Unto Caesar Part 46

No words escaped his lips; he knelt here silent and alone before the face of Rome that but waited to be conquered--before the face of G.o.d veiled to his gaze, and around him the distant roll of thunder and the confused shouts of the people from below.

Christian! this is thine hour! In silence and in tears thou must make thy last stand against temptation greater mayhap than suffering manhood hath ever had to withstand alone.

Everything in the man cried out to him to yield; his love for Dea and his love for Rome, and that pride of manhood in him that calls for power over other men. Born and bred in luxury-loving paganism, in the wors.h.i.+p of might and the deification of the imperium, the Christian had to choose between the world and the Master. The battle was fierce and cruel. Gone now was the consciousness of strength, the dignity of the patrician! Here was but a lonely wretched human creature fighting the tempter for his own soul.

He cowered on the ground, the while driving rain beat against the tawny ma.s.ses of his hair, and lashed the proud stiff neck that found it so difficult to bend. The tearing wind searched the loosened folds of his mantle and the purple silk of his tunic, the emblem of patrician rank.

His face was buried in his hands, heavy sobs shook his broad shoulders.

The face of Dea Flavia, exquisitely fair, smiled at him through his closed lids, the warm, mellow ma.s.ses of her hair entwined themselves around his tear-stained fingers, her cooing voice called to him with the ineffable sweetness of love.

Christian, it is thine hour! and the battle must be fought out in anguish and in loneliness, with no one nigh thee to comfort and to succour, with no one to see the rending of thy soul or the slow breaking of thy love-filled heart.

"When thou art lonely and wretched," Dea Flavia had cried in the agony of her wounded love, "call on thy G.o.d then and thou wilt find him silent unto thy prayer and deaf unto thy woe."

And the cry was wrung out from the depths of the tortured heart: "Oh, G.o.d, my G.o.d, if Thou be willing take this cup from me!" whilst the man prayed to his G.o.d to take his soul into His keeping ere it became perjured and accursed.

But G.o.d was silent, because the soul, though racked and tempted, was too great for the tasting of an easy victory. G.o.d was silent, but He saw the tears that fell heavy and hot upon the ground. He was silent, but He heard the cries of anguish, the bitter moans of pain.

Christian, this is thine hour! for when thy soul and heart have suffered enough, when they have been weighed in the crucible of divine love and not been found wanting, then will the peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth all understanding descend in exquisite comfort upon thee.

Gradually the tears ceased to fall, the sobs to shake the ma.s.sive frame of the kneeling man. His hands dropped from his face and his gaze went up to the storm-tossed firmament, there where land and sky merged in the grey mists of approaching evening.

And on the horizon, as he gazed, beyond the valley, beyond the Aventine and the murmuring Tiber, already wrapped in gloom, a ray of golden light had rent the lowering clouds.

It shone serene and bright, illumined from behind limitless depths by the slanting rays of a slowly sinking sun. Taurus Antinor rose to his feet; he looked and looked upon that light until it tore a wider and ever wider gap in the angry clouds, and its golden radiance spread right across the horizon far away.

The very mist now seemed aglow; the waters of the Tiber, tossed by the gale, throw back brilliant sparks of reflected lights.

From the low-lying marshes among the reeds two birds rose in rapid flight and disappeared in that golden haze.

"My G.o.d, not mine but Thy will be done!" murmured the lonely man; and anguish folded its sable wings and the tortured heart was at peace.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

"For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."--HEBREWS XII. 6.

The gorgeous palace of Augustus appeared quite deserted when the praefect of Rome finally made his way to the vestibule. He crossed the magnificent inner peristylium, the tall, uncut pillars of which, sharply defined against the sky, enhanced its majestic grandeur and its air of mysterious solemnity.

As a rule these vast halls were peopled with scribes, and though shorn of its original imperial splendours the palace of the great Emperor presented at times a certain air of animation and of official bustle.

But now these scribes, no doubt awed by the sound of terror and of strife which must have reached even this hallowed spot, had fled into the more remote portions of the palace, or mayhap had even joined the throngs in the Forum, on the principle that 'tis better to form an unit in an angry crowd, rather than to be its b.u.t.t.

The peristylium itself, despite its mute and lonely magnificence, bore traces of the turmoil that reigned throughout the city; there were obvious signs that men had lived and worked here but a very little while ago, that they had been afraid and then had run away.

The marble floors were stained with mud. The sedate chairs that usually lined the walls were pushed aside and left to stand crooked and awry, the very mockery of their former dignity. Here and there a roll of parchment, an ink-stained pen, a cast-off cloak littered the hall and looked curiously provocative and out of place--an insult to the majesty of the dead and mighty Caesar, who had caused the stately columns to be reared, and the ma.s.sive walls to raise their pure lines upwards to the sky.

But on all this Taurus Antinor did not pause to think. On his right he heard sounds which proclaimed the presence of men, and thither did he immediately turn his footsteps.

Peering through the long vista of numberless columns, the further ones of which were merged together in the dim light, he saw that the score or so of the praetorian guard who had escorted the Caesar in his flight were a.s.sembled at the end of the gigantic hall, some lolling against the marble pillars, others lying or squatting on the hard floor, as much at their ease as circ.u.mstances would allow.

They had not discarded their accoutrements and each man had his sword by his side. Not realising that the fury of the mob had been momentarily damped by the storm, they remained prepared to defend the Caesar's life at any moment with their own.

More than one of them had apparently been wounded in one or other of the hand-to-hand combats which they had sustained against the mob earlier in the day, for more than one head was wrapped in a rough piece of bandage and more than one tunic was stained with blood. All the men looked f.a.gged and dirty and for the most part worn out with sleeplessness and want of food.

As the praefect's firm tread resounded from end to end of the colonnaded hall and woke the slumbering echoes of the deserted palace, weary, lack-l.u.s.tre eyes were turned in his direction, and now when his tall figure appeared between two pillars the men recognised him, for his head was uncovered.

One or two of them gave a cry of terror since all of them had thought that the praefect was dead, and this tall, dark presence, wrapped in a long cloak and with tawny hair still dripping from the rain, looked very like an apparition from another world.

"The Caesar?" queried the praefect curtly.

Some of the men struggled to their feet. The voice they knew well; it was as of old, loud and peremptory and not like to be coming from a grave. All did their best to a.s.sume a respectful bearing, and one who was in command made ready to show the praefect into the Caesar's presence.

"I want no escort," said Taurus Antinor in that same commanding voice which no one in Rome had ever tried to resist. "Tell me only where I can find the Caesar."

"In the lararium, O praefect," replied the soldier without hesitation.

"He ordered us to remain here."

Without looking to right or left Taurus Antinor walked past the soldiers into the gorgeous tablinium beyond, where great Augustus had been wont to administer justice. This vast hall was deserted, but from an inner room on the left there came to the praefect's ear a curious sound like the snarl of an angry feline creature, a sound which he knew could only come from one human throat. Without hesitation he turned to whence that sound had come. On the right of the huge semi-circular apse, which contained the now vacant throne of Augustus, a narrow door led to the small temple-like room which had once contained the great Emperor's household G.o.ds.

A heavy curtain of embroidered silk masked this entrance. Taurus Antinor pushed it back and walked in.

The temple derived its light solely from a small opening in the vaulted ceiling; that light which came down in a narrow shaft was grey and dull and failed to penetrate the dark and mysterious corners of the room.

Taurus Antinor's eyes were narrowed beneath his frowning brows as he tried to pierce the gloom that lay beyond that shaft of light. He could hear heavy breathing proceeding from there and the muttering of curses, and anon he was able to spy a bundle of stained silken clothes that lay in a heap and which seemed to shrink and to shrivel, to tremble and to cower on the altar steps: a bundle of rags and a gleam of flaccid flesh which stood for the majesty of Caesar.

All at once there was a raucous cry and a growl as of an animal enraged, and the next second something hot and heavy threw itself with violent force against the praefect, even whilst the sharp blade of a dagger caught a gleam of reflected light.

But Taurus Antinor--well knowing the man whom he had come to help--was fully prepared for the treacherous attack. With a rapid movement he had made a s.h.i.+eld of his mantle by winding it closely round his arm, and holding it before his face. The dagger glanced against the woollen material, rendered heavy and sodden with the rain, and Caligula, unnerved by the futile effort, staggered back against the altar steps while the dagger fell with a sharp sound upon the marble floor.

"Traitor!" came in hoa.r.s.e gasps from the Caesar's throat. "Hast come to murder me!"

"Ho! there! My guard! My guard!"

He was trying to shout, but terror was evidently choking him. He struggled to his feet, and still trembling from head to foot, made pitiable attempts to work his way round to a place of safety behind the altar, whilst keeping his bloodshot eyes fixed upon the praefect.

"Hast come to murder me?" he gasped.

"I came to place my body at thy service, O Caesar," replied Taurus Antinor quietly. "I have been sick for nigh on twenty-four hours, else I had come to thee before. They told me that thou wast cut off from those whose duty it is to guard thy person. An thou wilt grant me leave I'll conduct thee to them."

"Aye! thou'rt ready enough to conduct me to my death, thou treacherous son of slaves," snarled the Caesar from behind the safe bastion of the stone altar. "I have learnt thy treachery, I, even I, who trusted thee.

Thou didst lie to me and plan my death even whilst I heaped uncounted favours upon thee."

"On my soul, O Caesar, thou dost me infinite wrong," rejoined the praefect calmly. "But, an it please thee, I am not here to justify myself before thee, though G.o.d knows I would wish thee to believe me true; rather am I here to serve thee, an thou wilt deign to accept my help in thy need."

"To accept thy help. Nay! By Jupiter, I would as soon trust myself to the snakes that creep under the gra.s.ses of the Campania, as I would place my life in the keeping of a traitor."

"Had I thought to betray thee, O Caesar," said Taurus Antinor simply, "I had not come unarmed and alone. Even the dagger wherewith thou didst threaten my life lies at my foot now, ready to my hand for the mere picking up of it."