Flavia it seemed that hundreds of eyes werestill open, fear having chased sleep away. There was a sound--like thebuzzing of bees--that came from the slaves' quarters beyond theperistyle, and from the studio, which lay the other side of the atrium,came the sound of muffled footsteps gliding over the mosaic of thefloor.
"Go to bed now, child," said Dea Flavia at last, "thou hast earned thyrest ... and ... stay! Tell Dion and Nolus to remain in the studio, andthere to spend the night. They must be ready to go to the praefect if hecalls.... Go!"
Then as the girl made ready to obey, the Augusta put out her hand todetain her.
"Wait! Hast seen Licinia?"
"No, gracious lady."
"She is not hovering somewhere near my room?... or in the atrium?"
"No, gracious lady."
"And the night-watchers?"
"They are in the vestibule, gracious lady."
"And all my women?"
"They are all in bed and asleep."
"That is well. Thou canst go."
Blanca's naked little feet made no sound as she crossed the room, andwent out by the door which led to the sleeping-chamber of the Augusta'swomen.
Dea Flavia waited for a while, straining her ears to catch every soundwhich came from this portion of her palace.
Her sleeping-chamber, together with all those on this floor gavedirectly on the atrium, which formed a large irregular square in thecentre of this portion of the house. The north side of it was taken upwith the Augusta's apartments and those of her women, the south sidewith the reception rooms and with the studio and its attendantvestibules, whilst the main vestibule of the house and the firstperistyle gave on either end.
From the main vestibule came the subdued hum of voices, and throughoutthe house there was that feeling of wakefulness so different to theusual placid hush of night.
Dea Flavia held her breath whilst she listened attentively. In thevestibule it was the night watchmen who were talking, discussing, nodoubt, the many events of the day: and that sound--like the buzzing ofbees--showed that the women were awake and gossiping, and that up in theslaves' quarters tongues were still wagging, despite Blanca's assuranceand the overseer's sharp discipline. But on the other side of theatrium, where were the reception halls and the studio, everything wasstill.
The young girl threw herself back upon her bed. Sleep refused to visither this night; the thin streak of silvery moon, which persistentlypeeped in through the curtain, flicked the tiny atoms in the air untilthey assumed quaint, minute shapes of their own, like unto crawlingpanthers and grotesque creatures crowned with a golden halo, andbrandishing a mock thunderbolt in one hand and a dagger in the other.Then suddenly all these shapes would vanish, smothered beneath a cloak,and Dea Flavia, still wide awake, would feel drops of moisture at theroots of her hair, and her whole body, as if sinking into a black abyss,where monsters yelled and wild beasts roared and huge, black, snake-likecreatures tore the flesh off human bones.
The hours of the night sped on, borne on the weighted feet of anguishand of horror. Gradually, one by one, the sounds in and about the housedied away; the slaves in their quarters must have turned over on theirrough pallets and gone to sleep, the women close by had done gossiping,only from the vestibule came the slow measured tread of the watchmenguarding the Augusta's house, and from far away that ceaseless, rumblingnoise which meant that discontent was awake and astir.
Once more Dea Flavia sat up, unable to lie still. Her golden hair wasmatted against her temples and in her breast her heart was beatingfuriously. The waning moon had long since now sunk behind the westernclouds, a gentle breeze stirred the curtains with a soft, sighing noiseas of some human cr
eature in pain. In the far corner of the room, in atiny lamp of gold, a tiny wick threw a feeble light around.
Dea Flavia put her feet to the ground. The heat in the room wasoppressive; no doubt it was that which had caused her restlessness, andthe dampness of her brow. She shuddered now when her bare feet touchedthe smooth coldness of the mosaic floor, but she stood up resolutely,and anon crossed over to the door which gave on the atrium.
For a few seconds she listened. Everything was still. Then very gentlyshe pushed open the door.
On the marble table, in the centre of the atrium, another lightglimmered in a jewelled lamp; but the atrium was vast and the diminutivelight did not reach its far corners. The gentle trickle of water alongthe gutters in the floor made queer, ghost-like sounds, and in the greatpots of lilies all round currents of air sent weird moanings in thenight.
Dea Flavia, like an ethereal figure clad all in white, and with waves ofgolden hair shimmering over the whiteness of her gown, glided softlyacross the atrium.
A tiny vestibule led into the studio, she crossed it, guided by herknowledge of the place, for the light in the atrium did not penetrate tothis recess. Her bare feet made no noise as she glided along the floor,her hand pushed the door open without raising a sound.
Now she was in the studio. The place in which she did the work that sheloved, the place in which day after day she loved to sit and to idleaway the hours. In an angle of the room, stretched out upon the barefloor, Dion and Nolus were lying, their even breathing showing that theyslept. On the right was another door, which led to an inner chamber,where she oft used to retire for rest from her work. It was a privatesanctum which none dared enter save with special permission fromherself. Blanca kept it swept and free from dust, and Licinia tidied itonly when she was so allowed.
Dea Flavia went across the studio and pushed open the door. It wasmasked by a curtain, and this too she pulled aside, slowly and nervouslylike some small animal that is timid and yet venturesome. She knew everycorner of the place of course, and the very creaking of the hinges andgentle swish of the curtain was a familiar sound to her ear.
Nevertheless she was almost frightened to advance, for the big darkshadow right across the stuccoed wall awed her by its mysteriousblackness. It was caused by a large object in the centre of the room, acouch covered with coverlets of soft, white woollen stuffs, on which thenight-light burning fitfully threw patches of ruddy lights.
Dea Flavia had paused on the threshold, with one hand behind her stillclinging to the curtain, the other pressed hard on her bosom, trying tostill the wild beatings which went on hammering inside her just belowher breasts. She thought that she either must be dreaming now, or beingawake, must have been dreaming before.
Once or twice she closed and then reopened her eyes, thinking thatperhaps the flickering night-light was playing her drowsy senses someelusive trick. For surely Blanca had told her that Dion and Nolus hadlaid the praefect of Rome on an improvised couch in the chamber besidethe studio, and that the praefect was helpless and weak with pain andloss of blood.
The improvised couch was certainly in its place, the light of the lampdanced upon pillow and coverlet, but no one was lying there, even thoughthe pillow still bore the impress of the head which had rested on it.
The silence was oppressive, for through the thick walls and heavycurtains of the Augusta's favourite room there penetrated no sound fromwithout, and she herself stood so still, so still by the door, that shewas sure the beatings of her heart must be heard through that awfulstillness.
Suddenly she started, and her fingers closed more convulsively thanbefore on the curtain behind her. Imperceptible as the sound of aswallow on the wing, there came a long-drawn sigh to her ear. Her browcontracted, her eyes narrowed in a great effort to peer past the lightinto the darkness.
On the further side of the couch now and masked by its shadow, she sawsomething that was immovable and yet seemed pulsating with life.Gradually as she peered, that something detached itself from thesurrounding gloom. She saw a bowed head with wealth of tawny hair whichgleamed like copper against the white coverlet, two hands white as thepillow beside which they rested, whiter still by contrast with thecopper of the hair against them; she saw a pair of broad shoulders, anda powerful body and limbs that lost themselves in the darkness beyondthe couch.
The face was hidden and the body was quite still. It would have seemedlike that of the dead but for that long sigh, which, intangible thoughit was, had broken the silence of the night.
Dea Flavia could not now have moved, even if she would. Her small barefeet seemed glued to the cold mosaic of the floor, her hand seemedfastened with clamps of steel to the curtain which it clutched.
She had never seen a man thus kneeling alone in the stillness and in thegloom. Why should a man kneel thus? and to whom?
Yet she would not have disturbed him, not for all the world. She neverdreamed that he would be awake; she had thought of him lying--as Blancasaid--exhausted from loss of blood.
She had only meant to look on him for a moment, to look into his face ashe slept, to try and read in its wonted harsh lines the secrets of hissoul.
He had rushed to the Caesar trying to protect him, when thousands onthousands of throats were acclaiming his name as future lord of Rome.Why?
He had rushed into the arena and risked his life to save a man who twodays ago had insulted him, who--at best--was nothing to him. Why?
These questions she had meant to ask him when he was sleeping: now shecould not ask them from that bowed head, nor yet from those claspedhands. And yet, somehow, it seemed that something of the man's soul wasrevealed to her at this moment, though she could not as yet fathom themeaning of this strange answer to her questions.
Her eyes had become quite accustomed to the darkness beyond the light.She could see clearly the powerful figure on bended knees, the wideshoulders with the bandages disposed over them by the physician for thehealing of those horrible wounds, and the fingers linked together in amanner which she had never seen before. And now the hands stirred everso slightly, the light caught the fingers more directly, and Dea Flaviasaw that--clasped between them--there was a small wooden cross.
And she knew now--all in a moment--that the answer to her questions laythere before her, not in the man's face, for that she could not see, butin his clasped hands and in the cross which they held. She knew that itwas because of it--or rather because of that which had gone before, andof which that little cross was the tangible memory--that he had beenready to give his life for an enemy, and to give up all ambition and allpride for the sake of his allegiance to Caesar!
A sigh must have escaped her lips, or merely just the indrawing of herbreath; certain it is that something caused the kneeling man to stir. Heraised his head very slowly, and then looked up straight across thelight--to her.
For one second he remained quite still, on his knees and with that whitevision before him, ghost-like and silent, against the crimson backgroundof the curtain. Then softly, as a sigh, one word escaped his lips:
"Dea!"
He rose to his feet but already she had fled, noiselessly as she hadcome, but swiftly across the studio and the atrium and back to her room,but even while she fled it seemed to her that on the silent night airthere still trembled the sound of a voice, vibrating with longing andwith passion, mournful as a sigh, appealing as the call of a bird to itsmate:
"Dea!"
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