G. J. Whyte-Melville

“ Not a woman in Rome could have felt more deeply the degradation she was accepting, the insult to which she was submitting; and through it all she was miserably conscious of a false move in the game she had the temerity to play against this formidable adversary. Still she had resolved that she would shrink from no humiliation to save Esca, and she blushed blood-red with anger and shame as she rose from her knees, hid her face in her hands, while she summoned her woman’s wit and her woman’s powers of endurance to help her in the emergency. ”

“ Think, proud lady, you who are so ready, asked or unasked, for slave or gladiator, you need but walk five hundred paces to be in his arms. Surely, if they knew your mission, Roman guards and Jewish sentries would lower their spears to you as you passed! Enough of this! Remember who and what you are. Above all, remember where you are, and how you came here. I have forborne too long, my patience is exhausted at last. You are in a soldier’s tent, and you must learn a soldier’s duty—unquestioning obedience. Go! pick up that goblet I let fall just now. ”

“ Nay, for those who tortured and slew Him, and whom He forgave with the free full forgiveness of a God!—ay, of a God! Which of your gods has done as much for you? When did one of them leave their Mount Olympus, save for some human need, or some human mission of bloodshed and crime? Where is the king who would give up an earthly throne, and go voluntarily to a shameful death for the sake of his people? You are men, my friends—brave, resolute, hearty men; what would you have in him whom you serve? courage, patience, mercy, goodwill to all? ”

“ Spado, encouraged by his comrades, struck wildly at the Briton, and made a furious effort to recover his prey. Esca drew himself together like a panther about to spring, then his long sinewy arm flew out with the force and impulse of a catapult, and the eunuch, reeling backwards, fell heavily to the ground, with a gash upon his cheek like the wound inflicted by a sword.
“Euge!” exclaimed Valeria, in a thrill of admiration and delight. “Well struck, by Hercules! Ah! these barbarians have at least the free use of their limbs. Why, the priest went down like a white ox at the Mucian Gate. ”

“ As for the gladiators, those tigers in human form, it were surely better for them to perish in open warfare, than to tear one another to pieces in the arena, like the very beasts against which I have seen them pitted. Yet these, too, have souls to be saved.”
“Surely have they,” exclaimed Mariamne, with kindling eyes, “and none to help them; none to show them so much as a glimpse of the true light. These men go out to die as the citizen goes to his business or his bath; and who is answerable to man for their blood? who is answerable to God for their souls?” ”

“ To be fat, slothful, weak, gluttonous, and effeminate, while the brow was crowned with roses, and the brain was drenched with wine, and the hands were steeped in blood—this it was to be a friend and counsellor of Cæsar. Men waited and wondered in stupefied awe when they marked the monster reeling from a debauch to some fresh feast of horrors, some ingenious exhibition of the complicated tortures that may be inflicted on a human being, some devilish experiment of all the body can bear, ere the soul takes wing from its ghastly, mutilated tenement, and this not on one, but a thousand victims. ”

“ Show me the secret path, girl; and by all a woman holds most sacred, by all I have most prized, yet lost, I swear to you that the eagles shall shake their wings in the Temple by to-morrow’s sunrise; that I will cut Esca’s bonds with the very sword that hangs here in my belt! Return the way you came; be careful to avoid observation; and if you see Valeria again alive, depend upon her friendship and protection for his sake whom you and I shall have saved from death before another day be past! ”

“ But then he remembered the Briton’s extraordinary strength and activity, his natural courage and warlike education—he was irritated, too, by the insolent malice that gleamed in the tribune’s eyes; and he persuaded himself that nothing but renown and triumph could accrue to his favourite from such a contest.
“Be it so,” said he; “retiarius and secutor. You will have no child’s play, I can tell you; and now for the terms of the wager. I stake no man’s life against a morsel of tinsel or a few polished pebbles, I warn you at once.” ”

“ My head aches with no weighty helmet; breastplate and greaves of steel do not gall my body nor cumber my limbs. I have neither trench to dig, nor mound to raise, nor eagles to guard. I need not stand, like you, against my comrade and my friend, with my point at his throat, and slay the man who has been to me even as a brother, lest he slay me. Yet, though my labours be so easy, and my service be so deficient and inadequate, all the gold and jewels you have seen glistening in a triumph, all the treasures of Cæsar and of Rome, would not equal the reward I hope to earn. ”

“ Do you think that life is to end for you, or for me, when the one falls in his armour, at the head of the Tenth Legion, pierced by a Jewish javelin, or the other is crucified before the walls for a spy, by Titus, or stoned in the gate for a traitor, by his own countrymen? And this is the fate which may await us both before to-morrow’s sun is set. Believe it not, noble Roman! That frame of yours is no more Licinius than is the battered breastplate yonder on the ground, which you have cast aside because it is no longer proof against sword and spear ”

“ Do you know, too, that this yellow-haired barbarian has got your head, and mine, and all the empty skulls of our intelligent friends who are amusing themselves yonder, under his belt? Do you know that Cæsar, true to his swinish propensities, will turn like a hunted boar, when he suspects the least shadow of danger? Do you know that not one of us may live to eat the very supper waiting for us in the next room? What are you made of, man, that you can thus look me so coolly in the face with the sword at both our throats? ”

“ It was on the opposite side of the street to the tribune’s house; and as they passed beneath its mouldering span, they saw that it formed an entrance into one of those wildernesses, which, after the great fire of Nero, existed here and there, not only in the suburbs, but at the very heart of Rome. They were, in truth, in that desolate waste which had once been the famous Esquiline Gardens, originally a burial-ground, and granted by Augustus to his favourite, the illustrious Mæcenas, to plant and decorate according to his prolific fancy and unimpeachable taste. ”

“ Born a slave on one of Valeria’s estates in the country, she had been reared a mere peasant, on a simple country diet, and amidst healthful country occupations, till a freak of her mistress brought her to Rome. With a woman’s versatility—with a woman’s quickness in adapting herself to a strange phase of life and a total change of circumstances—the country girl had not been a year in her new situation, ere she became the acutest and cleverest waiting-maid in the capital, with what benefit to her own morals and character, it is needless to inquire. ”

“ It is true that I have been in the Roman camp, nay, that I have been in the very presence of Titus himself. Shall I tell the assembly of the strength of Rome, of the discipline of her armies, of the late reinforcement of her legions? Shall I tell them that I saw the very auxiliaries eating wheaten bread and the flesh of kids and sheep, whilst my countrymen are starving behind the walls? Shall I tell them that we are outnumbered by our foes, and are ourselves weakened by dissensions, and wasting our strength and courage day by day? ”

“ Is not the chief who defended Jotapata now a guest in the tent of Titus? Is not Agrippa the younger a staunch adherent of Vespasian? Is he not a mere procurator of the Empire, for the province, forsooth, of Judæa? And shall we learn nothing from our history? Nothing from the events of our own times, from the scenes we ourselves witness day by day? Must the cedar fall because we fail to destroy the worms that are eating at its core? Shall Jerusalem be desecrated because we fear to denounce the hand that would deliver her to the foe? We have a plague-spot in the nation. ”

“ Thou trustest too much to the sword of steel and the arm of flesh—the might of man’s strength, which a mere pebble on the pavement can bring headlong to the ground; and the scheming of man’s brain, which cannot foresee, even for one instant, the trifle that shall baffle and confound it in the next. It is better to trust boldly in the right. This youth is of our own household: he is more to us than friend and kindred. Wouldst thou send him up with his hands bound to the sacrifice? Brother, thou shalt not do this great sin!”
“What would you?” said Eleazar impatiently. “Every man to his duty. ”

“ The mythology of Rome, degraded as it had become, was not yet stripped of all the graceful attributes it owed to its Hellenic origin. That which was Greek, might indeed be evil, yet it could scarce fail to be fair; but what rational man could ground his faith on the theocracy of Olympus, or contemplate with any feeling save disgust that material Pantheism, in which the lowest even of human vices was exalted into a divinity? As well become a worshipper of Isis at once, and prostitute, to the utter degradation of the body, all the noblest and fairest imagery of the mind. ”

“ But the rich produce of the Lebanon was all too cloying for the healthy palate and the thirst of youth. Esca prayed for a draught of fair water, and Mariamne brought him the pitcher and gave him to drink with her own hand. For the second time to-night their eyes met, and although they were instantly averted, the Briton felt that he was drinking from a cup more intoxicating than all the wine-presses of Syria could produce—a cup that made him unconscious of the past as of the future, and only too keenly sensible of the present by its joy. ”

“ Faster and faster fly the combatants, to the intense delight of the crowd, who specially affect this kind of combat for the pastime it thus affords. Speedy as is the tribune, his foe draws nearer and nearer, and now, close to where Mariamne stands with Calchas, he is within a stride of his antagonist. His arm is up to strike! when a woman’s shriek rings through the amphitheatre, startling Vitellius on his throne, and the sword flies aimlessly from the Briton’s grasp as he falls forward on his face, and the impetus rolls him over and over in the sand. ”

“ It was infinite mercy that bade the inevitable deliverer wait on sin. What curse could equal an immortality of evil? Would you live for ever in such a world as ours if you could? nay, you in your youth, and strength, and beauty, would you wish to remain till your form was bent, and your beard grey, and your eyes dim? Think, too, of the many deaths you might have died,—stricken with leprosy, crouching like a dog in some hidden corner of the city, or wasted by famine, gnawing a morsel of offal from which the sustenance had long since been extracted by some wretch already perished. ”

“ Speaking thus coolly and deliberately, but more to himself than his companion, Cæsar, divested of all marks of splendour in his dress and ornaments, stripped to a plain linen garment, turning up his sleeves and girding himself the while, like a slave busied in some household work requiring activity and despatch, suffered the Briton to lead him into the next apartment, where, deserted by his comrades, and sorely perplexed between a vague sense of duty and a strong inclination to run away, Spado was pacing to and fro in a ludicrous state of perturbation and dismay. ”

“ Now a woman’s commands are not always intended to be literally obeyed. Under any circumstances she seldom likes to be reminded of them; and as for claiming anything from Valeria, why the very word roused all the rebellion that was dormant in her nature. At that instant rose on her mind’s eye the scene in the amphitheatre, the level sand, the tossing sea of faces, the hoarse roar of the crowd, the strong white limbs and the yellow locks lying helpless beneath a dark vindictive face, and a glitter of uplifted steel. ”

“ It nerved him, however, all the more in his resolution to conquer; and when Licinius, reproaching himself bitterly the while, promised him his liberty in the event of victory, Esca’s heart beat fast with joy and hope and exultation once more.
A thousand vague possibilities danced through his brain; a thousand wild and visionary schemes, of which Mariamne formed the centre figure. Life that had seemed so dull but one short week ago, now shone again in the rosy light with which youth—and youth alone—can tinge the long perspective of the future. Alas for Licinius! ”