CHAPTER 25.
THE TEMPLE AND THE CHURCH.
It was Ulpius. The Pagan was changed in bearing and countenance aswell as in apparel. He stood more firm and upright; a dull, tawny hueoverspread his face; his eyes, so sunken and lustreless in other days,were now distended and bright with the glare of insanity. It seemed asif his bodily powers had renewed their vigour, while his mentalfaculties had declined towards their ruin.
No human eye had ever beheld by what foul and secret means he hadsurvived through the famine, on what unnatural sustenance he hadsatisfied the cravings of inexorable hunger; but there, in his gloomyshelter, the madman and the outcast had lived and moved, and suddenlyand strangely strengthened, after the people of the city had exhaustedall their united responses, lavished in vain all their united wealth,and drooped and died by thousands around him!
His grasp still lay heavy on the father and daughter, and still bothconfronted him--silent, as if death-struck by his gaze; motionless, asif frozen at his touch. His presence was exerting over them a fatalfascination. The power of action, suspended in Antonina as she enteredtheir ill-chosen refuge, was now arrested in Numerian also; but withhim no thought of the enemy in the street had any part, at this moment,in the resistless influence which held him helpless before the enemy inthe temple.
It was a feeling of deeper awe and darker horror. For now, as helooked upon the hideous features of Ulpius, as he saw the forbiddenrobe of priesthood in which the Pagan was arrayed, he beheld not onlythe traitor who had successfully plotted against the prosperity of hishousehold, but the madman as well,--the moral leper of the whole humanfamily--the living Body and the dead Soul--the disinherited of thatDivine Light of Life which it is the awful privilege of mortal man toshare with the angels of God.
He still clasped Antonina to his side, but it was unconsciously. Toall outward appearance he was helpless as his helpless child, whenUlpius slowly removed his grasp from their shoulders, separated them,and locking the hand of each in his cold, bony fingers, began to speak.
His voice was deep and solemn, but his accents, in their hard,unvarying tone, seemed to express no human emotion. His eyes, far frombrightening as he spoke, relapsed into a dull, vacant insensibility.The connection between the action of speech and the accompanying andexplaining action of look which is observable in all men, seemed lostin him. It was fearful to behold the death-like face, and to listen atthe same moment to the living voice.
'Lo! the votaries come to the temple!' murmured the Pagan. 'The goodservants of the mighty worship gather at the voice of the priest! Inthe far provinces, where the enemies of the gods approach to profanethe sacred groves, behold the scattered people congregating by night tojourney to the shrine of Serapis! Adoring thousands kneel beneath thelofty porticoes, while within, in the secret hall where the light isdim, where the air quivers round the breathing deities on theirpedestals of gold, the high priest Ulpius reads the destinies of thefuture, that are unrolled before his eyes like a book!'
As he ceased, and, still holding the hands of his captives, looked onthem fixedly as ever, his eyes brightened and dilated again; but theyexpressed not the slightest recognition either of father or daughter.The delirium of his imagination had transported him to the temple atAlexandria; the days were revived when his glory had risen to itsculminating point, when the Christians trembled before him as theirfiercest enemy, and the Pagans surrounded him as their last hope. Thevictims of his former and forgotten treachery were but as two among thethrong of votaries allured by the fame of his eloquence, by thetriumphant notoriety of his power to protect the adherents of theancient creed.
But it was not always thus that his madness declared itself: therewere moments when it rose to appalling frenzy. Then he imaginedhimself to be again hurling the Christian assailants from the topmostwalls of the besieged temple, in that past time when the image ofSerapis was doomed by the Bishop of Alexandria to be destroyed. Hisyells of fury, his frantic execrations of defiance were heard afar, inthe solemn silence of pestilence-stricken Rome. Those who, during themost fatal days of the Gothic blockade, dropped famished on thepavement before the little temple, as they endeavoured to pass it ontheir onward way, presented a dread reality of death, to embody themadman's visions of battle and slaughter. As these victims of faminelay expiring in the street, they heard above them his raving voicecursing them for Christians, triumphing over them as defeated enemiesdestroyed by his hand, exhorting his imaginary adherents to fling theslain above on the dead below, until the bodies of the besiegers of thetemple were piled, as barriers against their living comrades, round itswalls. Sometimes his frenzy gloried in the fancied revival of the fouland sanguinary ceremonies of Pagan superstition. Then he bared hisarms, and shouted aloud for the sacrifice; he committed dark andnameless atrocities--for now again the dead and the dying lay beforehim, to give substance to the shadow of his evil thoughts; and Plagueand Hunger were as creatures of his will, and slew the victim for thealtar ready to his hands.
At other times, when the raving fit had passed away, and he lay pantingin the darkest corner of the interior of the temple, his insanityassumed another and a mournful form. His voice grew low and moaning;the wreck of his memory--wandering and uncontrollable--floated back,far back, on the dark waters of the past; and his tongue utteredfragments of words and phrases that he had murmured at his father'sknees--farewell, childish wishes that he had breathed in his mother'sear--innocent, anxious questions which he had addressed to Macrinus,the high priest, when he first entered the service of the gods atAlexandria. His boyish reveries--the gentleness of speech and poetry ofthought of his first youthful days, were now, by the unsearchable andarbitrary influences of his disease, revived in his broken words,renewed in his desolate old age of madness and crime, breathed out inunconscious mockery by his lips, while the foam still gathered aboutthem, and the last flashes of frenzy yet lightened in his eyes.
This unnatural calmness of language and vividness of memory, thistreacherous appearance of thoughtful, melancholy self-possession, wouldoften continue through long periods, uninterrupted; but, sooner orlater, the sudden change came; the deceitful chain of thought snappedasunder in an instant; the word was left half uttered; the weariedlimbs started convulsively into renewed action; and as the dream ofviolence returned and the dream of peace vanished, the madman riotedafresh in his fury; and journeyed as his visions led him, round andround his temple sanctuary, and hither and thither, when the night wasdark and death was busiest in Rome, among the expiring in desertedhouses, and the lifeless in the silent streets.
But there were other later events in his existence that never revivedwithin him. The old familiar image of the idol Serapis, which haddrawn him into the temple when he re-entered Rome, absorbed in itselfand in its associated remembrances all that remained active of hisparalysed faculties. His betrayal of his trust in the house ofNumerian, his passage through the rifted wall, his crushing repulse inthe tent of Alaric, never for a moment occupied his wandering thoughts.The clouds that hung over his mind might open to him parting glimpsesof the toils and triumphs of his early career; but they descended inimpenetrable darkness on all the after-days of his dreary life.
Such was the being to whose will, by a mysterious fatality, the fatherand child were now submitted; such the existence--solitary, hopeless,loathsome--of their stern and wily betrayer of other days!
Since he had ceased speaking, the cold, death-like grasp of his handhad gradually strengthened, and he had begun to look slowly andinquiringly round him from side to side. Had this change marked theapproaching return of his raving paroxysm, the lives of Numerian andAntonina would have been sacrificed the next moment; but all that itnow denoted was the quickening of the lofty and obscure ideas ofcelebrity and success, of priestly honour and influence, of thesplendour and glory of the gods, which had prompted his last words.
He moved suddenly, and drew the victims of his dangerous caprice a fewsteps farther into the interior of the temple; then l
ed them close upto the lofty pile of objects which had first attracted Numerian's eyeson entering the building. 'Kneel and adore!' cried the madmanfiercely, replacing his hands on their shoulders and pressing them tothe ground--'You stand before the gods, in the presence of their highpriest!'
The girl's head sank forward, and she hid her face in her hands; buther father looked up tremblingly at the pile. His eyes had insensiblybecome more accustomed to the dim light of the temple, and he now sawmore distinctly the objects composing the mass that rose above him.
Hundreds of images of the gods, in gold, silver, and wood--many in thelatter material being larger than life; canopies, vestments, furniture,utensils, all of ancient Pagan form, were heaped together, withoutorder or arrangement, on the floor, to a height of full fifteen feet.
There was something at once hideous and grotesque in the appearance ofthe pile. The monstrous figures of the idols, with their rude carveddraperies and symbolic weapons, lay in every wild variety of position,and presented every startling eccentricity of line, more especiallytowards the higher portions of the mass, where they had evidently beenflung up from the ground by the hand that had raised the structure.
The draperies mixed among the images and the furniture were here coiledserpent-like around them, and there hung down towards the ground,waving slow and solemn in the breezes that wound through the templedoorway. The smaller objects of gold and silver, scattered irregularlyover the mass, shone out from it like gleaming eyes; while the pileitself, seen in such a place under a dusky light, looked like somevast, misshapen monster--the gloomy embodiment of the bloodiestsuperstitions of Paganism, the growth of damp airs and teeming ruin, ofshadow and darkness, of accursed and infected solitude!
Even in its position, as well as in the objects of which it wascomposed, the pile wore an ominous and startling aspect; its crookedoutline, expanding towards the top, was bent over fearfully in thedirection of the doorway; it seemed as if a single hand might sway itin its uncertain balance, and hurl it instantly in one solid mass tothe floor.
Many toilsome hours had passed away, long secret labour had beenexpended in the erection of this weird and tottering structure; but itwas all the work of one hand. Night after night had the Pagan enteredthe deserted temples in the surrounding streets, and pillaged them oftheir contents to enrich his favoured shrine: the removal of the idolsfrom their appointed places, which would have been sacrilege in anymeaner man, was in his eyes the dread privilege of the high priestalone.
He had borne heavy burdens, and torn asunder strong fastenings, andjourneyed and journeyed again for hours together over the same gloomystreets, without loitering in his task; he had raised treasures andimages one above another; he had strengthened the base and heightenedthe summit of this precious and sacred heap; he had repaired andrebuilt, whenever it crumbled and fell, this new Babel that he longedto rear to the Olympus of the temple roof, with a resolute patience andperseverance that no failure or fatigue could overcome.
It was the dearest purpose of his dreamy superstition to surroundhimself with innumerable deities, as well as to assemble innumerableworshippers; to make the sacred place of his habitation a mightyPantheon, as well as a point of juncture for the scatteredcongregations of the Pagan world. This was the ambition in which hismadness expanded to the fiercest fanaticism; and as he now stood erectwith his captives beneath him, his glaring eyes looked awe-struck whenhe fixed them on his idols; he uplifted his arms in solemn, ecstatictriumph, and in low tones poured forth his invocations, wild,intermingled, and fragmentary, as the barbarous altar which hissolitary exertions had reared.
Whatever was the effect on Numerian of his savage and confusedejaculations, they were unnoticed, even unheard, by Antonina; for now,while the madman's voice softened to an undertone, and while she hidall surrounding objects from her eyes, her senses were awakened tosounds in the temple which she had never remarked before.
The rapid current of the Tiber washed the foundation walls of one sideof the building, within which the clear, lulling bubble of the waterwas audible with singular distinctness. But besides this another and ashriller sound caught the ear. On the summit of the temple roof stillremained several rows of little gilt bells, originally placed there,partly with the intention of ornamenting this portion of the outerstructure, partly in order that the noise they produced, when agitatedby the wind, might scare birds from settling in their flight on theconsecrated edifice. The sounds produced by these bells were silveryand high pitched; now, when the breeze was strong, they rang togethermerrily and continuously; now, when it fell, their notes were faint,separate, and irregular, almost plaintive in their pure metallicsoftness. But, however their tone might vary under the capriciousinfluences of the wind, it seemed always wonderfully mingled within thetemple with the low, eternal bubbling of the river, which filled up theslightest pauses in the pleasant chiming of the bells, and everpreserved its gentle and monotonous harmony just audible beneath them.
There was something in this quaint, unwonted combination of sounds, asthey were heard in the vaulted interior of the little building,strangely simple, attractive, and spiritual; the longer they werelistened to, the more completely did the mind lose the recollection oftheir real origin, and gradually shape out of them wilder and wilderfancies, until the bells as they rang their small peal seemed likehappy voices of a heavenly stream, borne lightly onward on its airybubbles, and ever rejoicing over the gliding current that murmured tothem as it ran.
Spite of the peril of her position, and of the terror which still fixedher speechless and crouching on the ground, the effect on Antonina ofthe strange mingled music of the running water and the bells waspowerful enough, when she first heard it, to suspend all her otheremotions in a momentary wonder and doubt. She withdrew her hands fromher face, and glanced round mechanically to the doorway, as if sheimagined that the sounds proceeded from the street.
When she looked, the declining sun, gliding between two of the outerpillars which surrounded the temple, covered with a bright glow thesmooth pavement before the entrance. A swarm of insects flew drowsilyround and round in the warm mellow light; their faint monotonoushumming deepened, rather than interrupted, the perfect silenceprevailing over all things without.
But a change was soon destined to appear in the repose of the quiet,vacant scene; hardly a minute had elapsed while Antonina still lookedon it before she saw stealing over the sunny pavement a dark shadow,the same shadow that she had last beheld when she stopped in her flightto look behind her in the empty street. At first it slowly grew andlengthened, then it remained stationary, then it receded and vanishedas gradually as it had advanced, and then the girl heard, or fanciedthat she heard, a faint sound of footsteps, retiring along the lateralcolonnades towards the river side of the building.
A low cry of horror burst from her lips as she sank back towards herfather; but it was unheeded. The voice of Ulpius had resumed in theinterval its hollow loudness of tone; he had raised Numerian from theground; his strong, cold grasp, which seemed to penetrate to the oldman's heart, which held him motionless and helpless as if by a fatalspell, was on his arm.
'Hear it! hear it!' cried the Pagan, waving his disengaged hand as ifhe were addressing a vast concourse of people--'I advance this man tobe one of the servants of the high priest! He has travelled from a farcountry to the sacred shrine; he is docile and obedient before thealtar of the gods; the lot is cast for his future life; his dwellingshall be in the temple to the day of his death! He shall ministerbefore me in white robes, and swing the smoking censer, and slay thesacrifice at my feet!'
He stopped. A dark and sinister expression appeared in his eyes as theword 'sacrifice' passed his lips; he muttered doubtingly tohimself--'The sacrifice!--is it yet the hour of the sacrifice?'--andlooked round towards the doorway.
The sun still shone gaily on the outer pavement; the insects stillcircled slowly in the mellow light; no shadow was now visible; nodistant footsteps were heard; there was nothing audible bu
t the happymusic of the bubbling water, and the chiming, silvery bells.
For a few moments the madman looked out anxiously towards the street,without uttering a word or moving a muscle. The raving fit was nearlypossessing him again, as the thought of the sacrifice flashed over hisdarkened mind; but once more its approach was delayed.
He slowly turned his head in the direction of the interior of thetemple. 'The sun is still bright in the outer courts,' he murmured inan undertone, 'the hour of the sacrifice is not yet! Come!' hecontinued in a louder voice, shaking Numerian by the arm. 'It is timethat the servant of the temple should behold the place of thesacrifice, and sharpen the knife for the victim before sunset! Arousethee, bondman, and follow me!'
As yet, Numerian had neither spoken, nor attempted to escape. Thepreceding events, though some space has been occupied in describingthem, passed in so short a period of time, that he had not hithertorecovered from the first overwhelming shock of the meeting with Ulpius.But now, awed though he still was, he felt that the moment of thestruggle for freedom had arrived.
'Leave me, and let us depart!--there can be no fellowship between usagain!' he exclaimed with the reckless courage of despair, taking thehand of Antonina, and striving to free himself from the madman's grasp.But the effort was vain; Ulpius tightened his hold and laughed intriumph. 'What! the servant of the temple is in terror of the highpriest, and shrinks from walking in the place of the sacrifice!' hecried. 'Fear not, bondman! The mighty one, who rules over life anddeath, and time and futurity, deals kindly with the servant of hischoice! Onward! onward! to the place of darkness and doom, where Ialone am omnipotent, and all others are creatures who tremble and obey!To thy lesson, learner! by sunset the victim must be crowned!'
He looked round on Numerian for an instant, as he prepared to drag himforward, and their eyes met. In the fierce command of his action, andthe savage exultation of his glance, the father saw repeated in awilder form the very attitude and expression which he had beheld in thePagan on the morning of the loss of his child. All the circumstancesof that miserable hour--the vacant bed-chamber--the banisheddaughter--the triumph of the betrayer--the anguish of thebetrayed--rushed over his mind, and rose up before it vivid as apictured scene before his eyes.
He struggled no more; the powers of resistance in mind and body werecrushed alike. He made an effort to remove Antonina from his side, asif, in forgetfulness of the hidden enemy without, he designed to urgeher flight through the open door, while the madman's attention was yetdistracted from her. But, beyond this last exertion of the stronginstinct of paternal love, every other active emotion seemed deadwithin him.
Vainly had he striven to disentangle the child from the fate that mightbe in store for the parent. To her the dread of the dark shadow on thepavement was superior to all other apprehensions. She now clung moreclosely to her father, and tightened her clasp round his hand. So,when the Pagan advanced into the interior of the temple, it was notNumerian alone who followed him to the place of sacrifice, but Antoninaas well.
They moved to the back of the pile of idols. Behind it appeared a highpartition of gilt and inlaid wood reaching to the ceiling, andseparating the outer from the inner part of the temple. A low archwaypassage, protected by carved gates similar to those at the front of thebuilding, had been formed in the partition, and through this Ulpius andhis prisoners now passed into the recess beyond.
This apartment was considerably smaller than the first hall of thetemple which they had just left. The ceiling and the floor both slopeddownwards together, and here the rippling of the waters of the Tiberwas more distinctly audible to them than in the outer division of thebuilding. At the moment when they entered it the place was very dark;the pile of idols intercepted even the little light that could havebeen admitted through its narrow entrance; but the dense obscurity wassoon dissipated. Dragging Numerian after him to the left side of therecess, Ulpius drew back a sort of wooden shutter, and a vivid ray ofsunlight immediately streamed in through a small circular openingpierced in this part of the temple.
Then there became apparent, at the lower end of the apartment, a vastyawning cavity in the wall, high enough to admit a man withoutstooping, but running downwards almost perpendicularly to some lowerregion which it was impossible to see, for no light shot upwards fromthis precipitous artificial abyss, in the darkness of which the eye waslost after it had penetrated to the distance of a few feet only fromthe opening. At the base of the confined space thus visible appearedthe commencement of a flight of steps, evidently leading far downwardsinto the cavity. On the abruptly sloping walls, which bounded it onall sides, were painted, in the brilliant hues of ancient fresco,representations of the deities of the mythology--all in the attitude ofdescending into the vault, and all followed by figures of nymphsbearing wreaths of flowers, beautiful birds, and other similar adjunctsof the votive ceremonies of Paganism. The repulsive contrast betweenthe bright colours and graceful forms presented by the frescoes, andthe perilous and gloomy appearance of the cavity which they decorated,increased remarkably the startling significance in the character of thewhole structure. Its past evil uses seemed ineradicably written overevery part of it, as past crime and torment remain ineradicably writtenon the human face; the mind imbibed from it terrifying ideas of deadlytreachery, of secret atrocities, of frightful refinements of torture,which no uninitiated eye had ever beheld, and no human resolution hadever been powerful enough to resist.
But the impressions thus received were not produced only by what wasseen in and around this strange vault, but by what was heard therebesides. The wind penetrated the cavity at some distance, and throughsome opening that could not be beheld, and was apparently interceptedin its passage, for it whistled upwards towards the entrance in shrill,winding notes, sometimes producing another and nearer sound, resemblingthe clashing of many small metallic substances violently shakentogether. The noise of the wind, as well as the bubbling of thecurrent of the Tiber, seemed to proceed from a greater distance thanappeared compatible with the narrow extent of the back part of thetemple, and the proximity of the river to its low foundation walls.
It was evident that the vault only reached its outlet after it hadwound backwards, underneath the building, in some strange complicationof passages or labyrinth of artificial caverns, which might have beenbuilt long since as dungeons for the living, or as sepulchres for thedead.
'The place of the sacrifice--aha! the place of the sacrifice!' criedthe Pagan exultingly, as he drew Numerian to the entrance of thecavity, and solemnly pointed into the darkness beneath.
The father gazed steadily into the chasm, never turning now to look onAntonina, never moving to renew the struggle for freedom. Earthlyloves and earthly hopes began to fade away from his heart--he waspraying. The solemn words of Christian supplication fell in low,murmuring sounds from his lips, in the place of idolatry and bloodshed,and mingled with the incoherent ejaculations of the madman who kept himcaptive, and who now bent his glaring eyes on the darkness of thevault, half forgetful, in the gloomy fascination which it exercisedeven over him, of the prisoners whom he held at its mouth.
The single ray of light, admitted from the circular aperture of thewall, fell wild and fantastic over the widely-differing figures of thethree, as they stood so strangely united together before the abyss thatopened beneath them. The shadows were above and the shadows werearound; there was no light in the ill-omened place but the one vividray that streamed over the gaunt figure of Ulpius, as he still pointedinto the darkness; over the rigid features of Numerian, praying in thebitterness of expected death; and over the frail youthful form ofAntonina as she nestled trembling at her father's side. It was anunearthly and a solemn scene!
Meanwhile the shadow which the girl had observed on the pavement beforethe doorway of the temple now appeared there again, but not to retireas before; for, the instant after, Goisvintha stealthily entered theouter apartment of the building left vacant by its first occupants.She passed softly around t
he pile of idols, looked into the innerrecess of the temple, and saw the three figures standing together inthe ray of light, gloomy and motionless, before the mouth of thecavity. Her first glance fixed on the Pagan, whom she instinctivelydoubted and dreaded, whose purpose in keeping captive the father anddaughter she could not divine; her next was directed on Antonina.
The girl's position was a guarded one; still holding her father's hand,she was partly protected by his body; and stood unconsciously beneaththe arm of Ulpius, as it was raised while he grasped Numerian'sshoulder. Marking this, and remembering that Antonina had twiceescaped her already, Goisvintha hesitated for a moment, and then, withcautious step and lowering brow, began to retire again towards thedoorway of the building. 'Not yet--not yet the time!' she muttered, asshe resumed her former lurking-place; 'they stand where the light isover them--the girl is watched and shielded--the two men are still oneither side of her! Not yet the moment of the blow; the stroke of theknife must be sure and safe! Sure, for this time she must die by myhand! Safe, for I have other vengeance to wreak besides the vengeanceon her! I, who have been patient and cunning since the night when Iescaped from Aquileia, will be patient and cunning still! If shepasses the door, I slay her as she goes out; if she remains in thetemple--'
At the last word, Goisvintha paused and gazed upward; the setting sunthrew its fiery glow over her haggard face; her eye brightened fiercelyin the full light as she looked. 'The darkness is at hand!' shecontinued; 'the night will be thick and black in the dim halls of thetemple; I shall see her when she shall not see me!--the darkness iscoming; the vengeance is sure!'
She closed her lips, and with fatal perseverance continued to watch andwait, as she had resolutely watched and waited already. The Roman andthe Goth; the opposite in sex, nation, and fate; the madman who dreamedof the sanguinary superstitions of Paganism before the temple altar,and the assassin who brooded over the chances of bloodshed beneath thetemple portico, were now united in a mysterious identity ofexpectation, uncommunicated and unsuspected by either--the hour whenthe sun vanished from the heaven was the hour of the sacrifice for both!
* * * * *
There is now a momentary pause in the progress of events. Occurrencesto be hereafter related render it necessary to take advantage of thisinterval to inform the reader of the real nature and use of the vaultin the temple wall, the external appearance of which we have alreadydescribed.
The marking peculiarity in the construction of the Pagan religion maybe most aptly compared to the marking peculiarity in the constructionof the pagan temples. Both were designed to attract the general eye bythe outward effect only, which was in both the false delusivereflection of the inward substance.
In the temple, the people, as they worshipped beneath the longcolonnades, or beheld the lofty porticoes from the street, were left toimagine the corresponding majesty and symmetry of the interior of thestructure, and were not admitted to discover how grievously itdisappointed the brilliant expectations which the exterior was so wellcalculated to inspire; how little the dark, narrow halls of the idols,the secret vaults and gloomy recesses within, fulfilled the promise ofthe long flights of steps, the broad extent of pavement, the massivesun-brightened pillars without. So in the religion, the votary wasallured by the splendour of processions; by the pomp of auguries; bythe poetry of the superstition which peopled his native woods with thesportive Dryads, and the fountains from which he drank with theirguardian Naiads; which gave to mountain and lake, to sun and moon andstars, to all things around and above him, their fantastic allegory, ortheir gracious legend of beauty and love: but beyond this, his firstacquaintance with his worship was not permitted to extend, here hisinitiation concluded. He was kept in ignorance of the dark anddangerous depths which lurked beneath this smooth and attractivesurface; he was left to imagine that what was displayed was but theprelude to the future discovery of what was hidden of beauty in therites of Paganism; he was not admitted to behold the wretchedimpostures, the loathsome orgies, the hideous incantations, the bloodyhuman sacrifices perpetrated in secret, which made the foul, realsubstance of the fair exterior form. His first sight of the temple wasnot less successful in deceiving his eye than his first impression ofthe religion in deluding his mind.
With these hidden and guilty mysteries of the Pagan worship, the vaultbefore which Ulpius now stood with his captives was intimatelyconnected.
The human sacrifices offered among the Romans were of two kinds; thosepublicly and those privately performed. The first were of annualrecurrence in the early years of the Republic; were prohibited at alater date; were revived by Augustus, who sacrificed his prisoners ofwar at the altar of Julius Caesar; and were afterwards--thoughoccasionally renewed for particular purposes under some subsequentreigns--wholly abandoned as part of the ceremonies of Paganism duringthe later periods of the empire.
The sacrifices perpetrated in private were much longer practised. Theywere connected with the most secret mysteries of the mythology; wereconcealed from the supervision of government; and lasted probably untilthe general extinction of heathen superstition in Italy and theprovinces.
Many and various were the receptacles constructed for the privateimmolation of human victims in different parts of the empire--in itscrowded cities as well as in its solitary woods--and among all, one ofthe most remarkable and the longest preserved was the great cavitypierced in the wall of the temple which Ulpius had chosen for hissolitary lurking-place in Rome.
It was not merely as a place of concealment for the act of immolation,and for the corpse of the victim, that the vault had been built. Asanguinary artifice had complicated the manner of its construction, byplacing in the cavity itself the instrument of the sacrifice; by makingit, as it were, not merely the receptacle, but the devourer also of itshuman prey. At the bottom of the flight of steps leading down into it(the top of which, as we have already observed, was alone visible fromthe entrance in the temple recess) was fixed the image of a dragonformed in brass.
The body of the monster, protruding opposite the steps almost at aright angle from the wall, was moved in all directions by steelsprings, which communicated with one of the lower stairs, and also witha sword placed in the throat of the image to represent the dragon'stongue. The walls around the steps narrowed so as barely to admit thepassage of the human body when they approached the dragon. At theslightest pressure on the stair with which the spring communicated, thebody of the monster bent forward, and the sword instantly protrudedfrom its throat, at such a height from the steps as ensure that itshould transfix in a vital part the person who descended. The corpse,then dropping by its own weight off the sword, fell through a tunnelledopening beneath the dragon, running downward in an opposite directionto that taken by the steps above, and was deposited on an iron gratingwashed by the waters of the Tiber, which ran under the archedfoundations of the temple. The grating was approached by a secretsubterranean passage leading from the front of the building, by whichthe sacrificing priests were enabled to reach the dead body, to fastenweights to it, and opening the grating, to drop it into the river,never to be beheld again by mortal eyes.
In the days when this engine of destruction was permitted to serve thepurpose for which the horrible ingenuity of its inventors hadconstructed it, its principal victims were young girls. Crowned withflowers, and clad in white garments, they were lured into immolatingthemselves by being furnished with rich offerings, and told that thesole object of their fatal expedition down the steps of the vault wasto realise the pictures adorning its walls (which we have described afew pages back), by presenting their gifts at the shrine of the idolbelow.
At the period of which we write, the dragon had for many years--sincethe first prohibitions of Paganism--ceased to be fed with its wontedprey. The scales forming its body grew gradually corroded and loosenedby the damp; and when moved by the wind which penetrated to them frombeneath, whistling up in its tortuous course through the tunnel thatran in one direction bel
ow, and the vault of the steps that ascended inanother above, produced the clashing sound which has been mentioned asaudible at intervals from the mouth of the cavity. But the springswhich moved the deadly apparatus of the whole machine being placedwithin it, under cover, continued to resist the slow progress of timeand of neglect, and still remained as completely fitted as ever toexecute the fatal purpose for which they had been designed.
The ultimate destiny of the dragon of brass was the destiny of thereligion whose bloodiest superstitions it embodied: it fell beneaththe resistless advance of Christianity. Shortly after the date of ournarrative, the interior of the building beneath which it was placedhaving suffered from an accident, which will be related farther on, theexterior was dismantled, in order that its pillars might furnishmaterials for a church. The vault in the wall was explored by a monkwho had been present at the destruction of other Pagan temples, and whovolunteered to discover its contents. With a torch in one hand, and aniron bar in the other, he descended into the cavity, sounding the wallsand the steps before him as he proceeded. For the first and the lasttime the sword protruded harmless from the monster's throat when themonk pressed the fatal stair, before stepping on it, with his iron bar.The same day the machine was destroyed and cast into the Tiber, whereits victims had been thrown before it in former years.
* * * * *
Some minutes have elapsed since we left the father and daughterstanding by the Pagan's side before the mouth of the vault; and as yetthere appears no change in the several positions of the three. Butalready, while Ulpius still looks down steadfastly into the cavity athis feet, his voice, as he continues to speak, grows louder, and hiswords become more distinct. Fearful recollections associated with theplace are beginning to stir his weary memory, to lift the darkness ofoblivion from his idle thoughts.
'They go down, far down there!' he abruptly exclaimed, pointing intothe black depths of the vault, 'and never arise again to the light ofthe upper earth! The great Destroyer is watchful in his solitudebeneath, and looks through the darkness for their approach! Hark! thehissing of his breath is like to the clash of weapons in a deadlystrife!'
At this moment the wind moved the loose scales of the dragon. Duringan instant Ulpius remained silent, listening to the noise theyproduced. For the first time an expression of dread appeared on hisface. His memory was obscurely reviving the incidents of his discoveryof the deadly machinery in the vault when he first made his sojourn inthe temple, when--filled with the confused remembrance of themysterious rites and incantations, the secret sacrifices which he hadwitnessed and performed at Alexandria--he had found and followed thesubterranean passage which led to the iron grating beneath the dragon.As the wind lulled again, and the clashing of the metal ceased with it,he began to give these recollections expression in words, uttering themin slow, solemn accents to himself.
'I have seen the Destroyer; the Invisible has revealed himself to me!'he murmured. 'I stood on the iron bars; the restless waters toiled andstruggled beneath my feet as I looked up into the place of darkness. Avoice called to me, "Get light, and behold me from above! Get light!get light!" Sun, and moon, and stars gave no light there! but lampsburnt in the city, in the houses of the dead, when I walked by them inthe night-time; and the lamp gave light when sun, and moon, and starsgave none! From the top steps I looked down, and saw the Powerful Onein his golden brightness; and approached not, but watched and listenedin fear. The voice again!--the voice was heard again!--"Sacrifice tome in secret, as thy brethren sacrifice! Give me the living where theliving are, and the dead where the dead!" The air came up cold, andthe voice ceased, and the lamp was like sun, and moon, and stars--itgave no light in the place of darkness!'
While he spoke, the loose metal again clashed in the vault, for thewind was strengthening as the evening advanced. 'Hark! the signal toprepare the sacrifice!' cried the Pagan, turning abruptly to Numerian.'Listen, bondman! the living and the dead are within our reach. Thebreath of the Invisible strikes them in the street and in the house;they stagger in the highways, and drop at the temple steps. When thehour comes we shall go forth and find them. Under my hand they go downinto the cavern beneath. Whether they are hurled dead, or whether theygo down living, they fall through to the iron bars, where the waterleaps and rejoices to receive them! It is mine to sacrifice themabove, and thine to wait for them below, to lift the bars and give themto the river to be swallowed up! The dead drop down first, the livingthat are slain by the Destroyer follow after!'
Here he paused suddenly. Now, for the first time, his eye rested onAntonina, whose very existence he seemed hitherto to have forgotten. Arevolting smile of mingled cunning and satisfaction instantly changedthe whole character of his countenance as he gazed on her and thenlooked round significantly to the vault. 'Here is one,' he whisperedto Numerian, taking her by the arm. 'Keep her captive--the hour isnear!'
Numerian had hitherto stood unheedful while he spoke; but when hetouched Antonina the bare action was enough to arouse the father toresistance--hopeless though it was--once more. He shook off the graspof Ulpius from the girl's arm, and drew back with her--breathless,vigilant, desperate--to the side-wall behind him.
The madman laughed in proud approval. 'My bondman obeys me and seizesthe captive!' he cried. 'He remembers that the hour is near and loosensnot his hold! Come,' he continued, 'come out into the hall beyond!--itis time that we watch for more victims for the sacrifice till the sungoes down. The Destroyer is mighty and must be obeyed!'
He walked to the entrance leading into the first apartment of thetemple, and then waited to be followed by Numerian, who, now for thefirst time separated from Ulpius, remained stationary in the positionhe had last occupied, and looked eagerly around him. No chance ofescape presented itself; the mouth of the vault on one side, and thepassage through the partition on the other, were the only outlets tothe place. There was no hope but to follow the Pagan into the greathall of the temple, to keep carefully at a distance from him, and towatch the opportunity of flight through the doorway. The street, sodesolate when last beheld, might now afford more evidence that it wasinhabited. Citizens, guards might be passing by, and might be summonedinto the temple--help might be at hand.
As he moved forward with Antonina, such thoughts passed rapidly throughthe father's mind, unaccompanied at the moment by the recollection ofthe stranger who had followed them from the Pincian Gate, or of theapathy of the famished populace in aiding each other in any emergency.Seeing that he was followed as he had commanded, Ulpius passed onbefore them to the pile of idols; but a strange and sudden alterationappeared in his gait. He had hitherto walked with the step of aman--young, strong, and resolute of purpose; now he dragged one limbafter the other as slowly and painfully as if he had received a mortalhurt. He tottered with more than the infirmity of his age, his headdropped upon his breast, and he moaned and murmured inarticulately inlow, long-drawn cries.
He had advanced to the side of the pile, half-way towards the doorwayof the temple, when Numerian, who had watched with searching eyes theabrupt change in his demeanour, forgetting the dissimulation whichmight still be all-important, abandoned himself to his first impulse,and hurriedly pressing forward with Antonina, attempted to pass thePagan and escape. But at the moment Ulpius stopped in his slowprogress, reeled, threw out his hands convulsively, and seizingNumerian by the arm, staggered back with him against the side-wall ofthe temple. The fingers of the tortured wretch closed as if they werenever to be unlocked again--closed as if with the clutch of death, withthe last frantic grasp of a drowning man.
For days and nights past he had toiled incessantly under the relentlesstyranny of his frenzy, building up higher and higher his altar ofidols, and pouring forth his invocations before his gods in the placeof the sacrifice; and now, at the moment when he was most triumphant inhis ferocious activity of purpose, when his fancied bondman and hisfancied victim were most helpless at his command--now, when hisstrained faculties wer
e strung to their highest pitch, thelong-deferred paroxysm had seized him, which was the precursor of hisrepose, of the only repose granted by his awful fate--a change (themournful change already described) in the form of his insanity. For atthose rare periods when he slept, his sleep was not unconsciousness,not rest: it was a trance of hideous dreams--his tongue spoke, hislimbs moved, when he slumbered as when he woke. It was only when hisvisions of the pride, the power, the fierce conflicts, and daringresolutions of his maturer years gave place to his dim, quiet, wakingdreams of his boyish days, that his wasted faculties reposed, and hisbody rested with them in the motionless languor of perfect fatigue.Then, if words were still uttered by his lips, they were as murmurs ofan infant--happy sleep; for the innocent phrases of his childhood whichthey then revived, seemed for a time to bring with them the innocenttranquillity of his childhood as well.
'Go! go!--fly while you are yet free!' cried Numerian, dropping thehand of Antonina, and pointing to the door. But for the second timethe girl refused to move forward a step. No horror, no peril in thetemple could banish for an instant her remembrance of the night at thefarm-house in the suburbs. She kept her head turned towards the vacantentrance, fixed her eyes on it in the unintermitting watchfulness ofterror, and whispered affrightedly, 'Goisvintha! Goisvintha!' when herfather spoke.
The clasp of the Pagan's fingers remained fixed and deathlike as atfirst; he leaned back against the wall, as still as if life and actionhad for ever departed from him. The paroxysm had passed away; hisface, distorted but the moment before, was now in repose, but it was arepose that was awful to look on. Tears rolled slowly from hishalf-closed eyes over his seamed and wrinkled cheeks--tears which werenot the impressive expression of mental anguish (for a vacant andunchanging smile was on his lips), but the mere mechanical outburst ofthe physical weakness that the past crisis of agony had left behind it.Not the slightest appearance of thought or observation was perceptiblein his features: his face was the face of an idiot.
Numerian, who had looked on him for an instant, shuddered and avertedhis eyes, recoiling from the sight before him. But a more overpoweringtrial of his resolution was approaching, which he could not avoid. Erelong the voice of Ulpius grew audible once more; but now its tones wereweak, piteous, almost childish, and the words they uttered were quietwords of love and gentleness, which dropping from such lips, andpronounced in such a place, were fearful to hear. The temple and allthat was in it vanished from his sight as from his memory. Swayed bythe dread and supernatural influences of his disease, the madman passedback in an instant over the dark valley of life's evil pilgrimage tothe long-quitted precincts of his boyish home. While in bodilypresence he stood in the place of his last crimes, the outcast ofreason and humanity, in mental consciousness he lay in his mother'sarms, as he had lain there ere yet he had departed to the temple atAlexandria; and his heart communed with her heart, and his eyes lookedon her as they had looked before his father's fatal ambition hadseparated for ever parent and child!
'Mother!--come back, mother!' he whispered. 'I was not asleep: I sawyou when you came in, and sat by my bedside, and wept over me when youkissed me! Come back, and sit by me still! I am going away, far away,and may never hear your voice again! How happy we should be, mother,if I stayed with you always! But it is my father's will that I shouldgo to the temple in another country, and live there to be a priest; andhis will must be obeyed. I may never return; but we shall not forgetone another! I shall remember your words when we used to talk togetherhappily, and you shall still remember mine!'
Hardly had the first sentence been uttered by Ulpius when Antonina felther father's whole frame suddenly tremble at her side. She turned hereyes from the doorway, on which they had hitherto been fixed, andlooked on him. The Pagan's hand had fallen from his arm: he was freeto depart, to fly as he had longed to fly but a few minutes before, andyet he never stirred. His daughter touched him, spoke to him, but heneither moved nor answered. It was not merely the shock of the abrupttransition in the language of Ulpius from the ravings of crime to themurmurs of love--it was not merely astonishment at hearing from him, inhis madness, revelations of his early life which had never passed hislips during his days of treacherous servitude in the house on thePincian Hill, that thus filled Numerian's inmost soul with awe, andstruck his limbs motionless. There was more in all that he heard thanthis. The words seemed as words that had doomed him at once and forever. His eyes, directed full on the face of the madman, were dilatedwith horror, and his deep, gasping, convulsive breathings mingledheavily, during the moment of silence that ensued, with the chiming ofthe bells above and the bubbling of the water below--the lulling musicof the temple, playing its happy evening hymn at the pleasant close ofday.
'We shall remember, mother!--we shall remember!' continued the Pagansoftly, 'and be happy in our remembrances! My brother, who loves menot, will love you when I am gone! You will walk in my little garden,and think on me as you look at the flowers that we have planted andwatered together in the evening hours, when the sky was glorious tobehold, and the earth was all quiet around us! Listen, mother, and kissme! When I go to the far country, I will make a garden there like mygarden here, and plant the same flowers that we have planted here, andin the evening I will go out and give them water at the hour when yougo out to give my flowers water at home; and so, though we see eachother no more, it will yet be as if we laboured together in the gardenas we labour now!'
The girl still fixed her eager gaze on her father. His eyes presentedthe same rigid expression of horror; but he was now wiping off with hisown hand, mechanically, as if he knew it not, the foam which theparoxysms had left round the madman's lips, and, amid the groans thatburst from him, she could hear such words as, 'Lord God!--mercy, LordGod! Thou, who hast thus restored him to me--thus, worse thandead!--mercy! mercy!'
The light on the pavement beneath the portico of the temple was fadingvisibly--the sun had gone down.
For the third time the madman spoke, but his tones were losing theirsoftness; they were complaining, plaintive, unutterably mournful; hisdreams of the past were already changing. 'Farewell, brother--farewellfor years and years!' he cried. 'You have not given me the love that Igave you. The fault was not mine that our father loved me the best,and chose me to be sent to the temple to be a priest at the altar ofthe gods! The fault was not mine that I partook not in your favouredsports, and joined not the companions whom you sought; it was ourfather's will that I should not live as you lived, and I obeyed it!You have spoken to me in anger, and turned from me in disdain; butfarewell again, Cleander--farewell in forgiveness and in love!'
He might have spoken more, but his voice was drowned in one long shriekof agony which burst from Numerian's lips, and echoed discordantlythrough the hall of the temple, and he sank down with his face to theground at the Pagan's feet. The dark and terrible destiny wasfulfilled. The enthusiast for the right and the fanatic for the wrong;the man who had toiled to reform the Church, and the man who had toiledto restore the Temple; the master who had received and trusted theservant in his home, and the servant who in that home had betrayed themaster's trust--the two characters, separated hitherto in the sublimedisunion of good and bad, now struck together in tremendous contact, asbrethren who had drawn their life from one source, who as children hadbeen sheltered under the same roof!
Not in the hours when the good Christian succoured the then forsakenPagan, wandering homeless in Rome, was the secret disclosed; no chanceword of it was uttered when the deceiver told the feigned relation ofhis life to the benefactor whom he was plotting to deceive, or when, onthe first morning of the siege, the machinations of the servanttriumphed over the confidence of the master: it was reserved to berevealed in the words of delirium, at the closing years of madness,when he who discovered it was unconscious of all that he spoke, and hiseyes were blinded to the true nature of all that he saw; when earthlyvoices that might once have called him back to repentance, torecognition, and to love, were be
come to him as sounds that have nomeaning; when, by a ruthless and startling fatality, it was on thebrother who had wrought for the true faith that the whole crushingweight of the terrible disclosure fell, unpartaken by the brother whohad wrought for the false! But the judgments pronounced in Time goforth from the tribunal of that Eternity to which the mysteries of lifetend, and in which they shall be revealed--neither waiting on humanseasons nor abiding by human justice, but speaking to the soul in thelanguage of immortality, which is heard in the world that is now, andinterpreted in the world that is to come.
Lost, for an instant, even the recollection that Goisvintha might stillbe watching her opportunity from without, calling despairingly on herfather, and vainly striving to raise him from the ground, Antoninaremembered not, in the overwhelming trial of the moment, therevelations of Numerian's past life that had been disclosed to her inthe days when the famine was at its worst in Rome. The name of'Cleander', which she had then heard her father pronounce, as the namethat he had abandoned when he separated himself from the companions ofhis sinful choice, passed unheeded by her when the Pagan unconsciouslyuttered it. She saw the whole scene but as a fresh menace of danger,as a new vision of terror, more ominous of ill than all that hadpreceded it.
Thick as was the darkness in which the lulling and involuntary memoriesof the past had enveloped the perceptions of Ulpius, the father'spiercing cry of anguish seemed to have penetrated it with a sudden rayof light. The madman's half-closed eyes opened instantly and fixed,dreamily at first, on the altar of idols. He waved his hands to andfro before him, as if he were parting back the folds of a heavy veilthat obscured his sight; but his wayward thoughts did not resume as yettheir old bias towards ferocity and crime. When he spoke again, hisspeech was still inspired by the visions of his early life--but now ofhis early life in the temple at Alexandria. His expressions were moreabrupt, more disjointed than before; yet they continued to display thesame evidence of the mysterious, instinctive vividness of recollection,which was the result of the sudden change in the nature of hisinsanity. His language wandered (still as if the words came from himundesignedly and unconsciously) over the events of his boyishintroduction to the service of the gods, and, though confusing them inorder, still preserved them in substance, as they have been alreadyrelated in the history of his 'apprenticeship to the temple'.
Now he was in imagination looking down once more from the summit of theTemple of Serapis on the glittering expanse of the Nile and the widecountry around it; and now he was walking proudly through the streetsof Alexandria by the side of his uncle, Macrinus, the high priest. Nowhe was wandering at night, in curiosity and awe, through the gloomyvaults and subterranean corridors of the sacred place; and now he waslistening, well pleased, to the kindly greeting, the inspiring praisesof Macrinus during their first interview. But at this point, and whiledwelling on this occasion, his memory became darkened again; it vainlyendeavoured to retrace the circumstances attending the crowningevidence of the high priest's interest in his pupil, and anxiety toidentify him completely with his new protector and his new duties,which had been displayed when he conferred on the trembling boy thefuture distinction of one of his own names.
And here, let it be remembered, as a chief link in the mysterious chainof fatalities which had united to keep the brothers apart as brethrenafter they had met as men, that both had, from widely different causes,abandoned in after-life the names which they bore in their father'shouse; that while one, by his own act and for his own purpose,transformed himself from Cleander, the associate of the careless andthe criminal, to Numerian, the preacher of the Gospel and reformer ofthe Church, the other had (to quote the words of the fourth chapter),'become from the boy Emilius the student Ulpius,' by the express andencouraging command of his master, Macrinus, the high priest.
While the Pagan still fruitlessly endeavoured to revive the eventsconnected with the change in his designation on his arrival inAlexandria, and, chafing under the burden of oblivion that weighed uponhis thoughts, attempted for the first time to move from the wallagainst which he had hitherto leaned; while Antonina still strove invain to recall her father to the recollection of the terribleexigencies of the moment as he crouched prostrate at the madman'sfeet--the doorway of the temple was darkened once more by the figure ofGoisvintha. She stood on the threshold, a gloomy and indistinct formin the fading light, looking intently into the deeply shadowed interiorof the building. As she marked the altered positions of the father anddaughter, she uttered a suppressed ejaculation of triumph; but, whilethe sound passed her lips, she heard, or thought she heard, a noise inthe street behind. Even now her vigilance and cunning, her deadly,calculating resolution to await in immovable patience the fitting timefor striking the blow deliberately and with impunity, did not fail her.Turning instantly, she walked to the top step of the temple, and stoodthere for a few moments, watchfully surveying the open space before her.
But in those few moments the scene in the building changed once more.The madman, while he still wavered between relapsing into the ravingfit and continuing under the influence of the tranquil mood in which hehad been prematurely disturbed, caught sight of Goisvintha when herapproach suddenly shadowed the entrance to the temple. Her presence,momentary though it was, was for him the presence of a figure that hadnot appeared before; that had stood in a strange position between theshade within and the faint light without; it was a new object,presented to his eyes while they were straining to recover suchimperfect faculties of observation as had been their wont, and itascendancy over him was instantaneous and all-powerful.
He started, bewildered like a deep sleeper suddenly awoke; violentshudderings ran for a moment over his frame; then it strengthened againwith its former unnatural strength; the demon raged within him inrenewed fury as he tore his robe which Numerian held as he lay at hisfeet from the feeble grasp that confined it, and, striding up to thepile of idols, stretched out his hands in solemn deprecation. 'Thehigh priest has slept before the altar of the gods!' he cried loudly,'but they have been patient with their well-beloved; their thunder hasnot struck him for his crime! Now the servant returns to hisservice--the rites of Serapis begin!'
Numerian still remained prostrate, spirit-broken; he slowly clasped hishands together on the floor, and his voice was now to be heard, stillsupplicating in low and stifled accents, as if in unceasing prayer layhis last hope of preserving his own reason. 'God! Thou art the God ofMercy; be merciful to him!' he murmured. 'Thou acceptest ofrepentance; grant repentance to him! If at any time I have served Theewithout blame, let the service be counted to him; let the vials of Thywrath be poured out on me!'
'Hark! the trumpet blows for the sacrifice!' interrupted the ravingvoice of the Pagan, as he turned from the altar, and extended his armsin frenzied inspiration. 'The roar of music and the voice ofexultation soar upward from the highest mountain-tops! The incensesmokes, and in and out, and round and round, the dancers whirl aboutthe pillars of the temple! The ox for the sacrifice is without spot;his horns are gilt; the crown and fillet adorn his head. The prieststands before him naked from the waist upwards; he heaves the libationout of the cup; the blood flows over the altar! Up! up! tear forth withreeking hands the heart while it is yet warm, futurity is before you inthe quivering entrails, look on them and read! read!'
While he spoke, Goisvintha had entered the temple. The street wasstill desolate; no help was at hand.
Not advancing at once, she concealed herself near the door behind aprojection in the pile of idols, watching from it until Ulpius, in theprogress of his frenzy, should turn away from Antonina, whom he stoodfronting at this instant. But she had not entered unperceived;Antonina had seen her again. And now the bitterness of death, when theyoung die unprotected in their youth, came over the girl, and she criedin a low wailing voice, as she knelt by Numerian's side: 'I must die,father, I must die, as Hermanric died! Look up at me, and speak to mebefore I die!'
Her father was still praying; he heard nothing, for hi
s heart wasbleeding in atonement at the shrine of his boyish home, and his soulstill communed with its Maker. The voice that followed hers was thevoice of Ulpius.
'Oh, beautiful are the gardens round the sacred altars, and lofty thetrees that embower the glittering shrines!' he exclaimed, rapt andecstatic in his new visions. 'Lo, the morning breaks, and the spiritsof light are welcomed by a sacrifice! The sun goes down behind themountain, and the beams of evening tremble on the victim beneath theknife of the adoring priest! The moon and stars shine high in thefirmament, and the Genii of Nights are saluted in the still hours withblood!'
As he paused, the lament of Antonina was continued in lower and lowertones: 'I must die, father, I must die!' And with it murmured thesupplicating accents of Numerian: 'God of Mercy! deliver the helplessand forgive the afflicted! Lord of Judgment! deal gently with Thyservants who have sinned!' While, mingling with both in discordantcombination, the strange music of the temple still poured on itslulling sound--the rippling of the running waters and the airy chimingof the bells!
'Worship!--emperors, armies, nations, glorify and worship me!' shoutedthe madman, in thunder-tones of triumph and command, as his eye for thefirst time encountered the figure of Numerian prostrate at his feet.'Worship the demi-god who moves with the deities through spheresunknown to man! I have heard the moans of the unburied who wander onthe shores of the Lake of the Dead--worship! I have looked on theriver whose black current roars and howls in its course through thecaves of everlasting night--worship! I have seen the furies lashed byserpents on their wrinkled necks, and followed them as they hurledtheir torches over the pining ghosts! I have stood unmoved in thehurricane-tumult of hell--worship! worship! worship!'
He turned round again towards the altar of idols, calling upon his godsto proclaim his deification, and at the moment when he moved,Goisvintha sprang forward. Antonina was kneeling with her face turnedfrom the door, as the assassin seized her by her long hair and drovethe knife into her neck. The moaning accents of the girl, bewailing herapproaching fate, closed in one faint groan; she stretched out herarms, and fell forward over her father's body.
In the ferocious triumph of the moment, Goisvintha raised her arm torepeat the stroke; but at that instant the madman looked round. 'Thesacrifice--the sacrifice!' he shouted, leaping at one spring like awild beast at her throat. She struck ineffectually at him with theknife, as he fastened his long nails in her flesh and hurled herbackwards to the floor. Then he yelled and gibbered in franticexultation, set his foot on her breast, and spat on her as she laybeneath him.
The contact of the girl's body when she fell--the short but terribletumult of the attack that passed almost over him--the shrill, deafeningcries of the madman, awoke Numerian from his trance of despairingremembrance, aroused him in his agony of supplicating prayer. Helooked up.
The scene that met his eyes was one of those scenes which crush everyfaculty but the faculty of mechanical action--before which, thoughtvanishes from men's minds, utterance is suspended on their lips,expression is paralysed on their faces. The coldness of the tombseemed breathed over Numerian's aspect by the contemplation of theterrible catastrophe: his eyes were glassy and vacant, his lips partedand rigid; even the remembrance of the discovery of his brother seemedlost to him as he stooped over his daughter and bound a fragment of herrobe round her neck. The mute, soulless, ghastly stillness of deathlooked settled on his features, as, unconscious now of weakness or age,he rose with her in his arms, stood motionless for one moment beforethe doorway, and looked slowly round on Ulpius; then he moved forwardwith heavy regular steps. The Pagan's foot was still on Goisvintha'sbreast as the father passed him; his gaze was still fixed on her; buthis cries of triumph were calmed; he laughed and muttered incoherentlyto himself.
The moon was rising, soft, faint, and tranquil, over the quiet streetas Numerian descended the temple steps with his daughter in his arms,and, after an instant's pause of bewilderment and doubt, instinctivelypursued his slow, funereal course along the deserted roadway in thedirection of home. Soon, as he advanced, he beheld in the moonlight,down the long vista of the street at its termination, a littleassemblage of people walking towards him with calm and regularprogress. As they came nearer, he saw that one of them held an openbook, that another carried a crucifix, and that others followed thesetwo with clasped hands and drooping heads. And then, after aninterval, the fresh breezes that blew towards him bore onward thesewords, slowly and reverently pronounced:--
'Know, therefore, that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquitydeserveth.
'Canst thou, by searching, find out God? Canst thou find out theAlmighty to perfection?'
Then the breeze fell, the words grew indistinct, but the processionstill moved forward. As it came nearer and nearer, the voice of thereader was again plainly heard:--
'If iniquity be in thy hand, put it far away, and let not wickednessdwell in thy tabernacles.
'For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt besteadfast, and shalt not fear;
'Because thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters thatpass away:
And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shineforth, thou shalt be as the morning.'
The reader stopped and closed the book; for now Numerian had met themembers of the little procession, and they looked on him standingvoiceless before them in the clear moonlight, with his daughter's headdrooping over his shoulder as he carried her in his arms.
There were some among those who gathered round him whose features hewould have recognised at another time as the features of the survivingadherents of his former congregation. The assembly he had met wascomposed of the few sincere Christians in Rome, who had collected, onthe promulgation of the news that Alaric had ratified terms of peace,to make a pilgrimage through the city, in the hopeless endeavour, byreading from the Bible and passing exhortation, to awaken the recklesspopulace to a feeling of contrition for their sins, and of devoutgratitude for their approaching deliverance from the horrors of thesiege.
But now, when Numerian confronted them, neither by word nor look did heexpress the slightest recognition of any who surrounded him. To allthe questions addressed to him, he replied by hurried gestures thatnone could comprehend. To all the promises of help and protectionheaped upon him in the first outbreak of the grief and pity of hisadherents of other days, he answered but by the same dull, vacantglance. It was only when they relieved him of his burden, and gentlyprepared to carry the senseless girl among them back to her father'shouse, that he spoke; and then, in faint entreating tones, he besoughtthem to let him hold her hand as they went, so that he might be thefirst to feel her pulse beat--if it yet moved.
They turned back by the way they had come--a sorrowful and slow-movingprocession! As they passed on, the reader again opened the SacredBook; and then these words rose through the soothing and heavenlytranquillity of the first hours of night:--
'Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise notthou the chastening of the Almighty:
'For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands makewhole.'