CHAPTER XXXI
"Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may beable to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, tostand."--EPHESIANS VI. 13.
Without looking to right or left he strode across the atrium.
"A cloak quickly," he commanded as Dion and Nolus, obedient andexpectant of orders, rushed forward at his approach.
From the triclinium on the right came the sound of loud laughter and thestrains of a bibulous song, voices raised in gaiety and pleasure: TaurusAntinor recognised that of Caius Nepos, fluent and mellow, and that ofmy lord Hortensius Martius resonant and clear.
To what their revelries meant he did not give a thought. Dea had toldhim why these men had come to her house. The intrigues hatched two daysago over a supper-table were finding their culmination now. The Caesarwas a fugitive and the people rebellious: the golden opportunity layready to the hand of these treacherous self-seekers: and Dea Flavia wasto be their tool, their puppet, until such time as they betrayed her inher turn into other hands that paid them higher wage.
Taurus Antinor wrapped the dark cloak which Dion had brought him closelyaround his person. He gave the slaves a mute, peremptory sign of silenceand then quickly walked past the janitors, through the vestibule and outinto the open street.
The midday light had yielded to early afternoon. It still was grey andlurid, with a leaden mist hanging over the distance and moisture risingup from the rain-sodden ground. The worst of the storm had passed fromover the city, but the thunder still rolled dully at intervals above theCampania and great gusts of wind drove the heavy rain into TaurusAntinor's face.
It seemed to him, as he walked rapidly down the narrow street in frontof the Augusta's palace, that the noise from the Forum below had gainedin volume and in strength. When the raging tempest of rebellion was atits height earlier in the day, he had lain in a drugged sleep,unconscious of the shouts, the threats, the groans which had resoundedfrom palace to palace on the very summit of the Palatine. When he awokethese terrifying sounds were already more subdued. The people had beendriven by the storm-fanned conflagration which they themselves hadkindled, to seek shelter under the arcades of the tabernae in the Forumbelow. But now, after a couple of hours of enforced inactivity, theywere ready once more for mischief: in compact groups of a dozen or sothey were slowly emerging from beneath the shelters, and it only neededthe amalgamation of these isolated groups for the fire of openinsurrection to be ablaze again.
Time, therefore, was obviously precious. At any moment now, if the rainceased altogether, the populace--in no way cooled by thedrenching--would once more storm the hill and would discover thefugitive Caesar in his retreat. Already from afar there came to thelonely pedestrian's ear the roar of a mighty wave composed of manysounds, which, gathering force and fury, was ready to dash itself anewupon the imperial hill.
But up here on the summit there still reigned comparative quietude.True that as he walked rapidly along Taurus Antinor spied from time totime groups of excited, chattering men congregated at street corners orunder the shelter of a jutting portico; whilst now and then from behindthe huge piles of builders' materials, which littered this portion ofthe Palatine, darkly swathed figures would emerge at sound of thepraefect's footsteps on the flagstones, and as quickly vanish again. Butto these Taurus Antinor paid no heed; they were but the remote echoes ofthe angry storm below.
Soon the majestic pile of Augustus' palace loomed before him on theleft, with its unending vistas of marble and porphyry colonnades. On theright was the temple of Jupiter Victor on the very summit of the hill.
An undefinable instinct led the man's footsteps to that lonely height.He skirted the temple and anon stood looking down on the panorama ofRome stretched out at his feet: the Palatine sloping downwards in agentle gradient--covered with the dwellings of the rich patricians whichformed here a network of intricate and narrow streets; below these thegreat Circus redolent of the memories of the past four-and-twenty hours;beyond it the Aventine and the winding ribbon of the Tiber now lost in aleaden-coloured haze.
The streets from the valley upwards all round the hill were swarmingwith men, who from this distance looked like pygmies, fussy andirresponsible, spectral too in the rain-laden mist as they appeared tobe running hither and thither in compact groups, but with seemingaimlessness, whilst shouting, always shouting, that perpetual call forvengeance and for death.
The watcher looked down in silence, for that crowd of Pygmies was thepeople of Rome, who at a word from him would proclaim him Caesar andmaster of the world. The immensity of the sky was above him, the farhorizon partly hidden in gloom, but down there were the people whosevoice was raised to deify their chosen hero in the intervals ofdemanding the death of a tyrant.
And the people were the lords of Rome just now. Entrenched in the narrowstreets a crowd--one hundred thousand or more strong--held the imperialhill in a solid blockade. Down below, in and around the Circus, steeland bronze glittered in the distant vapours. One thousand men of thepraetorian guard, cut off from the Caesar, had been unable to forge a waythrough the serried ranks of the populace.
Dark masses--that lay immovable and stark in the open space around theCircus--spoke mutely of combats that had been fierce and bloody: but thepeople had remained victorious; the people held their ground. Onehundred thousand fists and staves, a few agricultural and buildingimplements had asserted their mastery over one thousand swords andshields.
The people were the masters of Rome, and they had chosen their Caesar inthe hero whom they had already deified.
Taurus Antinor's gaze swept over the vista that lay stretched out beforehim: it pictured the entire political situation of the world-city. Withtreachery lurking on the hill and a determined mob in the valley, themurder of the Caesar was but a question of hours.
And after that?
After that the Empire of Rome and the dominion of the world for this manwho stood here on the watch. He had but to say the word and that Empirewould be his. He had but to go back now, to find his way with softlytreading footsteps to the couch where Dea Flavia's exquisite body laystretched out in semi-unconsciousness. He had but to take her once morein his arms, to murmur the words of love that--unspoken--seared his lipseven now; he had but to close his ears to the still small voice that wasGod's, and Rome, the mistress of the world, and Dea Flavia, the peerlesswoman, would be his at the word.
Rome and Dea Flavia! the two priceless guerdons of the earth! Theycalled to him now on the wings of the distant storm, from over the hillsand from across the grey, dull mist that obscured the sky.
The man stretched out his arms with a gesture of passionate longing. Howeasy it were to take all! How impossible it seemed to give up everythingthat made life glorious and sweet.
A voice low and insinuating trembled in the air.
"Take all!" it said, "it is thine for the taking. Thine by the will ofthousands, thine by the call of one pair of perfect lips ... Rome, theunconquered queen ... Dea Flavia holding in her white hands a cupbrimming over with happiness ... all are thine at the word."
The silent watcher cried out in his loneliness and his agony; he heldhis hands to his ears, for the voice grew more insidious and more real:
"The Empire of the world and Dea Flavia ... and in the balance what?...an oath rendered to a tyrannical madman, the scourge and terror ofmankind ... an oath which reason itself doth repudiate with scorn ...even thy God would not exact obedience from thee at such a price...."
His head fell upon his breast and his knees bent to the earth. It wasall so difficult ... it seemed well-nigh impossible now....
No words escaped his lips; he knelt here silent and alone before theface of Rome that but waited to be conquered--before the face of Godveiled to his gaze, and around him the distant roll of thunder and theconfused shouts of the people from below.
Christian! this is thine hour! In silence and in tears thou must makethy last stand against temptation greater mayhap than suffering manhoodhath ever had to w
ithstand alone.
Everything in the man cried out to him to yield; his love for Dea andhis love for Rome, and that pride of manhood in him that calls for powerover other men. Born and bred in luxury-loving paganism, in the worshipof might and the deification of the imperium, the Christian had tochoose between the world and the Master. The battle was fierce andcruel. Gone now was the consciousness of strength, the dignity of thepatrician! Here was but a lonely wretched human creature fighting thetempter for his own soul.
He cowered on the ground, the while driving rain beat against the tawnymasses of his hair, and lashed the proud stiff neck that found it sodifficult to bend. The tearing wind searched the loosened folds of hismantle and the purple silk of his tunic, the emblem of patrician rank.His face was buried in his hands, heavy sobs shook his broad shoulders.The face of Dea Flavia, exquisitely fair, smiled at him through hisclosed lids, the warm, mellow masses of her hair entwined themselvesaround his tear-stained fingers, her cooing voice called to him with theineffable sweetness of love.
Christian, it is thine hour! and the battle must be fought out inanguish and in loneliness, with no one nigh thee to comfort and tosuccour, with no one to see the rending of thy soul or the slow breakingof thy love-filled heart.
"When thou art lonely and wretched," Dea Flavia had cried in the agonyof her wounded love, "call on thy god then and thou wilt find him silentunto thy prayer and deaf unto thy woe."
And the cry was wrung out from the depths of the tortured heart: "Oh,God, my God, if Thou be willing take this cup from me!" whilst the manprayed to his God to take his soul into His keeping ere it becameperjured and accursed.
But God was silent, because the soul, though racked and tempted, was toogreat for the tasting of an easy victory. God was silent, but He saw thetears that fell heavy and hot upon the ground. He was silent, but Heheard the cries of anguish, the bitter moans of pain.
Christian, this is thine hour! for when thy soul and heart have sufferedenough, when they have been weighed in the crucible of divine love andnot been found wanting, then will the peace of God which passeth allunderstanding descend in exquisite comfort upon thee.
Gradually the tears ceased to fall, the sobs to shake the massive frameof the kneeling man. His hands dropped from his face and his gaze wentup to the storm-tossed firmament, there where land and sky merged in thegrey mists of approaching evening.
And on the horizon, as he gazed, beyond the valley, beyond the Aventineand the murmuring Tiber, already wrapped in gloom, a ray of golden lighthad rent the lowering clouds.
It shone serene and bright, illumined from behind limitless depths bythe slanting rays of a slowly sinking sun. Taurus Antinor rose to hisfeet; he looked and looked upon that light until it tore a wider andever wider gap in the angry clouds, and its golden radiance spreadright across the horizon far away.
The very mist now seemed aglow; the waters of the Tiber, tossed by thegale, throw back brilliant sparks of reflected lights.
From the low-lying marshes among the reeds two birds rose in rapidflight and disappeared in that golden haze.
"My God, not mine but Thy will be done!" murmured the lonely man; andanguish folded its sable wings and the tortured heart was at peace.