The Last Days of Pompeii Part 61

'Four to one against Lydon!' said Clodius to Lepidus.

'I would not take twenty to one! Why, Eumolpus is a very Achilles, and this poor fellow is but a tyro!'

Eumolpus gazed hard on the face of Lydon; he smiled; yet the smile was followed by a slight and scarce audible sigh--a touch of compa.s.sionate emotion, which custom conquered the moment the heart acknowledged it.

And now both, clad in complete armor, the sword drawn, the vizor closed, the two last combatants of the arena (ere man, at least, was matched with beast), stood opposed to each other.

It was just at this time that a letter was delivered to the proctor by one of the attendants of the arena; he removed the cincture--glanced over it for a moment--his countenance betrayed surprise and embarra.s.sment. He re-read the letter, and then muttering--'Tus.h.!.+ it is impossible!--the man must be drunk, even in the morning, to dream of such follies!'--threw it carelessly aside, and gravely settled himself once more in the att.i.tude of attention to the sports.

The interest of the public was wound up very high. Eumolpus had at first won their favor; but the gallantry of Lydon, and his well-timed allusion to the honour of the Pompeian lanista, had afterwards given the latter the preference in their eyes.

'Holla, old fellow!' said Medon's neighbor to him. 'Your son is hardly matched; but never fear, the editor will not permit him to be slain--no, nor the people neither; he has behaved too bravely for that. Ha! that was a home thrust!--well averted, by Pollux! At him again, Lydon!--they stop to breathe. What art thou muttering, old boy

'Prayers!' answered Medon, with a more calm and hopeful mien than he had yet maintained.

'Prayers!--trifles! The time for G.o.ds to carry a man away in a cloud is gone now. Ha! Jupiter! what a blow! Thy side--thy side!--take care of thy side, Lydon!'

There was a convulsive tremor throughout the a.s.sembly. A fierce blow from Eumolpus, full on the crest, had brought Lydon to his knee.

'Habet!--he has it!' cried a shrill female voice; 'he has it!' It was the voice of the girl who had so anxiously antic.i.p.ated the sacrifice of some criminal to the beasts.

'Be silent, child!' said the wife of Pansa, haughtily. 'Non habet!--he is not wounded!'

'I wish he were, if only to spite old surly Medon,' muttered the girl.

Meanwhile Lydon, who had hitherto defended himself with great skill and valor, began to give way before the vigorous a.s.saults of the practised Roman; his arm grew tired, his eye dizzy, he breathed hard and painfully. The combatants paused again for breath.

'Young man,' said Eumolpus, in a low voice, 'desist; I will wound thee slightly--then lower thy arms; thou hast propitiated the editor and the mob--thou wilt be honorably saved!'

'And my father still enslaved!' groaned Lydon to himself. 'No! death or his freedom.'

At that thought, and seeing that, his strength not being equal to the endurance of the Roman, everything depended on a sudden and desperate effort, he threw himself fiercely on Eumolpus; the Roman warily retreated--Lydon thrust again--Eumolpus drew himself aside--the sword grazed his cuira.s.s--Lydon's breast was exposed--the Roman plunged his sword through the joints of the armor, not meaning, however, to inflict a deep wound; Lydon, weak and exhausted, fell forward, fell right on the point: it pa.s.sed through and through, even to the back. Eumolpus drew forth his blade; Lydon still made an effort to regain his balance--his sword left his grasp--he struck mechanically at the gladiator with his naked hand, and fell prostrate on the arena. With one accord, editor and a.s.sembly made the signal of mercy--the officers of the arena approached--they took off the helmet of the vanquished. He still breathed; his eyes rolled fiercely on his foe; the savageness he had acquired in his calling glared from his gaze, and lowered upon the brow darkened already with the shades of death; then, with a convulsive groan, with a half start, he lifted his eyes above. They rested not on the face of the editor nor on the pitying brows of his relenting judges.

He saw them not; they were as if the vast s.p.a.ce was desolate and bare; one pale agonizing face alone was all he recognized--one cry of a broken heart was all that, amidst the murmurs and the shouts of the populace, reached his ear. The ferocity vanished from his brow; a soft, a tender expression of sanctifying but despairing love played over his features--played--waned--darkened! His face suddenly became locked and rigid, resuming its former fierceness. He fell upon the earth.

'Look to him,' said the aedile; 'he has done his duty!'

The officers dragged him off to the spoliarium.

'A true type of glory, and of its fate!' murmured Arbaces to himself, and his eye, glancing round the amphitheatre, betrayed so much of disdain and scorn, that whoever encountered it felt his breath suddenly arrested, and his emotions frozen into one sensation of abas.e.m.e.nt and of awe.

Again rich perfumes were wafted around the theatre; the attendants sprinkled fresh sand over the arena.

'Bring forth the lion and Glaucus the Athenian,' said the editor.

And a deep and breathless hush of overwrought interest, and intense (yet, strange to say, not unpleasing) terror lay, like a mighty and awful dream, over the a.s.sembly.

Chapter III

SALl.u.s.t AND NYDIA'S LETTER.

THRICE had Sall.u.s.t awakened from his morning sleep, and thrice, recollecting that his friend was that day to perish, had he turned himself with a deep sigh once more to court oblivion. His sole object in life was to avoid pain; and where he could not avoid, at least to forget it.

At length, unable any longer to steep his consciousness in slumber, he raised himself from his inc.u.mbent posture, and discovered his favorite freedman sitting by his bedside as usual; for Sall.u.s.t, who, as I have said, had a gentlemanlike taste for the polite letters, was accustomed to be read to for an hour or so previous to his rising in the morning.

'No books to-day! no more Tibullus! no more Pindar for me! Pindar!

alas, alas! the very name recalls those games to which our arena is the savage successor. Has it begun--the amphitheatre? are its rites commenced?'

'Long since, O Sall.u.s.t! Did you not hear the trumpets and the trampling feet?'

'Ay, ay; but the G.o.ds be thanked, I was drowsy, and had only to turn round to fall asleep again.'

'The gladiators must have been long in the ring.'

'The wretches! None of my people have gone to the spectacle?'

'a.s.suredly not; your orders were too strict.'

'That is well--would the day were over! What is that letter yonder on the table?'

'That! Oh, the letter brought to you last night, when you were--too--too...'

'Drunk to read it, I suppose. No matter, it cannot be of much importance.'

'Shall I open it for you, Sall.u.s.t,'

'Do: anything to divert my thoughts. Poor Glaucus!'

The freedman opened the letter. 'What! Greek?' said he: some learned lady, I suppose.' He glanced over the letter, and for some moments the irregular lines traced by the blind girl's hand puzzled him. Suddenly, however, his countenance exhibited emotion and surprise. 'Good G.o.ds!

n.o.ble Sall.u.s.t! what have we done not to attend to this before? Hear me read!

'"Nydia, the slave, to Sall.u.s.t, the friend of Glaucus! I am a prisoner in the house of Arbaces. Hasten to the praetor! procure my release, and we shall yet save Glaucus from the lion. There is another prisoner within these walls, whose witness can exonerate the Athenian from the charge against him--one who saw the crime--who can prove the criminal in a villain hitherto unsuspected. Fly! hasten! quick! quick! Bring with you armed men, lest resistance be made, and a cunning and dexterous smith; for the dungeon of my fellow-prisoner is thick and strong. Oh!

by thy right hand and thy father's ashes, lose not a moment!"'

'Great Jove!' exclaimed Sall.u.s.t, starting, 'and this day--nay, within this hour, perhaps, he dies. What is to be done? I will instantly to the praetor.'

'Nay; not so. The praetor (as well as Pansa, the editor himself) is the creature of the mob; and the mob will not hear of delay; they will not be balked in the very moment of expectation. Besides, the publicity of the appeal would forewarn the cunning Egyptian. It is evident that he has some interest in these concealments. No; fortunately thy slaves are in thy house.'

'I seize thy meaning,' interrupted Sall.u.s.t: 'arm the slaves instantly.

The streets are empty. We will ourselves hasten to the house of Arbaces, and release the prisoners. Quick! quick! What ho! Davus there! My gown and sandals, the papyrus and a reed.' I will write to the praetor, to beseech him to delay the sentence of Glaucus, for that, within an hour, we may yet prove him innocent. So, so, that is well.

Hasten with this, Davus, to the praetor, at the amphitheatre. See it given to his own hand. Now then, O ye G.o.ds! whose providence Epicurus denied, befriend me, and I will call Epicurus a liar!'

Chapter IV THE AMPHITHEATRE ONCE MORE.

GLAUCUS and Olinthus had been placed together in that gloomy and narrow cell in which the criminals of the arena awaited their last and fearful struggle. Their eyes, of late accustomed to the darkness, scanned the faces of each other in this awful hour, and by that dim light, the paleness, which chased away the natural hues from either cheek, a.s.sumed a yet more ashy and ghastly whiteness. Yet their brows were erect and dauntless--their limbs did not tremble--their lips were compressed and rigid. The religion of the one, the pride of the other, the conscious innocence of both, and, it may be, the support derived from their mutual companions.h.i.+p, elevated the victim into the hero.