To return to Plautia, whom we left on the way from Tucca’s cottage to the villa Jovis, in the stormy, gray dawn.

Her litter was set down at a side door of the palace, and Zeno, the steward, stood by to hand her out. His proffered courtesy was loftily ignored, so he turned on his heel and led the way inside.

Not a living soul was to be seen; it was, doubtless, before the usual hour for any one of the Imperial household to be astir about the duties of the day.

The Greek brought them into a small peristyle close at hand. He threw open the door of a handsomely appointed room, and the noise brought forward, from within, three or four young female slaves, particularly noticeable for their good looks.

‘My prison?’ ejaculated Plautia grimly.

The Greek’s face grew pitiable with an injured look.

‘Caesar has ordered these apartments for your use; and these slaves will be under your orders,’ said he, bowing her in with a deep obeisance. Plautia gave a haughty nod and passed in with her own attendant. Zeno gently closed the door upon them, and his deprecating look gave place to a satisfied grin, as he hurried away to a different portion of the palace, in order to report to his master.

Plautia found that the room formed one of a suite. After the unwonted experience of a husbandman’s kennel, the space and luxurious arrangements of these apartments could not fail to draw from her a sigh of satisfaction, in spite of her position.

The state of her mind was indeed unenviable.

After the horror and misery of the night in her wretched quarters, the brief moments of slumber, which fell, finally, on [pg 286]her exhausted senses, had not sufficed to relieve her fevered mind. They had seemed, instead, to have only sunk her faculties into the first leaden state of suspension,—to have lulled the wakefulness of her tortured brain, and plunged it into the horrors of a narcotic sleep, amid whose heavy vapours, her struggling reflections became the distorted phantasms of an oppressive dream.

Even yet her mind had not recovered sufficient elasticity to entirely throw off this soporific load. Stupor still seemed to clog her senses and maintain her in a condition of waking sleep. The scenes of the past night still floated through her brain and mingled with what was actually occurring, as if on common ground of unsubstantiality. The pale, soft crescent of the moon hung phantom-like in her distempered mind, just as it had struck upon her gaze over the Pretorian’s shoulder; save that now its bulk swam magnified, and its paleness shone intensified to ghastliness. Then the play of his warm breath on her forehead, and one or two of his gestures, which lived, as if fire-impressed in her brain—all the sharper, in relief to the dark, blurred, frenzied moments of sudden agony and despair which had followed, like a gulf of blackness. After this her mental awakening in the pitchy darkness and crash of the sudden storm, the misery of the night, the phantoms of her short drowsiness, the coming of Caesar’s messenger, the cold gray of sea and sky, the palace—it was all like the unbroken course of a shadow-play.

She moved through the rooms, and, in the furthest, found the marble basin of a bath with all appliances. With more animation, she turned instantly, and bade the flock of young slaves prepare it for her immediate use. To have been obliged to forego, for a considerable period, this luxury so necessary to a Roman, had been not the lightest privation she had incurred in her headstrong expedition.

The crystal water, foaming and flooding out of the brazen dolphin’s mouth into the polished basin, was so welcome a sight as to rouse her not a little. Whilst preparing to enjoy it, one of the slaves answered a summons at the outer door, and brought back a message, saying, that Caesar would pay her a visit in an hour.

Infinitely revived and invigorated, Plautia returned from [pg 287]the bath to eat and drink. She had recovered also so much of her ancient humour, as to visit with a sharp word and a frown, a slight clumsiness on the part of the trembling girl who served her on bended knee. The lady’s face had lost some of its customary richness of colour, whilst dark rings showed under her eyes, as evidences of the night’s passionate tumult; but to one of her physical robustness and wanton health, it required an enormous and continuous strain to make any material inroads on her outward appearance. The slaves apportioned to her, who had dwelt in secret on the splendid form and beauty of their new mistress, wondering what princess she might be, and whence she had come, now marked the imperious flash of her eyes with inward quaking.

Plautia dismissed them, and awaited the coming of her Imperial visitor. The thoughtful knitting of her brows and lips were beginning to relax under the drowsiness which crept over her, when the pale, blotched face, and tall, stooping form of Tiberius glided slowly into her presence.

He stopped in the middle of the room, and his brilliant eyes fixed themselves upon her with a scrutiny which she seemed to feel in every part of her frame. Not a sign, however, glimmered in their depths, or stirred the gravity of his countenance, to show that her appearance in any way moved him.

She rose from the couch and gave a slight obeisance of her head, which he returned. He was familiar enough to her by sight; but now, on close personal contact, there was something which struck her uncomfortably. Whether it was the piercing ruthlessness of his gaze she knew not. She began to think uneasily, that she had been wise if she had listened to the advice she had scouted more than once already. Her keen feminine perceptions flashed out upon him. It was the odour of the tiger of which she had been so heedless; and yet, withal, an old, stooping, emaciated, unsightly man. Her thoughts, from some curious fancy, momentarily left her own concerns, and conjured up alongside Caesar the form of his handsome, ambitious, dashing Prefect. The comparison left its mark on her mind. Returning to herself, her indignation and her courage, she awaited to hear him speak.

‘Plautia, I bid you welcome to my house,’ he said, in his slow way. ‘Not until last night did I know you had favoured [pg 288]the island with your beautiful presence. I have hastened, therefore, to give you a more fitting reception than the hovel of a husbandman can afford. It was unkind thus to steal upon my island home with the intention of leaving it again as silently.’

‘I have no claim upon your hospitality, Caesar,’ replied Plautia; ‘I came hither on a trifling concern of my own, and sought to disturb no one. The poor house in which I lodged was freely chosen, and willingly endured for the short time of my stay. To-day was to have seen my departure, and indeed will do so. I am grieved that you should have learnt of my presence, and so caused you kindly trouble on my account. If my intrusion into Capreae is wrong and impertinent, I crave your gracious pardon and indulgence. Indeed, no disrespect was intended.’

‘Dismiss all that from your mind,’ said Tiberius; ‘the only fact which gives me pain is, that you should have sought to deprive us of the delight of your fair presence; I repeat, it was unkind.’

‘It is not for me to thrust myself upon a stranger’s hospitality—much less upon Caesar’s.’

‘Hospitality despised is the grievance, Plautia.’

The old Emperor’s manner was highly-bred, perfectly graceful, and polished, and a smile gently parted his lips. Nevertheless, in spite of the delicate, deprecating speech which fell so softly, slowly, but fluently from his honied tongue, every word seemed but the tinkling of artifice. Had she dared to retort as she felt, she would have said that hospitality enforced was as grievous a burden as hospitality despised.

With this idea firmly in possession of her mind, she recognised her jailer before her, and felt the grim hardness of the captor’s hand toying with her through the soft sheathing of ceremony and politeness. Nevertheless it was not her nature to feel fear, and she never quailed.

‘That is all past,’ continued the Emperor; ‘youth and loveliness are right and might in themselves. In their presence it is possible for no ruffle of the mind to remain unsmoothed. Now that you have graciously honoured my house, all is well, and——’