Cornelia laughed hysterically.

"Touch me!" she shouted; and in her grasp shone a small bright dagger.

Lentulus fell back. There was something about his niece that warned him to be careful.

"Wretched girl!" he commanded, "put down that dagger."

"I will not," and Cornelia stood resolutely, confronting her two persecutors; her head thrown back, and the light making her throat and face shine white as driven snow.

There was very little chivalry among the ancients. Lentulus deliberately clapped his hands, and two serving-men appeared.

"Take that dagger from the Lady Cornelia!" commanded the master. The men exchanged sly glances, and advanced to accomplish the disarming.

But before they could catch Cornelia"s slender wrists in their coa.r.s.e, rough hands, and tear the little weapon from her, there were cuts and gashes on their own arms; for the struggle if brief was vicious.

Cornelia stood disarmed.

"You see what these mock heroics will lead to," commented Lentulus, with sarcastic smile, as he observed his order had been obeyed.

"_You_ will see!" was her quick retort.

"_Hei! hei!_" screamed one of the slaves an instant later, sinking to the floor. "Poison! It"s running through my veins! I shall die!"

"You will die," repeated Cornelia, in ineffable scorn, spurning the wretch with her foot. "Lie there and die! Cease breathing; sleep! And that creature, Ahen.o.barbus, yonder, shall sleep his sleep too, ere he work his will on me! Ha! ha! Look at my handiwork; the other slave is down!"

"Girl! Murderess!" raged Lentulus. "What is this? You have slain these men."

"I have slain your slaves," said Cornelia, resolutely folding her arms; "the poison on the dagger was very swift. You did excellently well, Lucius, not to come near me." And she picked up the dagger, which the slave, writhing in agony, had dropped.

"Do you wish to attack me again? _Phy!_ I have more resources than this. This venom works too quickly. See, Syrax is already out of his misery; and his fellow will soon be beyond reach of woe. When I strike _you_, Lucius Ahen.o.barbus, you shall die slowly, that I may enjoy your pain. What need have I of this weapon?" And she flung the dagger across the carpet so that it struck on the farther wall. "Pick it up, and come and kill me if you wish! Drusus lives, and in him I live, for him I live, and by him I live. And you--and you are but as evil dreams in the first watch of a night which shall be forgotten either in sweet unending slumbers, or the brightness of the morning. And now I have spoken. Do with me as it lies in your power to do; but remember what power is mine. _Vale!_"

And Cornelia vanished from the darkened hall. The two men heard the click of the door, and turned and gazed blankly into one another"s faces.

"The G.o.ds defend me, but I shall be yoked to one of the Dirae!"

stammered Ahen.o.barbus.

Chapter XI

The Great Proconsul

I

The plot was foiled. Drusus was unquestionably safe. So long as Flaccus had the affidavits of Phaon"s confession and the depositions of the captured gladiators stored away in his strong-box, neither Lucius Ahen.o.barbus nor the ever versatile Pratinas would be likely to risk a new conspiracy--especially as their intended victim had carefully drawn up a will leaving the bulk of his property to t.i.tus Mamercus and aemilia. Drusus had no near relatives, except Fabia and Livia; unless the Ahen.o.barbi were to be counted such; and it pleased him to think that if aught befell him the worthy children of his aged defender would acquire opulence.

But after the excitement was over, after Phaon had been brought up from the inn at Gabii to Praeneste, and there had the truth wormed out of him by the merciless cross-examination of Curio and Flaccus; after the freedman had been suffered to depart with a warning and threat to his prompters, after the captured gladiators had been crucified along the roadway leading toward Rome, and the wreck left in the atrium of the villa caused by the attack had been cleared away,--after all this, then the reaction came. Drusus, indeed, found that though the sun shone bright, its brightness was not for him. He had friends in plenty; but not such friends as he needed--as his heart craved. Truth to tell, he was one of those more delicate natures to whom the average pity and the ordinary demonstrations of sympathy come with an offending jar, and open, not heal, long-festering wounds. Curio was kind, but could only hold out the vaguest hopes that, for the present at least, anything would compel the consul-elect to consent to his niece"s marriage with a mortal enemy. Flaccus took the same position.

The hard-headed man of money thought that Drusus was a visionary, to be so distraught over the loss of a wife--as if the possession of a fortune of thirty odd millions did not make up for every possible calamity. Antonius was still less happy in his efforts at consolation.

This dashing young politician, who had been equally at home basking in the eyes of the young Egyptian princess, Cleopatra, eight years before, when he was in the East with Aulus Gabinius, or when fighting the Gauls as he had until recently under his uncle, the great proconsul,--had now been elected Tribune of the Plebs for the coming year; and was looking forward to a prosperous and glorious career in statecraft. He had had many a love intrigue, and made such matters a sort of recreation to the real business of life. Why Drusus--who certainly had very fair worldly prospects before him--should not console himself for one unsuccessful pa.s.sage of arms with Cupid, by straightway engaging in another, he could not see. He plainly intimated to his friend that there were a great many women, almost if not quite as good looking as Cornelia, who would survey him with friendly eyes if he made but a few advances. And Drusus, wounded and stung, was thrown back on himself; and within himself he found very little comfort.

Although he believed himself safe at last from the wiles of Ahen.o.barbus and his Greek coadjutors, there was still a great dread which would steal over Drusus lest at any moment a stroke might fall.

Those were days when children murdered parents, wives husbands, for whim or pa.s.sion, and very little came to punish their guilt. The scramble for money was universal. Drusus looked forth into the world, and saw little in it that was good. He had tried to cherish an ideal, and found fidelity to it more than difficult. His philosophy did not a.s.sure him that a real deity existed. Death ended all. Was it not better to be done with the sham of life; to drink the Lethe water, and sink into eternal, dreamless slumber? He longed unspeakably to see Cornelia face to face; to kiss her; to press her in his arms; and the desire grew and grew.

She was no longer in the capital. Her uncle had sent her away--guarded by trusty freedmen--to the villa of the Lentuli at Baiae. The fashionable circles of the great city had made of her name a three days" scandal, of which the echo all too often came to Drusus"s outraged ears. His only comfort was that Ahen.o.barbus had become the b.u.t.t and laughing-stock of every one who knew of his repulse by his last inamorata. Then at last Drusus left Praeneste for Rome.

Ahen.o.barbus and Pratinas were as well checked as it was possible they could be, and there was no real ground to dread a.s.sa.s.sination while in the city, if moderate precautions were taken. Then too the time was coming when the young man felt that he could accomplish something definite for the party for which he had already sacrificed so much.

The events cl.u.s.tering around Dumnorix"s unsuccessful attack had made Drusus a sort of hero in the eyes of the Praenesteans. They had years before elected his father as their patron, their legal representative at Rome, and now they pitched upon the son, proud to have this highly honourable function continued in the same family. This election gave Drusus some little prestige at the capital, and some standing in the courts and politics. When he went to Rome it was not as a mere individual who had to carve out his own career, but as a man of honour in his own country, a representative of a considerable local interest, and the possessor of both a n.o.ble pedigree and an ample fortune.

Curio found him plenty to do; wire-pulling, speech-making, private bargaining,--all these were rife, for everybody knew that with the first of January, when Lentulus became consul, the fortunes of Caesar were to be made or marred irretrievably. There were rumours, always rumours, now of Caesar, now of Pompeius. The proconsul was going to march on Rome at once, and put all his enemies to the sword. Pompeius was to be proclaimed dictator and exterminate all who adhered to the anti-senatorial party. And into this _melee_ of factions Drusus threw himself, and found relief and inspiration in the conflict. His innate common-sense, a very considerable talent for oratory which had received a moderate training, his energy, his enthusiasm, his incorruptibility, his straightforwardness, all made him valuable to the Caesarians, and he soon found himself deep in the counsels of his party, although he was too young to be advanced as a candidate for any public office.

Agias continued with him. He had never formally deeded the boy to Cornelia, and now it was not safe for the lad to be sent to dwell at Baiae, possibly to fall into the revengeful clutches of Phaon, or Pratinas, or Ahen.o.barbus. Drusus had rewarded Agias by giving him his freedom; but the boy had nowhere to go, and did not desire to leave Quintus"s service; so he continued as a general a.s.sistant and understrapper, to carry important letters and verbal messages, and to aid his patron in every case where quick wits or nimble feet were useful. He went once to Baiae, and came back with a letter from Cornelia, in which she said that she was kept actually as a prisoner in her uncle"s villa, and that Lentulus still threatened to force Ahen.o.barbus upon her; but that she had prepared herself for that final emergency.

The letter came at a moment when Drusus was feeling the exhilaration of a soldier in battle, and the missive was depressing and maddening.

What did it profit if the crowd roared its plaudits, when he piled execration on the oligarchs from the Rostra, if all his eloquence could not save Cornelia one pang? Close on top of this letter came another disquieting piece of information, although it was only what he had expected. He learned that Lentulus Crus had marked him out personally for confiscation of property and death as a dangerous agitator, as soon as the Senate could decree martial law. To have even a conditional sentence of death hanging over one is hard to bear with equanimity. But it was too late for Drusus to turn back. He had chosen his path; he had determined on the sacrifice; he would follow it to the end. And from one source great comfort came to him. His aunt, Fabia, had always seen in him her hero. With no children of her own, with very little knowledge of the world, she had centred all her hopes and ambitions on her sister"s son; and he was not disappointing her.

She dreamed of him as consul, triumphator, and dictator. She told him her hopes. She applauded his sacrifice. She told him of the worthies of old, of Camillus, of the Scipios, of Marcellus, the "Sword of Rome," of Lucius aemilius Paulus, and a host of others, good men and true, whose names were graven on the fabric of the great Republic, and bade him emulate them, and be her perfect Fabian and Livian. And from his aunt Drusus gained infinite courage. If she was not Cornelia, yet it was a boon ineffable to be able to hear a pure, loving woman tell him face to face that her heart suffered when he suffered, and that all his hopes and fears were hers.

Finally an interlude came to Quintus"s political activity. Curio was becoming uneasy, lest his distant superior should fail to realize the full venom of the Senate party and the determination of his enemies to work his ruin.

"I must go to Ravenna," said the politician to his young a.s.sociate.

"My tribuneship is nearly run out. Antonius and Ca.s.sius will take my place in the office. And you, who have done so much for Caesar, must go also, for he loves to meet and to know all who are his friends."

"To Caesar I will go," answered Drusus; and of himself he asked, "What manner of man will this prove, whom I am serving? A selfish grasper of power? Or will he be what I seek--a man with an ideal?"

II

Night was falling on the dark ma.s.ses of the huge Praetorium, the government-house and army barracks of the provincial capital of Ravenna. Outside, sentinels were changing guard; Roman civil officials and provincials were strolling in the cool of the porticos. Laughter, the shout of loungers at play, broke the evening silence. But far in the interior, where there was a secluded suite of rooms, nothing but the tinkle of a water-duct emptying into a cistern broke the stillness, save as some soft-footed attendant stole in and out across the rich, thick carpet.

The room was small; the ceiling low; the frescos not elaborate, but of admirable simplicity and delicacy. The furniture comprised merely a few divans, chairs, and tripods, but all of the choicest wood or bra.s.s, and the most excellent upholstery. One or two carved wooden cupboards for books completed the furnishings.

There were only two persons in the room. One of them,--a handsome young h.e.l.lene, evidently a freedman, was sitting on a low chair with an open roll before him. His companion half sat and half lay on a divan near by. This second person was a man of height unusual to Italians of his day; his cheeks were pale and a little sunken; his dark eyes were warm, penetrating; his mouth and chin mobile and even affable, but not a line suggested weakness. The forehead was high, ma.s.sive, and was exaggerated by a semi-baldness which was only partially concealed by combing the dark, grey-streaked hair forward.

He was reclining; if he had arisen he would have displayed a frame at once to be called soldierly, though spare and hardly powerful. To complete the figure it should be added that on one finger he wore a large ring set with a very beautiful seal of an armed Venus; and over his loose but carefully arranged tunic was thrown a short, red mantle, caught together on the left shoulder--the paludamentum, a garment only worn by Roman military officers of the very highest rank.

The general--for so his dress proclaimed him--was playing with a stylus and a waxen tablet, while the young Greek read. Now and then he would bid the latter pause while he made a few notes. The book was Euripides"s "Troades."

"Read those lines again," interrupted the general. The voice was marvellously flexile, powerful, and melodious.

And the freedman repeated:--

"Sow far and wide, plague, famine, and distress; Make women widows, children fatherless; Break down the altars of the G.o.ds, and tread On quiet graves, the temples of the dead; Play to life"s end this wicked witless game And you will win what knaves and fools call Fame!"[122]

[122] Translated in the collection "Sales Attici."

The freedman waited for his superior to ask him to continue, but the request did not come. The general seemed lost in a reverie; his expressive dark eyes were wandering off in a kind of quiet melancholy, gazing at the gla.s.s water-clock at the end of the room, but evidently not in the least seeing it.

"I have heard enough Euripides to-day," at length he remarked. "I must attend to more important matters. You may leave me."

The Greek rolled up the volume, placed it in the cupboard, and left the room with noiseless step. The general had arisen, and was standing beside the open window that looked out into a quiet little court. It was dark. The lamps of the room threw the court-yard into a sombre relief. Overhead, in the dimming, violet arch of the sky, one or two faint stars were beginning to twinkle.