A Struggle For Rome Volume Iii Part 25

CHAPTER XII.

Meanwhile the Prefect had left the river and gone in the direction of the Capitol.

He pa.s.sed the Porta Trigemina and arrived at the Forum Boarium.

Before the Temple of Ja.n.u.s he met with a crowd of people by which he was detained for a short time.

In spite of his wound he had made such haste that Lucius and Syphax could scarcely follow. They had repeatedly lost sight of him. Only now did they overtake him.

He now tried to go through the Porta Carmentalis, and thus gain the back of the Capitol.

But he found the gate already occupied by numerous Goths. Amongst them was Wachis. He recognised the Prefect from a distance.

"Revenge for Rauthgundis!" he cried.

A heavy stone struck the Prefect's helmless head. He turned and fled.

He now remembered that there was a sinking of the wall not far from the gate. He determined to climb it at that place.

As he neared it, the flames from the Capitol again shot high into the air.

Three men sprang over the wall just in front of him. They were Isaurians. They recognised him.

"Fly, general! The Capitol is lost! Teja, the black Gothic devil!"

"Did he--did Teja kindle the fire?"

"No; we ourselves set a wooden bulwark, which the barbarians had taken, on fire. The Goths do all they can to extinguish the flames."

"The barbarians save the Capitol!" said Cethegus bitterly, and supported himself upon a spear which was handed to him by one of the mercenaries.

"I must get to my house."

And he turned to the right, the shortest way to the princ.i.p.al entrance to his house.

"O master, that way is dangerous!" cried one of the Isaurians. "The Goths will soon be there. I heard the Black Earl ask repeatedly after you. He was seeking you everywhere upon the Capitol. He will now seek you in your house."

"I _must_ once more go to my house!"

But he had scarcely gone a few steps, when a troop of Goths and Romans, carrying torches and firebrands, came towards him from the city.

The foremost, who were Romans, recognised him.

"The Prefect!"

"The destroyer of Rome!"

"He has set the Capitol on fire! Down with him!"

Arrows, stones, and spears were hurled at Cethegus. One of his Isaurians fell; the others took to their heels.

Cethegus was. .h.i.t by an arrow; it penetrated slightly into his left shoulder. He tore it out.

"A Roman arrow, with my own stamp!" he cried with a terrible laugh.

With difficulty he gained a dark side-street.

Before his House there was a crowd of soldiers, trying in vain to break open the princ.i.p.al door.

Cethegus heard the uproar, and well understood the cries of rage with which the soldiers accompanied their ineffectual exertions.

"The door is strong," he said to himself. "Before they force an entrance, I shall be again out of the house."

He hurried to the back of the house. He pressed a secret spring which opened the door of the court, entered, and, leaving the door open behind him, hurried in.

Hark! a stroke--very different from all which had gone before--thundered against the front door of the house.

"That is a battle-axe!" thought Cethegus. "That is Teja?"

He hastened to a small gap in the wall, which afforded an outlook into the main street. It was Teja. His long black locks waved about his bare head; in his left hand he carried a firebrand; in his right the dreaded battle-axe. He was covered with blood.

"Cethegus!" he shouted at every stroke of his axe. "Cornelius Cethegus Caesarius, where art thou? I sought thee in the Capitol, Prefect of Rome! Where art thou? Must I seek thee upon thy hearth?"

Cethegus, listening, heard hasty steps behind him.

Syphax had reached the court, and had followed his master through the open door. He now caught sight of him.

"O master, fly! I will protect thy threshold with my body."

And he hastened past Cethegus, through a suite of apartments to the front door.

Cethegus turned to the right. He could hardly keep himself upright. He managed to reach the "Hall of Jupiter." Here he sank to the ground. But the next moment he again sprang to his feet, for a fearful noise was heard from the front door.

At last it was broken in.

With a thundering crash it fell inwards, and Teja entered the dwelling of his enemy.

Upon the threshold, with a leap like that of a panther, the Moor sprang upon him, grasping his throat and raising a dagger in his hand.

But the Goth let fall his axe, seized him in his right hand, and, like a stone from a sling, the Moor flew sideways through the door and rolled down the steps into the street.

"Where art thou, Cethegus?" again sounded the voice of Teja, coming nearer and nearer, from the vestibule and the atrium.

Some doors, which had been bolted by the secretary, Fidus, were forced one after the other by Teja's axe.

With difficulty Cethegus dragged himself to the middle of the Hall of Jupiter. He still hoped to be able to reach the study and take the writings and treasure out of the statue of Caesar.