IV
IV
That night Eudemius and his younger guest supped alone, with but one slave to wait upon them. Marius, never prone to speech, kept his own counsel as to the events of the afternoon, and bided the time when he might turn them to his own ends. Eudemius also was more silent than his position as host seemed to warrant. That he was in bad humor was to be seen from the threatening glances he cast at the luckless slave when a dish was delayed or a wine too warm. He was an old man, this latter, white-haired and bent and very skilful, with a sunken face as pale as parchment. Marius, as keen to observe as he was silent, saw that always the old man watched his lord's face with an eager anxiety, like a dog that would read every thought in its master's eyes.
Eudemius, as was his custom, took only fruit and one of the light Cyprus wines. Marius, not at all disturbed by his host's example, dined luxuriously and drank freely. Wine had small effect on him; but he noticed that each time his glass was filled Eudemius glanced at him, with apparent carelessness. This amused him,and, sure of himself, out of sheer perversity, he took care to have it replenished many times.
Halfway through the meal, Eudemius clapped his hands.
"Marcus, come hither!" he said shortly. Marcus came, with servile submission. "Go to Nerissa, and bid her bring her mistress here. She will know what to do."
The old man hesitated a bare instant, with a strange glance at his lord, crossed his arms, and went.
"Marius." Marius's keen wits, instantly at work upon the name and the half-forgotten idea it conjured up, found the thread they sought. "Marcus came once and tried to play; he was the third," Varia had said. Marius's eyes lightened to a secret satisfaction. Here was one, at his hand, who could supply the information he wanted. He leaned forward across the table.
"To-day I had speech with thy daughter," he said, as one introducing a topic which may prove of interest. Eudemius turned his inscrutable eyes on him.
"So?" he said calmly.
"She told me a wondrous tale of a man who came to her in a garden," said Marius; and watched suspicion grow into the other's eyes and burn there. "She said it was a game they played—what game, thou and I may guess. I put it down to the—fancies she hath at times, and paid no heed. But when she said that one Marcus had seen this man there also, it came to me that perhaps there might be more in it than might be thought. If this be the Marcus of whom she spoke, it may be that he would have something to tell.—Try these roasted snails, I pray thee; they are beyond praise. It would seem that they are delicate enough—"
"She herself hath said—" Eudemius began, and stopped. The mask of his face never changed; only his mouth settled into sterner lines and his eyes grew more forbidding. Silence fell between the two and lasted until Marcus came in again and held the curtains apart for Varia. She entered quickly, her bosom heaving, lips pouting, eyes full of tears.
"Nerissa would have it that I should wear this dress, and I hate it!" she cried petulantly, before either man could speak. "She said that thou didst will it so. Wherefore? I will not wear it ever again. I scolded her until she wept, but she made me wear it."
"She was right. I gave command to her," Eudemius said coldly. "Sit there."
Varia dropped into the seat opposite Marius, with a resentful glance at her father and a wrathful twitch of the hated robe. It was of faintest amethyst, with tunic embroidered in gold, fastened by many jewels. She looked like a fair young princess, a very angry young princess; and Marius, from where he reclined at ease on the opposite side of the table, looked across at her with quite evident admiration.
"Why should you hate it, if unworthy man may ask?" he said amusedly. "Surely not because you think it makes you less fair, since nothing could do that. Why, then?"
"Because I do!" she flashed at him, as though that settled the matter. Marius bowed in mock humility.
"The best reason of all!" he said gallantly.
"Child, with whom didst thou play thy game in the garden?" Eudemius asked. His voice was gentler than his face, and quite casual. Varia fell into the trap. She looked up eagerly.
"It was a game—" she began, and stopped, with the red blood flushing into her face and her eyes turning from her father to Marius. "I do not remember!" she stammered.
Eudemius turned his sombre eyes full on her, and she shrank and trembled.
"Thou dost not remember?" Eudemius said in his even, inexorable voice. "But there was a game? Was it a game in which a man held thee in his arms and kissed thee?"
She nodded quickly.
"Ay, a game," she exclaimed, and caught herself up. "No, no!" she cried fearfully. "It was no game—Oh, I do not know! I cannot remember!"
She hid her face in her hands and wept. Eudemius motioned to the silent slave behind her chair.
"Take her to her nurse and return," he said. "I'll have the truth of this by some means."
Marcus led his weeping mistress away; and Eudemius saw that Marius's eyes followed her until the curtains fell behind her, and read the look therein.
With her exit, Eudemius all at once lost his composure. He sprang from his place at the table and took to striding up and down the room. Unexpectedly he stopped before Marius.
"If there be truth in this," he said, and his voice shook with rising fury, "I'll find the man who hath entered my gates by night, and for what damage he has wrought I will make him pay tenfold with living flesh and blood. Marcus was there, thou sayest; he will know. And if he will not tell—if he thinks to shield him—"
He broke off with a quick intake of breath, and puta hand to his side. A spasm of pain crossed his pale face and distorted it. "Come back, thou knave, while I have sense to question!" he muttered, and dropped into the nearest seat, and sat there, with head bent forward and hands clutching claw-like the arms of the chair.
Marcus entered, alone. Eudemius raised his head.
"Didst thou—" he began, and stopped. But he gathered himself together, and tried again.
"Didst thou see him who entered the women's place by stealth to hold speech with thy mistress?"
Marcus nodded eagerly. His voice was drowned in Eudemius's exclamation of fury.
"So the fool spake truth when I thought she raved! Not so much fool after all, perhaps, but better fool than—" He checked himself on the word. "Who is the man?" Again his face grew distorted; on the hands that gripped his chair the veins stood out dark and swollen. Pain made him brutal; he glared at Marcus with the bloodshot eyes of a goaded beast. Marcus, with a hoarse cry, bowed himself to the ground, his hands before his face. Eudemius brought his fist down on the arm of his chair.
"Who is the man? Answer, slave, if thou wouldst keep the flesh on thy living bones! Who is the man, and what hath been his work?"
Then Marcus raised himself, with outstretched hands, gesticulating frantically. The effort he made to speak was fearful; his face became congested, his eyes seemed starting from his head. And his voice was as fearful, hoarse, bestial, with apish gibberings. But no words came; he could only beat the air and cry out in impotent despair.
"The man is mad!" Marius exclaimed, staring.
Eudemius lifted himself half out of his chair. Beads of sweat stood thick upon his forehead.
"Mad or sane, I'll have the truth from him!" he snarled. He caught the dog-whip from the back of his chair and lashed the slave across the face.
"Now speak!" he shouted. "Think not to shield him so, for I'll have thee flayed alive before thou shalt defy me thus!"
"I—I!" groaned Marcus. The word had a strange and guttural sound, but Eudemius did not notice.
"Go on!" he ordered furiously.
"I—I—!" Marcus screamed, and fell grovelling at his master's feet.
A spasm of pain shook Eudemius and turned him livid. He kicked savagely at the writhing figure on the floor and clapped his hands thrice loudly. Two slaves came running, with faces pale with apprehension. Eudemius, almost beyond speech himself, raised a shaking hand and pointed downward at the heap.
"Take him to the stone room and put him to the rack until he is ready to say what I would hear!" he said hoarsely. His voice broke into a gasp; he leaned back heavily, with his other hand against the chair from which he had risen. "When he is ready, call me!"
The men lifted Marcus to his feet and took him away.
Marius watched interestedly. To counsel mercy never crossed his mind—the mind of a Roman bred to consider bloodshed a sport and mortal strife a pastime. If Eudemius chose to kill his slave for a whim—well, the slave was his, and it was nobody else's business. He turned to the table and poured himself another glass of wine.
Eudemius dropped back heavily into the chair and sat, as before, with head bent slightly forward and gripping hands. And, as before, he seemed listening; only this time it was with a cruel and eager greed, and his eyes, bloodshot and terrible, were as the red eyes of a vulture that waits for its victim's death. From time to time his mouth twitched, and a shudder, long and uncontrollable, ran through him.
But still he waited, and there was silence in the room.
V
V
That day Nicanor had been assigned by Hito to the squad of the fire slaves, whose duty it was to tend the fires of the hypocausts which warmed the guest apartments, the rooms of the master's family, the banquet halls, and the baths. The great fireplaces, one for every hypocaust, built in arches under the outer walls of the villa, were approached from the outside by passages of rough masonry. From them the hot air was carried back through the hypocaust and led to the rooms above by means of an ingenious system of flue tiles. The fires, burning constantly from the first approach of the keen weather of Autumn, needed incessant attention. All day slaves went back and forth, carrying wood and buckets of mineral coal from the great mines near Uriconium, through the narrow alleys to the roaring furnaces, where the air, smoke-laden and acrid, was hot to suffocation. Here, panting, dripping with sweat, they fed the flaming mouths; then back again into the outer air, which by contrast struck knife-like to the very vitals. The colder the weather and the greater the necessity for fires, the more was the suffering of the slaves increased. Thefeeding and attendant cleaning of the furnaces was a task given usually either to none but the lowest menials or else as punishment. Hence Nicanor knew himself in Hito's black books, and obeyed his orders with an ill grace which did not tend to lighten his labors.
Once that day already he had shirked his duty, driven by restless longing, to stand outside the door which for him hid all the enchantment of the world, until the coming of Marius had sent him about any task he could lay hand to. With what had followed, and with the knowledge that his fate was absolutely in the hands of Marius, he became impatient at the delay. The sword hung above him and would not fall. If he but knew what was to happen he fancied that he might have prepared himself in a measure to meet it. Nothing in the way of escape could be attempted until after nightfall; he was too much the object of Hito's malicious attention for that. And escape meant escape from Varia, from stolen, memory-haunting visits, from all that just then made life bearable. Suspense and his own powerlessness turned him sullen; he went about his tasks under Hito's eye with a dogged surliness at which his fellow-slaves laughed in private and dared not challenge him in good-natured raillery.
Away from Hito, he straightway forgot what was in his hands, and remained deep in boding thought, his face lowering. He was on the edge of a precipice into whose depths no man dared look; into which Marius's hands might plunge him at will. Thoughts of Thorney, of the churned-up waters of the fords, of the camp-fires glowing through dusk, of the nervous press of men and beasts that lit upon the island like a swarm of bees, and,like a swarm, buzzed awhile and settled to brief rest, crowded upon him then. He would go back to Thorney—though never to the ivory workshop—and he would make enough to live on by telling tales to those who circled about the fires, even though these were not the worlds he had dreamed of conquering. And first of all, and somehow, he must free himself from the welded collar of brass about his throat. With this to brand him for what he was, the first man he met along the highway might return him to his master—if he could—and claim reward.
The slaves' quarters, following the general plan of the house, were built around a square inner court, with a cryptoporticus, or covered gallery, at the northern and southern ends. But here were no polished floors of rich design and coloring; no soft couches and brilliant draperies, no marbles and paintings. There were no hypocausts beneath to warm the rooms to Summer heat; these, small and bare as cells, were always cold. On the eastern side of the court were housed the women slaves; on the western, the men. Between these, on the northern end, were the apartments of the freedmen and stewards and overseers, with their offices. On the southern side, to the right of the main entrance to the court, were the storerooms leading down to the dark coldness of the wine-cellars. To the left of the entrance were the kitchens, with stoves, and with hypocausts beneath them. Outside the walls, singly and in groups, were the wattled huts of the field-hands, who cared for the parks and immediate lands of the villa, and who came twice daily to the great house to be fed.
In such a household, where economy was a lost wordand extravagance the order of life, the stewards and overseers who managed it, being accountable only to their lord, were vested with much power, and made the most of it. Head and front of them all was Hito, fat and shining, with glinting pig's eyes. No detail of the great establishment was too trivial for his notice. Supposed to have general control over each division of slaves, which in turn was managed by its own headman, he yet had a finger in all businesses. Like all men of his stamp, he went in mortal fear of ridicule; thought to show his power by abuse of it. On his word alone a slave might be put to the rack; let an unfortunate incur his displeasure, and he had endless ways of revenge. His predominating characteristic was an oily sleekness; the very voice of him was smooth with unctuousness. Violent likes and dislikes he took, and was in a position to gratify both, a bad enemy and a worse friend. And his methods had but one trait in common,—an entire and often apparently irrational unexpectedness. It was the one thing which in him might be relied on; he would do the thing he was least expected to do.
After the evening meal came a period of respite for those not on duty at the house. Much license was carried on at such times, at which Hito discreetly winked—unless he held a grudge against some luckless one. Even he had been known to take a hand himself in various affairs, using his official authority to gain his private ends.
Dusk deepened, and night fell. Hito rolled to the door of his office and stood looking out into the court, picking his teeth with grunts of well-fed content. A slave was lighting a brazier of charcoal near the well inthe centre of the court. The bit of blazing tinder, which he nursed carefully between his hands, threw its light up into his face and showed it in relief against the darkness, sombre, strongly marked, with a thatch of black bushy hair. Hito, recognizing him, scowled with an instantly aroused antagonism.
"Nicanor!" he shouted.
Nicanor lifted the brazier by its handle and came. When he reached Hito, he set it down, for it was heavy. Hito jerked his head at it.
"Where are you taking that?" he demanded. If he had thought Nicanor had been trying to steal it, he could not have thrown more suspicion into his voice.
"To the rooms of the Lady Varia," Nicanor answered. From his tone it was plain that the antagonism was mutual.
"Who commanded it?"
"Her nurse."
Even Hito had nothing to say to this. But, bound to show his authority, he thought to have the last word.
"Well, leave it, and I will send another. I have a thing for you to do."
"No!" said Nicanor.
Hito's little pig eyes glinted.
"So be it! Take it, then," he said, and his voice was smooth as oil. "You can still do what I would have—perhaps even better. Now pay attention. When you go to our lady's apartments, look well around and see one of her women there. She is, I know, on duty at this time, but in what room I do not know. Speak with her, if you can, and say that I, Hito, am willing to see her to-night, and that I expect her. She will understand! Say thatI wait for her,—she will know where,—and if she does not come, I will find out why." He crossed his arms on his fat chest.
"If she is not in the outer room I cannot seek her. I am no eunuch," said Nicanor, shortly.
"Maybe she will be there," Hito replied. "See, this is how you shall know her. Look for one with black hair, with dark brows and eyes blue, white in the face and somewhat lean, as though consumed by inward fires,—of passion, you understand! Be sure and say to her that if she doth not come, I will find out why." He hugged himself gently, leering at Nicanor. "And—Nicanor, I ask this as a friend, not require it as a service; wherefore—you understand?—nothing need be said about it. I would not get the poor girl into trouble, but seeing that she urgeth so—"
Nicanor looked unmoved upon his fat smirk.
"I will do as you command," he said, and picked up the brazier and turned to go.
"Nay, never say command," Hito said in haste, and deigned to lay a hand on the slave's broad shoulder. "I do but ask it of you in all friendship. Therefore you should be grateful that I, Hito, admit you thus to confidence. For, look you, there be reasons; this, one might say, is—not official."
Nicanor's grim lips relaxed to a half smile.
"I will do it, then, since Hito craves it," he said, and went his way across the court. Hito shook his heavy jowls in rage.
"Dog!" he muttered. "'Hito craves' forsooth! I'll have that up against you, mighty lordling, one of these fine days! In the name of the gods, what is one to dowith a fellow who cares not the snap of his finger for any punishment I can devise?"
Nicanor went along the covered gallery leading from the slaves' quarters to the mansion. At intervals he shifted the heavy brazier from hand to hand. The heat of the smouldering charcoal in it rose to his face, gratefully warm. When he reached the anteroom of Lady Varia's apartments, going by the rear passages, he found no one. The room, warmed to Summer heat, and filled with flowers, was empty. Perfumed lamps burned low, swinging from their bronze and silver standards; in a curtained recess in the wall a marble Minerva gleamed shadowed white, half concealed by curtains of dusky red. A silver jar of incense, burning before the shrine, tinged the air with faint fragrance. All was quiet and peaceful, a safe and sheltered nest. From the other inner rooms he could hear voices; a girl's voice steadily intoning sonorous blank verse; at intervals another voice, interrupting, slow and languid, that set his heart beating hard and his face flushing. He picked up a bell from the stand near the entrance and rang it.
The recitative stopped; there was a murmur of mingled voices, and footsteps. A girl parted the curtains which hung between the rooms and came toward him. Her hair was black, fastened by long pins of bone; her face white and resentful; her brows were straight and dark, and the eyes beneath were shadowy. She was slim and moved swiftly, and her skin was white as milk. This, then, was the girl upon whom Hito had cast his evil glance. Nicanor kept his eyes on her as she came, and wondered if she was newly bought, that he had not seen her during the months he had been at the villa.
"I bring the brazier Nerissa commanded," said Nicanor, and she nodded.
"Nerissa is busy with our lady. I will take it in."
"She is not ill?" he asked anxiously.
"Nay, not ill," the girl answered. "It is but that she feels the cold. I will take the brazier." She looked at him with some surprise that he did not give it up.
"It is heavy," he warned her. "Stay one moment, I pray you. Will you not tell me your name? I have been in this house these many months, and never before have I seen you."
"I am called Eldris," she answered. "And I have been here also, but—it is true you have not seen me, although at times I have seen you. I have been seen by none save—"
"Save one, perhaps," said Nicanor, and looked into her eyes. "I bring you word from Hito—if you are she he told me to seek out. He saith that he, Hito, is willing to see you to-night; that he expects you, and that you will understand. He saith that he awaits you—you will know where; and if you do not come, he will find out why. Also—"
He stopped on the word. The girl had gone gray; and into her eyes there leaped a look of helpless terror, of dumb anguish and nameless fear. And at once, with the look, she became elusively familiar. A memory, half lost, beckoned to him, of a white and tortured face, of eyes which held the terror of a wounded animal at bay, of a long red welt across brown shoulders. His glance went to the girl's shoulders, white as milk, half hidden under her coarse white tunic.
"'You sent for me, Lady Varia?'""'You sent for me, Lady Varia?'"
"Hito!" the girl exclaimed below her breath; and again—"Hito!" She flung out her hands with a movement of bitter despair and hid her face in them. "What can I do? Where can I go?" she cried hopelessly. "Since the first day he saw me this hath hung over me—and what can I do? O my God! what can I do against him?"
"You do not go willingly?" Nicanor questioned, and took note of the exclamation she had used.
"You will not force me to him!" she gasped in terror, misunderstanding, and shrank from him.
"Not I! I am no man's procurer!" Nicanor said curtly. "I give his message; the rest lieth with you and him."
"Never with me!" the girl exclaimed. She broke into hard dry sobs that racked her. Nicanor watched, quite at a loss what to say or do.
"He hath—he hath threatened force and the rack if I refuse," she sobbed.
"The rack is a bad thing to know!" said Nicanor, thinking of what he had seen in the room at the end of the passage. He spoke with all sincerity, being no better than his time.
"Ay, but there is something worse!" Eldris flashed back. "I would rather face my lord in the torture-chamber; I would rather be broken on the wheel and die the death—" She shuddered, and again hid her face. "And there is no way out of it but death. What can I do, a slave?"
The old bitter cry, wrung from the lips of many that the word of the Nations' Law might be fulfilled—wrung from the lips of Nicanor himself. He knew the full measure of its bitterness, and somewhere in him an answeringchord stirred and woke to life. He put his hand on her shoulder.
"See then, if that be thy feeling,—though them knowest not the rack!—I too am a slave, but it may be that I can help thee." The girl stilled her sobs to listen. "Hito is a fat swine. It would give me great joy to foil him."
"I have tried to move him," she said, with a weary hopelessness more suggestive than many words. "It is because I struggle—" She stopped, biting her lips, her eyes dark with misery. "It is not me he would have now, but his way," she said forlornly.
"For me to take thy refusal would do no good," said Nicanor, his voice reflective. "Tell thy lady; surely she will give thee protection."
"Often I have tried to do that," Eldris answered. "Always Nerissa or other women are there to know what I would have with her; and always they say it is not for me to talk with her unless she gives command—that I am to tell them and they will carry the word to her. And when I tell,—" she faltered, with drooping head,—"they laugh, and call me fool, and ask why I should hold myself too good to do as others have done, and say our lady is not to be troubled with a thing such as this. That is what they say, and they are worse than he. And I fear him! Oh, I fear him!" She clenched her hands tightly across her breast and shivered with closed eyes. "By day I go in dread lest he give command to seize me; by night I start awake lest I see his face grinning in the dark, even though for weeks at a time he will give me peace and make no sign. When my service is done, I hide like a rat in its hole, wishing to be seen bynone. But he never forgets, and he never forgives, and I have scorned him. Oh, I would to God that I were dead!"
"Art thou Christian?" Nicanor asked curiously.
"Ay," she answered, without spirit.
"Once I was at a Christian church," said Nicanor.
"Art thou of the faith?" she asked, quickly and eagerly.
"Not I," said Nicanor. "What good may it do a man? And if it doeth no good, any faith will do to swear by. It hath not done thee much good, this faith of thine, since it leaves thee in this pass."
"I trust it," she said quietly.
"Nay," said Nicanor, in all seriousness. "It is I whom thou must trust. It is not thy faith will help thee here, but I, and the wit I have and the strength I have, because I am the only one near thee. How then, if it be I, can it be thy faith?"
"I trust it," she repeated vaguely, as though she did not quite understand his meaning. He laughed shortly.
"I had rather trust myself. See now, if the door were opened, couldst thou escape from here?"
"I have no money—nowhere to go," she answered.
Nicanor shook his head.
"Money I have not, but I could see that friends received thee."
She shrugged her shoulders, a gesture half resignation, half despair. And with the movement, the elusive familiarity returned; the flickering memory leaped to life. Black straight hair, framing a gray face and burning eyes; a girl, a lean wisp of a thing, with chained wrists and a ragged frock which only half concealed along red welt on a brown shoulder—he had seen them all before. The memory grew and would not be denied; suddenly forced itself into words.
"Art thou she who was bought at Thorney of a slave-driver by one Valerius, and claimed sanctuary of a Christian cross by the church of Saint Peter?"
Her glance at him was startled.
"Yea; but how dost thou know of it?" she asked in turn.
"I saw thee sold," said Nicanor, and looked at her with new eyes. "When Valerius pursued thee to the foot of the cross, I ran also. It was I who went for the priest, and came back and found no one. Often since, I have wondered what became of thee and the folk who had gathered." He laughed. "But it made a good tale. More than once I have used it, and fitted to it endings of mine own."
"While I lay grasping the cross, a man in the crowd cried out: 'Girl, the priest cometh! Run thou quickly to him!' And I, being well-nigh dazed with fear, had no better sense than to spring up, crying, 'Where?' And no priest was there at all; but the instant my hands were off the cross that man seized me and ran, and all the crowd ran after to see what might happen next, some saying it was not just, and others finding it rare good sport. At the river he thrust me into a boat and gave the man money to row quickly; and since their sport was over, the people went away. It did not take long." She looked at him with quickened interest, and in her face also there was new thought.
"So—art thou, then, that teller of tales, whom men call Nicanor of the silver tongue?"
Nicanor laughed again, but softly, all the hardness gone from his grim face, his eyes shining oddly. Did they indeed call him that?
"I am Nicanor," he said. His quick ears caught a step approaching from the inner rooms. "Some one comes!" he said warningly, and added, "It is heavy; let me take it to the door."
He picked up the brazier and carried it to the door. Eldris followed, her steps lagging.
"I will wait near until thy duty here is ended," he said in a rapid undertone. "None shall touch thee this night, I promise thee. As for to-morrow—well, to-morrow is to-morrow, and there is small use in worrying to-day."
She flashed a glance of gratitude at him and took the brazier. It was too heavy for her, but she staggered bravely with it across the threshold, and the curtains fell behind her. Nicanor heard Nerissa's sharp voice from within.
"Why so long, girl? Bring it quickly—thy lady's feet are chilled."
Nicanor lingered a moment, his eyes on the hidden entrance, and turned and went out with his long and cat-like stride.
In the courtyard one ran against him in the darkness and cursed him soundly. Nicanor, recognizing the ring of Hito's eloquence, halted and waited for what might come. Hito, in his turn, recognized him, and changed his tone.
"So, thou? In the dark I did not know thee. Didst find the girl?"
"Ay, I found her," Nicanor answered with indifference. "But she is on duty to-night with our lady, and knowsnot when she can get away." He gave a short laugh. "Truly, Hito—since this is not official!—I had thought thee with an eye for woman-flesh as keen as the best. But that!—At first I doubted mine own eyes, that thou hadst singled out such an one for thy favor, when there be others whose better no man could wish. What one can see in long sulky eyes, a gray face that never smiles, hair like a mare's tail, a body gaunt and spare as a growing boy's—I cannot say I admire thy taste. Thou, who art so keen a judge of women's beauty, who can pick and choose from among the fairest—what hath bewitched thee, man?"
"You do not know her!" Hito said sulkily, forced into a defence of his choice. "A creature all fire and ice—well, I know she hath no beauty, but—I'd not have thee believe it is because I am no judge. What do I care for the girl? Bah!" He snapped his fingers in contempt. "But she hath flouted me, defied me,—me, Hito, whose word could send her stripped to the torment,—and by my father's head I'll break her for it! When I approached her with soft words, these many weeks ago, she laughed,—mind you that!—and it is dangerous to laugh at Hito. But she will not laugh when I am through with her! Also she said that she would prefer the rack. A pity that in this world people cannot always have what they prefer. More than ever I desire her; I would break her, see her cringe and follow like a beaten hound; and the more she fights me, the more surely I shall win, and the more my victory shall cost her. That is my way—the way of Hito!" He licked his thick lips.
"'And the lion said: "I find it rare good sport tohunt a mouse; it is most noble game!"'" Nicanor quoted. His voice held a taunt.
"No insolence, sirrah!" Hito snarled, instantly suspicious of ridicule. "Because I held speech with thee to-night, it does not follow that thou art privileged to criticize!"
"If I am insolent, why choose me for your messenger?" Nicanor asked boldly.
Hito slipped an arm about the slave's broad shoulders and patted him.
"Because thou art a man after mine own heart," he said smoothly. "Because I love thee and thy bold eyes and thy dare-devil recklessness, and would make a friend of thee. Why else? Now, then, to-morrow thou shalt bring the girl to me. I am minded for an hour's sport with the tiger-cat. My fingers itch for that lean throat of hers. After, I will give her to thee if it please thee—and then we'll see what the rack will leave of her beauty." His oily chuckle was diabolic.
"And our lady?" Nicanor suggested. "What will she say when she knows how a handmaiden of hers hath been disposed of?"
"How will she know," Hito retorted, "when there be a dozen and odd to take her place? A slave more or less is a small matter in this house." His tone was significant. "So bring her to-morrow at the noon hour, my friend. I think thou canst find a way! Till then, good-night. The gods have thee in their keeping!"
"And thee!" Nicanor responded with a grin.
Hito was absorbed into the darkness. Nicanor spat upon the ground where he had stood.
"Rather the gods smite thee with death and ruin!"he muttered. "Now to wait for thy lady. How well he loves her, in truth!"
He took to pacing up and down the gallery before the storerooms, for the night air was biting cold, noiseless, a blot of shadow in the darkness. His thoughts wandered from the black-haired slave girl to her whom they both served; to Marius; to his own plight. How long would it be before it pleased Marius to speak and snap the jaws of the trap upon him? Why did he hold his hand? Or had he perhaps already spoken? He knew that if he were to escape at all, the sooner he made the attempt, the better. His fingers went uncertainly to the collar at his throat. He could bribe no one to cut it for him; to do it himself would be more than difficult, even if he could steal the tools. He paused before a door that led into deeper blackness. At the far end of that passage was another door through which he must enter, where many another had entered before him, and where he had seen too much of what went on within to expect less for himself than had fallen to the lot of these. He shrugged his shoulders.
"Even a trapped rat may fight," he muttered, and turned to continue his pacing. Then it was that he saw a light coming down the gallery, dancing upon the wall; and a group of three approaching, revealed by a torch in the hands of one. Wary as a buck which scents danger on every breeze, he drew back into the space between two pillars to wait and watch. And he saw that of the three, the middle one was Marcus, held fast and struggling, and whimpering like a dog dragged to a beating.
In the first moment, Nicanor did not understand. Thenit grew upon him that this had something to do with him, and it might be well to find out what. The three passed him and entered at that door before which Nicanor had paused.
"So—they take him to the torture!" Nicanor muttered. "I think that I shall see the end of this."
Lithe and noiseless as a cat he went after the three down the passage, keeping well out of range of the flaring torch.
VI
VI
But when he reached the door at the end of the passage, it was closed, and he could only stand outside and listen. A lamp of pottery, burning wanly on a stone shelf jutting from the wall, showed the door, low, metal-bound, of tough black oak. He could see nothing, but his ears caught fragments of sound at intervals from within; a clank of chains, a scraping as of a heavy object dragged across the floor. He leaned against the wall of the passage, the lamplight on his face, his figure tense with expectation, his hands quite unconsciously hard clenched. Without warning there rose from inside a frantic gibbering, meaningless, bestial, horribly shrill. Nicanor smiled with narrowed eyes.
"Well for me I drew thy sting, old man!" he muttered.
The gibbering broke suddenly into a scream that rang for an instant and stopped short, leaving blank silence. Nicanor's face sharpened and grew pinched with eagerness; under scowling brows his eyes took on a strange glitter like the eyes of an animal in the dark. He crouched closer to the door, his body rigid with the strain of listening. Once more the cry of pain rose, thistime sustained and savage with despair; it choked and gurgled horribly into silence; and rose again, more agonized, more bitter.
"Perhaps he wishes now he had not entered that garden!" said Nicanor, and laughed low in triumph. Every nerve was thrilling to the savage lust of blood, half-lost instinct of old days when men lived and died by blood, when the battle was to the strongest, and life was a victim's forfeit. He longed to look through the iron-bound door, to see for himself Marcus paying the price for his temerity. Strangely, he could not bring himself to believe that Marcus was unable to betray him; it seemed to him as though the man's fearful straining after speech must have result of some sort. Even though he knew this idea to be absurd, he found himself on edge with suspense.
The cries became long-drawn, agonized, unceasing. There is but one sound in the world as bad as the sound of a man's screaming, and that other is the scream of a wounded horse. Nicanor set his teeth.
"Now they are twisting the cord about his head.... And yet, though they kill him, the poor fool cannot speak. I have well taken care of that, it appears.... They have him on the stone table, and his hands are bound. I can see it—oh, ay, I can see it well enough. I can see that he writhes in torment; and his face—what would his face be? Purple, perhaps; and the cord about his temples hath bitten through the flesh. There is blood upon his face, and it takes four men to hold him. Body of me! Who would have thought the old man to have such lungs!"
A smothered exclamation from the semi-darknessbeside him sent his hand leaping to the dagger concealed in his tunic. In the same instant he saw that it was Eldris.
"Who is it?" she whispered fearfully. "Oh, why do they not kill him and have it over! I heard as I was passing—I had to come!" She clasped her hands over her ears and shuddered. Nicanor folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall, looking down at her. When she lowered her hands, he said:
"It may be that our lord hath not given command that he die."
"Who is it?" she repeated.
"Marcus," he answered, and saw her draw breath with a quick sob.
"Ah, poor old man! What hath he done to deserve this?"
"Rather it is because he will not—because he cannot do what they would have him," said Nicanor. His words were reckless, still more his tone; it was even as though he cared not enough about the matter to hide his knowledge from her.
"Do you know what it is? Oh, if they would but kill him in very pity!" She wrung her hands.
"Ay, I know," said Nicanor.
"Was it his fault?" she asked eagerly. He hesitated, his bold eyes on her face.
"No," he said. "It was not his fault. He was in the right."
She turned on him in horror.
"You know him innocent, and yet you stand here idle while he is done to death!" she cried. "Oh, go—go quickly and tell them he is not to blame! Make themset him free!" She caught his arm and he felt her fingers shake. "Are you a coward, that you will listen to his cries when a word of yours could release him? I had not thought it of you—oh, I had not thought it of you!"
"Suppose a word of mine should set me in his place?" said Nicanor harshly. "Maybe I am coward; but calling me one will not make me one. Suppose I were in his place; suppose that in my fall I carried others with me,—others who at all costs must be shielded,—is it not better that one should suffer than that our world should crash about our ears? He is old and worthless—"
"And you are young and worthy to have his blood spilled for you!" she taunted in a shaking voice. "I do not understand, it may be, but it seems that this frail old man must suffer that you, so brave, so powerful, whose life is of so great worth, may go unharmed. Why should you be set in his place? Is the fault yours? If it be, and you seek shelter behind his helplessness, you are lower than the cringing curs. Are you afraid, O great and worthy one, to stand forth and confess your wrong as any man would do?"
She stopped breathless. He looked at her with eyes hot and sullen.
"Now I should like to wring your neck for that!" he said. At the swift ruthless savagery in his tone the girl shrank back. Nicanor saw and laughed. "Since I may not, I'll take payment otherhow. As for the old man, let him squeal as best likes him. If they break him on the wheel, I shall go and tell them how to do it; if they boil him in oil, I shall go and stir the gravy. Your opinion of the cringing cur should not go unjustified."
The screaming died suddenly into moaning. Eldris covered her face with her hands.
"Oh, but that is worse, if worse can be! Why does he not tell them he knows nothing, has done nothing? Surely they would let him go! Is he trying, perhaps, to shield you?" Her voice, under all its fear and pity, was mocking.
"Not he! He would be glad to see me in his place," Nicanor retorted. He laughed a little. "Strange, is it not, that he doth not tell?—since thumb-screws and argolins soon find a man's limit."
She faced him, gathering all her courage.
"Now do I believe you know more of this than you will say!" she cried.
"Perhaps!" he said boldly. "It is not well to tell all one knows."
"Not even to save a fellow-creature's life! Oh, what are you—brute or man? Man with the speech of angels—brute with the heart of hell!"
"Perhaps!" said Nicanor again. "Why should I tell you what I am?"
"Do you know, yourself?" she questioned.
His eyes hardened.
"Who can know himself?" he parried, with a shrug of his heavy shoulders. "This much I know—that I am brute and man, slave and king. At times I am lower than man, who can be lower than any crawling beast; at times I am more than god, with all the world beneath me. Why? How should I tell?"
"You, who sing of birds and butterflies, of flowers in Summer, of sunshine and sweet love and the brightness of life!" she said bitterly and with reproach. "Indeed,you are two men, and I know not either. One, all men must hate and fear; the other—ah, the other is of the silver tongue. Why should this be? I can tell no more than you—I can but pray that that black beast may be tamed and stilled."
"I say I do not know!" Nicanor said sullenly. "And speak we of something else. I amoneman, Nicanor, slave and teller of tales. That is all with which you have concern. And I do not need praying over."
"Have you no gods?" she asked him, shocked. He looked rather blank at her attack.
"Why, no," he said, and his voice held a faint tinge of surprise. "There are no gods in the bogs and fens and on the hills where I tended sheep. What gods with any sense would live in such parts as these? And I knew no need of them. Why should I have learned? When my mother would tell me of one God whom she worshipped, I would go and play. Is this your God?"
"Ay," she answered, without hesitation. "I think your mother, too, was Christian."
"Maybe," Nicanor answered with indifference. "But he is not the God of the mighty—of none but slaves and bondsmen and the humble, from all that hath been told to me."
"Of those who are oppressed," she said softly. "Wilt let me tell thee of Him? Of how He was born in a stable, with wise men journeying from the East, bearing gifts of homage?"
Nicanor looked at her with a gleam of quickening interest.
"Why, that is a tale," he said. "Now I have neverheard of this before. Why was he born in a stable, and what gifts did those wise men bring?"
Within the room the sounds had died, leaving a heavy silence, and neither noticed. For of old Death young Life is ever heedless; ever the brazen fanfare of life's trumpets drowns the thin reed-plaint of death. In the passage their voices whispered guiltily.
"Because His mother went to a place which was called Bethlehem, with Joseph her husband, to pay the taxes, and there was no room at the inn," said Eldris, explaining. "And the angel of the Lord had told Joseph that these things should be, and that he need not put away Mary as he was minded to do." She knew the facts of the story she would tell him; give it form and coherence she could not.
"Who was Mary?"
"The wife of Joseph."
"Why put her away?"
"Because the Child was to be born."
Nicanor drew his heavy eyebrows to a scowl of intense perplexity.
"Now why should he put her away for doing what all good wives should do?"
"Because her child was the Son of God, and at first Joseph did not—"
"And not the son of Joseph!" cut in Nicanor. His voice became all at once enlightened. "Now by my head, this is a quaint tale thou tellest! So the God you Christians worship was a—"
"Oh!" cried Eldris; and the shock in her voice cut his words short. "Never say it! You do not understand! It was a miracle!"
"A miracle—well, that is different," said Nicanor. "I have told tales of miracles, for such things may be. And so—?"
"For it had been foretold that One should be born, of a pure virgin, who should redeem the world and take upon Himself the sins and sorrows of all men. So an angel told Mary that she was blessed among women—but I think that she was frightened."
Nicanor nodded, as one in entire understanding. In place of the hard glitter of his eyes had come a certain luminosity as though from inner fires, an odd deep shining; his face was keen with a lively interest.
"And so—what happened then?" he questioned her, even as men, so many times before, had questioned him.
"Yet she was glad, for that she was chosen to bring peace into the world," recounted Eldris. "So they went into Bethlehem, and all the inns were full. But Mary could go no farther, and they went into a stable, where oxen and cattle were stalled. And there the Child was born; and men say that a great star in the sky guided shepherds who fed their flocks upon the moors to that stable where He lay. And it is told that three Kings came out of the East, laden with perfumes and gifts for him who was to be the Saviour of the world."
"Kings," Nicanor repeated, musing. "Then would they be clothed bravely, with jewels and fine linen, and this would make good contrast with the stable. Go on. What did they when they came into the stable?"
"They marvelled greatly that He whom they had journeyed to seek should be but a new-born babe, and they bowed down and worshipped."
"Paid homage," said Nicanor, following out his own train of thought. "Ay, it is a good tale, but as I have heard it, it lacketh something—what? I must think of that. It hath no point, no pivot on which to hang the whole. For, look you, a tale is built as any other thing is built; it must have its parts balanced; it must have cause, and meaning, and effect. This hath a beginning, but it leads nowhere, without end."
"But it hath no end," said Eldris, not understanding. "And it can have no end until the end of time. For it was but the beginning; and the little Jesus that lay in the manger is He who liveth and reigneth above all gods—"
"Now I care not for the little Jesus!" said Nicanor, gruff with impatience. "It is the tale I would get at—the tale! Well, it will come, as always it hath come before. On a night I will wake to find it full-grown in my head and clamoring at my tongue. Now we will go, or that fat lover of thine will be upon us."
Brought back to the present and its portents, Eldris bent her head, listening.
"Why, the cries have ceased," she said.
"Ay, this long time past," said Nicanor carelessly. "How much, think you, human flesh and blood can stand?"
"Is he dead?" she asked, startled.
"I hope so!" said Nicanor. "Nay then, I do not care, which is nearer truth. If I do not fear a fangless serpent in the grass, why should I fear him?"
There was sudden movement behind the door; before either could think of flight it opened, showing the room within. A still figure on the raised slab of stone, forcentre of the picture, with two half-stripped Africans beside it; three figures coming doorward: and these were Eudemius, and Marius, and the physician Claudius. Eudemius, his face pinched and gray, leaned tottering with weakness on the arms of the other two; behind them walked a slave with a great peacock fan, and another slave was waiting at the door. At once Nicanor clapped his hardened hand over the thin flame of the lamp on the shelf, and the passage where they stood was plunged in darkness. Before the three lords had reached the threshold, he had drawn the girl out of sight behind one of the squat pillars of the passage. Perhaps no harm would come to them, even were they discovered; but he had reasons for wishing to take no chances. The three passed by unheeding, Eudemius stumbling and cursing because the passage was dark. When they had gone, Nicanor went into the room, where the slaves were busy. Eldris stood hesitating on the threshold, afraid to enter, unwilling to go.
"He is dead, is he?" Nicanor asked, and went and stood over the broken body on the stone slab.
One of the Africans grinned, showing strong white teeth beneath his yellow turban.
"Our lord was a devil to-night," he said. "The madness was on him, and he would have blood. But look you; here is a strange thing." With ungentle hands he forced open the dead jaws, not yet stiffened in the rigor of death. "Now sure this be a miracle, for mine own ears heard him speak but yesterday."
"So?" said Nicanor, with lifted brows. "Now I should have said a week ago, or maybe two. Ay, if youheard him speak yesterday, it was sure a miracle. Likely he hath done something displeasing to his gods."
The slaves carried the limp body away, and others came and resanded the floors.
The chamber was circular, of rough blocks of stone, with two doors. Opposite the one where Eldris stood was a raised dais where were two chairs and a flaring cresset on a tall standard. Around the walls hung instruments of war, of torture, and of the chase; chains with heavy balls of iron attached; a stand of spears, and another of great bronze swords, leaf-shaped and burnished. A collection of daggers hung upon the walls, with the terrible short knives worn by the Saxons, each with the two nicks in the blade which would leave a ragged and dreadful wound. Here also were great six-foot bows, such as the Numidian archers used; and suits of armor in corium and in bronze, with shields and breastplates and crested helmets of brass and iron. Here was a narrow bed, of wood and iron, with bolts and screws for tearing muscle from muscle and joint from joint. Nicanor, with grim humor, had called this the bridal bed, and the name would stick to it forever. And here, higher than a man's height above the floor, was a leaden tank with a water-cock, from which would fall water, drop by drop, hour by hour, into a leaden basin with a drain-pipe sunk into the floor. Once Nicanor had seen a man sit screaming there for untold hours, chained to a stone bench, with water dripping, drop by drop, upon his shaven skull. He had used this upon a day, in a tale he had told in the wine-shop of Nicodemus; and men had shuddered and drawn back from him as fromone possessed of unholy powers. And Nicanor, looking at this now, and with that terrible gift of his seeing himself chained and screaming in that other's place, set his teeth and muttered:
"I shall leave this house this night."
But he did not, for he was but mortal, and subject, like other mortals, to the decree of the goddess Fate.
For as the slaves went out of the other door with their buckets of sand, Nicanor heard a cry from where the girl stood in the entrance to the passage; a cry sharp and quick, as he had heard a rabbit squeal in the trap. He wheeled and saw her shrinking inside the doorway, her hands before her face, and over her Hito standing, his little pig's eyes alight.
Now the girl was nothing to Nicanor; he could have cursed her roundly for getting in his way and perplexing him with her troubles when he had need of all his wit to save himself. He would have vented his displeasure upon her as readily as upon Hito. He was not chivalrous; if she had pleased his fancy he would quite surely have pursued her as relentlessly as the steward. But he had said, "None shall touch thee this night"; and he would maintain his word not because he wanted to, but because he must.
"Keep your hands off her!" he said savagely, as Hito stooped. His hands were clenched, his black brows lowering, his mood, plainly, was not to be trifled with. That he should pay for his temerity he knew as well as Hito; but since he was lost in any case, he considered that a little more or less would make small difference.
"What have you to say about it?" Hito snarled."Did I not send you for the girl? Quartus! Sporus! Come back, ye knaves, and bind me this fellow!"
But Nicanor, with a bound like a tiger cat's, flung himself on the door, slammed it shut, and locked it. And he had need of all his quickness, for he was playing fast and loose with death. Hito yelled and started for the second door through which he had come and near which the girl was crouching. But again Nicanor was too quick. He got between Hito and the door and stood ready to shut it,—erect, defiant, every muscle tense to spring. He would die, that was certain, but he would give somebody trouble first. Now Hito was fat and scant of breath, and Hito was soft with good living and much ease; and when he was cornered, he turned not rat, but rabbit. Moreover, he had seen this lean devil of a slave in action before and he remembered it. So he stopped and merely yelled again for Quartus and Sporus.
Without taking his eyes off the overseer, Nicanor put out his hand and pulled the girl to him.
"If you swoon, I shall kill you!" he muttered, stooping until he could whisper in her ear. "Go to Thorney in the Fords, and find there Nicodemus the One-Eyed, who keeps a wine-shop. Tell him I sent you. I cannot hold our friend here for long, but it is all that I can do. You know what it will mean to be caught and brought back." He raised his voice somewhat, so that Hito should hear apparently without his meaning it. "Go to your room and lock yourself in. We shall see what our lord has to say to such doings!"
He held the door ajar, and pushed the girl through, and closed it, but in the lock there was no key. Hito sneered.
"Clever lad! 'Go to your room and lock yourself in!' Hast thought what will happen when she must come out? 'See what our lord has to say to such doings!' Hast thought that what he will say will be through me? What else didst tell the girl? Answer, son of an ill-famed mother, or the rack shall question for me!"
Nicanor said nothing. His ears strained for approaching footsteps, but the walls were thick, and many had cried for help before and none had heard them. He had no plan; he had given the girl what chance he could, and it was all that he could do. If she could not help herself—well, there would be one more to cross the threshold of fate. His only thought was to give her what time he could. Let her once get away from the house, and over the frozen ground it would be hard to find her trail until morning.
Hito took it in his head to make a dash. He started for the door, shouting at the top of his lungs for help. Nicanor barred his passage, silent and inexorable. He did not raise hand against Hito, but stood like a rock against the fat one's futile pummellings. For to strike a superior meant, for a slave, instant and lawful death. Hito would none the less maintain that he had been struck, but Nicanor could not help that. So that Hito battered until his fists were sore; and Nicanor stood and took it silently, with set jaws and eyes gleaming like a wolf's in his dark face. He could not hope to keep Hito there much longer. The latter, wearied at length and puffing, sat on the edge of that grim bridal bed and cursed Nicanor by all the evil gods. After this, when his invention gave out, he fell silent and sat and staredat the tall figure that guarded the door, with his little eyes half closed. But quite suddenly those eyes flew wide with astonishment. For the figure against the door had begun to sway from side to side, gently and rhythmically, with a low mutter of incoherent words. Hito looked again, somewhat startled. The slave's face was set and blank; his eyes stared straight ahead and were dull and without lustre.
"The gods save us!" Hito muttered, watching uneasily. "Hath the man a fit?"
"See them coming!" said Nicanor. His finger pointed here and there, and in spite of himself, Hito's eyes followed it. "Bright maidens, flower-crowned, robed in gauze. Ah, flee not, sweet ones!" He stretched his hands imploringly. "Whence come ye, from the mist? See the mist, how it rises, full of dreams which are to come to men. Are ye dreams, ye radiant ones? No, for ye do not vanish. Ha! I have thee, lovely nymph! and thou shalt find my arms as strong to hold as the gods' from whom thou camest. Unveil thyself, sweet, and let me see thy face. It should be fair, with so fair a form. So—thou thinkest to escape and fly from me?"
He sprang forward, hands outstretched, almost upon Hito, who turned with a yelp of alarm, and dodged. Nicanor started back as one in sudden surprise.
"Ha, Julia, sweet friend!" he cried. "Who sent thee here to me, with thy scarf of gold and pearl, thy raven locks and thy dewy lips, with bells upon thine ankles, and a tambour in thy hand? See, our lord cometh! Let us dance for him that perhaps we may find favor in his sight."
Standing in front of Hito he began to dance, his hands hanging limp at his sides, his face utterly without expression. Hito gasped.
"What hath come to thee?" he quavered. "Fool—come to thy senses before thou art flogged back to them."
"Dance with me, sweet maiden!" said Nicanor; and suddenly caught Hito's fat and helpless hands in his lean brown ones and danced down the length of the room with him. Perforce, since he could not struggle free, Hito ran alongside, dragging back unwillingly, his face gray with fright. At the end of the room Nicanor turned and danced back again, dragging his captive.
"Dance, fair Julia, dance!" he cried; and in his gyrations brought without warning his nail-spiked sandal down on Hito's foot. Hito bellowed and danced upon one foot with pain, and once dancing, found that he could not stop.
"Let me go!" he panted, furious. "Slave—thou madman—let me go, I say! I do not wish to dance—I will not dance!"
"Not when our lord commands it?" cried Nicanor, breathing hard himself. "Why, then, I do not wish to dance either. But since he saith 'Dance,' dance I must, and so must thou, sweet girl!"
"I am no girl!" shrieked Hito, haled off down the room again. "I am Hito, and I command that you stop!"
"Now why give me lies like that?" said Nicanor. "Have I not eyes which have long hungered for thy beauty? Do I not know thee, Julia the dancing girl?"
"Thou art mad in very truth! Good Nicanor—sweet Nicanor—let me go, and I'll swear to keep between us this tale of thy doings!"
Nicanor answered nothing. Always his face was blank, but his grip on Hito's wrists was iron. Up and down the room he went, leaping, dancing; and up and down went Hito after him, struggling, sobbing for breath, his unwieldy bulk trembling with fright and weariness. When his steps slackened, through sheer inability to keep up, Nicanor, with a bound forward, dragged him after, so that, to save himself from falling on his face, he bounded also, on his fat legs, with explosive grunts of breathlessness.
Without warning Nicanor increased his speed and danced faster. He also was panting hard, the strain of towing two hundred odd pounds of unwilling flesh being great. His arms and shoulders shone with sweat; on his forehead his hair was plastered and damp.
"Julia, Julia," he cried, "I pray you stop! I can dance no more. Thou art trained to this work, but I—I faint with weariness. Though our lord flay me, I can dance no more!"—and danced the faster.
"Stop! I stop!" gasped Hito, purple in the face. "Deae matres!Am I not trying to stop? Stop thyself, or I die! I am exhausted—I have no breath—have a little pity—Oh, nay, nay, I did not mean it! It is as thou sayest, of course! I—was wrong—to thwart thee! I will do whatever thou sayest, if thou wilt let me go! I—I do not think our lord—likes to see—such rapid motion. It maketh his head to swim. I, Julia, pray thee, not—quite—so fast!"
He lurched and nearly fell, and Nicanor jerked himup again. There was the noise of a door being opened. Nicanor knew it must be the door leading to the passage, since the other was locked. He dropped Hito, who crumpled into an abject heap upon the floor, past speech or motion, and went on dancing by himself. From the tail of his eye he saw Wardo the Saxon and Quartus enter and stand gaping, dumb with amazement. Hito shook his fist at them from the floor and stuttered. When breath enough had entered into him, he screamed at them.
"Bind me this madman! He hath a devil in him. Hold him, I say, until I can speak!"
"Why, he's mad!" said Wardo, staring in awe at Nicanor, who, expressionless, danced invincibly.
"Thou sayest!" Quartus agreed, and stared also. "What hath seized him? Here, lad, what means all this? Stop thy prancing and say what thou hast done to our lord Hito, here."
But Nicanor answered nothing, and danced.
"Chain him!" wheezed Hito. "Stop him, or I shall go mad, also, with looking at him! I'll have him strung by the thumbs for this!"
And so it had been done, instantly, madness or no madness, since Hito's word was law, and Hito was very wrathful, but that interruption came from a quarter least expected. A tall figure blocked the open doorway, and a deep voice said:
"What is the meaning of all this?"
Every slave knew it for the voice of their lord's guest, and every slave wheeled and crossed his arms before his face, and wondered what their lord's guest should be doing there,—every slave except Nicanor, who still danceddoggedly. It would have needed a quick eye to see that his step had faltered, if never so slightly.
"This fellow hath a devil, lord!" said Hito, with an effort at coherency. "Me he did force to dance until I am no better than dead. He called me Julia and made me to dance with him so that my life fainted in me. He is mad—most mad—and I will have him strung—"
Marius looked at Nicanor, and in his face was recognition and a merciless triumph. He broke Hito's speech midway.
"Who is this fellow?"
"Lord, he is called Nicanor," said Hito. "And he is mad—"
Again Marius's face changed, back to its former haughty calm, in which was mingled a certain satisfaction.
"So—Nicanor, is it? I have seen men seized this way before." He spoke to Hito, but his eyes were on Nicanor. "Most commonly it is the effect of over-severe discipline, but it may be that there are other causes. Then if he is mad, friend Hito, it might be better not to slay him lest the gods take vengeance for him upon you. Were it not best to take him to the dungeons? So, you may see how long this madness of his will last; and when it is past will be the time to punish." His tone assumed sudden authority. "Look to it that you harm him in no manner, but hold him fast where you may deliver him at your lord's word. It will be your life for his life—remember that."
He gathered his cloak about him and strode away, and the three looked after him with wonder in their faces. Hito was first to voice it.
"Our lives for his life, is it?" he grunted. "So, master slave, you would be important, it seems. What have you done now, that our lord's favorite should give such orders for you? You'll not cheat me for long—promise you that! A little while and he'll forget you; so my turn will come. Quartus, put the chains upon him and take him to the cells."
"Please you, we are told to harm him in no manner," Wardo ventured. Nicanor had done many a good turn to the fair-haired Saxon, as one comrade to another, and Wardo was not one to forget it. "Were he in chains, he would soon fret himself into worse raving, and likely do himself harm."
"Bring him without, then!" said Hito. The two seized Nicanor, and Wardo winked at him behind Hito's back, as the latter got painfully to his feet. Nicanor submitted, sullenly. He, who had trusted to no man save himself, was forced to pin what faith he might to the hint of succor that lay in Wardo's wink. And this was but a frail straw to trust.
They took him along a side passage behind the storerooms, down damp and slippery steps to the depths of the cellars. Here were the dungeons, half of masonry, half of living rock, whose walls glistened with slime where the torchlight fell upon them. They thrust him into the smallest of the cells, and left him.
The light of their torch was shut out with the slamming of the iron door; and darkness, dense and tangible, fell upon him in a reeking pall.
Nicanor spoke aloud, with a laugh that jarred on the heavy stillness.
"When friend Hito gains wind enough after hisgambollings to remember that lean lady of his, she should be far enough away to snap her fingers at him. So, the rat is trapped at last. Now to see whether he can fight or no; for if he cannot, he'll have no chance to try again."
Then silence fell; and other rats, boldened by the darkness, began to come forth to peer at the intruder in their midst.
THE LORD'S DAUGHTER AND THE ONEWHO WENT IN CHAINSBOOK IV
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Book IVTHE LORD'S DAUGHTER AND THE ONEWHO WENT IN CHAINS