Chapter XVI
THE SORROW OF BOON COMPANIONS FOR OUR AFFLICTIONS. THE DUNGEON AND ITSVICTIMS.
IT was now late on the third and last day of the trial of Glaucus andOlinthus. A few hours after the court had broken up and judgment beengiven, a small party of the fashionable youth at Pompeii were assembledround the fastidious board of Lepidus.
'So Glaucus denies his crime to the last?' said Clodius.
'Yes; but the testimony of Arbaces was convincing; he saw the blowgiven,' answered Lepidus.
'What could have been the cause?'
'Why, the priest was a gloomy and sullen fellow. He probably ratedGlaucus soundly about his gay life and gaming habits, and ultimatelyswore he would not consent to his marriage with Ione. High words arose;Glaucus seems to have been full of the passionate god, and struck insudden exasperation. The excitement of wine, the desperation of abruptremorse, brought on the delirium under which he suffered for some days;and I can readily imagine, poor fellow! that, yet confused by thatdelirium, he is even now unconscious of the crime he committed! Such,at least, is the shrewd conjecture of Arbaces, who seems to have beenmost kind and forbearing in his testimony.'
'Yes; he has made himself generally popular by it. But, inconsideration of these extenuating circumstances, the senate should haverelaxed the sentence.'
'And they would have done so, but for the people; but they wereoutrageous. The priest had spared no pains to excite them; and theyimagined--the ferocious brutes!--because Glaucus was a rich man and agentleman, that he was likely to escape; and therefore they wereinveterate against him, and doubly resolved upon his sentence. Itseems, by some accident or other, that he was never formally enrolled asa Roman citizen; and thus the senate is deprived of the power to resistthe people, though, after all, there was but a majority of three againsthim. Ho! the Chian!'
'He looks sadly altered; but how composed and fearless!'
'Ay, we shall see if his firmness will last over to-morrow.' But whatmerit in courage, when that atheistical hound, Olinthus, manifested thesame?'
'The blasphemer! Yes,' said Lepidus, with pious wrath, 'no wonder thatone of the decurions was, but two days ago, struck dead by lightning ina serene sky.' The gods feel vengeance against Pompeii while the viledesecrator is alive within its walls.'
'Yet so lenient was the senate, that had he but expressed his penitence,and scattered a few grains of incense on the altar of Cybele, he wouldhave been let off. I doubt whether these Nazarenes, had they the statereligion, would be as tolerant to us, supposing we had kicked down theimage of their Deity, blasphemed their rites, and denied their faith.'
'They give Glaucus one chance, in consideration of the circumstances;they allow him, against the lion, the use of the same stilus wherewithhe smote the priest.'
'Hast thou seen the lion? hast thou looked at his teeth and fangs, andwilt thou call that a chance? Why, sword and buckler would be mere reedand papyrus against the rush of the mighty beast! No, I think the truemercy has been, not to leave him long in suspense; and it was thereforefortunate for him that our benign laws are slow to pronounce, but swiftto execute; and that the games of the amphitheatre had been, by a sortof providence, so long since fixed for to-morrow. He who awaits death,dies twice.'
'As for the Atheist, said Clodius, 'he is to cope the grim tigernaked-handed. Well, these combats are past betting on. Who will takethe odds?' A peal of laughter announced the ridicule of the question.
'Poor Clodius!' said the host; I to lose a friend is something; but tofind no one to bet on the chance of his escape is a worse misfortune tothee.'
'Why, it is provoking; it would have been some consolation to him and tome to think he was useful to the last.'
'The people,' said the grave Pansa, 'are all delighted with the result.They were so much afraid the sports at the amphitheatre would go offwithout a criminal for the beasts; and now, to get two such criminals isindeed a joy for the poor fellows! They work hard; they ought to havesome amusement.'
'There speaks the popular Pansa, who never moves without a string ofclients as long as an Indian triumph. He is always prating about thepeople. Gods! he will end by being a Gracchus!'
'Certainly I am no insolent patrician,' said Pansa, with a generous air.
'Well,' observed Lepidus, it would have been assuredly dangerous to havebeen merciful at the eve of a beast-fight. If ever I, though a Romanbred and born, come to be tried, pray Jupiter there may be either nobeasts in the vivaria, or plenty of criminals in the gaol.'
'And pray,' said one of the party, 'what has become of the poor girlwhom Glaucus was to have married? A widow without being a bride--thatis hard!'
'Oh,' returned Clodius, 'she is safe under the protection of herguardian, Arbaces. It was natural she should go to him when she hadlost both lover and brother.'
'By sweet Venus, Glaucus was fortunate among the women. They say therich Julia was in love with him.'
'A mere fable, my friend,' said Clodius, coxcombically; 'I was with herto-day. If any feeling of the sort she ever conceived, I flatter myselfthat I have consoled her.'
'Hush, gentlemen!' said Pansa; 'do you not know that Clodius is employedat the house of Diomed in blowing hard at the torch? It begins to burn,and will soon shine bright on the shrine of Hymen.'
'Is it so?' said Lepidus. 'What! Clodius become a married man?--Fie!'
'Never fear,' answered Clodius; 'old Diomed is delighted at the notionof marrying his daughter to a nobleman, and will come down largely withthe sesterces. You will see that I shall not lock them up in theatrium. It will be a white day for his jolly friends, when Clodiusmarries an heiress.'
'Say you so?' cried Lepidus; 'come, then, a full cup to the health ofthe fair Julia!'
While such was the conversation--one not discordant to the tone of mindcommon among the dissipated of that day, and which might perhaps, acentury ago, have found an echo in the looser circles of Paris--whilesuch, I say, was the conversation in the gaudy triclinium of Lepidus,far different the scene which scowled before the young Athenian.
After his condemnation, Glaucus was admitted no more to the gentleguardianship of Sallust, the only friend of his distress. He was ledalong the forum till the guards stopped at a small door by the side ofthe temple of Jupiter. You may see the place still. The door opened inthe centre in a somewhat singular fashion, revolving round on itshinges, as it were, like a modern turnstile, so as only to leave halfthe threshold open at the same time. Through this narrow aperture theythrust the prisoner, placed before him a loaf and a pitcher of water,and left him to darkness, and, as he thought, to solitude. So suddenhad been that revolution of fortune which had prostrated him from thepalmy height of youthful pleasure and successful love to the lowestabyss of ignominy, and the horror of a most bloody death, that he couldscarcely convince himself that he was not held in the meshes of somefearful dream. His elastic and glorious frame had triumphed over apotion, the greater part of which he had fortunately not drained. Hehad recovered sense and consciousness, but still a dim and mistydepression clung to his nerves and darkened his mind. His naturalcourage, and the Greek nobility of pride, enabled him to vanquish allunbecoming apprehension, and, in the judgment-court, to face his awfullot with a steady mien and unquailing eye. But the consciousness ofinnocence scarcely sufficed to support him when the gaze of men nolonger excited his haughty valor, and he was left to loneliness andsilence. He felt the damps of the dungeon sink chillingly into hisenfeebled frame. He--the fastidious, the luxurious, the refined--he whohad hitherto braved no hardship and known no sorrow. Beautiful birdthat he was! why had he left his far and sunny clime--the olive-grovesof his native hills--the music of immemorial streams? Why had hewantoned on his glittering plumage amidst these harsh and ungenialstrangers, dazzling the eyes with his gorgeous hues, charming the earwith his blithesome song--thus suddenly to be arrested--caged indarkness--a victim and a prey--his gay flights for ever over--his hymnsof gladness for ever stilled!
The poor Athenian! his very faults theexuberance of a gentle and joyous nature, how little had his past careerfitted him for the trials he was destined to undergo! The hoots of themob, amidst whose plaudits he had so often guided his graceful car andbounding steeds, still rang gratingly in his ear. The cold and stonyfaces of former friends (the co-mates of merry revels) still rose beforehis eye. None now were by to soothe, to sustain, the admired, theadulated stranger. These walls opened but on the dread arena of aviolent and shameful death. And Ione! of her, too, he had heard naught;no encouraging word, no pitying message; she, too, had forsaken him; shebelieved him guilty--and of what crime?--the murder of a brother! Heground his teeth--he groaned aloud--and ever and anon a sharp fear shotacross him. In that fell and fierce delirium which had so unaccountablyseized his soul, which had so ravaged the disordered brain, might henot, indeed, unknowing to himself, have committed the crime of which hewas accused? Yet, as the thought flashed upon him, it was as suddenlychecked; for, amidst all the darkness of the past, he thought distinctlyto recall the dim grove of Cybele, the upward face of the pale dead, thepause that he had made beside the corpse, and the sudden shock thatfelled him to the earth. He felt convinced of his innocence; and yetwho, to the latest time, long after his mangled remains were mingledwith the elements, would believe him guiltless, or uphold his fame? Ashe recalled his interview with Arbaces, and the causes of revenge whichhad been excited in the heart of that dark and fearful man, he could notbut believe that he was the victim of some deep-laid and mysterioussnare--the clue and train of which he was lost in attempting todiscover: and Ione--Arbaces loved her--might his rival's success befounded upon his ruin? That thought cut him more deeply than all; andhis noble heart was more stung by jealousy than appalled by fear. Againhe groaned aloud.
A voice from the recess of the darkness answered that burst of anguish.'Who (it said) is my companion in this awful hour? Athenian Glaucus, itis thou?'
'So, indeed, they called me in mine hour of fortune: they may have othernames for me now. And thy name, stranger?'
'Is Olinthus, thy co-mate in the prison as the trial.'
'What! he whom they call the Atheist? Is it the injustice of men thathath taught thee to deny the providence of the gods?'
'Alas!' answered Olinthus: 'thou, not I, art the true Atheist, for thoudeniest the sole true God--the Unknown One--to whom thy Athenian fatherserected an altar. It is in this hour that I know my God. He is with mein the dungeon; His smile penetrates the darkness; on the eve of deathmy heart whispers immortality, and earth recedes from me but to bringthe weary soul nearer unto heaven.'
'Tell me,' said Glaucus, abruptly, 'did I not hear thy name coupled withthat of Apaecides in my trial? Dost thou believe me guilty?'
'God alone reads the heart! but my suspicion rested not upon thee.'
'On whom then?'
'Thy accuser, Arbaces.'
'Ha! thou cheerest me: and wherefore?'
'Because I know the man's evil breast, and he had cause to fear him whois now dead.'
With that, Olinthus proceeded to inform Glaucus of those details whichthe reader already knows, the conversion of Apaecides, the plan they hadproposed for the detection of the impostures of the Egyptian upon theyouthful weakness of the proselyte. 'Therefore,' concluded Olinthus,'had the deceased encountered Arbaces, reviled his treasons, andthreatened detection, the place, the hour, might have favored the wrathof the Egyptian, and passion and craft alike dictated the fatal blow.'
'It must have been so!' cried Glaucus, joyfully. 'I am happy.'
'Yet what, O unfortunate! avails to thee now the discovery? Thou artcondemned and fated; and in thine innocence thou wilt perish.'
'But I shall know myself guiltless; and in my mysterious madness I hadfearful, though momentary, doubts. Yet tell me, man of a strange creed,thinkest thou that for small errors, or for ancestral faults, we are forever abandoned and accursed by the powers above, whatever name thouallottest to them?'
'God is just, and abandons not His creatures for their mere humanfrailty. God is merciful, and curses none but the wicked who repentnot.'
'Yet it seemeth to me as if, in the divine anger, I had been smitten bya sudden madness, a supernatural and solemn frenzy, wrought not by humanmeans.'
'There are demons on earth,' answered the Nazarene, fearfully, 'as wellas there are God and His Son in heaven; and since thou acknowledgest notthe last, the first may have had power over thee.'
Glaucus did not reply, and there was a silence for some minutes. Atlength the Athenian said, in a changed, and soft, and half-hesitatingvoice. 'Christian, believest thou, among the doctrines of thy creed,that the dead live again--that they who have loved here are unitedhereafter--that beyond the grave our good name shines pure from themortal mists that unjustly dim it in the gross-eyed world--and that thestreams which are divided by the desert and the rock meet in the solemnHades, and flow once more into one?'
'Believe I that, O Athenian No, I do not believe--I know! and it is thatbeautiful and blessed assurance which supports me now. O Cyllene!'continued Olinthus, passionately, 'bride of my heart! torn from me inthe first month of our nuptials,' shall I not see thee yet, and ere manydays be past? Welcome, welcome death, that will bring me to heaven andthee!'
There was something in this sudden burst of human affection which strucka kindred chord in the soul of the Greek. He felt, for the first time,a sympathy greater than mere affliction between him and his companion.He crept nearer towards Olinthus; for the Italians, fierce in somepoints, were not unnecessarily cruel in others; they spared the separatecell and the superfluous chain, and allowed the victims of the arena thesad comfort of such freedom and such companionship as the prison wouldafford.
'Yes,' continued the Christian, with holy fervor, 'the immortality ofthe soul--the resurrection--the reunion of the dead--is the greatprinciple of our creed--the great truth a God suffered death itself toattest and proclaim. No fabled Elysium--no poetic Orcus--but a pure andradiant heritage of heaven itself, is the portion of the good.'
'Tell me, then, thy doctrines, and expound to me thy hopes,' saidGlaucus, earnestly.
Olinthus was not slow to obey that prayer; and there--as oftentimes inthe early ages of the Christian creed--it was in the darkness of thedungeon, and over the approach of death, that the dawning Gospel shedits soft and consecrating rays.