  No tidings of Masthlion having been received for three days, his brother-in-law, Cestus, had given himself up to the gloomiest forebodings. At the end of the second day he had used all the arts of his persuasion to induce NeÆra and his sister to set off for Rome. At their distinct, unreasoning refusal he had lost his temper, with the effect of causing his tongue, in desperation, to speak more violently than he would otherwise have thought prudent. The discourse had been suddenly brought to a close, by the abrupt retirement of NeÆra from the room, at which the worthy Suburan, in a rage, slunk out of the house, to go and drown his anxiety and harassments at his favourite wine-shop. A scene of much the same character had occurred on the following evening, and, in a still more violent fit, he had again quitted the now detested dwelling of his sister, to seek the solace of copious draughts of liquor. Whilst he was thus engaged in a temporary return to his old indulgent habits, we have seen what occurred at home. An hour subsequent to the events already recorded, he went back, not without a suspicion of unsteadiness in his gait. Although a faint, luminous haze had succeeded to the short period of darkness, the moon had not yet topped the crests of the hills which girdled the town and valley. His vision being also a little blurred with the fumes of the wine, he did not perceive that the door, which was always closed at this hour, was wide open. He raised his fist to deal it a blow as usual, but, meeting no resistance, he overbalanced himself and fell forward on his hands and knees. With an oath of astonishment he got up and went forward. At every step his feet crunched the fragments of glass and pottery. More astonished than [pg 340] ‘What in the name of all that’s damnable has come to the house?’ he muttered; ‘is it a joke—thieves, or what? Where are they—Tibia—NeÆra—hillo!’ His voice was no mean one and his roar shook the little house; but he got no return for his pains. With increasing alarm and soberness he groped his way into the room, and, at once, caught his shin against a substantial article of furniture, which was in a most unexpected position. He fell with a cry of pain and rage, and some moments were absorbed in chafing his leg. This done he proceeded more cautiously, and, after a long search, succeeded in laying his hand on flint and steel. He produced a light and surveyed the room. Every article had been dragged about and ransacked. He looked on the scene, with mouth agape, in blank amazement. Then he rushed forward into the shop. The shelves were bared of their contents, and the floor littered with their fragments. Turning back he ascended to the upper floor, and there, on her back, tied and gagged, he perceived the form of Tibia, with her eyes resting upon him in the strange agony of speechless helplessness. ‘What is it, Tibia—what is it? The girl—where is she?’ he cried, springing forward. Drawing his knife he cut her bonds, and raised her into a sitting posture. Tibia burst into a paroxysm of grief. ‘Oh brother, brother—dead, dead!’ ‘Who—the girl—NeÆra? Don’t say that, woman!’ he cried furiously. ‘No, no! Masthlion—my husband!’ ‘Did I not say he would never return? But the girl—where is she, in the name of the furies?’ ‘Gone—they have taken her away.’ [pg 341]With a cry like the howl of a wild beast, Cestus threw up his arms. Everything was plain. His face grew purple; the veins swelled like cords, and his eyes glared with an insane fire. His tongue found vent in a torrent of mad ravings and horrid imprecations, accompanied with the wildest gestures, till the heart-stricken woman herself forgot her own anguish for the moment, and shuddered in horror. When the fit had partially exhausted itself he turned to his sister, and hoarsely demanded a recital of what had passed. A few words sufficed, and she threw her apron over her head, and rocked herself to and fro. The bluster of the tempest was over, and silence succeeded. For a moment Cestus remained in meditation, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Then bidding her not to quit the house, he rushed out headlong into the street, and rapidly ran toward the Marina. Here, with much difficulty, for few people were astir, he satisfied himself that no party had landed or embarked, at all answering to those whose track he sought to discover. Thence he hurried to the posting-house in the town, where he was just as unsuccessful. Sustained and spurred on by terrible excitement, he ran out to the very outskirts of the town, till he reached a tavern, standing on the side of the road which led from the southern coast. Here he was well known, the establishment being a favourite port of call in his rambles. He called the landlord aside, who looked with surprise on his customer’s disordered aspect. In answer to the Suburan’s inquiries a youth was summoned, who was employed in all kinds of outdoor jobs about the premises, which included a small farm as well as the business of a tavern. The lad, to the intense delight of his questioner, proved to have been loitering at the entrance of the house about nightfall, and had taken particular note of the six horsemen who had composed the party led by Plautus. Giving the lad a coin, Cestus briefly informed the master of the outrage and went back home. ‘It is as I said it would be!’ he burst out as he entered the room where Tibia remained. ‘A gang of Caesar’s rascals from the island, and back they have gone, taking her with them. It is all over with her, and I am ruined. You would not listen to me, would you not?—they would have been [pg 342] Pale with excitement he threw himself on the floor, and, save for his heavy breathing, deep silence fell on all—the terrible silence of desolation and woe. It was a dismal, weird scene, lighted by the dull, smoky flame of a rude lamp. The contents of two chests littered the floor with homely linen and wearing apparel, together with numberless odds and ends stored by a thrifty housewife. The simple articles of furniture were awry and overturned. The broad, burly form of the man lying face downwards, half upon the pile of bedding and half upon the floor; the woman crouching beside the naked pallet bed, with her head bowed down upon her knees. Two or three locks of her thin gray hair had escaped from their fastening, and hung loosely down over her tightly clasped hands. She was most to be pitied. She had lost her husband and child, and sat, an aging woman, amidst the wreck of her home, which had hitherto bounded her life and thoughts. The ghostly, unutterable stillness long continued, and the only thing which seemed to have life was the smoky yellow flame of the lamp, as it waved and flared in the currents of air which came through the open door. Presently Cestus turned over with a sigh and sat up. He directed his gaze toward the motionless form of his sister, and his eyes filled with an unaccustomed compassion. Long years ago, when, as a youth, he left his father’s cottage, in consequence of some misdeed, to go and seek his fortune in the great city, this sister had been the last one to give him tearful farewell words of hope and encouragement. That scene was still bright in his memory. The pretty maiden standing in the middle of the sunlit road, where she had kissed him, waving her hand as he turned the bend which hid her from view. There she was now—old, faded, wrinkled, toil-worn, and broken-hearted. And he, since that day when her pure kiss and warm tears fell on his beardless face—— He turned away his head, and resting his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee, he remained staring at vacancy. He might have been a stony embodiment of abstraction, with widely-distended, lustreless eyes which stared as if frozen in [pg 343] Nearly half an hour passed; then Tibia raised her wan face. The sound of a footstep in the passage below struck on her ears. It moved irresolutely, and finally, from the foot of the stairs, came a subdued, yet anxious voice calling upon the name of NeÆra. Starting at the tones Tibia gave a low cry, and turned her eyes anxiously on her brother. But he was buried in a lethargy, and seemingly oblivious of everything. She, therefore, bowed her face again, and rocked herself with the same weary motion. The call was repeated a little louder, but no reply being vouchsafed, a step came bounding up the stairs and entered the room. The glitter of a polished cuirass crossed the tranced eyes of Cestus and broke the spell which bound him. He looked up and beheld Martialis standing before him, regarding the scene with knitted brows and utter astonishment. With a yell of delight, impossible to describe, the Suburan leaped to his feet, and seized the Centurion’s hand in a convulsive grip. ‘Welcome! welcome!’ he cried wildly. ‘Welcome as water in the desert. Here is a pretty business within the last few hours—it is only yourself can right it!’ Martialis looked on the crouching form of Tibia. ‘Where is NeÆra—what has happened?’ he said hurriedly. ‘A gang of cut-throats has been here, and has upset the house, and carried away the girl——’ ‘And you sitting here like a stock!’ thundered the young man in a frenzy. ‘Were there no neighbours to rouse to help, if you could not? Thieves that steal maidens from a house in a peaceful town—whence come such villains here? Where is her father—following on her track, while you sit here idle and useless!’ ‘Stop, Centurion,’ said Cestus, seizing him by the arm as he was turning to dash out of the house, ‘you are all wrong together. There is only one spot in the neighbourhood which can harbour kidnappers and the like. I was absent at the time, and if I had been here I could not have followed—that is for you to do.’ ‘Name, then!’ cried Martialis, with contempt. ‘Capreae—Caesar!’ [pg 344]The young man stared as if petrified. His outstretched arm fell heavily to his side, and he dropped his head on his breast with a groan. ‘Did I not foresee it—did I not warn and beseech them to go by my advice?’ cried Cestus, wringing his hands and giving way once more to a burst of passion. ‘Did I not see and watch two fellows here in the shop some days ago? They were from the accursed island, and they came to mark down their game. I knew—I knew! But no one would listen. I begged and beseeched, almost on my knees, for them to quit the place—to go back with me to Rome, where they might be safe. But no—none would listen. Not they! And then the potter must needs take off to the island himself—must needs run his head into the tiger’s very jaws; all for the sake of showing some newfangled kind of glass he had found out. As if no patron was to be found other than a bloody, strangling, ravishing tyrant! The fool would not listen to what I said, though I went nearly crazy, but went on his mad way with a light heart, if one could judge by his smiling face. And here’s the end of it. He will never see his home again—he is murdered—the girl is missing, and I am robbed, ruined, cheated! Haste, Centurion, for all depends on thee. Bring her back, by hook or crook, for hark you, man, she is more than you think—she is of the Patrician order, and no more my sister’s child than you are——’ ‘Are you going mad?’ said Martialis hoarsely. ‘Mad—no!’ shouted Cestus; ‘had they taken a madman’s advice all would have been well now, and the wench on her way to her people in Rome. She is no potter’s child, for I hold the proofs. There was money paid, I tell you, to put the child out of the way; but instead of murder she was brought here quietly and no one the wiser, save the woman there, who has passed for her mother—no, not even the villain who was at the bottom of it all.’ Martialis strode over to Tibia and laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘have you heard this?’ ‘Yes,’ said the poor woman, looking up with her woe-stricken face, ‘I never had a child of my own.’ His eyes softened, and suddenly bending down, he pressed his lips against her withered forehead. She burst into an agony of tears. [pg 345]‘Bring her back—bring her back,’ she moaned. ‘It is too strange; but gentle or simple she is still NeÆra to me. Oh, the accursed tyrant—I shall bury my dagger in his foul heart if she be harmed—even if they rend me in pieces after! But I may yet save her, though I strike her dead to do it—yes, I may yet be in time!’ He laughed a short dry laugh, and his eyes shone with a terrible light as he flung his long heavy cloak aside, the less to impede his motions. ‘Tell Caesar she belongs to the best blood in Rome,’ said Cestus. ‘He will not dare to harm her—I will hasten to the city.’ ‘He recks of nothing, idiot—her family, quick!’ ‘Fabricius of the Janiculum is her grandsire—she has only him.’ ‘Fabricius! He lost a child—is this true?’ ‘As you stand there!’ ‘And how came you to know all this?’ ‘Simply because it was I who stole her as a child and brought her here—she knows.’ Cestus nodded to Tibia. ‘Dog, if this be true!’ cried Martialis, springing on him and grasping his throat with a hand of iron. ‘That you shall see,’ choked and sputtered Cestus. ‘It is likewise only I who can restore her. You are losing time—save her first and the rest will follow.’ ‘Villain, what demon possessed you to do such a heartless deed?’ ‘Money!—and now I would bring her back to the living for revenge—glorious revenge!’ ‘On whom?’ ‘That is my concern, and mine only. Come, haste, Centurion!’ Without further parley Martialis sprang to the door. ‘Hark’ee,’ said Cestus, again catching his arm, ‘there is one man who must never know what I have told you until the proper time arrives, or else it might go hard with the girl. Beware, therefore!’ He whispered in his ear and the Pretorian started with surprise. Then he dashed down the stairs and out of the house. |
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