  Though Quintus Fabricius had long since withdrawn from public life, and spent his days mainly in the library of his mansion, he was not altogether so secluded in his habits, as to entirely forego the society of two or three ancient friends and colleagues of the busy days of politics gone by. From supper at the house of one of these, he returned one evening at an early old-fashioned hour, and upon entering his own hall, was met by Natta, his ancient steward, who informed him, that a man who had travelled for days to see him, was now awaiting him on some pressing business. Fabricius, thinking, perhaps, it was some affair connected with some distant estate, desired the visitor to be brought, and, entering his favourite library, sat down before the fire, being still deep in the thoughts of a literary discussion which had raged over the supper-table. In a few moments Natta ushered in Cestus. He looked pale and worn; his brows wore an anxious wrinkle, and his glance was uneasy and restless. It was now the fourth evening following that on which Martialis had quitted him in the despoiled dwelling of Masthlion. The wind blowing fair, and promising a speedy voyage, he had embarked on a trader bound for Ostia, but contrary to expectation the passage proved long and tedious, owing to the wind falling light and baffling. On reaching port, with a mind overwrought with impatience, he posted along without stop, until he reached the mansion on the Janiculum. It was not without an amount of distrust he appeared before the old ex-senator. It was no pricking of conscience for the wrong he had done him, but purely fear, lest he might be recognised in connection with the part he had played in that self-same room, at no great distance of time back, when he had [pg 384] He met the scrutiny of Fabricius, therefore, with his accustomed boldness, and when, after a lengthened survey, the old man motioned him forward and asked his business, he felt relieved with the assurance that he was not recognised. ‘I have come a long way from the south—I have been travelling for days to see you,’ said he; ‘that means important business, noble Fabricius, and I must ask you to hear it alone with me.’ But Natta was deaf to the hint and moved not from his post behind; nor did his master give him any sign to do so. ‘My steward has my confidence in everything—go on!’ said Fabricius. ‘You will pardon me, but before a third person I cannot speak; nor would you suffer another to be present if you knew what I had to say.’ ‘Then leave it unsaid!’ replied the old man testily. Cestus drew near him and said in a low tone, ‘Did you not receive a letter, not long ago, containing a piece of ribbon?’ Fabricius started and fixed an intent look on the Suburan. His breast heaved with a sudden emotion. ‘Well, what of it?’ he said. ‘You did receive it, then?’ said Cestus. Fabricius nodded hastily. ‘Then I am the bearer of a further message from him who wrote that letter and sent that ribbon—and see, here is my warrant!’ Cestus drew from his breast the remaining portion of the faded ribbon from which he had cut the former piece enclosed to Fabricius. When the eyes of the latter fell on it, his frame trembled with an agitation he could not hide. He motioned Natta to depart, and when the door was closed, he unlocked a cabinet, and took therefrom the tablets he had received, with the ribbon in question. His eye had told him, at a glance, that the two portions were of the self-same fabric; but, partly [pg 385] ‘You see that all is right—that one piece has been cut from the other,’ said Cestus at length. ‘Who are you, and what do you know of this?’ asked Fabricius, in a voice which palpably trembled. ‘Something in your face or tone seems familiar to me.’ ‘I cannot say whether I resemble any one you know, noble sir,’ replied the Suburan, with sang froid; ‘but, touching the ribbon, it was sent because it is of an uncommon pattern; for which reason it was also thought you might remember and recognise it, as having been worn by the child, your granddaughter, long ago.’ ‘I could not remember it; but when it came, like a message from the dead, I searched among the little garments and clothing in the child’s room, which remains undisturbed as when she left it, and there I found some more of the same pattern. How came you by it? Tell me quickly what you know; and yet most likely it is nothing but another befooling—another deception of a foolish, fond, old man!’ ‘I know well enough you have been fooled many times, but I know just as well, that you never had a proof like this—something to see and touch—something that fits into its proper place, in this affair, without any denial. This is different to the tales and tricks which have been specially made to draw money from your coffers. The girl is alive and well, and I have other proofs, better than this, to show and tell you.’ ‘Man—man! if money be your object, you are labouring in vain,’ said Fabricius, feebly endeavouring to appear firm and resolute; ‘I have spent my last coin in the folly, and now when extreme age is beginning to lay its hold on me, I have at last learnt my lesson from experience. In no great time now I shall be with my fathers—there will be an end of my sorrows—for that I can now wait. If you are bent on extortion and falsehood your opportunity is gone. Nay more, I will put an end to such deception, and claim the help of justice—so take care!’ ‘It is a pity you never did so before,’ said Cestus. ‘Had [pg 386] ‘What is it you ask?’ ‘That you give me your solemn promise, to allow me to go unharmed by you or any one else, and that, in consideration of my services, you will reward me with what you consider a fair return—the amount I leave to your own liberality.’ ‘Why do you wish me to guarantee to keep you safe and unharmed? What necessity for this, when your action would be kind and merciful in the highest degree?’ ‘Because, when you hear the history of the whole affair, it is possible my part in it may not please you,’ said the Suburan coolly. ‘If you have wronged her or me you shall be punished, and everything shall be wrung from you, as you deserve, without guarantee or reward.’ ‘Then, in that case, I will go no further; and you shall never see or hear of your missing grandchild again, simply for the reason, that I, alone, know who and where she is, and I, alone, hold the proofs of the same. I desire to serve myself as well as you; but, at the same time, I will not thrust myself into danger on that account. Without your promise in writing I will say nothing, except this, that she was safe and well until four days ago, when something occurred which has put her in some danger—you must understand she has grown up tall and comely. I have, therefore, come at much cost and fatigue, in mercy to you and her. Her situation at present is not to be envied, and the sooner we come to terms and see to her welfare the better.’ ‘I must know more than this—this is only a tale like others I have heard, save, that it is, perhaps, more ingenious and plausible,’ said Fabricius, in a great tremor. ‘Give me more proofs—show me that I may place faith in you, and you will find that I shall not be behindhand with you in anything that is fair and reasonable.’ [pg 387]Cestus knit his brows and mused a little. ‘I thought it would have been enough for any man to see I was no impostor,’ he said at length, pointing at the ribbons; ‘the child wore those when she was taken away from here—is it not enough?’ ‘No!’ answered Fabricius. ‘To give me such a paper will not in any way commit you, Fabricius; for, in it, you will not undertake to fulfil your promise, till you are satisfied that I have done my part in the business.’ ‘I will do nothing without further assurance that I am not trifled with—let that end it!’ ‘Very well, then, in consideration for the young girl, for whom I have a regard, I will give way a point from what I had determined, in order that she may not be sacrificed—otherwise your stubbornness would ruin all. If I were to bring you the clothes she wore when you lost her, even to an amulet, would you then give me the writing?’ ‘Yes, if they satisfied me as being hers.’ ‘Would you know them?’ ‘I would know the amulet.’ ‘Good—then I will bring them!’ ‘Have you not them with you?’ ‘No; but they are not far away,’ said Cestus, with a cunning grin. ‘I am not in the habit of surrendering myself so completely; but now, with the assurance of your promise, I will do what I had no intention of doing. You may send your slaves along with me if you wish.’ ‘Go alone. If you do not return I shall know that one more attempt on my credulity has failed.’ ‘A few minutes will set your doubts at rest,’ replied Cestus, and he left the room. As soon as he was gone, the patrician poured out some wine, with a trembling hand, and drank it to brace his aged frame against the nervous tremor which possessed it. His agitation would not allow him to rest, so he wandered up and down the apartment. Once or twice he listened at the door which stood ajar, and, whilst doing so, heard the sound of returning steps. It was his visitor returning with Natta at his side. Both entered as before, but the suspicious steward [pg 388] ‘These are the traps,’ he said, and proceeded to open the parcel. Taking out the tiny garments of a child he displayed them on the table. The old man, with a strange inarticulate cry, seized them in his hands, and examined them with a devouring eagerness. ‘See!’ said Cestus, laying his broad finger-tip against an embroidered mark on one of the little linen underclothes, ‘here is a mark of ownership, I take it.’ ‘Yes, yes! But the amulet!’ cried Fabricius feverishly. ‘Here ’tis,’ replied the Suburan, drawing from his bosom a little soft leather bag, having a fine steel chain attached. His companion pounced on it, and plucked out a small agate, carved into the shape of an open hand, bearing a curious symbol cut into the palm. He gazed on it for a few moments, with his wrinkled face twitching. Then he pressed it convulsively to his lips, and, sinking his head, buried his face in the child’s garments on the table, huddling them up against his silvery hairs with both arms. Cestus, anxious and impatient as he was, forbore to break the silence. At length Fabricius raised his head and spoke in a broken voice, ‘I am an old man and you must excuse my weakness, friend—the sight of these trifles tries me hard.’ ‘Drink!’ said Cestus, filling a cup; ‘there is nothing like good wine to cheer one. Forget what has passed and think on the good time that is coming to wipe it out.’ ‘Thanks!’ answered Fabricius, taking the cup with an unsteady hand. ‘Fill yourself also a draught,’ which invitation Cestus obeyed, nothing loth. ‘Here’s to the speedy restoration of your little maid,’ he said, and bottomed the cup. ‘Now, as you are satisfied that these trifles are really genuine, and that I am not deceiving you, I must ask you to write me that little document; after which, you shall know the whole story, which will contain certain items which will astonish you without doubt.’ [pg 389]Fabricius reached his writing materials and wrote, slowly and painfully, a brief undertaking, by which the personal safety of Cestus would be assured, and his efforts suitably rewarded, upon the satisfactory restoration of his grandchild. Cestus perused the document, and, finding it satisfactory, put it away carefully in his breast. ‘Thanks! thanks! I value, and rely upon your word equally; but then I may fall into other hands, in which case this paper might be useful. I will commence and tell you from the beginning, and you may brace yourself up to hear something which will startle you.’ He poured out and drank some more wine, and then began his declaration. ‘Your little maid was stolen from your own porch, here on the Janiculum, fifteen years ago, all but three months and three days—if you have the day marked, consult it, and you will find I am right.’ Giving a start of surprise, Fabricius began to count with the fingers of one hand on the table, to assist a mental calculation. ‘You are right, without doubt,’ he said finally; ‘how come you to know this?’ ‘None so well as I,’ returned the other, ‘you shall learn.’ He then related the manner in which the child had been enticed and snapped away from the porch of the house, the various places she had been hidden away, until her final removal to Surrentum. The extreme minuteness of the narrative was too extraordinary not to impress his listener’s mind with an inward conviction of its truth, but, as our reader is already acquainted with its tenor, it need not be recapitulated here. ‘Yes, noble Fabricius, Surrentum is full of potters,’ said Cestus, concluding, ‘and with one of them, called Masthlion, and his wife Tibia, was finally lodged your little maid; and, with them, a childless pair, she has grown up well cared for and tended, as I know well. She thinks herself their child to this hour, and it is time you took her to your own nest. Her poor feathers cannot hide her breed. She is known by the name of NeÆra.’ Fabricius sat looking at the Suburan with the torture of [pg 390] ‘Money,’ said Cestus. ‘Money!’ echoed Fabricius, leaping to his feet in horror; ‘was she sold, then, for a slave?’ ‘Not at all,’ replied the Suburan quietly; ‘cannot you understand? Money has been at the bottom of it all. You have an enormous amount of it, and the child was in some one’s way. Once out of it, and then who comes next? Why your loving nephew, Afer—now do you see?’ ‘Fellow, what do you mean? Do you dare to cast even so much as a doubt upon the honesty of a knight—a relative of mine?—take care!’ ‘More than that, your honour, I say it was no other, and through no other, than your nephew, T. Domitius Afer, that your child was kidnapped.’ ‘Fellow!’ ‘It is true enough. He wanted her out of the way so that he might be your heir. For that end he hired a certain individual, now alive, for a comfortable sum to put her aside, so that she might never more be heard of.’ ‘I’ll not believe it,’ cried the old patrician hoarsely; ‘it must be proved—where is that wretch whom you say he hired?’ ‘What would you do with him supposing I brought him?’ ‘Were I forty years younger I would tear him limb from limb with my own hands—but now nothing remains to me but the justice of the law.’ ‘Neither the one nor the other, although he is within your reach at this moment, for I am the man who was employed by your sweet nephew—I am the man who took away your child!’ Fabricius stood dumfounded for a moment, and his jaw fell. Then the blood rushed to his face; his eyes flamed with terrible wrath, and, with a stride, he confronted Cestus. ‘Dog!’ he shouted hoarsely, as he clutched the Suburan with a grasp which was inspired with the vigour of youth. But Cestus, in no way disconcerted, calmly pulled out the written guarantee from his bosom and held it up. The old [pg 391] ‘You have just cause for anger, and I admit it,’ said Cestus, in a lower and more respectful tone; ‘but you cannot now move without me, and I will do all I can to make amends. After all I am not so much to blame as your nephew. At that time I was an idle vagabond—you see I don’t attempt to hide myself—dwelling in the Subura, and your loving nephew, Titus Afer, tempted me with a handsome sum to do this thing. Only, mark you—I was to put the child clean out of the way—that is to say, I was to strangle her, drown her, kill her in the best and quietest way possible.’—Fabricius hid his face in his hands.—‘That was what I was paid to do, and, if I had done that, the job would have served his turn most effectually, as he intended, and you would never have been the wiser, perhaps. But bad as I was, there was left yet a soft spot in my heart, and to that is owing the life of the little maid. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her; and, moreover, what did I know but what she might be useful to me in the future. It turns out now that I was wise. A dead child is of no use to any one, but a living one is—vastly so at the present time. You will, therefore, see that I had to deceive your worshipful nephew. He thinks she is dead, as I told him she was, and all his pretended help in searching for her was nothing but a blind. Your money went, most of it, into his own pocket—and a comfortable income it was.’ Fabricius was overwhelmed. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and his face was ashen pale. Such terrible deception was scarcely credible to his trustful nature, and yet the evidence seemed too weighty to be easily explained away. Its great perfectness of detail, the unhesitating business-like manner of its delivery—above all, the clothes and amulet—were beyond doubt. Yet he eyed the man before him with unconcealed distrust, contempt, and indignation, to which, however, the Suburan was utterly indifferent. ‘Tell me what reasons have impelled you to come to me now and confess all this villainy,’ said Fabricius, in hollow tones. [pg 392]‘Because I am sorry for what I did, and wish to make some amends,’ replied Cestus. ‘And for this penitence you require to be paid,’ rejoined the other, with withering scorn; ‘by your own showing you have made terms for committing a desperate sin, and have probably extorted every sesterce possible in that direction; now you betray your accomplice, and come to extort more from me, under a mask of righteousness.’ ‘I have told you nothing but the truth, and you may twist it as you like,’ replied Cestus, unmoved; ‘bear in mind, but for me, there would have been no child at all to welcome back.’ ‘I have only your word for that, so far.’ ‘The terms made are not to be carried out, on your side, until you are satisfied with your bargain. That is enough to show, of itself, that I am in earnest. I must live, and to your own generosity I leave the payment. But it is not altogether that for which I am here. Your nephew, the worshipful knight, has dealt very scurvily with me, after his nature. He is a hundred times more rascal than myself—a mean, cowardly dog, knight as he is. I have two surprises in store for him—one, when he is confronted with the girl he paid me to kill, and the other, when his eyes fall on me, whom he struck down one night, not long since, in the streets, and left for dead. He thought, when he did that, his secret was for ever safe. But I was picked up with a hole in my side, and so well tended in a house I can take you to, that, after a hard fight of it, I came round. I bethought me of the girl I had left in Surrentum, and I stole away to see how she fared, and to pick up strength. I have been living for weeks, waiting and watching in my sister’s house; for it was my sister, and her husband, the potter, who took her from me. They have loved her like their own child, and she treats them as her parents, for she knows nothing to the contrary. Watch well your nephew, therefore, when he first sets eyes on me—if his conscience don’t visibly trouble him it will be strange. But there is more yet to be told you, and we are wasting time. When I came away, matters in my sister’s house were in a bad state. Masthlion had gone to Capreae, to show Caesar some new kind of glass he had discovered. He was a fool [pg 393] ‘Alas, you told me she was alive and well, and now you say Tiberius has carried her off to his island—is this your good news?’ cried Fabricius, wringing his hands. ‘Better indeed dead, I should say, than left to the mercy of that debauched old man! Four days since you left, and as long for me to go thither, what hope is there? Why did you not bring her away at once? Here, in this house, the house from which you say you took her, you might have proved your words, or damned yourself for ever. You bid me hope, and then dash hope away. Alive—ay, but if alive, most likely in a living death—Oh!’ ‘Stay a moment,’ said Cestus soothingly, ‘the danger is great; but yet I have hope. I have not told you that the maid has caught the eye of a youth, and they are betrothed. I had a suspicion that something ill was brewing to the girl, and they will bear witness that I did my utmost to persuade them to come to Rome at once, where she might be in safety; but they flatly refused to move until the potter came back from the island. He never did come back, but in his place came the slaves, who tore the girl away. But soon after they had gone, arrived the youth who has fallen in love with her. He is a centurion, and was posting from Rome to the island with despatches, and him I told who she was, and bade him warn Caesar not to harm her—I said I would go straight and bring you, and now the matter rests with yourself.’ ‘And the name of the youth you say is betrothed to her?’ ‘He is a centurion of the Pretorian Guard, and his name is Martialis.’ ‘What?’ shouted Fabricius, ‘am I living in a dream the gods have woven round me? Martialis, did you say—Lucius Martialis, a Pretorian—tall above the common?’ [pg 394]‘The same—he seemed to know you when I spoke your name, and said you had lost a child.’ ‘Oh, wonder of heaven—the man of all I would have chosen—the son of my old playmate! Alas, alas, the more you say, the more unhappy and hopeless the case! Do you not know that the young man has been flung into a dungeon, awaiting perhaps his death?’ ‘By Pluto, no—how could I?’ cried Cestus, aghast. ‘It is here, in a letter received this morning from my nephew,’ replied Fabricius, taking an epistle from a drawer and glancing down its contents. ‘Listen!’ —‘By the way, the Centurion Martialis, for whom you took such a sudden fancy, has fallen into disgrace and one of the palace dungeons, for bearding Caesar in his own hall, in pursuit of a wench, a sweetheart of his, who had been brought off to the island, I believe, by force. Of course it means death in some shape or other.’ The face of Cestus grew dark and sullen as a thundercloud, and he folded his arms across his chest without a word. ‘What is to be done?’ said Fabricius, the extremity of distress breaking down the repugnance and indignation with which he regarded his companion. ‘The luck seems against us,’ answered the Suburan bitterly; ‘he must have played the rash fool. At any rate, your letter shows that I am to be believed when I make you a statement. All we can do is to get there as fast as we can and make the best of a bad job. In whatever plight the girl may be, I can prove who she is, and you can have your fling at your dutiful ‘A poor consolation,’ muttered Fabricius; ‘but I cannot rest until I fathom this strange story; were it for nothing but the sake of this unfortunate Martialis I would seek admittance to Caesar, who is not unknown to me personally. We will start before dawn—you will remain here in the house until then.’ ‘I have no wish to go elsewhere, if I may have some supper and a bed, for I am tired out.’ Fabricius called Natta and handed over the Suburan to his care, but not before the articles on the table were once more made up and locked away. Later on the steward appeared to make his report, and was instructed to be careful not to allow [pg 395] ‘From L. Martialis.—I have just arrived. Come to me at once, if possible, for your sake and mine and another’s. The bearer will conduct you. Erase this at once.’ ‘My litter immediately—I go with the bearer of this,’ cried Fabricius with sudden energy. The steward prepared to open his mouth once more, but an angry stamp of his master’s foot, and a flash of his eye stopped him—he hurried away. Fabricius flung the tablets into the fire and sank trembling on to his knees. |
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