“Titus Claudius is dying!” the slaves whispered to each other in the silent and deserted rooms, where notwithstanding the dignity and gravity of the master, so much gay laughter had once been heard, so much young life had once been busy and gay.

“He is dying!” Octavia sighed, as she gazed in despair on the pale, altered face lying on the pillow, bathed in cold sweat, and with eyes half closed.

Behind that high, pale forehead dreadful havoc had been made during the last few days. All the tortures of martyrdom, to which the barbarous law condemned the son, the father had suffered a thousand-fold. In the delirium of fever, again and again he was dragged out to the hideous scene, where his boy was to be butchered and mangled; the merciful cloud which, at first, had darkened his consciousness by degrees had lifted, only to add to his sufferings, and his fancy ran riot in sights and images which threatened his life. Octavia and Claudia had watched by his bed with infinite patience, forced to control their own grief and look on, stricken and inconsolable, while the unhappy man wrestled day and night with the demons that possessed his mind, and poured out furious curses on himself and his fate.

Now, after the storm, he had sunk into the calm of lethargy. His strength was visibly sinking, and the leeches turned away in helpless silence.

“He is dying!” was sorrowfully repeated in the remotest rooms of the house; for not the lowest of his slaves was so dull or so base, as not to mourn for so revered a master from the bottom of his heart. But he is sitting up, he is speaking—listen.

“No, no—you will forgive me,” he murmurs hardly audibly. “You will, Quintus? You will not curse me? I have always loved you—oh! loved you more than my life! That dreadful decree! Woe, woe is me! he turns away! A murderer, he calls me a murderer!” And he sank back on his pillows, gasping for breath; his hands clutched convulsively at the quilt.

“Quintus,” he began again, softly, coaxingly—like a child. “Say one kind word to me. Oh! Quintus, can you for a moment imagine, that I am your enemy! This hand has so often stroked your cheek, smoothed your hair, your beautiful, long, waving hair! Ah! the beasts—the horrible wild beasts! Caesar, this is a hideous crime; mercy, pardon! Let me go down to them, let me die, but spare his youth! in vain, in vain—they have rushed upon him, they have seized him—ye gods! ye gods! have pity on me!”

A hoarse, dull scream, and then total silence.

“Father, Father, do you not know me?” said a trembling voice. “It is I, your son—I myself; not a delusion, not a dream.—And here is Cornelia—and here is Caius Aurelius, who has snatched us from the jaws of death.”

Titus Claudius started up at the sound of this voice. He fixed his glassy gaze on the figure of the young man, who was kneeling by his side and covering his wasted hands with tears and kisses. Then, suddenly a light passed into his face, a shiver thrilled through his enfeebled frame, and with a joyful cry of “Quintus! my son!” he fell back senseless. There he lay, motionless as the dead. His face grew paler and paler, and his arms hung helplessly by the side of the couch. The by-standers were paralyzed with dismay; only Claudia had enough presence of mind to fly out of the room and call for assistance. In two minutes she brought back old Palaemon,[177] a freedman of the household, who was versed in all the mysteries of Greek and Roman medicine. He came up to the couch with a look of the deepest grief, and laid his hand on the unconscious man’s forehead, feeling at the same time his scarcely fluttering pulse. Claudia, always brave and calm, told him of what had happened.

“Give him quiet,” said Palaemon, waving them all back with his hand. ”This moment is decisive.”

The family left the room; Octavia herself in an almost fainting state. Leaning on Aurelius, she went to her own apartments. Claudia only, with Baucis, remained with the leech to watch the sick man.

Palaemon forced a few drops of Samian wine,[178] between the sufferer’s livid lips, and then seating himself on a chair at the foot of the bed, he kept his eyes fixed on the senseless form.

"Courage, my child!"[179] said, as he caught sight of Claudia’s tearful face. “He knew him, and that is everything. That will be better medicine, than all the herbs and decoctions known to our art. See, he is already breathing more quietly and regularly—that is not a swoon, it is sleep. If he does not sink from mere weakness, this sleep will check the violence of the fever and save his life. Open the door, daughter; quite wide, that the fresh spring air may come in. Baucis, do you go and fill a bowl with snow-water and wet a handkerchief—I will lay it on his forehead, and that will cool him. But make no noise, not a sound—lest you should wake him.”

A delightful breath of roses was wafted into the room, as Claudia softly opened the door, and in a few minutes Baucis had brought the cold water. The cooling application evidently had a soothing effect on the sleeping man. He sighed deeply and turned on his side; his features relaxed, and he slept soundly and easily.

Presently, outside in the colonnade, appeared Caius Aurelius; he glanced into the sick-room, asking for a report. Claudia rose and went to meet him, smiling through her tears; regardless of Palaemon’s presence, she threw her arms round her lover and laid her head on his shoulder with a deep sigh of relief. “He will live,” she whispered, looking up in his face; “only look how quietly and peacefully he is sleeping.”

“Jupiter be praised! Oh! my darling, what have we not gone through those last few months!”

“More than we could have borne, if it had not been for our love.”

He kissed her, looked once more at the sick man, and left her.The sun sank behind Mons Janiculus, and the worn-out Flamen still lay in his death-like sleep. About two hours before midnight he moved and asked for Quintus. Claudia, who had not quitted him, bent over him and said gently:

“He is safe, Father, you know,” and her father looked up at her with a beatific smile. Then he asked for something to drink, greedily emptied a cup of water with fruit syrup, and at once fell asleep again. When day began to break, Palaemon, who had taken some hours’ rest in the adjoining room, sent Claudia to lie down. In all human probability the danger was now over, and Claudia obeyed, for she could scarcely hold up her head.

The sun rose in a cloudless sky—the first day of freedom in redeemed and regenerate Rome. The people set to work on all hands, to prepare a worthy welcome for the new Emperor, the gentle and high-souled Nerva, who was expected to arrive the following morning. Every arch of triumph, every colonnade, every temple was decked with garlands. Rome was like one vast festal hall. The Praetorian guard and the soldiers of the city-garrison marched in noisy troops through the streets, to overturn the statues of Domitian and to set up hastily-modelled images of Nerva in their stead.

But all the tumult and noise failed to wake Titus Claudius Mucianus, who lay sleeping and gaining strength every hour on the couch in his airy cubiculum. It was not till late in the afternoon, that he began to grow restless and to toss from side to side. Palaemon called the family, and they assembled in the room: Octavia, Claudia, Lucilia, Cornelia, Quintus and Caius Aurelius, who, now that the great political revolution was accomplished, felt himself quite free and had flown at an early hour to see his Claudia. But with them there also came, to the great surprise of the worthy Baucis, a stranger, a knight from Rodumna, who to this day had never before crossed the Flamen’s threshold; our esteemed friend Cneius Afranius, the advocate. Lucilia’s eyes, which in the midst of her anxiety sparkled with an anticipation of imminent happiness, whenever they met those of the man she loved, might have explained to the old nurse, that the unexpected guest had not come altogether unbidden—nay, that something must have passed between the two young people, which was of the deepest interest to Afranius himself, as well as to the girl who—once so saucy—now looked up at him with an air of maidenly reserve. Cneius Afranius remained modestly in the background, as if he was quite satisfied for the present to leave the old slave-woman’s doubts unsettled.

Palaemon met them with the smile, that gives new life to the relations of a sick man.

“Only go very gently,” he said, as Lucilia and Quintus began to question him.

Presently they heard a deep sigh from Titus Claudius, who was sitting up in bed, and gazing at the assembled family with wide and eager eyes.

“It is you!” he said, trembling with excitement “You, Quintus, my son, my adored son.”

“Father!” was all Quintus could say, and he fell sobbing aloud into those trembling, wasted arms.

“Was it delirium?” asked the high-priest, “or is it true? Was it you, Caius Aurelius, who saved my son?”

“As you say, my lord,” replied the Batavian.

“How did you do it? Did you procure his pardon? Did you succeed, when we had all failed, in touching Caesar’s heart?”

“Domitian is dead,” said the Batavian, solemnly. “Before his rule was wrenched from him, he died by the hand of an assassin. But Nerva, our new Emperor, is innocent of blood; he, mild and just, ordered me to strike off the chains of the Nazarenes. We hurried at our utmost speed from the shores of Gaul to Rome, and the gods willed it, that I should arrive just in time to rescue Quintus and the noble Cornelia. The decree, which pronounced them guilty, is abrogated.”

The high-priest had listened to him, motionless and silent; Palaemon went forward to interrupt the conversation.

“Not yet, my good friend,” said Titus Claudius with a grateful smile. “You need fear nothing for me. New life is dancing in every vein. Suspense alone was crushing me to death; the truth will restore me to life. Let our young friend tell us what has happened. Domitian dead! Nerva Emperor! The Nazarenes released...! I feel as if it were all a dream!”

Aurelius told his tale, and Titus Claudius listened, clinging to his son’s hands with both his own. The one feeling that he had been preserved from the last, worst horror, without having to reproach himself with any breach of his duty as a statesman and an official, triumphed over all the other various emotions, that Aurelius’ narrative might have roused in him. Again and again his eye turned to rest on the radiant face of the son he had believed to be lost beyond recall, and whom he now saw and held in the flesh. Every other consideration was swept away in the current of a father’s love, so long held in unnatural check.“The gods have willed it so!” he said sadly, when Aurelius ceased speaking. “I cannot hold the office, conferred on me by Domitian, under the enemy of the murdered Caesar. But I yield to the force of circumstances; what till now was treason is now law. I am but a weak mortal; I do not pretend to judge the case. I can but marvel and be silent. Justice is perhaps on the side of the stronger conviction, the stronger will and the greater vigor—such mysteries can only be solved by the gods. So the first words I address to you, after these days of terror and torment, shall be words of conciliation. Cains Aurelius, my daughter’s heart is yours—then she shall be your wife. I will not destroy your happiness; you have all suffered enough on my account.”

But here Palaemon interfered with all the authority of his office. He almost pushed Claudia and the Batavian from the bedside.

“Pardon me!” he said, “but this will not do. He must have perfect rest. I only wanted him to see Quintus, that will conduce to his recovery. He will shake hands with his worthy son-in-law quite soon enough.” The whole party left the room.

“And we?” asked Lucilia, as Afranius came close by her side.

“Patience, my queen,” said the lawyer; “the fruit that has set is sure to ripen. Leave him to get well and think quietly over the past; our hour will strike in good time.”

Lucilia nodded assent, and Claudia threw her arms round her, and kissed her ardently.

Quintus was the last to quit the room; his father gazed after him with a look of rapture. Then, with an upward glance, he sighed deeply, and once more closed his eyes. He was quite exhausted, and presently again dropped asleep. His excited brain still worked in fresh and vivid dreams, but now they were not demons that hovered round him, but kindly ghosts, and his fancy bore him through rose-tinted clouds to the sunny regions of freedom and peace.

Kindly genii, proclaiming freedom and peace, hovered over Rome, the long-suffering city. The next day, two hours after sunrise, Marcus Cocceius Nerva made his solemn entrance, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the multitude; and before the sun had sunk on the second day, he had accomplished that grand change, which altered the course of the world’s history, and secured to the Roman Empire for many years the benefits of justice and liberty. The venerable Emperor, in order not to leave his dominions a prey to fresh political convulsions in the event of his death, solemnly adopted the Hispanian, Ulpius Trajanus, as his son, before the assembled Senate,[180] and with the consent of that illustrious body, appointed him his successor on the throne of Rome.

“I know, my beloved son,” so the old Emperor addressed him, “that you will accept this gift from your venerable father, and this highest of all honors at the hands of the Roman Senate and people with a due sense of gratitude. You will not be overbearing in the possession of power, any more than you were servile when, at any moment, you might have fallen a victim to the miscarriage of a noble cause, You will not let yourself be befooled by flatterers, for you yourself have never learnt to flatter. You will acknowledge, that all your dignity and power emanate from the sovereign will of the people; that you rule only because your country bids you rule; that you are not called to be the tyrant, but the servant of the State.”

So spoke Nerva, and Trajan bowed his head with a grave conviction of duty, and accepted the responsible honor.—Trajan, that noble, moderate and just man,[181] whom the verdict of posterity has, with singular unanimity, pronounced to be the best of all the emperors of Rome.At the same hour, when Marcus Cocceius Nerva was returning with Trajan from the heights of the Capitol to their residence in the Palatium, two men, each solitary and in the plainest dress, were turning their back on the Eternal City.

One of them, Barbillus, the priest of Isis, stole away, carefully disguised, to Antium, where he was met by an accomplice, who had in his charge all the treasure he had been able to collect in his haste. From thence he purposed to reach Alexandria by sea, and so elude the wrath of Cinna, who was now all-powerful and Cocceius Nerva’s closest friend. But the ship was wrecked, and a week later the body of the great magician was cast on shore near Messana.

The other of the two men was Eurymachus, who took the road to Ostia. Lycoris, who had given up all luxury and splendor and had had herself baptized, had anticipated all that Quintus had intended to do for him; she had bought Eurymachus from the heirs of Stephanus, had set him free and had provided him amply for a journey to Gaul. Thus, after all his trials and struggles, he set forth with renewed energies, to be the apostle of the Nazarene creed in the remotest frontiers of the Empire.

THE END.