from their lips. He passed the more populous streets; and, pursuing
mechanically the way to Ione's house, he traversed a more deserted
quarter, and entered now the lonely grove of Cybele, in which Apaecides
had held his interview with Olinthus.
Chapter VI
A REUNION OF DIFFERENT ACTORS. STREAMS THAT FLOWED APPARENTLY APART
RUSH INTO ONE GULF.
IMPATIENT to learn whether the fell drug had yet been administered by
Julia to his hated rival, and with what effect, Arbaces resolved, as the
evening came on, to seek her house, and satisfy his suspense. It was
customary, as I have before said, for men at that time to carry abroad
with them the tablets and the stilus attached to their girdle; and with
the girdle they were put off when at home. In fact, under the
appearance of a literary instrument, the Romans carried about with them
in that same stilus a very sharp and formidable weapon. It was with his
stilus that Cassius stabbed Caesar in the senate-house. Taking, then,
his girdle and his cloak, Arbaces left his house, supporting his steps,
which were still somewhat feeble (though hope and vengeance had
conspired greatly with his own medical science, which was profound, to
restore his natural strength), by his long staff--Arbaces took his way
to the villa of Diomed.
And beautiful is the moonlight of the south! In those climes the night
so quickly glides into the day, that twilight scarcely makes a bridge
between them. One moment of darker purple in the sky--of a thousand
rose-hues in the water--of shade half victorious over light; and then
burst forth at once the countless stars--the moon is up--night has
resumed her reign!
Brightly then, and softly bright, fell the moonbeams over the antique
grove consecrated to Cybele--the stately trees, whose date went beyond
tradition, cast their long shadows over the soil, while through the
openings in their boughs the stars shone, still and frequent. The
whiteness of the small sacellum in the centre of the grove, amidst the
dark foliage, had in it something abrupt and startling; it recalled at
once the purpose to which the wood was consecrated--its holiness and
solemnity.
With a swift and stealthy pace, Calenus, gliding under the shade of the
trees, reached the chapel, and gently putting back the boughs that
completely closed around its rear, settled himself in his concealment; a
concealment so complete, what with the fane in front and the trees
behind, that no unsuspicious passenger could possibly have detected him.
Again, all was apparently solitary in the grove: afar off you heard
faintly the voices of some noisy revellers or the music that played
cheerily to the groups that then, as now in those climates, during the
nights of summer, lingered in the streets, and enjoyed, in the fresh air
and the liquid moonlight, a milder day.
From the height on which the grove was placed, you saw through the
intervals of the trees the broad and purple sea, rippling in the
distance, the white villas of Stabiae in the curving shore, and the dim
Lectiarian hills mingling with the delicious sky. Presently the tall
figure of Arbaces, in his way to the house of Diomed, entered the
extreme end of the grove; and at the same instant Apaecides, also bound
to his appointment with Olinthus, crossed the Egyptian's path.
'Hem! Apaecides,' said Arbaces, recognizing the priest at a glance;
'when last we met, you were my foe. I have wished since then to see
you, for I would have you still my pupil and my friend.'
Apaecides started at the voice of the Egyptian; and halting abruptly,
gazed upon him with a countenance full of contending, bitter, and
scornful emotions.
'Villain and impostor!' said he at length; 'thou hast recovered then
from the jaws of the grave! But think not again to weave around me thy
guilty meshes. Retiarius, I am armed against thee!'
'Hush!' said Arbaces, in a very low voice--but his pride, which in that
descendant of kings was great, betrayed the wound it received from the
insulting epithets of the priest in the quiver of his lip and the flush
of his tawny brow. 'Hush! more low! thou mayest be overheard, and if
other ears than mine had drunk those sounds--why...'
'Dost thou threaten?--what if the whole city had heard me?'
'The manes of my ancestors would not have suffered me to forgive thee.
But, hold, and hear me. Thou art enraged that I would have offered
violence to thy sister. Nay, peace, peace, but one instant, I pray
thee. Thou art right; it was the frenzy of passion and of jealousy--I
have repented bitterly of my madness. Forgive me; I, who never implored
pardon of living man, beseech thee now to forgive me. Nay, I will atone
the insult--I ask thy sister in marriage--start not--consider--what is
the alliance of yon holiday Greek compared to mine? Wealth
unbounded--birth that in its far antiquity leaves your Greek and Roman
names the things of yesterday--science--but that thou knowest! Give me
thy sister, and my whole life shall atone a moment's error.'
'Egyptian, were even I to consent, my sister loathes the very air thou
breathest: but I have my own wrongs to forgive--I may pardon thee that
thou hast made me a tool to thy deceits, but never that thou hast
seduced me to become the abettor of thy vices--a polluted and a perjured
man. Tremble!--even now I prepare the hour in which thou and thy false
gods shall be unveiled. Thy lewd and Circean life shall be dragged to
day--thy mumming oracles disclosed--the fane of the idol Isis shall be a
byword and a scorn--the name of Arbaces a mark for the hisses of
execration! Tremble!'
The flush on the Egyptian's brow was succeeded by a livid paleness. He
looked behind, before, around, to feel assured that none were by; and
then he fixed his dark and dilating eye on the priest, with such a gaze
of wrath and menace, that one, perhaps, less supported than Apaecides by
the fervent daring of a divine zeal, could not have faced with
unflinching look that lowering aspect. As it was, however, the young
convert met it unmoved, and returned it with an eye of proud defiance.
'Apaecides,' said the Egyptian, in a tremulous and inward tone, 'beware!
What is it thou wouldst meditate? Speakest thou--reflect, pause before
thou repliest--from the hasty influences of wrath, as yet divining no
settled purpose, or from some fixed design?'
'I speak from the inspiration of the True God, whose servant I now am,'
answered the Christian, boldly; 'and in the knowledge that by His grace
human courage has already fixed the date of thy hypocrisy and thy
demon's worship; ere thrice the sun has dawned, thou wilt know all!
Dark sorcerer, tremble, and farewell!'
All the fierce and lurid passions which he inherited from his nation and
his clime, at all times but ill concealed beneath the blandness of craft
and the coldness of philosophy, were released in the breast of the
Egyptian. Rapidly one thought chased another; he saw before him an
obstinate barrier to even a lawful alliance with Ione--the
fellow-champion of Glaucus in the struggle which had baffled his
designs--the reviler of his name--the threatened desecrator of the
goddess he served while he disbelieved--the avowed and approaching
revealer of his own impostures and vices. His love, his repute, nay,
his very life, might be in danger--the day and hour seemed even to have
been fixed for some design against him. He knew by the words of the
convert that Apaecides had adopted the Christian faith: he knew the
indomitable zeal which led on the proselytes of that creed. Such was
his enemy; he grasped his stilus--that enemy was in his power! They were
now before the chapel; one hasty glance once more he cast around; he saw
none near--silence and solitude alike tempted him.
'Die, then, in thy rashness!' he muttered; 'away, obstacle to my rushing
fates!'
And just as the young Christian had turned to depart, Arbaces raised his
hand high over the left shoulder of Apaecides, and plunged his sharp
weapon twice into his breast.
Apaecides fell to the ground pierced to the heart--he fell mute, without
even a groan, at the very base of the sacred chapel.
Arbaces gazed upon him for a moment with the fierce animal joy of
conquest over a foe. But presently the full sense of the danger to
which he was exposed flashed upon him; he wiped his weapon carefully in
the long grass, and with the very garments of his victim; drew his cloak
round him, and was about to depart, when he saw, coming up the path,
right before him, the figure of a young man, whose steps reeled and
vacillated strangely as he advanced: the quiet moonlight streamed full
upon his face, which seemed, by the whitening ray, colorless as marble.
The Egyptian recognized the face and form of Glaucus. The unfortunate
and benighted Greek was chanting a disconnected and mad song, composed
from snatches of hymns and sacred odes, all jarringly woven together.
'Ha!' thought the Egyptian, instantaneously divining his state and its
terrible cause; 'so, then, the hell-draught works, and destiny hath sent
thee hither to crush two of my foes at once!'
Quickly, even ere this thought occurred to him, he had withdrawn on one
side of the chapel, and concealed himself amongst the boughs; from that
lurking place he watched, as a tiger in his lair, the advance of his
second victim. He noted the wandering and restless fire in the bright
and beautiful eyes of the Athenian; the convulsions that distorted his
statue-like features, and writhed his hueless lip. He saw that the
Greek was utterly deprived of reason. Nevertheless, as Glaucus came up
to the dead body of Apaecides, from which the dark red stream flowed
slowly over the grass, so strange and ghastly a spectacle could not fail
to arrest him, benighted and erring as was his glimmering sense. He
paused, placed his hand to his brow, as if to collect himself, and then
saying:
'What ho! Endymion, sleepest thou so soundly? What has the moon said to
thee? Thou makest me jealous; it is time to wake'--he stooped down with
the intention of lifting up the body.
Forgetting--feeling not--his own debility, the Egyptian sprung from his
hiding-place, and, as the Greek bent, struck him forcibly to the ground,
over the very body of the Christian; then, raising his powerful voice to
its highest pitch, he shouted:
'Ho, citizens--oh! help me!--run hither--hither!--A murder--a murder
before your very fane! Help, or the murderer escapes!' As he spoke, he
placed his foot on the breast of Glaucus: an idle and superfluous
precaution; for the potion operating with the fall, the Greek lay there
motionless and insensible, save that now and then his lips gave vent to
some vague and raving sounds.
As he there stood awaiting the coming of those his voice still continued
to summons, perhaps some remorse, some compunctious visitings--for
despite his crimes he was human--haunted the breast of the Egyptian; the
defenceless state of Glaucus--his wandering words--his shattered reason,
smote him even more than the death of Apaecides, and he said, half
audibly, to himself:
'Poor clay!--poor human reason; where is the soul now? I could spare
thee, O my rival--rival never more! But destiny must be obeyed--my
safety demands thy sacrifice.' With that, as if to drown compunction, he
shouted yet more loudly; and drawing from the girdle of Glaucus the
stilus it contained, he steeped it in the blood of the murdered man, and
laid it beside the corpse.
And now, fast and breathless, several of the citizens came thronging to
the place, some with torches, which the moon rendered unnecessary, but
which flared red and tremulously against the darkness of the trees; they
surrounded the spot. 'Lift up yon corpse,' said the Egyptian, 'and
guard well the murderer.'
They raised the body, and great was their horror and sacred indignation
to discover in that lifeless clay a priest of the adored and venerable
Isis; but still greater, perhaps, was their surprise, when they found
the accused in the brilliant and admired Athenian.
'Glaucus!' cried the bystanders, with one accord; 'is it even credible?'
'I would sooner,' whispered one man to his neighbor, 'believe it to be
the Egyptian himself.'
Here a centurion thrust himself into the gathering crowd, with an air of
authority.
'How! blood spilt! who the murderer?'
The bystanders pointed to Glaucus.
'He!--by Mars, he has rather the air of being the victim!
'Who accuses him?'
'I,' said Arbaces, drawing himself up haughtily; and the jewels which
adorned his dress flashing in the eyes of the soldier, instantly
convinced that worthy warrior of the witness's respectability.
'Pardon me--your name?' said he.
'Arbaces; it is well known methinks in Pompeii. Passing through the
grove, I beheld before me the Greek and the priest in earnest
conversation. I was struck by the reeling motions of the first, his
violent gestures, and the loudness of his voice; he seemed to me either
drunk or mad. Suddenly I saw him raise his stilus--I darted
forward--too late to arrest the blow. He had twice stabbed his victim,
and was bending over him, when, in my horror and indignation, I struck
the murderer to the ground. He fell without a struggle, which makes me
yet more suspect that he was not altogether in his senses when the crime
was perpetrated; for, recently recovered from a severe illness, my blow
was comparatively feeble, and the frame of Glaucus, as you see, is
strong and youthful.'
'His eyes are open now--his lips move,' said the soldier. 'Speak,
prisoner, what sayest thou to the charge?'
'The charge--ha--ha! Why, it was merrily done; when the old hag set her
serpent at me, and Hecate stood by laughing from ear to ear--what could
I do? But I am ill--I faint--the serpent's fiery tongue hath bitten me.
