Neæra. A Tale of Ancient Rome

‘Farewell,’ pursued the Greek to the latter; ‘I come no further, and here our acquaintance ends, I suppose. Plautus goes to the opposite shore; he will take charge of you, and has instructions to see you safely bestowed – farewell, Surrentine!’

The man called Plautus laughed. Masthlion, in his eager excitement to be gone, uttered his farewell and thanks rather hastily.

‘Come, then, Surrentine,’ quoth Plautus, striding through the gate, ‘the boat waits, and I have far to go and much to do.’

The potter needed no encouragement to quit the abhorred precincts of the villa, and when once clear of its shadow, he breathed a prayer of thankfulness and relief. With a light step and eager heart he followed the rapid pace of his conductor, his mind being too full of hopes and fears to attempt a conversation.

The absence of any command from the Emperor with regard to Neæra, he regarded with satisfaction, as a plausible argument that no further insistance in the matter was intended. Yet he was anxious – more anxious than he cared to own. He burned for the moment to arrive when he should enter his own door again – and yet he dreaded it too.

Once he was curious enough to ask of his companion, if he was to be landed on the opposite point, in which case he would have a long journey on foot to accomplish. He received only an unintelligible growl in response; so, fearing to irritate what seemed to be a cross-grained temper, he held his peace.

Descending the steep declivity they issued on the narrow Marina, where a galley ready drawn up awaited them. Its crew of about eight men were lolling about amongst the idlers, but when the gruff voice of Plautus fell on their ears, they sprang to their places in readiness to ply their heavy oars.

‘In with you,’ said Plautus to Masthlion; and the boat, by a vigorous shove, was swept out on the bay.

‘Give way – bend your backs, and the sooner we shall be home again,’ called Plautus, as he seized the steering oar.

‘Sit you just there, and move not, Surrentine.’

He pointed to a place just astern of the stroke-oarsman. The potter sat down and became again absorbed in his reflections.

The slaves were all picked men of large frame and muscle, and they urged the boat through the water at a swift pace. The dusk was beginning to fall, and the distant shore was barely visible, though the dark masses of mountain above were sharply outlined against the clear sky. They skirted the stupendous cliffs, upon the brink of which, far above, rested the walls of the villa Jovis. The sea broke with a sullen, dismal plash against the perpendicular wall of ragged rock, and the boat was still moving in the shadow of the overhanging cliffs, when Plautus, in his deep tones, bade the men cease rowing.

They lay on their oars, and the boat, with its freight of motionless forms, glided silently along like a phantom. Masthlion looked up to account for the sudden command. The frowning, towering rocks, the portentous gloom, and the cold inky water sent a shudder through his frame.

‘Surrentine,’ said the voice of Plautus, ‘you are the potter who came to show to Caesar a curious kind of glassware?’

Masthlion answered in the affirmative. The question took him by surprise, so completely had all thoughts of his unlucky invention been displaced by those of Neæra.

‘Are you alone possessed of the secret of making that same glass?’

‘I alone – why, friend?’ replied Masthlion.

‘Why,’ said the cloaked Plautus in his grating tones, ‘because it has been decreed that you shall take your secret with you elsewhere.’

‘Elsewhere!’ cried Masthlion, with a sharp foreboding; ‘what mean you – where am I to take it?’

‘Where it can never be found again – to the bottom of the sea!’

As Plautus uttered the words he threw up his arm. Simultaneously the potter’s throat was grasped from behind by a hand of iron. As he fell helplessly back, a poniard was plunged deep into his heart – all in a brief second of time, ere he could make a sound or motion.

The assassin raised his weapon for another stroke, but it was unneeded – he had already done his terrible work too well. His victim had died on the instant, without a murmur; his gentle heart was still for ever.

The voice of Plautus broke on the terrible silence. ‘Habet!’ he said, ‘a good stroke – Caesar’s justice must be done. Now for the daughter, whom he is bound to father in this one’s place. We must get on – quick, in with him!’

A heavily-weighted cord was produced – there was a sullen plunge, and the boat again went foaming through the water to complete its mission of violence.

CHAPTER XXI

When the craft was brought up at the landing-place on the mainland, Plautus, followed by five of his crew, sprang ashore and with all haste made toward the posting-house.

The superintendent was in a long stable, overlooking the business of feeding and making snug for the night the animals under his charge.

‘Horses!’ demanded Plautus laconically, as he strode inside, followed by his gang.

‘Humph – on whose business?’ said the superintendent suspiciously.

‘Caesar’s!’

‘Humph! I must have more than your word for that.’

Plautus, without speaking, thrust his fist close up under the official’s nose, and displayed a signet ring gleaming on one of his bony fingers.

The man of horses bobbed back his head with an angry gesture, which made the new-comers laugh, and turning to the grooms, said snappishly, ‘Give him Livilla.’

Plautus again thrust his ring under his visage. ‘I said horses,’ he growled roughly; ‘here are six of us. Nor will the nag Livilla do for me – pick out your own, lads, and no more palaver.’

This was soon done, amid much noisy mirth and rude jesting, and in a few minutes they were all speeding along the road to Surrentum, making the most of the last minutes of departing daylight.

Arriving at the town, they proceeded at a walk, in straggling order, to attract less attention. The streets were now dark, however, and the passers-by few in number; nevertheless Plautus, in the van, thought fit also to defeat any idle curiosity by taking a devious route.

Within a hundred yards of the dwelling of the ill-fated Masthlion, the band dismounted; the sweating horses were fastened in a gloomy corner, and a man left in charge of them. Plautus, with the remainder, proceeded to the house.

The outer door was closed and all was dark and silent. Plautus, ordering his companions to remain without until he called them, knocked loudly. A light step came running within.

‘Father, is it you?’ called the glad tones of Neæra’s voice.

A bolt was drawn, the door opened, and the girl herself stood in the entrance, holding a light above her head, whilst she peered beneath, with eager expectation written on her face.

‘No, my pretty wench, it is not your father, that’s very sure,’ quoth Plautus, as he came forward out of the darkness into the feeble light thrown by the lamp.

Neæra, with a cry of alarm, started back at the sight of the shrouded figure and the harsh features of the speaker.

‘Stop,’ he said, making good his entrance inside the shop; ‘don’t be afraid nor run away. If I’m not your father, I’ve come from your father – that is, if you are the daughter of Masthlion the potter.’

‘I am,’ said the disappointed girl, whose anxiety to learn of the absent one struggled against feminine suspicion and timidity of the ill-favoured visitor. ‘What have you to tell me of him? Why does he not come home? When is he coming?’

‘For a particular reason he has not come home; nor is he coming yet. That is why he has sent me to bring you to him. To speak truth, he is taken very ill, and you are bidden to go back with me, straightway, to tend him.’

‘That shall be my business,’ said a voice behind; ‘ill, did you say – my husband ill?’

‘Eh!’ ejaculated Plautus, scanning the wrinkled anxious face of Tibia as she came forward; ‘are you his wife?’

‘Yes,’ cried Neæra for her, in great agitation; ‘tell us, good sir, if he is very ill – speak quickly and tell us all.’

‘How many more are there of you?’

‘None – save a kinsman who dwells with us for a space – oh, tell us of my father.’

‘And where is the kinsman – is he in the house?’

‘No – no! Somewhere in the town. You are cruel in tormenting us – speak then, and say what we are to do?’

‘I have already told you. He has sent for you – he is ill, dying – so haste and come along, if you would see him alive.’

A smothered cry broke from Tibia’s lips, and Neæra turned pale.

‘Dying?’ murmured the girl, tottering back against the wall.

‘It was me he should have sent for – his wife,’ said Tibia, confronting the wily ruffian; ‘you have made a mistake surely. At any rate she shall not go.’

‘She must, and quickly.’

‘It would be impossible for a girl, as she is, to go with you now; it is my place and duty to go to my husband – she must remain.’

‘Ah, mother, can we not both go? Where is he, and how are we to travel?’ said Neæra, pale but self-possessed.

Plautus scowled and gnawed his lip for a moment. Then he said, ‘Well, well! I admit the wife has a claim before the daughter. Go you, therefore, and get your cloak – let the girl remain by the house. All blame must be on your head.’

Tibia instantly departed into the upper rooms with the assurance that she would not be long.

‘You have not yet told us where my father is,’ said Neæra, when they were alone; ‘you are unkind, as a messenger, to those who hold him dearest. Did he send no words beyond bidding me to go – no token? Speak, for the love of the gods!’

‘I don’t recollect, but I’ll bring in my comrade and see if he has a better memory,’ replied Plautus.

He whistled and his accomplices filed in. Neæra, in great alarm, turned to dart away down the passage into the house, but Plautus dexterously placed himself in the way. At the same moment a cloak was twisted round her head, which stifled the cry on her lips. To pinion her limbs was the work of an instant, for the worthy slaves were prepared for every emergency, and made light of her struggles. Thus gagged and helpless she was borne outside. The remaining four men instantly closed the door and passed into the house, carrying the light with them.

The unhappy Tibia was surprised in her room, where she was hastily collecting a few articles for her supposed journey.

‘What do you want?’ she cried, as the ruthless slaves crowded into the narrow room.

They advanced toward her, and she screamed in affright at their menacing aspect. One of them rolled his eyes to his leader and half drew a knife from his belt. But no orders had been given for any further use of the weapon, and Plautus, from experience, kept to the letter of his instructions.

‘Silence, hag!’ he roared, ‘and keep your traps – you can stay and keep house since your girl has now gone. As for your husband, he doesn’t want you, for he is at the bottom of the sea, and his glass pot with him – we put him there as we came along to-night.’

As if his pitiless brutality were a matter of humour, the wretch accompanied it with a grin. The poor woman gave an agonised cry, and sank down beneath his terrible words, as though pierced with the kinder thrust of a sword.

‘You have killed her,’ said one of his comrades.

‘Not I,’ returned Plautus; ‘she’ll make a sturdy widow yet – it was well behaved to go off in that fashion and save us trouble.’

The insensible dame’s mouth was gagged, her poor, frail limbs tied, and then the room ransacked. There was nothing, however, which seemed worthy of any particular notice, and they proceeded to devote a similar attention to the remainder of the house.

Every glass article was smashed, to prove it did not possess the interdicted malleable quality, and, in the search for whatever might have some bearing on the same luckless invention, the whole of the poor appointments of the dwelling were tossed hither and thither. This process was very rapid and thorough, and occupied only a few minutes.

The workshop outside was then entered, and a work of devastation entered upon. The furnace was pulled down bodily. Every article which could be destroyed was utterly wrecked. Every nook and cavity was zealously raked out and explored, and finally, when the rigorous examination was completed, the potter’s tools, which had been gathered together, were thrust in a sack and carried away.

In another minute the marauders had regained their horses. The whole campaign had been executed with a rapidity, silence, and completeness which left nothing to be desired, and reflected the highest credit on the discipline of the Imperial household.

CHAPTER XXII

No tidings of Masthlion having been received for three days, his brother-in-law, Cestus, had given himself up to the gloomiest forebodings. At the end of the second day he had used all the arts of his persuasion to induce Neæra and his sister to set off for Rome. At their distinct, unreasoning refusal he had lost his temper, with the effect of causing his tongue, in desperation, to speak more violently than he would otherwise have thought prudent. The discourse had been suddenly brought to a close, by the abrupt retirement of Neæra from the room, at which the worthy Suburan, in a rage, slunk out of the house, to go and drown his anxiety and harassments at his favourite wine-shop.

A scene of much the same character had occurred on the following evening, and, in a still more violent fit, he had again quitted the now detested dwelling of his sister, to seek the solace of copious draughts of liquor.

Whilst he was thus engaged in a temporary return to his old indulgent habits, we have seen what occurred at home.

An hour subsequent to the events already recorded, he went back, not without a suspicion of unsteadiness in his gait. Although a faint, luminous haze had succeeded to the short period of darkness, the moon had not yet topped the crests of the hills which girdled the town and valley. His vision being also a little blurred with the fumes of the wine, he did not perceive that the door, which was always closed at this hour, was wide open. He raised his fist to deal it a blow as usual, but, meeting no resistance, he overbalanced himself and fell forward on his hands and knees. With an oath of astonishment he got up and went forward. At every step his feet crunched the fragments of glass and pottery. More astonished than ever, and not without a suspicion of something wrong, he roared out for a light, whilst he groped his way to the passage leading within. No answer or sound relieving the silence, he was constrained to go forward in the dark until he reached the common dwelling-room. The door of this was found to be also open, and the gloom impenetrable. He remained on the threshold, for a moment, dumbfounded; but not a sign of life met his ear.

‘What in the name of all that’s damnable has come to the house?’ he muttered; ‘is it a joke – thieves, or what? Where are they – Tibia – Neæra – hillo!’

His voice was no mean one and his roar shook the little house; but he got no return for his pains. With increasing alarm and soberness he groped his way into the room, and, at once, caught his shin against a substantial article of furniture, which was in a most unexpected position. He fell with a cry of pain and rage, and some moments were absorbed in chafing his leg. This done he proceeded more cautiously, and, after a long search, succeeded in laying his hand on flint and steel. He produced a light and surveyed the room. Every article had been dragged about and ransacked. He looked on the scene, with mouth agape, in blank amazement. Then he rushed forward into the shop. The shelves were bared of their contents, and the floor littered with their fragments. Turning back he ascended to the upper floor, and there, on her back, tied and gagged, he perceived the form of Tibia, with her eyes resting upon him in the strange agony of speechless helplessness.

‘What is it, Tibia – what is it? The girl – where is she?’ he cried, springing forward.

Drawing his knife he cut her bonds, and raised her into a sitting posture.

Tibia burst into a paroxysm of grief. ‘Oh brother, brother – dead, dead!’

‘Who – the girl – Neæra? Don’t say that, woman!’ he cried furiously.

‘No, no! Masthlion – my husband!’

‘Did I not say he would never return? But the girl – where is she, in the name of the furies?’

‘Gone – they have taken her away.’

With a cry like the howl of a wild beast, Cestus threw up his arms. Everything was plain.

His face grew purple; the veins swelled like cords, and his eyes glared with an insane fire. His tongue found vent in a torrent of mad ravings and horrid imprecations, accompanied with the wildest gestures, till the heart-stricken woman herself forgot her own anguish for the moment, and shuddered in horror.

When the fit had partially exhausted itself he turned to his sister, and hoarsely demanded a recital of what had passed. A few words sufficed, and she threw her apron over her head, and rocked herself to and fro.

The bluster of the tempest was over, and silence succeeded. For a moment Cestus remained in meditation, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Then bidding her not to quit the house, he rushed out headlong into the street, and rapidly ran toward the Marina. Here, with much difficulty, for few people were astir, he satisfied himself that no party had landed or embarked, at all answering to those whose track he sought to discover. Thence he hurried to the posting-house in the town, where he was just as unsuccessful. Sustained and spurred on by terrible excitement, he ran out to the very outskirts of the town, till he reached a tavern, standing on the side of the road which led from the southern coast. Here he was well known, the establishment being a favourite port of call in his rambles. He called the landlord aside, who looked with surprise on his customer’s disordered aspect. In answer to the Suburan’s inquiries a youth was summoned, who was employed in all kinds of outdoor jobs about the premises, which included a small farm as well as the business of a tavern. The lad, to the intense delight of his questioner, proved to have been loitering at the entrance of the house about nightfall, and had taken particular note of the six horsemen who had composed the party led by Plautus. Giving the lad a coin, Cestus briefly informed the master of the outrage and went back home.

‘It is as I said it would be!’ he burst out as he entered the room where Tibia remained. ‘A gang of Caesar’s rascals from the island, and back they have gone, taking her with them. It is all over with her, and I am ruined. You would not listen to me, would you not? – they would have been cheated of their prey if you had. Now you know who was the wisest! Fools! fools! fools!’

Pale with excitement he threw himself on the floor, and, save for his heavy breathing, deep silence fell on all – the terrible silence of desolation and woe.

It was a dismal, weird scene, lighted by the dull, smoky flame of a rude lamp. The contents of two chests littered the floor with homely linen and wearing apparel, together with numberless odds and ends stored by a thrifty housewife. The simple articles of furniture were awry and overturned. The broad, burly form of the man lying face downwards, half upon the pile of bedding and half upon the floor; the woman crouching beside the naked pallet bed, with her head bowed down upon her knees. Two or three locks of her thin gray hair had escaped from their fastening, and hung loosely down over her tightly clasped hands. She was most to be pitied. She had lost her husband and child, and sat, an aging woman, amidst the wreck of her home, which had hitherto bounded her life and thoughts.

The ghostly, unutterable stillness long continued, and the only thing which seemed to have life was the smoky yellow flame of the lamp, as it waved and flared in the currents of air which came through the open door. Presently Cestus turned over with a sigh and sat up. He directed his gaze toward the motionless form of his sister, and his eyes filled with an unaccustomed compassion.

Long years ago, when, as a youth, he left his father’s cottage, in consequence of some misdeed, to go and seek his fortune in the great city, this sister had been the last one to give him tearful farewell words of hope and encouragement. That scene was still bright in his memory. The pretty maiden standing in the middle of the sunlit road, where she had kissed him, waving her hand as he turned the bend which hid her from view. There she was now – old, faded, wrinkled, toil-worn, and broken-hearted. And he, since that day when her pure kiss and warm tears fell on his beardless face —

He turned away his head, and resting his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee, he remained staring at vacancy. He might have been a stony embodiment of abstraction, with widely-distended, lustreless eyes which stared as if frozen in grim despair. Such an expression Dante might have figured among the sombre troops of the infernal regions.

Nearly half an hour passed; then Tibia raised her wan face. The sound of a footstep in the passage below struck on her ears. It moved irresolutely, and finally, from the foot of the stairs, came a subdued, yet anxious voice calling upon the name of Neæra. Starting at the tones Tibia gave a low cry, and turned her eyes anxiously on her brother. But he was buried in a lethargy, and seemingly oblivious of everything. She, therefore, bowed her face again, and rocked herself with the same weary motion. The call was repeated a little louder, but no reply being vouchsafed, a step came bounding up the stairs and entered the room. The glitter of a polished cuirass crossed the tranced eyes of Cestus and broke the spell which bound him. He looked up and beheld Martialis standing before him, regarding the scene with knitted brows and utter astonishment.

With a yell of delight, impossible to describe, the Suburan leaped to his feet, and seized the Centurion’s hand in a convulsive grip.

‘Welcome! welcome!’ he cried wildly. ‘Welcome as water in the desert. Here is a pretty business within the last few hours – it is only yourself can right it!’

Martialis looked on the crouching form of Tibia.

‘Where is Neæra – what has happened?’ he said hurriedly.

‘A gang of cut-throats has been here, and has upset the house, and carried away the girl – ’

‘And you sitting here like a stock!’ thundered the young man in a frenzy. ‘Were there no neighbours to rouse to help, if you could not? Thieves that steal maidens from a house in a peaceful town – whence come such villains here? Where is her father – following on her track, while you sit here idle and useless!’

‘Stop, Centurion,’ said Cestus, seizing him by the arm as he was turning to dash out of the house, ‘you are all wrong together. There is only one spot in the neighbourhood which can harbour kidnappers and the like. I was absent at the time, and if I had been here I could not have followed – that is for you to do.’

‘Name, then!’ cried Martialis, with contempt.

‘Capreae – Caesar!’

The young man stared as if petrified. His outstretched arm fell heavily to his side, and he dropped his head on his breast with a groan.

‘Did I not foresee it – did I not warn and beseech them to go by my advice?’ cried Cestus, wringing his hands and giving way once more to a burst of passion. ‘Did I not see and watch two fellows here in the shop some days ago? They were from the accursed island, and they came to mark down their game. I knew – I knew! But no one would listen. I begged and beseeched, almost on my knees, for them to quit the place – to go back with me to Rome, where they might be safe. But no – none would listen. Not they! And then the potter must needs take off to the island himself – must needs run his head into the tiger’s very jaws; all for the sake of showing some newfangled kind of glass he had found out. As if no patron was to be found other than a bloody, strangling, ravishing tyrant! The fool would not listen to what I said, though I went nearly crazy, but went on his mad way with a light heart, if one could judge by his smiling face. And here’s the end of it. He will never see his home again – he is murdered – the girl is missing, and I am robbed, ruined, cheated! Haste, Centurion, for all depends on thee. Bring her back, by hook or crook, for hark you, man, she is more than you think – she is of the Patrician order, and no more my sister’s child than you are – ’