At the Mercy of Tiberius Part 51

On the verge of the parapet of the Latomia, where the breath of the sirocco, the gnawing tooth of time, and the slow ravelling of rain had serrated the ledge, stood Leo, gazing into the dizzying depths of the charnel house that swarmed with the ghosts of nine thousand men, who once were huddled within its stony embrace.

As if pitying nature had striven to appease the manes of the unburied dead, a pall of luxuriant ivy and glossy acanthus covered the bottom and sides of the quarry, one hundred feet below; but out of the dust of centuries stared the rayless eyes of corpses, and the gaunt despairing faces seemed still uplifted, now in invocation, anon in imprecation to the overarching sky, where blistering suns mocked them by day, and glittering moons and silver stars paused in their westward march through dewy night, to tell them tantalizing tales of how musically Aegean wavelets broke against the marbles at Piraeus; how loud the nightingales sang in the plane and poplar groves at home; how the white glory of the Parthenon smiled down on violet-crowned Athens, where their wives and children thronged the temples, in sacrificial rites to insure their safety.

In crevices of the perpendicular walls lush creepers tapestried the gray stone, and far down, out of the mould of the subterranean dungeon, sprang slim lemon trees snowed over with fragrant bloom, clumps of oleander waving banners of vivid rose, and golden-green pomegranate bushes, where scarlet flakes glowed like the wings of tropical birds.

"Well, is the game worth the candle? After voyaging thousands of miles, do you feel repaid; or down there, in the heart of the desolation, do you see only the grinning mask of jeering disappointment, which generally follows American realists into the dusty haunts of Old World idealism?"

As she spoke, Alma Cutting stepped back under the cool canopy of a spreading fig-tree, and fanned herself with a tuft of papyrus leaves.

She was a tall, handsome woman, p.r.o.nouncedly brunette in type, with large black eyes whose customary indolent indifference of expression did not entirely veil the fires "banked" under the velvet iris; and a square, firm mouth, around whose full crimson lips lurked a certain haughtiness, that despite the curb of good breeding, bordered at times closely upon insolence. Thirty years had tripped over this dark head, where the hair, innocent of crimp or curl, hung in a straight jet fringe low on her wide forehead; and though no lines marred the smooth, health-tinted skin, she was perceptibly "sun burnt by the glare of life," and the dew of youth had vanished before the vampire lips of ennui.

"Disappointed? Certainly not; and I were exacting and unreasonable indeed, if I did not feel abundantly repaid. Alma, since the days when I pored over Thucydides, Plutarch, Rollin and Grote, this spot has beckoned to my imagination with all the uplifted hands of the nine thousand captives; and the longing of years is to-day completely gratified."

"Am I unusually stupid, or are you rapt, beyond the realm of reason and mid-day common sense? Pray what is the fascination? It is neither so vast, nor so picturesque as the Colosseum. There, one expects to hear the roar of the beasts springing on their human prey; the ring of steel on steel, when the gladiators have bowed like dancing-masters to the bloated old bald-headed Neros and Vespasians; and you fancy that you smell the fountains of perfume that toss their spray from tier to tier; and see the rainbow of the silk awning flapping overhead. Better than all, you imagine you can watch the ravis.h.i.+ng toilettes of the Faustinas, and Fulvias and Messalinas who flirt with the handsome, straight-nosed beaux so immensely cla.s.sical in their togas; and when their thunder-browed husbands unexpectedly step in behind, it is so easy to conjecture the sudden change of theme, as they spread their fans to cover the message just written on their ivory tablets, and straightway fall to clawing the characters of all the Cornelias, and Calpurnias, and Octavias and Julia Domnas, and other respectable wives!

All that I quite enjoyed because I understood. Eight years' campaigning in New York, and London and Paris would teach even an idiot that nineteenth century 'best society' can lift you so close to the naughtiness of the golden Roman era, that one only has to strain a very little on tip-toe, to feel at one's ease with the jeunesse doree of dead ages. Here--what do you find in a huge stone well sunk into the bowels of the earth? About as enticing as a plunge into a dry cistern, suddenly unroofed? If spectres we must hunt, do let them be festive, like those Faust danced with on the Brocken!"

"You should be ashamed, Alma! Miss Gordon is the very soul of courteous toleration, or she would resent the teasing goad of your Philistinism,"

cried the brother, Rivers Cutting, who in his new style yachting suit of blue cloth appeared veritably the jaunty genius of fas.h.i.+onable modernity, confronting the ghost of antiquity.

"You forget, Rivers, some of the sage dicta you brought back from the 'Summer School of Philosophy', when you followed your last Boston flame to Concord, where she went poaching on the sacred preserves of the 'Illuminati,' hunting a new sensation. 'We must be as courteous to human beings as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.' Now being Leo's very sincere friend, and knowing that the supreme moment of her facial triumph is when, like a startled fawn, she opens her eyes wide in horrified amazement at some inconceivable heresy, do you suppose I am so recreant to loyalty as to fail in providing her occasionally with the necessary Gorgon, ethical or archaeolegical, as surroundings warrant?

"History was never the fetich of my girlhood, and that quartette of dry-as-dust worthies whom Leo carries around in leash, as other women carry pugs and poodles, came near giving me meningitis in my tender years. My first governess, a Puritan spinster, full of zeal, and conscientiously bent on earning her wages, by exercising my brains to their utmost capacity, undertook to introduce me to all the highly immoral personages and practices that made the Punic Wars famous. By way of making Imilco a lifelong acquaintance, she ill.u.s.trated the siege of Agrigentum by a huge, hideous image of Phalaris' 'Brazen Bull,'

drawn with chalk on the school-room blackboard.

"A wonderful beast it certainly was; that taurus with head lowered, tail las.h.i.+ng the air, one hoof pawing savagely, worthy representative of all the horrors it typified, and which she explained with maddening perspicuity. That night, when papa tore himself away from the club room at one o'clock, and met mamma on the doorstep--just coming home from a supper at Delmonico's after an opera party--they were ascending the stairs, when frantic cries drove from her ears the echoes of 'Traviata's' witching strain. Thinking only a conflagration would justify the din, papa threw up the hall sash and shouted 'fire!' and the police sounded the alarm, and all pandemonium broke loose.

Investigation discovered me, wriggled half way down to the foot of my bed, buried under the blankets, and shrieking 'Perillus' Bull! I am roasting in the Bra.s.s Bull!' Being not very ardent disciples of Clio, my solicitous parents failed to understand the nightmare; hence cracked ice was folded over my head (mid-winter), and the family physician ordered a mustard plaster half a yard long, down my spine. I vividly remember Imilco, and the bovine fury pawing the blackboard; but of the three Punic Wars, then and there tabooed, I recall only the bra.s.s monster at Agrigentum. Leo, when we reach Girgenti, the remaining Mecca of your historic hopes, some time to-morrow, you will understand why, instead of climbing to the temples of the cliff, I shall lock the door of our cabin, and drown the bellowing of the beast in Daudet's new book."

"I wish, indeed I do, that you had staid there to-day, instead of coming ash.o.r.e to dampen all our ardor and enthusiasm by your constant thin drizzle of scorn. One should suppose that in this idyllic region, some ray of poetic warmth must melt your frigid, scoffing soul. Daudet suits my sister far better than Theocritus," answered her brother, fastening a sprig of orange blossom in his b.u.t.ton hole.

Pus.h.i.+ng back her sailor hat, Alma looked obliquely at him from beneath her drooping lids.

"Try me. Perhaps infection haunts the air. Spare us the Greek, come down from your Yale and Harvard heights to the level of my ignorance, and warble for me in English some of your Sicilian lark's melodies. At least I have heard of Amaryllis and Simaetha."

Mr. Cutting shook his head.

"What--? Ashamed of your bucolic hobby! No wonder--since after all it's only a goat. I dare you, brother mine, to produce me a Theocritan fragment."

"Take the consequences of your rash levity; though I have a dawning suspicion some 'Imp of the Perverse' has coached you for the occasion."

He stroked his mustache, pondered a moment, then struck an att.i.tude, and declaimed:

"I go a serenading to Amaryllis; what time my flocks browse on the mountains, and t.i.tyrus drives them. t.i.tyrus beloved of me in the highest degree, feed my flocks and lead them to the fountain, etc."

Mimicking his tone exactly, Alma finished the line:

"And mind, t.i.tyrus, that tawny Libyan he-goat lest he b.u.t.t thee!' Come, Rivers; free translation is allowable, considering surroundings, but not garbling; and every time you know you subst.i.tuted flocks for goats.

Proceed, and do not insult your pet author with emendations."

With his hat on the back of his head, and his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, Mr. Cutting resumed:

"Sweet Amaryllis! though by death defiled, Thee shall I ne'er forget; dear to my heart As are my frisking goats, thou did'st depart.

To what a lot--was I, unhappy, born!"

Again the mocking voice responded:

"But see! yon calves devour The olive branches. Pelt them off I pray.

"Confound the calves! 'St--! you white-skin thief--away!' Thanks, no more at present. Doubtless it sounds very fine in Greek, because then, I could not possibly understand that it is the melody and the rhythmic dance of bleating calves, and capering goats. Here come the stragglers laden with plunder. Oh, papa! Do give me those exquisite acacia cl.u.s.ters."

"My dear, I have ordered luncheon spread down there, in that strange garden. It is the queerest place imaginable; and looking up, the effect is quite indescribable."

"Have you had the skulls polished for drinking cups, and printed the menus on cross-bones? What shocking taste to add insult to injury by spreading all our wealth of canned dainties on the very stones where sit the ghosts of those who perished from hunger and thirst! Eminently Dantesque, but the sacrilege appalls Leo. She would sooner attend an oyster supper, or a clam-bake in the Catacombs, or--" bowing to a young Englishman standing near, "lead a German in the Poets' corner of Westminster Abbey. My dear girl, under which flag do you fight?

Athenian, Roman, Carthagenian, Syracusan?

"The child of a man who fell in defence of his own fireside, could scarcely fail to sympathize with the holy cause of the invaded; yet here, in view of the horrors inflicted upon the captives, one almost leans to Athens. It seems to me the most enduring monument of Syracusan glory survives in the eloquent protest of Nicolaus against her cruelty; especially when we recollect that it came from one who, of all others, had most to forgive. Old, decrepit, unable to walk, the venerable sorrow-laden man whose only children, two sons, had died fighting to save Syracuse--was carried on a litter into the midst of the shouting thousands, who were drunk with the wine of victory. 'Behold an unhappy father, who has most cause to detest the Athenians, the authors of this war, the murderers of my children! But I am less sensible of my private afflictions than of the honor of my country, when I see it ready to expose itself to eternal infamy by violating the law of nations, and dishonoring our victory by barbarous cruelty. What! Will you tarnish your glory, and have all the world say that a nation who first dedicated a temple in their city, to Clemency, found none in yours?

Triumphs and victories do not give immortal glory to a city; but the use of moderation in the greatest prosperity, the exercise of mercy toward a vanquished enemy, the fear of offending the G.o.ds by a haughty and insolent pride.' What a theme for Dore or Munkacsy?"

"Thank you ever so much, Miss Gordon, for brus.h.i.+ng away the library dust from that historic cameo. I had so utterly forgotten it lay in the musty tomes, that it has all the charm of a curio." Mr. Cutting took off his hat, and bowed.

"Acknowledgments are due rather to my cousin, Dr. Dougla.s.s, who called my attention to the pa.s.sage. The best of all things good abide with him; and out of his overflowing store, he shares with the needy. Only last night he reminded me of an ill.u.s.tration of the vanitas vanitatum of human fame and national grat.i.tude, to be found over yonder in the necropolis. Less than a hundred and forty years after his death, Archimedes was so completely forgotten by the city he had immortalized, that Syracuse denied he was buried on her soil; and a foreigner had the honor of clearing away rubbish and brambles, in order to show the grave to his own countrymen."

Leighton Dougla.s.s handed to his cousin a bunch of the delicate lilac blossoms of acanthus, tied with a wisp of some ribbon-like gra.s.s, and taking off his spectacles, replied:

"Leo unduly exalts my memory at the expense of her own; and we have all levied heavily on her fund of topographical accuracy."

"If I travel much longer with two such learned and philosophical scholars, I shall inevitably degenerate into an intellectual Dodder,"

yawned Alma.

"Into a what?" asked her father.

"A Dodder, sir. Pray, papa, be more considerate than to force Doctor Dougla.s.s to believe that instead of listening to the sermon he preached us last year, you either slept ignominiously throughout its delivery, or else allowed your unregenerate thoughts to dwell on those devices of Lucifer, 'puts,' 'calls, 'spreads,' 'corners, 'spots' and 'futures'. Of course you remember that he believes in evolution? There was a time, even in my extremely recent day, when that word was more frightful to the orthodox than a ton of nitro-glycerine; was to the elect, a fouler abomination even than opera bouffe and the can can. But 'the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns', and now it appears that the immortal soul of us must be evolved, somewhat in the same fas.h.i.+on as protoplasm, and unless we fight for 'survival' elsewhere, we shall not be numbered among the spirited 'fittest', but degenerate into parasites, dodders, backsliders. So, drawing nutriment from the Doctor's historic brains, and from Leo's, I fall back into worse than a dodder, a torpid violator of the Law of Work, a hopeless Sacculina!

Doctor Dougla.s.s, it was the bravest hour of your life when you stood up in--church pulpit, and told us the scientists whom we were wont to regard as more dreadful than the cannibals and Calmucks, are only a devoted sect of truth seekers, preaching from older texts, and drawing nearer and nearer to the kingdom of Heaven. To throw that ethical bomb, required more courage than Balaklava."

"Mine was merely a feeble attempt to follow out the a.n.a.logical reasoning of one of the most original and scientific thinkers of our day in Great Britain; but the fact that you recall so correctly the line of argument in a sermon delivered more than a year ago, is certainly complimentary a.s.surance of at least approximate success in my effort."

"After all, I am sorry I humored Leo's whim, and persuaded papa to bring us here."

"Why, my dear? We are enjoying it immensely," said her father.

"Because Syracuse has proved my 'crumpled rose leaf', by destroying the prestige of the 'Cleopatra'. Hitherto, I deemed our yacht quite the most complete and gorgeous floating palace since the days of its highly improper namesake's marauding sails on the Cydnus."

"And so she is; there is nothing afloat comparable to her in speed, appointments, comfort and beauty," interrupted Mr. Cutting.

"Poor papa! How he bristles at the bare suggestion of rivalry. Be comforted, sir, in the knowledge that at least we shall not be run down by a phantom cruiser. It is very humiliating to American pride--after winning the international prizes, and boasting so inordinately, to find out that we are only about--how many centuries, Leo?--twenty-five centuries behind Syracuse in building pleasure crafts. Think of a superb cabin with staterooms containing beds (not bunks) for one hundred and twenty guests, and the floors all covered with agates and other precious stones, that formed a mosaic copy of the Iliad! If you wished to emphasize a discussion on connubial devotion, behold! there on your right, Andromache and Hector; if one's husband objected to a harmless flirtation, lo! on the left, Agamemnon and Briseis; and to point the moral of 'pretty is, as pretty does'--how very convenient to indicate with the tip of your satin slipper, the demure figure of Helen standing on the walls, to watch the duel between Menelaus and Paris!

Fancy the consolation a person of my indolent Sacculina temperament might have derived from the untimely fate of Ca.s.sandra, oppressed with knowledge in advance of her day and generation! There was the gymnasium for the beaux; and for the belles bona fide gardens, with walks and arbors covered with ivy and flowering vines whose roots rested in great stone vessels filled with earth. Imagine the boudoir and bathrooms paved with precious stones, encrusted with carved ivory and statues--"

"Pooh! Alma. That rigmarole is not in the guide books. Come, Dixon is waving his handkerchief down there, as a signal that luncheon is ready."

"I prefer to wait here. Alma, bring me some anemones, and a sprig of ivy from the circular garden, when you come back," said Leo.