Sergius hardly knew what was happening. He was conscious that the stride of his horse had been checked by a dense mass of plunging animals in front—a mass that grew more dense and more tangled with every instant. Those behind were still endeavouring to press forward, and those in front were hurled back upon them or were striving frantically to break through the rearmost squadrons and escape; while, shrill above the clash of arms and the shouts and screams, rose a name that Sergius found himself listening to with a sort of curious interest.
"Maharbal! Maharbal!" came the cry, nearer and nearer.
At the first moment of the check, Marcus Decius had pushed the sturdy horse that he rode well to the fore. He saw Hostilius riding back, waving one arm and crying out incoherent words: his spear was gone, and the head of a Spaniard's lance had been thrust through his shoulder and broken off, so that a third of the shaft hung from the wound.
Then what had happened and the hopelessness of it all became apparent. Like the veriest fools they had ridden into the snare, and Maharbal, the Carthaginian, with at least two thousand Spanish and African horsemen, was thundering on their front and flanks: their front—but in a moment, their rear; for now those who had not been ridden down at the first onset or become inextricably entangled with their fellows broke away over the plain, carrying their officers with them in a mad frenzy of flight; while other Numidians—fresh riders on fresh steeds—urged the pursuit and smote down the hindermost.
Decius found himself riding in the middle of the press. His face was as imperturbable as ever, though he glanced over his shoulder from time to time as if to note how much nearer death had come. Sergius galloped close behind him, careless and abstracted, his rein lying loose on his charger's steaming neck. Then, of a sudden, a resolve seemed to come to him. Straightening himself, he urged the weary horse forward through the fugitives till he drew up even with Hostilius, who, still frantic with panic, was now swaying in his saddle from the pain and loss of blood.
Sergius leaned over and laid his hand upon the other's arm, and Hostilius started as if he had touched a serpent. Then he became calmer, and a troubled look was in the eyes that sought the tribune's face.
"Yes, I know," he said at last, speaking hurriedly and in odd, strained accents. "I led you into it, and now I am flying."
"Let us turn back," said Sergius, mildly. "I do not reproach you, but let us turn back. Surely it is better than the rods and axe."
Hostilius shuddered, and, at that moment, Decius, who had overtaken them, broke in with:—
"By Hercules! there is no fear of those. They cut us down in flight. The choice is, shall we have it in the face or between the shoulders."
"By the gods of Rome, then!" shouted the praefect, suddenly reining up, while Sergius and Decius swung their horses in short circles.
There was no trumpet to give the signal, and the little cavalry banner had gone down long ago; but such was the force of Roman training that nearly all of Sergius' men and half of the allies turned in mid-panic with their leaders. To make head, much less to form was impossible, for the foremost of the enemy were well mingled with the rearmost fugitives. As Decius had said, it was only a choice of deaths: the one swift and honourable, the other more lingering, but none the less inevitable.
Almost in a moment it was over. Between two and three hundred of the united detachments had fallen already, and the hundred or so that now sought to face about, went down in a crushed and bleeding mass under the thousands of hoofs that overwhelmed them. Such was the weight and impetus of the pursuing force that there was no time even to strike, and most of the victims fell unwounded by spear or javelin. Sergius was vaguely conscious that he had seen the praefect cloven through the head by the short, swordlike Numidian knife, his own horse seemed to collapse under him, and that was the end.
Then he knew that it was dark and cold and that there was a howling in the air, as of beasts of prey, and the shadow of a man fell across him, for the moon was in the heavens, and the man was cursing by all the gods of the Capitol.
Gradually consciousness returned, and he recalled, incident by incident, the happenings of the past day. He had been lying still, thus far, without further wish than to look up at the stars and think and listen to what he now knew was the distant howling of wolves and the nearer curses of Marcus Decius. At last he stirred slightly, and the decurion turned and looked down.
"Do you live, master?"
"Yes, truly," replied Sergius; "unless you chance to be a shade."
Then he struggled to his feet, and the two gazed silently at each other and around them. All about, in the moonlight, lay the bodies of horses and men, the latter glittering in their white tunics, save here and there an officer whose helmet and breastplate had seemed to mark out his corpse for stripping and nameless desecrations. Sergius' head-piece was gone, but he glanced at his own corselet and then at Decius.
"We were buried together under a heap of dead," said the latter, in answer to the unasked query. "They made haste in their spoiling; and, when they had gone, I drew myself free and found you: the wolves are feasting well to-night; can you walk?"
Sergius moved stiffly a few steps. He felt bruised from head to foot, and one arm hung useless from a dislocated shoulder, but he found no wound. Decius had not escaped so lightly. Besides the gash he had received earlier in the day, he had been cut again across the forehead, but his prodigious strength seemed to have inexhaustible resources to draw upon.
"Come," he said. "We must go southward as quickly as possible. Sergius still walked slowly about, glancing at one corpse after another, until the decurion, at last divining his thought, broke in roughly:—
"Come! The wolves must provide him sepulchre as they will do for better men. What would he have? The she-wolf suckled the twins. Let Hostilius pay the debt by feeding the she-wolf's cubs. By Hercules! other sepulchre for him means need of one for ourselves."
So speaking, he at last drew Sergius away, and they began their weary tramp across the field.
"If I could have seen but one pulse-eater among the slain," said the tribune, after they had gone some distance in silence.
"I know of one that should be dead," remarked Decius, grimly, "if a spear through his midriff be enough for him. Truly the ancient shafts are useless in close fight, save for a single thrust. I, for one, welcome the Greek equipment—and the sooner the better."
Suddenly Sergius stopped and laid his hand upon his comrade's arm.
"Look!" he said.
A long, low rampart seemed to rise up from the plain two hundred yards ahead.
"Their camp," said the decurion, after a short pause, "and deserted. Let us go forward cautiously; perhaps we shall find food."
Step by step they crept up, walking faster and more erect as they drew nearer and as the evidence that life was not there became more apparent.
"They have left it only to-night," said Decius, clambering up the mound of earth and sniffing the air. "Had it been a day old, we should have smelt it long ago, though the wind blows from us."
Then, as they descended and traversed the silent lanes, a puzzled expression came to his face, and he halted from time to time.
Sergius eyed him inquiringly.
"Do you not smell fresh blood?" said the veteran, at last. "I remember when we marched with Lucius Aemilius, after the Gauls had beaten the praetor's army at Clusium. There were ten thousand men just slain, and the air was salt like the sea—by Jupiter! What is this?"
Resuming their advance, they had come upon a space of open ground near the centre of the camp, doubtless the spot reserved for a market; but what meat was it that cumbered the shambles, without buyer or seller? Piled in ghastly heaps, or covering the ground two and three deep, lay a fresh-reaped harvest of corpses, stripped, distorted, gleaming in the moonlight. Could it be that the camp had been taken? But these were no African dead, nor yet was this a Roman camp. There was a set deliberation, too, about the slaughter, that told no tale of battle.
Suddenly Decius cried out and, stooping down, raised the hands of one of the victims—hands upon which the shackles still hung.
"Slaves," murmured Sergius; "but why—"
"Say, rather, prisoners," said the centurion, grimly.
Sergius struck his thigh. It was all clear to him now.
"May the plague fall upon him! may he go to a thousand crosses! Do you not see? He isescaping. He has made for the passes and slain his prisoners, that they may not hamper his march. Who knows but that by now he is on the road to Rome? Gods! This was Hostilius' duty and mine, and we wasted our time and our men on a few score of miserable Numidians. Come, my Marcus, come: there are no such things as wounds or weariness or caution. We must reach the dictator at once, and may the gods grant that it be not too late!"
Marcus Decius had been gazing gloomily at the young man, as the words burst from his lips.
"Where shall we go, and how?" he said, with a despairing gesture.
"On our feet," cried Sergius. "Did I not say that weariness and wounds were not? It is for the life of the Republic: I to the camp near Casilinum; you to Tarracina. They will march by the Appian or by the Latin Way, if they strike for Rome. If not, the plan may not be fatal."
Decius yielded to the decision of his companion, and, with hasty fingers, they unlaced each other's corselets and hurried out of the camp, each to run his race with what strength remained. The last clasp of hands had been given and received, when, far away on the hills east and northeast, the quick eye of Sergius caught the gleam of a rapidly moving torch: then another and another and another seemed to flame out in the night, like stars when the moon has failed, until the whole range of heights blazed with fires that flashed and danced and crossed and recrossed each other in mad confusion, as if all the thronging bacchanals of Greece had assembled for one frenzied orgy.
Dazed and confounded by the spectacle, as grand as it was weird and unexplainable, they stood spell-bound, powerless each to take the first stride. Decius, the older man, the veteran, turned to his companion, yielding that unconscious homage to birth and rank and education, that comes in the presence of unknown perils. No experience of war could help him here, and his mind leaped at once to the supernatural for an explanation. As for the tribune, such thoughts, at least, had not occurred to him. Greek scepticism had already gained too strong a hold upon young Romans of rank, to let them regard the theology of the State other than as a machinery devised by wise men to control an ignorant rabble. Besides, his mind had taken another direction from the discovery of the slaughter of the prisoners, and, humanlike, it ran on in its channel, right or wrong.
Decius was trembling violently.
"Truly, master, the gods of Carthage are loose to-night," said he.
There was even a little of contempt in the glance with which Sergius noted the abject terror of the sturdy veteran. Utterly at a loss to explain the apparitions, he never doubted for a moment but that they were the product of some human wile.
"Come," he said shortly. "The gods of Carthage have favoured us in lighting the way. First of all, we shall go together and learn the truth." Without waiting for a reply, he set off, at an easy, loping gait, in the direction of the strange fires. Decius followed, as he would have followed through the portals of Avernus.
The distance to the heights was not great,—four or five miles at the utmost,—but half an hour had passed, and still the spectacle, wilder and more brilliant than ever, remained unexplained. For a stretch of miles, the hills above, beyond, and below were all ablaze with rushing flames that seemed guided by no sentient agency; then, suddenly, a single torch glanced out from a small grove of trees a short distance ahead and darted diagonally across their path. Decius stopped for an instant, with trembling knees; but Sergius bounded forward to intercept the torch-bearer, and the veteran followed from sheer shame.
Up, down to the ground, up again, and then around in frantic waving circles swept the flame: a mad bellowing rolled through the night, until the tribune himself almost checked his stride in awe-struck wonder. The next instant the torch, if torch it was, seemed to flounder to the earth, from which it rose again and came driving directly toward him, explained at last,—an ox with a great bundle of blazing fagots fastened between its horns, blinded, frantic with pain and terror.
Sergius sprang aside, as the beast dashed by; but Decius, roused once more to the possibility of independent thought and action, stepped toward it and, as it passed, plunged his sword between its heaving ribs.
"What now, my master?" he said, flushing with shame at his fears of the last hour—perhaps the bravest hour of his life. "Does the lying Carthaginian seek to terrify Quintus Fabius, the dictator, as he terrified Marcus Decius, the decurion?"
"Yes, truly," replied Sergius, gloomily; "and he will succeed even better. No general, and, least of all, ours, would lead out his army in the night against such a spectacle. Come, it is necessary that we should reach the camp," and, turning once again, they fell to running in a more southern direction, where a dim glow in the sky seemed to tell of the watchfires of an army.
At first no sound broke the stillness of the night, save the laboured breathing of the weary runners and the strokes of their leathern cothurni upon the hard ground; but soon other noises came to mingle with these and, at last, to drown them: the lowing of thousands of cattle, now scattered far and wide over the plain and hillsides, and then the distant clash of arms and the cries of combatants.
Day began to dawn, just as the fugitives came in sight of the Roman camp with the army drawn up behind its ramparts, waiting for they knew not what. Here and there upon the heights they could see small bodies of legionaries who defended themselves against light troops of the enemy, until overwhelmed by the Spanish infantry that scaled the hills and cut them to pieces; while to every prayer that the dictator should march out to their support, he returned one grim answer.
"They deserted their posts in the passes. Rome needs not such soldiers."
So, company by company, the guards of the defiles, terrified or lured away to the ridges by the ruse of the cattle and the blazing fagots, fell ingloriously before their comrades' eyes, as being men not worth the effort to succour. The rear-guard of the invaders had already made its way through the pass, while the Carthaginian van was well on into the valley of the Volturnus. Now, too, the African light troops disappeared, and, at last, the white tunics of the Spaniards, gay with their purple borders, glittered for a moment on the hilltops, and then, their work of death completed, sank away behind the ridges to fall back and join their comrades in a march of new destruction through a new country.
While these things were happening, for the most part in the sight of all, Sergius had been able to gain a moment's speech with the dictator. Forcing his way through the crowd of tribunes and officers who thronged the praetorium, he had found Fabius seated before his tent, and had told his story in the fewest words possible.
Naked but for his torn tunic and his cothurni, covered from head to foot with blood and mire, his left arm hanging useless, and his face like the face of a dead man, neither his miserable plight nor his story brought softness to the stern lips and brow of the general.
"You have come to tell me this?" he said, when the other had finished speaking. "Do I not know itnow?" and he pointed to the heights. Then he turned away and spoke with some one at his side, while Sergius stood, with downcast eyes, swaying and scarcely able to keep his feet.
Among those around him his fate seemed hardly a matter of conjecture, but a thrill went through the company when Minucius, who had been vainly urging the dictator to support the guards of the passes, now turned away in disgust, and, noting the disgraced officer, as if for the first time, cried out in a loud voice:—
"What, my friend! have not the lictors attended to you, yet, for venturing to play the man?"
Sergius felt the added danger to which the master-of-the-horse had exposed him by using his insubordination to point such a moral to his commander; but the face of the dictator gave no sign that he had even heard the taunting challenge. Calmly he gave his orders for cautious scouting, for breaking camp, and for the army to resume its patient march of observation, along the flank of the retiring foe. Then, when one after another had retired to fulfil his commands, he turned again to the waiting tribune.
"I have been considering your fault," he said slowly, "and I had marked you out as a much needed victim for the rods and axe. Go to my master-of-the-horse and thank him for your life. His taunt was doubtless meant to destroy you, in order that he might play the demagogue over your fate. I accept it as a challenge to my self-control. It is more necessary that I should show myself wise and forbearing than that one fool should perish for his folly. Go back to Rome, and tell them that I have many soldiers who can fight, and that I want only those who can obey."
Utterly exhausted, Sergius struggled vainly to withstand this last, crushing blow. His composure was unequal to the task, and, sinking upon his knees, as the dictator turned toward the tent, he could only stretch out one hand and murmur:—
"The axe, my master; I pray you, the axe."
Fabius paused a moment and eyed him grimly. Then his rugged, weary face softened slightly.
"I trusted you," he said. "Could you not trust me for a little while? But go to Rome, as I bade you—only there shall others go with you, and you shall bear for your message, instead of that one, this: that there is no room for wounded men in my camp."
"But I shall be well in two days—in one—I am well now if you say it."
Fabius shook his head slowly.
"Aesculapius has not been unhonoured by me," he said, "and he has told me that you will be but a burden for many days. For this reason go to Rome, and for two others that you shall not tell of: one, for punishment because you could not obey, and one, because the time will come soon when Rome shall need even the men who can only fight."
Sergius saw the hopelessness of struggling against his softened fate, bitter though it was. Open disgrace, indeed, had been turned aside; but, on the other hand, he was doomed to inaction during times when all Rome longed only to strike, and he could not but feel that he had fallen far in the estimation of his general.
The Appian Way was still safe, even from the chance of Numidian foray, and it was along its lava-paved level that the long convoy of sick and wounded writhed slowly northward that afternoon.
Half reclining in the rude chariot, each jolt of which brought agony to his injured shoulder, Sergius watched, with far deeper pain than that of body, the last troop of allied horse winding up the pass toward Allifae: the rear-guard of Rome's line of march. Then he fell to brooding upon his fate, while the night followed the day and the day the night, and still the dreary, groaning caravan dragged on, resting only during the heated hours.
On, over the Liris at Minturnae, upward, over the mountains behind Tarracina and descending again into the Pontine plain; through the shady groves of Arician ilex that crown the Alban Hills, down to Bovillae, and then away across the Campagna to Rome—a marvel of deep cuttings through the hills,—a marvel of giant superstructures over valleys,—the Appian, the Queen of Ways.
There were long, green ridges now, swelling from the plain and breaking away into little rocky cliffs tufted with wild fig trees: sluggish streams wound down from the east where, far away, loomed the snow-tipped summits of Apennine, while toward the west the sky reflected a brighter light from the sea that glittered beneath it.
At last the eyes of the vanguard of weary wayfarers could descry, through the morning mists, the crowned cluster of hills that was to be a crown to all the world. Nearer they came and yet nearer, through the vineyards and cornfields of the Campagna—the southern Campagna teeming with its herds of mouse-coloured cattle, whose great, stupid eyes were only less stupidly beautiful than those of the rustics that watched over their grazings.
And now wounds and sickness were, for the moment, forgotten, as man pointed out to man this and that landmark of home: temples on this hill and on that; Diana on the Aventine, the hill of the people; Jupiter Stator on the Palatine; the grim mass of the citadel above the rock of Tarpeia; the great quadriga that surmounted the greatest fane of all—the house of Capitoline Jove. To the right of these were the clustered oaks of the Caelian Mount, while, farthest away, but highest of all, the white banner fluttering from the heights of Janiculum told them that the city was still safe, still unassailed. They were passing where the road was bordered by its houses of the dead; tombs of the great families, above which the funereal cypresses bent their heads and shed peace and shade alike over the dead and the living. The hum of the city came to their ears, and, as the convoy drew nearer to the Capenian Gate, the throng, pouring out to meet them, grew thicker and more dense, blocking the way until the cavalry of the escort cleared it with their spear-butts. Then the press divided, running along on both sides of the carriages, in two fast-filling streams whose murmurs swelled into a very torrent's roar of questions and prayers for news of the general and the army.
"Was Hannibal beaten? Had he been slain, or was he waiting in chains to grace the Fabian triumph? Was it true that he measured twice the height of common men, and that a single eye blazed cyclops-like in the middle of his forehead? How many elephants would be seen in the triumph?"
Such and a hundred queries, equally wild, assailed the escort and the occupants of the wagons; for this was the rabble: poor citizens, freedmen, slaves, for whom no story of Hannibal and Carthage was too improbable. Nevertheless Sergius imagined he could discern a spirit of irony underlying much that he heard.
When they had reached the low eminence that, crowned by the Temple of Mars, faced the city gate, he bade the attendants help him descend from the army carriage, that he might wait the coming of his slaves with a litter. A messenger was soon found, and hurried off, charged with necessary directions.
The crowd had rolled on through the gate, together with the convoy, and the sick man was left alone save for the attendants of the temple in whose care he had placed himself. Day by day, as he had jolted along his journey, he had felt the fever coming on—fever born of his injury and the terrible strain to which he had been subjected: now it was only necessary to reach his home and rest. Last of his race but for two older sisters who had married several years since, the spacious mansion of the family of Fidenas was his alone, with its slaves and its ancestral masks and its cool courts and its outlook over the seething Forum up to the opposite heights of the Capitol. There he would find care and comfort for the body if not for the soul.
And now the patter of running feet sounded from the pavement below. They were come, at last, with the litter, and Sergius, entering it, was borne swiftly through the gate, on, between the tall houses that backed up against the hills, turning soon to the left into the New Way; on, past the altar of Hercules in the cattle market, past the Temple of Vesta, along the Comitia, and into the Sacred Way by the front of the Curia. Thence they swung westward to the Roman Gate, the gate in the ancient Wall of the City of Romulus that fenced the Palatine alone,—a stately entrance, now, to the residence portion of the city most favoured by the great families. Near by stood the house that marked the ending of the journey, bustling with its slaves and bright with a hundred lamps; while the physician, an old freedman of the tribune's father, stood upon the threshold to greet and care for his late master's son.
Gravely shaking his head at the discouraging aspect of the invalid and muttering to himself in Greek, for he was born in Rhodes, he led the way back to the great hall between the peristyle and the garden.
"Here, master," he said, "I have caused your couch to be laid, at the moment I learned of your arrival and condition. You observe, the air and light will be better than in your apartment, and the space better calculated for those whose duty it shall be to minister to you, until the divine Aesculapius and Apollo's self unite to grant success to my efforts."
"It is well, Agathocles," said Sergius, wearily, "and I thank you."
His voice seemed to die away with the last words, and a sort of stupor fell over him. Agathocles watched him closely, as he lay upon the couch, noted the heavy breathing, and drew his brows together with a deep frown. Behind him a group of the household slaves whispered together and cast frightened glances, now at their master, now at the disciple of the healing art; for Sergius had been brought up among them, and the terms of their service were neither heavy nor harsh. Then the surgeon set to work examining the shoulder, nodding his head to observe that the bone had been replaced in its socket, but waxing troubled again over the inflammation and swelling that told the story of torn tendons and blood-vessels too long neglected, and of the hardships of the journey. Slaves were sent scurrying, in this direction and that, to compound lotions and spread poultices, while Agathocles himself proceeded to the ostentatious mixing of some cooling draught calculated to ward off, if possible, the fever that was already claiming its sway.
The many weeks of hovering between life and death that followed these days were a dense blank to Sergius. First, there was his injury, more serious than he had imagined, and the fever that had followed it, complicated again by the malaria of the marshes through which he had journeyed in so vulnerable a plight. Then came other weeks of such lassitude that he had neither power nor desire to learn of the world to which he felt himself slowly returning, as did Aeneas from the realms of Pluto. There were times when he had been vaguely conscious of whisperings around his couch upon subjects that should have interested him and did not. Was it his fault? or had everything become commonplace and of no account?
At last there came a time of convalescence. His haggard face frightened him when he looked at it in the bronze mirror; but the air of the winter was fresh and keen, bringing health and life to the mind, if not entirely to the body. So, lying one day in the entrance hall and gazing out over the Forum below, he turned to Agathocles, who sat close by.
"And now you shall tell me," he began, "of the things that have happened while I have lain here, helpless as a bag of corn in the granary, and of even less importance."
"You mistake, my master," replied the physician, quickly. "Surely you must know that your condition has been a matter of deep anxiety to many, both within and without your walls."
"Within, perhaps, yes," said Sergius, slowly. "I treat them well, and such of them as do not get freedom by my will would doubtless find harder masters in Sabinus and Camerinus. My sisters' husbands are patricians of the old school. As for without,—am I not a man useless in times of action?—well-nigh disgraced?—"
Agathocles hastened to interrupt:—
"Ah! my master, you do not know. Could you but see the crowd of clients who have gathered at your door each morning, waiting for it to creak upon the pivots, and, later in the day, such of your friends as were not away with the army—ay," he continued, with a sharp glance at the invalid, "and a pretty female slave who has come at each nightfall and has questioned the doorkeeper."
The strong desire to hear of two things had come into Sergius' mind while the physician was speaking. He must learn about this female slave who had inquired so assiduously, and he must hear of the army, the war, the Republic; for these last three were really but one. After something of an effort, and not without a certain sentiment of self-approval, he said:—
"Let me hear of friends later, my Agathocles. Tell me now of the war."
There was a troubled expression in the physician's eyes, but he answered volubly:—
"It progresses famously, in Spain, my master. Oh!—ay—famously. Their fleet has been swept from the seas, and Scipio slays and drives them as he wills. Doubtless by now they are all back in Africa—"
"Not of Spain," interrupted Sergius, as the narrator caught his breath. "Tell me of Italy, of Hannibal and Fabius. Have the standards opposed each other?"
"They say Hannibal is in winter quarters at Geronium, and the consuls watch him," began Agathocles, in more subdued tones.
"Tell me of Fabius. Tell me of what has happened—all, do you hear?" cried Sergius, raising himself impatiently on one elbow. "If your story seems to lack coherence and truth, I swear to you that I will go down into the Forum at once and learn what I wish."
Thus adjured, the physician answered, but with evident reluctance:—
"Truly, my master, all things have not been as we might wish, and yet they could easily have run worse. When your dictator let the invaders out of Campania, there was much complaint among the people that he was protracting the war for his own advantage; but when he came to Rome for the sacrifices and left Minucius in command, with orders not to engage, and when the master-of-the-horse, as some say, evading the orders, fought and gained an advantage, then, you may believe me, the city was in a turmoil; nor were there wanting friends of Minucius and emissaries from his camp to sound his praises as a general and decry the dictator and his policy, not to say his courage and his honesty."
"I warrant," said Sergius, gloomily, "that every pot-house politician from the Etruscan Street was declaiming on how much betterhecould command than could Quintus Fabius."
"Until at last," went on Agathocles, "Marcus Metilius—"
"The tribune?—a corrupt knave!" broke in Sergius.
"Surely; yes. Well, this Marcus Metilius made a speech—"
"Full of rank demagoguery, I warrant."
"Surely, and saying that it was intolerable for Minucius, who was the only man who could fight, to be put under guard lest he beat the enemy; intolerable that the territory of the allies should have been given up to ravage, while the dictator protected his own farm with the legions of the Republic; and, finally, proposing, as a most moderate measure, that Minucius, the victor, should be given equal command over the army with Fabius the laggard."
"Unprecedented impudence!" murmured Sergius, "and what said the dictator?"
"He did not trouble to go near the Comitia, and even in the Senate they did not like to hear his praises of Hannibal and his troops, or listen favourably when he spoke doubtfully concerning the magnitude of Minucius' victory and claimed that, even were it all true, the master-of-the-horse should be called to account for his insubordination. So, after he had lauded prudence and supported his own policy, and after Marcus Atilius Regulus was elected consul, the dictator departed for the army, in the night, and left them to do as they pleased."
"They passed the law?" asked Sergius, bitterly.
"It hung in doubt for some time," went on Agathocles; "for, though many favoured, few were disposed to advance such a measure, until Caius Terentius Varro, who was praetor last year—"
"The butcher's son," commented Sergius. "You know, my Agathocles, how demagogues and tyrants crushed out the life of your Hellas. We have yet to see the same ruin fall upon Rome, and from the same cause: first, an ungovernable rabble, stirred up by the ignorant and vicious, and then a king, and then a foreign conqueror. Flaminius lost one army, Minucius will doubtless lose another, while Metilius and Varro are well able to lose whatever may remain. Pah! Why did you not let me finish my journey to Acheron? This is no city for men whose fathers were able to teach them about war and honour. He whose tongue is most ready to lie about the noble and the rich is counted on to wield the sword best against an enemy. Well,—speak on; and what happened next?"
"As you say," continued the physician, "the measure was passed; but when Minucius desired that he and the dictator should command on alternate days, Fabius would only consent to a division of the army."
"Gods!" exclaimed Sergius. "Two legions apiece! That must have been rare sport for Hannibal."
"Truly, yes; but it resulted well, for, to shorten the tale, the Carthaginian trapped Minucius through his rashness, and was about to cut him to pieces, when the dictator, who had foreseen all this, came up and saved what was left; whereupon the master-of-the-horse marched to the general's camp, and, saluting him as 'father' and 'saviour,' surrendered his equal command, after having directed his soldiers, also, to greet the others as patrons—"
"That, at least, was well done," said Sergius, nodding; "worthy of a man better born than Minucius. I do him honour for learning from experience. Metilius or Varro could not have done it."
"And, now," continued Agathocles, "both the dictator and the master-of-the-horse have given up their commands, the time of their appointments expiring, and the army is in winter quarters under the consuls."
"Servilius and Atilius?"
"Truly."
"And the elections?"
"Are falling due."
"Who sue for the consulship?"
Agathocles hesitated and placed his fingers upon the patient's pulse.
"I have told you enough for the day—"
"Who are candidates?" reiterated Sergius, leaning forward impatiently.
"They say that Varro—" began Agathocles.
But the tribune had sprung to his feet. Then, as he swayed a moment from weakness, leaning back against the couch, he raised both hands and cried out:—
"Have they gone mad? The butcher's son!—the bearer of his father's wares, to command against Hannibal! Do you think the Carthaginian a bullock to stand still and stupid, while this soldier of the shambles swings the axe? Gods! They will learn their error—onlywemust pay the price, together with the rabble that owe it. Gods! Was not the lesson of Flaminius enough for these drinkers of vinegar-water? This will be great news for them on the Megalia."
Then, seeming to gain strength from his excitement, he strode up and down the atrium, while the physician watched him anxiously but without venturing to interfere.
It was the doorkeeper's attendant that broke in upon the scene, pausing a moment in doubt, as his eyes followed his master's rapid strides. Finally, approaching Agathocles, he plucked him by the sleeve and whispered:—
"The woman desires to know of the health of my lord."
Before the physician could answer, Sergius had caught the words, and, wheeling about, faced the boy.
"What woman and where?" he asked.
"The gray stole; the slave woman who inquires for you. She waits her answer at the door," said the boy, his tongue loosened by the question.
"Let her come to me," commanded Sergius, and he threw himself down upon the deeply cushioned seat of a marble chair. Agathocles stood at his elbow, with an expression of anxiety on his face, and, in a moment more, the girl entered.
Muffled almost to the eyes, she glided forward, and the voice that addressed him was soft and musical.
"May the gods favour you, my lord! even as they have favoured me in permitting a sight of your improved health."
"You have been here often," began Sergius, "and I wished to see you and bid you bear my thanks to her who sent you."
Slowly the stole dropped from the eyes—very pretty eyes, that, joined with an equally pretty mouth, took on an expression of hurt astonishment.
"Thatsentme?" she murmured, half sadly. "Ah, well; doubtless it is a matter of insolence for a poor slave girl to wish and ask concerning the health of the noble Sergius."
The tribune watched her closely and with mingled feelings. He had settled in his mind, from the moment of Agathocles' mention of the fact, that the slave woman who called must be sent by Marcia, and it was not without a pang of very poignant regret that he relinquished the idea. That he could not place this girl—one of a class so far beneath the notice of a Roman of rank—was not strange, and yet the face seemed vaguely familiar to him, and—it was certainly little short of beautiful. A man flouted, or, still worse, ignored by a mistress at whose shrine he has worshipped, might well be pardoned a feeling of satisfaction that his well-being was a matter of interest to at least one pretty woman.
Meanwhile the girl stood before him, her arms hanging by her sides, her eyes modestly cast down, and her whole attitude indicative of detected audacity and submissive despair. Agathocles had transferred his attention from his patient to the visitor, and his scrutiny seemed to trouble her.
"So it was yourself alone who desired to learn of my welfare," said Sergius, with a faint smile. "Believe me, my girl, no Roman is too noble to value the interest of beauty like yours."
There was just the suspicion of a laugh in the downcast eyes, but it sped away as swiftly as it came, and she made haste to answer:—
"Truly, my lord does not measure his own worth. There are many, as much above me in beauty as they are in rank; many who cannot venture to show the concern they doubtless feel. What has a poor slave girl to do with maidenly modesty—the plaything of any master who chooses to smile upon her for a moment?"
She spoke bitterly, and Sergius, half frowning, half smiling, reached out his hand. The contrast between this girl's frankly spoken interest and the courted Marcia's trivial indifference came to him more powerfully. What a fool a man was to waste himself on some haughty mistress who exacted all things and gave nothing! She had taken the hand he held out, and now, suddenly, he drew her to him, and kissed her.
Then he found new occasion to marvel over the strange ways of women. As if awakened from a dream or a part in a comedy, to some instant and frightful peril, she wrenched herself from him and, wrapping her cloak around her face, turned and ran like a deer through the hallway and out into the street.
Sergius was dazed for a moment by the suddenness of it all; then he rose.
"Quick, Smyrnus!" he called to the boy who attended on the porter. "Follow, and bring me word where she goes."
The delay had been short, and Smyrnus was swift of foot, but when he reached the street it was empty as far as he could see, and a dash to each corner of the house gave no better results. Inquiries, likewise, were unavailing, and he returned slowly and with shoulders that already seemed to tingle under the expected rods.
Meanwhile, Agathocles had essayed to exert his authority over the invalid, and was protesting volubly against the latter's imprudence. Sergius was in excellent humour, despite the escape of his conquest.
"Nonsense, my Agathocles," he began, half guiltily at first, but gaining confidence as he pursued his justification. "Do you not see, all this has done me more good than a score of days spent in dull reclining, with only nauseous draughts to mark the hours by? I have learned that I am a man again, with an interest in the Republic and myself. Surely such knowledge is worth a little risk. To-morrow, mark you, if the gods favour me, I shall descend into the Forum and see if nothing is to be effected against this rabble in the matter of the elections. Had she not magnificent eyes, my Agathocles? not those of the dull ox, as your Homer puts it, but rather of the startled fawn?"
"They seemed to me more of the fox," said the physician, dryly, "being golden in colour and very cunning. I doubt you fathomed her smile, though wherefore she should seek—"
"Sacrilege! Agathocles," cried Sergius, gayly; "but here comes Smyrnus. Well, boy, where is the lair of this fox of our good Agathocles?"
The terrified boy had thrown himself upon his face.
"I hastened with all speed, master," he protested. "At your word I flew, but she was gone, as if a god had snatched her up, nor was there a passer-by who had seen aught—"
Sergius was frowning ominously; then his face cleared.
"Doubtless that was it, Smyrnus," he said. "Your judicious piety is quicker than your heels in saving your back. If a god took her, he showed excellent taste, and it would be utter sacrilege to punish you for failing to learn her whereabouts. Come, Agathocles, be not so gloomy. Do you think it is Aesculapius who has come to your aid? He, at least, is no spruce, young rival. Be conciliatory, or I may, perhaps, venture to try my fortune even against—"
"I am rather of the opinion that some cunning Hermes has tricked Eros and Aesculapius and my Lord Lucius as well," said the physician. An expression of grim humour lurked in his face, and Sergius felt strangely uncomfortable.
"What is a physician if he talk not in the language of oracles," he said, querulously. "Well, you may send me to my couch now, if you will; but, mark you, to-morrow I go to the Forum."