plank of the sinking Glaucus were torn from his clasp! It had been a
suspense of life and death; and death had now won the game.
'Gods! that cry will alarm the house! Arbaces sleeps full lightly. Gag
her!' cried Callias.
'Ah! here is the very napkin with which the young witch conjured away my
reason! Come, that's right; now thou art dumb as well as blind.'
And, catching the light weight in his arms, Sosia soon gained the house,
and reached the chamber from which Nydia had escaped. There, removing
the gag, he left her to a solitude so racked and terrible, that out of
Hades its anguish could scarcely be exceeded.
Chapter XVI
THE SORROW OF BOON COMPANIONS FOR OUR AFFLICTIONS. THE DUNGEON AND ITS
VICTIMS.
IT was now late on the third and last day of the trial of Glaucus and
Olinthus. A few hours after the court had broken up and judgment been
given, a small party of the fashionable youth at Pompeii were assembled
round the fastidious board of Lepidus.
'So Glaucus denies his crime to the last?' said Clodius.
'Yes; but the testimony of Arbaces was convincing; he saw the blow
given,' answered Lepidus.
'What could have been the cause?'
'Why, the priest was a gloomy and sullen fellow. He probably rated
Glaucus soundly about his gay life and gaming habits, and ultimately
swore he would not consent to his marriage with Ione. High words arose;
Glaucus seems to have been full of the passionate god, and struck in
sudden exasperation. The excitement of wine, the desperation of abrupt
remorse, brought on the delirium under which he suffered for some days;
and I can readily imagine, poor fellow! that, yet confused by that
delirium, he is even now unconscious of the crime he committed! Such,
at least, is the shrewd conjecture of Arbaces, who seems to have been
most kind and forbearing in his testimony.'
'Yes; he has made himself generally popular by it. But, in
consideration of these extenuating circumstances, the senate should have
relaxed the sentence.'
'And they would have done so, but for the people; but they were
outrageous. The priest had spared no pains to excite them; and they
imagined--the ferocious brutes!--because Glaucus was a rich man and a
gentleman, that he was likely to escape; and therefore they were
inveterate against him, and doubly resolved upon his sentence. It
seems, by some accident or other, that he was never formally enrolled as
a Roman citizen; and thus the senate is deprived of the power to resist
the people, though, after all, there was but a majority of three against
him. Ho! the Chian!'
'He looks sadly altered; but how composed and fearless!'
'Ay, we shall see if his firmness will last over to-morrow.' But what
merit in courage, when that atheistical hound, Olinthus, manifested the
same?'
'The blasphemer! Yes,' said Lepidus, with pious wrath, 'no wonder that
one of the decurions was, but two days ago, struck dead by lightning in
a serene sky.' The gods feel vengeance against Pompeii while the vile
desecrator is alive within its walls.'
'Yet so lenient was the senate, that had he but expressed his penitence,
and scattered a few grains of incense on the altar of Cybele, he would
have been let off. I doubt whether these Nazarenes, had they the state
religion, would be as tolerant to us, supposing we had kicked down the
image of their Deity, blasphemed their rites, and denied their faith.'
'They give Glaucus one chance, in consideration of the circumstances;
they allow him, against the lion, the use of the same stilus wherewith
he smote the priest.'
'Hast thou seen the lion? hast thou looked at his teeth and fangs, and
wilt thou call that a chance? Why, sword and buckler would be mere reed
and papyrus against the rush of the mighty beast! No, I think the true
mercy has been, not to leave him long in suspense; and it was therefore
fortunate for him that our benign laws are slow to pronounce, but swift
to execute; and that the games of the amphitheatre had been, by a sort
of providence, so long since fixed for to-morrow. He who awaits death,
dies twice.'
'As for the Atheist, said Clodius, 'he is to cope the grim tiger
naked-handed. Well, these combats are past betting on. Who will take
the odds?' A peal of laughter announced the ridicule of the question.
'Poor Clodius!' said the host; I to lose a friend is something; but to
find no one to bet on the chance of his escape is a worse misfortune to
thee.'
'Why, it is provoking; it would have been some consolation to him and to
me to think he was useful to the last.'
'The people,' said the grave Pansa, 'are all delighted with the result.
They were so much afraid the sports at the amphitheatre would go off
without a criminal for the beasts; and now, to get two such criminals is
indeed a joy for the poor fellows! They work hard; they ought to have
some amusement.'
'There speaks the popular Pansa, who never moves without a string of
clients as long as an Indian triumph. He is always prating about the
people. Gods! he will end by being a Gracchus!'
'Certainly I am no insolent patrician,' said Pansa, with a generous air.
'Well,' observed Lepidus, it would have been assuredly dangerous to have
been merciful at the eve of a beast-fight. If ever I, though a Roman
bred and born, come to be tried, pray Jupiter there may be either no
beasts in the vivaria, or plenty of criminals in the gaol.'
'And pray,' said one of the party, 'what has become of the poor girl
whom Glaucus was to have married? A widow without being a bride--that
is hard!'
'Oh,' returned Clodius, 'she is safe under the protection of her
guardian, Arbaces. It was natural she should go to him when she had
lost both lover and brother.'
'By sweet Venus, Glaucus was fortunate among the women. They say the
rich Julia was in love with him.'
'A mere fable, my friend,' said Clodius, coxcombically; 'I was with her
to-day. If any feeling of the sort she ever conceived, I flatter myself
that I have consoled her.'
'Hush, gentlemen!' said Pansa; 'do you not know that Clodius is employed
at the house of Diomed in blowing hard at the torch? It begins to burn,
and will soon shine bright on the shrine of Hymen.'
'Is it so?' said Lepidus. 'What! Clodius become a married man?--Fie!'
'Never fear,' answered Clodius; 'old Diomed is delighted at the notion
of marrying his daughter to a nobleman, and will come down largely with
the sesterces. You will see that I shall not lock them up in the
atrium. It will be a white day for his jolly friends, when Clodius
marries an heiress.'
'Say you so?' cried Lepidus; 'come, then, a full cup to the health of
the fair Julia!'
While such was the conversation--one not discordant to the tone of mind
common among the dissipated of that day, and which might perhaps, a
century ago, have found an echo in the looser circles of Paris--while
such, I say, was the conversation in the gaudy triclinium of Lepidus,
far different the scene which scowled before the young Athenian.
After his condemnation, Glaucus was admitted no more to the gentle
guardianship of Sallust, the only friend of his distress. He was led
along the forum till the guards stopped at a small door by the side of
the temple of Jupiter. You may see the place still. The door opened in
the centre in a somewhat singular fashion, revolving round on its
hinges, as it were, like a modern turnstile, so as only to leave half
the threshold open at the same time. Through this narrow aperture they
thrust the prisoner, placed before him a loaf and a pitcher of water,
and left him to darkness, and, as he thought, to solitude. So sudden
had been that revolution of fortune which had prostrated him from the
palmy height of youthful pleasure and successful love to the lowest
abyss of ignominy, and the horror of a most bloody death, that he could
scarcely convince himself that he was not held in the meshes of some
fearful dream. His elastic and glorious frame had triumphed over a
potion, the greater part of which he had fortunately not drained. He
had recovered sense and consciousness, but still a dim and misty
depression clung to his nerves and darkened his mind. His natural
courage, and the Greek nobility of pride, enabled him to vanquish all
unbecoming apprehension, and, in the judgment-court, to face his awful
lot with a steady mien and unquailing eye. But the consciousness of
innocence scarcely sufficed to support him when the gaze of men no
longer excited his haughty valor, and he was left to loneliness and
silence. He felt the damps of the dungeon sink chillingly into his
enfeebled frame. He--the fastidious, the luxurious, the refined--he who
had hitherto braved no hardship and known no sorrow. Beautiful bird
that he was! why had he left his far and sunny clime--the olive-groves
of his native hills--the music of immemorial streams? Why had he
wantoned on his glittering plumage amidst these harsh and ungenial
strangers, dazzling the eyes with his gorgeous hues, charming the ear
with his blithesome song--thus suddenly to be arrested--caged in
darkness--a victim and a prey--his gay flights for ever over--his hymns
of gladness for ever stilled! The poor Athenian! his very faults the
exuberance of a gentle and joyous nature, how little had his past career
fitted him for the trials he was destined to undergo! The hoots of the
mob, amidst whose plaudits he had so often guided his graceful car and
bounding steeds, still rang gratingly in his ear. The cold and stony
faces of former friends (the co-mates of merry revels) still rose before
his eye. None now were by to soothe, to sustain, the admired, the
adulated stranger. These walls opened but on the dread arena of a
violent and shameful death. And Ione! of her, too, he had heard naught;
no encouraging word, no pitying message; she, too, had forsaken him; she
believed him guilty--and of what crime?--the murder of a brother! He
ground his teeth--he groaned aloud--and ever and anon a sharp fear shot
across him. In that fell and fierce delirium which had so unaccountably
seized his soul, which had so ravaged the disordered brain, might he
not, indeed, unknowing to himself, have committed the crime of which he
was accused? Yet, as the thought flashed upon him, it was as suddenly
checked; for, amidst all the darkness of the past, he thought distinctly
to recall the dim grove of Cybele, the upward face of the pale dead, the
pause that he had made beside the corpse, and the sudden shock that
felled him to the earth. He felt convinced of his innocence; and yet
who, to the latest time, long after his mangled remains were mingled
with the elements, would believe him guiltless, or uphold his fame? As
he recalled his interview with Arbaces, and the causes of revenge which
had been excited in the heart of that dark and fearful man, he could not
but believe that he was the victim of some deep-laid and mysterious
snare--the clue and train of which he was lost in attempting to
discover: and Ione--Arbaces loved her--might his rival's success be
founded upon his ruin? That thought cut him more deeply than all; and
his noble heart was more stung by jealousy than appalled by fear. Again
he groaned aloud.
A voice from the recess of the darkness answered that burst of anguish.
'Who (it said) is my companion in this awful hour? Athenian Glaucus, it
is thou?'
'So, indeed, they called me in mine hour of fortune: they may have other
names for me now. And thy name, stranger?'
'Is Olinthus, thy co-mate in the prison as the trial.'
'What! he whom they call the Atheist? Is it the injustice of men that
hath taught thee to deny the providence of the gods?'
'Alas!' answered Olinthus: 'thou, not I, art the true Atheist, for thou
deniest the sole true God--the Unknown One--to whom thy Athenian fathers
erected an altar. It is in this hour that I know my God. He is with me
in the dungeon; His smile penetrates the darkness; on the eve of death
my heart whispers immortality, and earth recedes from me but to bring
the weary soul nearer unto heaven.'
'Tell me,' said Glaucus, abruptly, 'did I not hear thy name coupled with
that of Apaecides in my trial? Dost thou believe me guilty?'
'God alone reads the heart! but my suspicion rested not upon thee.'
'On whom then?'
'Thy accuser, Arbaces.'
'Ha! thou cheerest me: and wherefore?'
'Because I know the man's evil breast, and he had cause to fear him who
is now dead.'
With that, Olinthus proceeded to inform Glaucus of those details which
the reader already knows, the conversion of Apaecides, the plan they had
proposed for the detection of the impostures of the Egyptian upon the
youthful weakness of the proselyte. 'Therefore,' concluded Olinthus,
'had the deceased encountered Arbaces, reviled his treasons, and
threatened detection, the place, the hour, might have favored the wrath
of the Egyptian, and passion and craft alike dictated the fatal blow.'
'It must have been so!' cried Glaucus, joyfully. 'I am happy.'
'Yet what, O unfortunate! avails to thee now the discovery? Thou art
condemned and fated; and in thine innocence thou wilt perish.'
'But I shall know myself guiltless; and in my mysterious madness I had
fearful, though momentary, doubts. Yet tell me, man of a strange creed,
thinkest thou that for small errors, or for ancestral faults, we are for
ever abandoned and accursed by the powers above, whatever name thou
allottest to them?'
'God is just, and abandons not His creatures for their mere human
frailty. God is merciful, and curses none but the wicked who repent
