CHAPTER XXII.
It was really as Zercho the bondman had believed: Bissula had becomethe captive, not of Ausonius, but another; and his captive sheremained. To the extreme surprise, nay, barely repressed indignation ofthe Prefect of Gaul, the younger man had asserted his claim accordingto the rights of war. Ausonius had no claims whatever to the prisoner;that was clear. His nephew undoubtedly might have raised them, and atfirst he did make the attempt. But he grew strangely silent when theTribune--scarcely in absolute harmony with the truth--said in hisuncle's presence: "The girl had escaped again. I was the first to catchher finally. Shall I call her, that she may tell you the whole storyherself?"
Herculanus, with a venomous glance, left the tent.
But Ausonius did not understand the imperious rudeness of the bravesoldier who was usually so devoted to him. When the Tribune curtlyappealed to the right of war, Ausonius, deeply offended, pondered overall the reasons which, as he thought, must induce his friend not toyield his legal right in this instance to him. The poet, seekingmotives for the act, of course first grasped the nearest: all the menin the camp gazed at the peculiar beauty of the child with unconcealedadmiration. It was no wonder then that the Illyrian, in the full vigorof manhood, should also be seized with ardent love for the beautifulcreature who had fallen into his hands and, without really having anyevil design, wanted to keep her in his power until either fromaffection or obedience the captive should yield to her master.
But this anxiety, which at first had weighed heavily upon him, was soonrelieved. With the keen distrust of jealousy, he watched his rivalsharply at every meeting; but even suspicion could discover nothingthat would have warranted this conjecture. Quiet, unmoved, andsteadfast as ever was the Tribune's bearing in her presence, which heneither shunned nor sought, but treated with indifference. He lookedinto the wonderful eyes no more frequently than occasion required, andhis glance was calm, his voice did not tremble. So Ausonius regardedhis friend's act as a soldier's strange whim, and did not doubt that hewould soon give it up. But this proved an error.
On returning to the camp Ausonius entreated his friend, withoutrenouncing his right of possession, to place the young girl in the tentnext to the Prefect's, now occupied by slaves and freedwomen, whom hewould remove. But Saturninus insisted that Bissula should be lodgedamong the wives of the freedmen and female slaves who occupied sometents a long distance from the Prefect's. The young girl herself paidlittle heed to the discussion between the two Romans, whose meaning shescarcely understood.
Released by the Tribune from the fear of death, and soothed by thepresence of her honored friend, her young cheerful heart soonaccommodated itself to the new condition of affairs,--not throughrecklessness, but through childish ignorance of the perils whichpossibly threatened her. Her grandmother was not discovered; herfaithful servant had not been captured; she herself was certainlysecure in the presence and under the eyes of her friend, the mostaristocratic man in the Roman camp. He would not let a hair of her headbe harmed, she knew.
True, the thought weighed heavily upon her heart as soon as she wascaptured that she herself was solely to blame for her misfortune. Ifshe had obeyed the well-meant counsel--she was on the verge of tears;experience had taught the value of the advice--she would now have beensafe and sheltered with her grandmother, though also with Adalo. Andowing him a debt of gratitude! She crushed the tears on her longlashes. No, she would not admit that he was right. Now she owed thehaughty Adeling nothing: that was certainly an advantage. "And"--sheshook her waving locks back defiantly--"they won't eat me here! Onlydon't be afraid, Bissula," she said to herself; "and don't submit toanything!"
She had trembled only a moment after her escape from Herculanus, whenher powerful deliverer measured her whole dainty figure with a lookunder which she lowered her eyes in confusion. But when she againraised those innocent child-eyes, the expression had vanished. And itnever returned.
Her master allowed her to spend the whole day with her "FatherAusonius": only when it grew dark he appeared, with inexorablefirmness, to take her away; and he went with her himself to the tentassigned to her, before which he stationed one of his Illyriancountrymen as a sentinel all night.
Bissula never saw her friend's nephew, whom she feared, alone. Sheconfidently expected the restoration of her liberty when the campshould be broken up and the Romans should withdraw from the country.There would be no fighting, Ausonius repeatedly told her. So thelight-hearted girl regarded her captivity, which had lost all itsterrors, as an adventure that afforded her an opportunity for theconversations with her friend which she had missed so long.
Many of her young playmates had lived as hostages and probably ascaptives in Roman camps and in the fortresses on the southern shore,and been restored to liberty uninjured when truce or peace wasdeclared. That she could be detained or carried away against her willshe did not fear: the most powerful man in the camp was her protector.Yet this peril constantly threatened her more and more closely.
Ausonius kept a sort of diary, in which before going to sleep herecorded events, impressions, sketches of poems, and short bits ofverse--a custom whose regular observance he scarcely omitted even incamp. A touch of pedantry was one of his characteristics. Yet the diarywas not a monologue, rather a sort of dialogue; for he addressed it inthe form of a letter to his oldest and most intimate friend, AriusPaulus of Bigerri, rhetorician, but also an old soldier. Every threemonths he collected what he had written and forwarded it to him toreceive his criticisms and answers on the margin of the manuscript whenreturned.
So, during these days of involuntary leisure he wrote.