"Unto Caesar"

Even before his last words had echoed along the marble walls, deafening cries and cheers rent the air. Men shouted, women screamed and waved their fans, mantles were torn from every shoulder and swung overhead like flags.

"Hail to Cæsar! Hail to the best and greatest of Cæsars! Hail to the Augusta! Dea Flavia, hail!"

The shouts were incessant, even whilst Caligula, delighted with his oratory, exultant over the success of his plan, stood there trembling in every limb, with moist, purple face turned from right to left to receive the acclamations of his people. His tiny eyes blinked with the glare that struck fully at them from opposite, his throat was parched with screaming, his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth.

Excitement was overmastering him; the effort to appear outwardly sane and calm was too severe a tax upon his raging temper. The heat, too, no doubt turned him giddy, for suddenly, even whilst the cries of "Hail!" buzzed in his ears, he threw up his arms and tottered backwards, rigid as a log, whilst drops of foam gathered at the corners of his mouth.

It was Taurus Antinor who received the swooning Cæsar in his strong arms. Everyone else around was too excited to move. The Augustas, inwardly consumed with jealousy, were striving to keep up an appearance of dignity in the face of the insult which they deemed had been put upon them by this semi-deification of their kinswoman.

Dea Flavia, pale and silent, stood facing the people, with eyes that seemed to look on something unearthly far away. Her white robes, shimmering with precious stones, fell round her like a shroud, her lips were parted as with a cry that had died even before it had found birth in her throat. The public thought that she looked proud, and acclaimed her because of this strange aloofness which seemed to envelop her whole person. She did not look of this world at all. Even the eyes appeared sightless and dead.

When the Cæsar fell back, half fainting, she seemed to wake from her dream, a shudder went right through her as her eyes slowly turned from their vacant gaze to the prostrate figure of this inhuman monster, lying stricken like a felled brute, in the arms of the praefect of Rome.

Once again, and for the third time to-day, her eyes met those of Taurus Antinor, but this time it seemed to him that within their still mysterious depths he read something akin to an appeal.

As on that day in the Forum, intense pity—which had given birth to love—filled his heart for this beautiful young girl who seemed so lonely in the midst of all this pomp.

The purity of her soul appeared to him undimmed, even though he knew now that she had expected this awful thing all along, and that she was no stranger to this monstrous barter of her person for the attainment of a crazy Emperor's whim, or to make holiday for the rabble of Rome. In his sight her pride remained unshaken; only her loyalty and allegiance had been given to the Cæsar in the same way as his own had been. She, in her simple, womanly way, was rendering unto Cæsar that which was Cæsar's, and Taurus Antinor, whilst tenderly pitying her, felt that he had never loved her as fondly as he did now.

The curse of the dying freedwoman was indeed bearing fruit. Dea's favours, her loyalty, were turning to bitter malediction for the recipients. More than one man to-day, mayhap, would die an horrible death in the hope of winning her grace. And Taurus Antinor, in the silent depths of his soul, prayed unto God that the woman he loved should never—as Menecreta had foretold—be driven to beg for mercy from a heart that knew it not and find a pitiless ear turned to her prayers.

Caligula had quickly shaken himself free from the arms that held him. The fainting fit which had threatened him passed away as swiftly as it had come. His lust of hate and revenge was so keen at this moment that it conquered all his physical weakness. When he realised that it was Taurus Antinor who was supporting him, he contrived to smile benignly and placidly upon him.

"I am well! I am well!" he reiterated cheerfully. "Did my voice carry all over the Amphitheatre? Did everyone hear what I said?"

"Everyone heard thy voice, O Cæsar!" said Taurus Antinor slowly, "and see the aspirant for the Augusta's hand has prepared to do battle for her sake!"

CHAPTER XXI

"But truly as the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death."—I Samuel xx. 3.

When the Cæsar had finished speaking, and he fell swooning back in the arms of the praefect of Rome, the conspirators remained quite still, staring at one another, dumbfounded.

Could any man at that moment have divined the secrets of the heart and looked into the thoughts of all these men, what a medley of terror and of lust, of rage and of jealousy, would have been unfolded before his eyes.

The plotters were like men who, falling to with axe and pick to demolish a building, had seen that same building collapse beneath their feet. They had sat quietly by all the day watching the events, content that these would shape themselves in accordance with their will. Young Escanes from time to time fingered the poniard which he had hidden under his tunic, Hortensius Martius gave free rein to his ardent admiration of Dea Flavia, Ancyrus, the elder, kept watch over every phase of the temper of the audience—its apathy, its excitement, its murmurs of dissatisfaction and cries of enthusiasm.

Only Caius Nepos, white to the lips, sat in terror lest the courage of the conspirators whom he had betrayed should fail them at the eleventh hour, and he—branded as a false informer—be left to encounter the fury of an almighty Cæsar, who had never been known to relent.

The speech of Caligula had of a truth struck strangely upon his hearers. The men who had been willing to wait upon chance for the success of their plot, now found that Chance had waited upon them. The thought of treachery did not at first enter their minds. The freaks of the crazy Emperor were as numerous and as varied as the grains of sand in the arena. That he should offer the hand of his kinswoman as a prize to a victor in the arena, was not inconsistent with his perpetual desire for new sensations, his lust of tyrannical power and his open contempt for all his fellow-men.

His allusions to his probable successor had seemed futile and of no account, and they all felt that they had wallowed so deeply in the mire of conspiracy together, that it could not have served the purpose of any one of them to betray the others.

The first moment of stupefaction had quickly passed away, and even before the Cæsar had recovered consciousness Hortensius Martius had risen to his feet. There had been no hesitation in him from the first. Whilst the others pondered—vaguely frightened at this turn given by Chance to her wheel—he was ready to stake his life for the possession of Dea Flavia and of the imperium. His passion for the beautiful woman would have led him into far wilder extravagances and into far graver dangers than an encounter in a public arena with a wild beast, and the momentary degradation of offering his patrician person as a spectacle for the plebs.

And because of this sudden decision, taken boldly whilst others wavered, he became tacitly the leader of the gang of plotters. When he jumped to his feet, ready to descend into the arena, he seemed to challenge them to keep their oath of allegiance to him, who would succeed in winning Dea Flavia for wife.

Hortensius Martius had proved himself to be a true opportunist, for he had seized his opportunity just at the right moment when the others hesitated. Thus are leaders made—one bold movement whilst others sit still, one step forward whilst the others wait.

"Thy chance, O Hortensius Martius," whispered Marcus Ancyrus, the elder, close to the young man's ear. "Escanes and the rest of us will be ready when the time comes, mayhap before thou dost return to us from below."

Escanes' hand beneath his tunic closed upon the dagger. Stronger and taller than Hortensius, he had not the sudden initiative of the brain. He was one of those men who would always be second to a bolder, a more resourceful leader.

Forty pairs of eyes encouraged Hortensius Martius as he rose. In their minds they had already crowned him with laurels. For the moment they had accepted him as their future Emperor and were prepared to acclaim him as Cæsar when Escanes had done his work.

It was at this moment that Caligula recovered from his swoon. His lust of revenge and of hate brought him back to reality. He had planned to make the arch-traitor betray himself, and now, when he caught sight of Hortensius Martius preparing to descend into the arena, a cry as of some prowling, savage beast rose and died in his throat.

He was sufficiently cunning to control himself, sufficiently of an actor to play his part without betraying his thoughts. Though he would gladly have strangled Hortensius then and there with his own hands, he called the young man to him with kindly benevolence and placed a fatherly hand upon his shoulder.

"Thou, O Hortensius Martius?" he said, in well-feigned astonishment.

"Even I, O Cæsar!" replied Hortensius calmly.

"For love of the Augusta thou wouldst risk thy life?"

"To prove my valour, gracious lord, since thou didst desire it."

"On thy knees then, O my son!" rejoined the mountebank solemnly, "and receive the blessing of the gods."

The public watched this little scene with palpitating interest. The Cæsar looked magnificent in his fantastic robes, and beside him Dea Flavia—like a goddess in her white tunic—was beautiful to behold.

The Cæsar laid three fingers on the young man's head, and turned his bloodshot eyes up to the vault of heaven. Then Hortensius Martius rose from his knees and went up to the Augusta Dea Flavia, and knelt down before her. She took no heed of him whatever. She did not look upon his bowed head as he stooped very low and kissed the hem of her gown; some who watched the scene very closely declared afterwards that she snatched her robe away from his hands.

And from the arena down below was heard again the snarl of the thwarted beast.

From the Emperor's tribune, to right and left, wide marble steps led down to the floor of the arena. At the bottom of these steps huge iron gates, wrought with gold and studded with nails, guarded them against access from below. Two legionaries were stationed at these gates.

When Hortensius Martius appeared at the top of the steps the audience screamed with delight and cheered him to the echoes.

He was indeed a figure like to please the most hardened spectator. Not over tall, and slight of build, he looked elegant and graceful in his short white tunic, with the deep purple bands that proclaimed his patrician rank.

A young exquisite, with well-groomed hands and hair delicately perfumed and curled, the tense expression of his face gave him nevertheless an air of determination and of strength. He had taken off his cloak and was winding it round his left arm, otherwise, of course, he was unarmed as the Emperor had directed.

The women blew him kisses across the width of the arena, and some of the more enthusiastic—or the younger—ones pelted him with roses as he came down the steps.

And down below the panther, as if scenting this new prey, sent a roar of expectation into the vibrating air.

Caligula smiled with hideous complacency as he looked down on the descending figure of the young man, and when the people cheered, and the shower of roses fell in a blood-red mass at Hortensius' feet, the Cæsar snarled even as the panther had done, showing a row of yellow teeth, like fangs.

At last Hortensius Martius had reached the foot of the steps. The massive iron gates stood alone between him and the black panther, which cowered some twenty feet away behind a low monticule covered with tufts of grass, its tiny eyes of topaz fixed upon the oncoming prey.

Hortensius gave the order for the opening of the gates. They swung upon their hinges and he passed out through them. And they fell to behind him with a mighty clang.

Thunderous applause greeted him when he set his foot upon the sands of the arena. The panther did not move. It had even ceased to snarl, but its sinewy tail beat a dull tattoo upon the ground.

Then over the whole arena there rose a curious sound, like the sighing of two hundred thousand souls, an indrawing of the breath in two hundred thousand throats. Hortensius Martius looked up, for the sigh had sounded very strangely in his ear, and it had been followed by a still stranger silence, as if two hundred thousand hearts had momentarily ceased to beat.

And as he looked he understood the sigh, and also the death-like silence that followed.

He saw that from the niches all round the arena the safety ladders of crimson silk had all been taken away.

And up in the imperial tribune the mighty Cæsar laughed loudly and long.

CHAPTER XXII

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."—St. John xv. 13.

No doubt that for that first tense moment all thought of treachery, of the conspiracy, of the imperium and even of Dea Flavia, was absent from the young man's mind.

It must have come upon him suddenly then and there that his life was now in almost hopeless jeopardy. He was unarmed, and all around him the smooth marble walls of the arena rose, polished and straight, to a height of at least twelve feet, to the row of niches which alone might afford him shelter. From the bases of the fluted columns the iron rings to which the silken ladders had previously been attached, now hung at an unattainable height: the narrow ledge—four feet from the ground—had ceased to be a stepping-stone to safety.

All this, of course, came to him in a flash, as does to a dying man, they say, the varied pictures of his life. Hortensius Martius, in that one flash, realised that he was a doomed man, that he had been trapped into this death-trap, and that nothing now but a miracle stood between him and a hideous death.

Men up above in the tribunes held their breath; some women began to whimper with excitement. But the man and the panther stood for a moment eye to eye. No longer the hunted and the hunter, but the hungry beast of the desert and his certain prey. The baffled creature, tantalised with the blood of his other victims, was ready to satiate its lust at last.

There was a moment of absolute silence, while two tiny golden eyes, measured the distance for a leap.

The young man now, with the cunning born of a mad instinct for life, was waiting with bent knees, body slightly leaning forward and eyes fixed upon the brute. He had unwound the cloak from round his arm and held it in front of him like a shield. The man and the beast watched one another thus for a few seconds, and to many those few seconds seemed like an eternity.

Then with a snarl the panther bounded forward. The man held his ground for the space of one second, and as the brute landed within an arm's length of him, quick as lightning he threw his cloak right in its face. Then he began to run. The panther, entangled in the folds of the cloak, savage and snarling, was tearing it to pieces, but Hortensius ran and ran, driven by the blind sense of self-preservation. He ran and ran the whole length of the arena, skirted the oval at the eastern end, and still continued to run, with elbows firmly held to his hips and with swift winged steps that made no sound in the sand.

But already the creature, realising that again it was being cheated, started in pursuit. With leaps and bounds that seemed erratic and purposeless, it gradually diminished the distance between itself and the running man. Once it alighted on the outstanding branch of a gnarled tree, then from thence it took shelter in a clump of shrubs, then across the stream, swimming to the opposite shore; for the running man had rounded the oval and was now swiftly coming this way. Here in the tall grass it paused—cowering—once more on the watch.

And Hortensius, while he ran so blindly along, had failed to notice where his enemy lay hiding.

"In the grass!" shouted a dozen voices.

"There!"

"On ahead!"

"Further on!"

"No! no! Not there! Not there!"

There was little exquisiteness left in the young man now. It was but a few moments since he had stepped smiling into the arena, kicking aside the rose-leaves which enthusiastic hands had thrown in his path. It was but some minutes since he had begun to run, and now the perspiration was pouring from his body, his face was as grey as the sand of the arena, the fear of death had raised the death-sweat on his brow.

His breath came and went hot and panting through his nostrils, his eyes, dilated with terror, were vainly searching for the cowering enemy.

Once more he turned to run. The panther seemed to be playing with him. A dozen times it could have reached him, a dozen times it bounded to one side, giving his prey another chance to run, another short respite for the agony of despair.

Men, women and children screamed with excitement. No longer did they cheer the handsome young patrician, no longer did they throw roses at his feet. They shouted to him to run because they knew that running was no use. They urged the panther to leap because they fanned its rage with their screams.

"Habet! Habet!" they shouted with every bound of the ferocious creature.

"Habet! Habet!" now that Hortensius at last paused in his run.

He stood quite still for a veil had descended over his eyes. The whole arena began to spin and to dance before him, the marble columns were twisted awry, thousands upon thousands of distorted faces grinned hideously upon him. Over the trees and the grass and the stream there was a film of red, the colour of blood, and through this film—which grew thicker and thicker as he gazed—he saw nothing but just opposite to him, across the width of the arena, towering high above everything around, the tall figure of Dea Flavia with her white dress falling straight from the shoulders, her fair hair crowned with diamonds, her face white as her gown and her lips parted as if uttering a cry of horror.

The next moment that cry—it was a woman's cry—did rend the air from, end to end of the gigantic enclosure, and the cry was echoed and re-echoed by thousands and thousands of throats, as the panther, taking steady aim, leaped straight for the man.

The noise became deafening: men, women, children, everyone screamed, and right through this whirling orgy of sound a voice was shouting, strong and mighty as that of Jupiter when he sends his decrees thundering forth into the air.

"By his throat, Hortensius! By his throat, and I'll at him whilst he pants!"

Hortensius put out his hands with a last instinctive sense of self-preservation. The mighty voice rang in his ear, it reverberated through the hot noonday air, and clanged against the copper gates as if a powerful arm had smitten them with the axe of Jove.

The man saw the beast's leap, felt the hot breath in his face, felt the two yellow eyes gleaming on him like burning suns, and his ears buzzed with the din of thousands of shrieks; then he suddenly felt himself uplifted, whilst an agonised roar from the throat of a wounded beast overfilled the seething cauldron of sound.

The praefect of Rome was standing in the arena now, and in his strong arms lifted high above his head he held the swooning man, whilst some few paces away the panther was lying prone, with blood streaming from its quivering jaws.

It had all happened so suddenly that no one afterwards could say how it occurred. But there were those who retained a vision of the whole thing and afterwards shared their impressions with others.

Everyone recollected when my lord Hortensius first entered the arena and the iron gates closed in behind him, that a general feeling of horror fell upon the entire public when it realised that all means of safety, all chance of escape had been removed with those silken ladders, and that the young patrician had in truth been left at the mercy of a powerful brute, goaded to madness through baffled desire for blood.

At that same moment the praefect of Rome disappeared from the imperial tribune, and the terrible scene between the hunting beast and the hunted man had begun.

Time for the man to run round the arena! Time for the brute to stalk and play with its prey! Time, it seems, for the praefect of Rome to make his way from the imperial tribune to the east end of the arena, where was stationed the city guard of which he had full control!

A few precious seconds in making the soldiers understand what he wanted, a few more seconds to command them to obey for they stood as a phalanx against the gate, thinking the praefect mad in desiring to enter the arena—a few more seconds and Taurus Antinor was at last in the arena, shouting to the hunted man to have at the brute with his hands.

But Hortensius was weak from exhaustion brought on by a life of luxury and idleness and by the excitement of the last two days. He put out two feeble hands, and the panther was already on the leap.

And by that time Taurus Antinor was between him and the brute. With a blow of his hard fists—fashioned in far off Northern lands—and with the strength that is given to the barbarians of that sea-washed shore, he had drawn blood from the creature's jaw and sent it rolling back on its haunches, momentarily dazed.

Only momentarily, however, whilst two hundred thousand throats yelled in unison:

"Habet! Habet! Habet!"

A precious moment that! With a maddened beast, a swooning man and no arms save a pair of fists, hard as iron, made with a hand slender and supple like the finest tempered steel.

And while the panther fell back roaring, and before it could prepare for a new spring, Taurus Antinor had seized the swooning man. It was his turn to run now, for he had but a few seconds in which to save the life of his bitterest foe.

Straight to the walls of the arena did he run, and his voice was heard speaking loudly and commandingly:

"The arcade, man! Rouse thyself! The arcade! The rings in the columns! Quick!"

It needed the strength of a bullock to accomplish the deed: that, or the strength which comes from unbendable human will. The man, only half-conscious, returned to his senses by the force of that same will. The instinct of life was strongest in the end, and when Taurus Antinor leapt upon the ledge and hoisted Hortensius' body high up above his head, the young man, with the final effort borne of hope and built upon despair, reached up and caught one of the massive rings imbedded in the bases of the fluted columns.

For a few seconds he remained suspended, his body swinging against the marble wall, whilst the public cheered with an enthusiasm that knew no bounds. From below the praefect helped to push the feeble body up, then another jerk, a pull upwards, a push, and Hortensius Martius had found safety in one of the niches of the arcade.

"Hail to the praefect of Rome! Hail!" came in a continuous, thunderous roar from every corner of the arena, even as with a sudden bound the black panther had sprung upon Taurus Antinor, and, catching him unawares, had felled him to the ground.

CHAPTER XXIII

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant."—St. Matthew xxv. 21.

A tumult amongst the people?

Aye! it was here now fully aroused. The praefect of Rome was popular with the plebs. His action in the arena had called forth unbounded enthusiasm. When he fell rolling into the sand, with the black panther snarling above him, his steel-like grip warding for the moment the brute's jaws from off his throat, the people broke out into regular frenzy.

"The praefect! the praefect!" they shouted.

Men climbed down along the gradients leaping over other men, determined to jump down twelve feet into the arena in order to rescue the praefect from the jaws of the ferocious beast.

But above in the imperial tribune the Cæsar sat snarling like the panther and rubbing his hands with glee. His trap had been over-successful, one by one the arch-traitors fell headlong into it. First Hortensius Martius, that young fool! What mattered if he had escaped from a ravenous panther? The claws of a vengeful Cæsar were sharper far than those of any beast of the desert.

And now Taurus Antinor! the praefect of Rome! the man of silence and of integrity! the idol of the people, the scorner of Cæsar's godhead. Vague rumour had reached Caligula of the praefect's strange sayings, his refusal to enter the temples and to sacrifice to the gods. People said that the Anglicanus worshipped one who claimed to be greater than Cæsar and all the deities of Rome.