Pearl-Maiden: Chapter 25

Chapter 25

THE REWARD OF SATURIUS

Meanwhile, in one of the palaces of the C�sars not far from the Capitol,
was being enacted another and more stormy scene. It was the palace of
Domitian, whither, the bewildering pomp of the Triumph finished at last,
the prince had withdrawn himself in no happy mood. That day many things
had happened to vex him. First and foremost, as had been brought home
to his mind from minute to minute throughout the long hours, its glory
belonged not to himself, not even to his father, Vespasian, but to his
brother, the conqueror of the Jews. Titus he had always hated, Titus,
who was as beloved of mankind for his virtues, such as virtues were in
that age, as he, Domitian, was execrated for his vices. Now Titus had
returned after a brilliant and successful campaign to be crowned as
C�sar, to be accepted as the sharer of his father's government, and to
receive the ovations of the populace, while his brother Domitian must
ride almost unnoted behind his chariot. The plaudits of the roaring mob,
the congratulations of the Senate, the homage of the knights and subject
princes, the offerings of foreign kings, all laid at the feet of Titus,
filled him with a jealousy that went nigh to madness. Soothsayers had
told him, it was true, that his hour would come, that he would live and
reign after Vespasian and Titus had gone down, both of them, to Hades.
But even if they spoke the truth this hour seemed a long way off.

Also there were other things. At the great sacrifice before the temple
of Jupiter, his place had been set too far back where the people could
not see him; at the feast which followed the master of the ceremonies
had neglected, or had forgotten, to pour a libation in his honour.

Further, the beautiful captive, Pearl-Maiden, had appeared in the
procession unadorned by the costly girdle which he had sent her; while,
last of all, the different wines that he had drunk had disagreed with
him, so that because of them, or of the heat of the sun, he suffered
from the headache and sickness to which he was liable. Pleading this
indisposition as an excuse, Domitian left the banquet very early, and
attended by his slaves and musicians retired to his own palace.

Here his spirits revived somewhat, since he knew that before long his
chamberlain, Saturius, would appear with the lovely Jewish maiden
upon whom he had set his fancy. This at least was certain, for he had
arranged that the auction should be held that evening and instructed
him to buy her at all costs, even for a thousand sestertia. Indeed, who
would dare to bid for a slave that the Prince Domitian desired?

Learning that Saturius had not yet arrived, he went to his private
chambers, and to pass away the time commanded his most beautiful slaves
to dance before him, where he inflamed himself by drinking more wine of
a vintage that he loved. As the fumes of the strong liquor mounted to
his brain the pains in his head ceased, at any rate for a while. Very
soon he became half-drunk, and as was his nature when in drink, savage.
One of the dancing slaves stumbled and growing nervous stepped out of
time, whereon he ordered the poor half-naked girl to be scourged before
him by the hands of her own companions. Happily for her, however, before
the punishment began a slave arrived with the intelligence that Saturius
waited without.

"What, alone?" said the prince, springing to his feet.

"Nay, lord," said the slave, "there is a woman with him."

At this news instantly his ill-temper was forgotten.

"Let that girl go," he said, "and bid her be more careful another time.
Away, all the lot of you, I wish to be private. Now, slave, bid the
worthy Saturius enter with his charge."

Presently the curtains were drawn apart and through them came Saturius
rubbing his hands and smiling somewhat nervously, followed by a woman
wrapped in a long cloak and veiled. He began to offer the customary
salutations, but Domitian cut him short.

"Rise, man," he said. "That sort of thing is very well in public, but
I don't want it here. So you have got her," he added, eyeing the draped
form in the background.

"Yes," replied Saturius doubtfully.

"Good, your services shall be remembered. You were ever a discreet and
faithful agent. Did the bidding run high?"

"Oh! my lord, enormous, ee--normous. I never heard such bidding," and he
stretched out his hands.

"Impertinence! Who dared to compete with me?" remarked Domitian. "Well,
what did you have to give?"

"Fifty sestertia, my lord."

"Fifty sestertia?" answered Domitian with an air of relief. "Well, of
course it is enough, but I have known beautiful maidens fetch more. By
the way, dear one," he went on, addressing the veiled woman, "you must,
I fear, be tired after all that weary, foolish show."

The "dear one" making no audible reply, Domitian went on:

"Modesty is pleasing in a maid, but now I pray you, forget it for
awhile. Unveil yourself, most beautiful, that I may behold that
loveliness for which my heart has ached these many days. Nay, that task
shall be my own," and he advanced somewhat unsteadily towards his prize.

Saturius thought that he saw his chance. Domitian was so intoxicated
that it would be useless to attempt to explain matters that night.
Clearly he should retire as soon as possible.

"Most noble prince and patron," he began, "my duty is done, with your
leave I will withdraw."

"By no means, by no means," hiccupped Domitian, "I know that you are an
excellent judge of beauty, most discriminating Saturius, and I should
like to talk over the points of this lady with you. You know, dear
Saturius, that I am not selfish, and to tell the truth, which you won't
mind between friends--who could be jealous of a wizened, last year's
walnut of a man like you? Not I, Saturius, not I, whom everybody
acknowledges to be the most beautiful person in Rome, much better
looking than Titus is, although he does call himself C�sar. Now for it.
Where's the fastening? Saturius, find the fastening. Why do you tie up
the poor girl like an Egyptian corpse and prevent her lord and master
from looking at her?"

As he spoke the slave did something to the back of her head and the
veil fell to the ground, revealing a girl of very pleasing shape and
countenance, but who, as might be expected, looked most weary and
frightened. Domitian stared at her with his bleared and wicked eyes,
while a puzzled expression grew upon his face.

"Very odd!" he said, "but she seems to have changed! I thought her eyes
were blue, and that she had curling black hair. Now they are dark and
she has straight hair. Where's the necklace, too? Where's the necklace?
Pearl-Maiden, what have you done with your necklace? Yes, and why didn't
you wear the girdle I sent you to-day?"

"Sir," answered the Jewess, "I never had a necklace----"

"My lord Domitian," began Saturius with a nervous laugh, "there is a
mistake--I must explain. This girl is not Pearl-Maiden. Pearl-Maiden
fetched so great a price that it was impossible that I should buy her,
even for you----"

He stopped, for suddenly Domitian's face had become terrible. All the
drunkenness had left it, to be replaced by a mask of savage cruelty
through which glared the pale and glittering eyes. The man appeared as
he was, half satyr and half fiend.

"A mistake----" he said. "Oh! a mistake? And I have been counting on
her all these weeks, and now some other man has taken her from me--the
prince Domitian. And you--you dare to come to me with this tale, and
to bring this slut with you instead of my Pearl-Maiden----" and at the
thought he fairly sobbed in his drunken, disappointed rage. Then he
stepped back and began to clap his hands and call aloud.

Instantly slaves and guards rushed into the chamber, thinking that their
lord was threatened with some evil.

"Men," he said, "take that woman and kill her. No, it might make a stir,
as she was one of Titus's captives. Don't kill her, thrust her into the
street."

The girl was seized by the arms and dragged away.

"Oh! my lord," began Saturius.

"Silence, man, I am coming to you. Seize him, and strip him. Oh! I know
you are a freedman and a citizen of Rome. Well, soon you shall be a
citizen of Hades, I promise you. Now, bring the heavy rods and beat him
till he dies."

The dreadful order was obeyed, and for a while nothing was heard save
the sound of heavy blows and the smothered moans of the miserable
Saturius.

"Wretches," yelled the Imperial brute, "you are playing, you do not hit
hard enough. I will teach you how to hit," and snatching a rod from one
of the slaves he rushed at his prostrate chamberlain, the others drawing
back to allow their master to show his skill in flogging.

Saturius saw Domitian come, and knew that unless he could change his
purpose in another minute the life would be battered out of him. He
struggled to his knees.

"Prince," he cried, "hearken ere you strike. You can kill me if you will
who are justly angered, and to die at your hands is an honour that I do
not merit. Yet, dread lord, remember that if you slay me then you will
never find that Pearl-Maiden whom you desire."

Domitian paused, for even in his fury he was cunning. "Doubtless," he
thought, "the knave knows where the girl is. Perhaps even he has hidden
her away for himself."

"Ah!" he said aloud, quoting the vulgar proverb, "'the rod is the mother
of reason.' Well, can you find her?"

"Surely, if I have time. The man who can afford to pay two thousand
sestertia for a single slave cannot easily be hidden."

"Two thousand sestertia!" exclaimed Domitian astonished. "Tell me that
story. Slaves, give Saturius his robe and fall back--no, not too far, he
may be treacherous."

The chamberlain threw the garment over his bleeding shoulders and
fastened it with a trembling hand. Then he told his tale, adding:

"Oh! my lord, what could I do? You have not enough money at hand to pay
so huge a sum."

"Do, fool? Why you should have bought her on credit and left me
to settle the price afterwards. Oh! never mind Titus, I could have
outwitted him. But the mischief is done; now for the remedy, so far as
it can be remedied," he added, grinding his teeth.

"That I must seek to-morrow, lord."

"To-morrow? And what will you do to-morrow?"

"To-morrow I will find where the girl's gone, or try to, and then--why
he who has bought her might die and--the rest will be easy."

"Die he surely shall be who has dared to rob Domitian of his darling,"
answered the prince with an oath. "Well, hearken, Saturius, for this
night you are spared, but be sure that if you fail for the second time
you also shall die, and after a worse fashion than I promised you. Now
go, and to-morrow we will take counsel. Oh! ye gods, why do you deal
so hardly with Domitian? My soul is bruised and must be comforted with
poesy. Rouse that Greek from his bed and send him to me. He shall read
to me of the wrath of Achilles when they robbed him of his Briseis, for
the hero's lot is mine."

So this new Achilles departed, now that his rage had left him, weeping
maudlin tears of disappointed passion, to comfort his "bruised soul"
with the immortal lines of Homer, for when he was not merely a brute
Domitian fancied himself a poet. It was perhaps as well for his peace
of mind that he could not see the face of Saturius, as the chamberlain
comforted his bruised shoulders with some serviceable ointment, or hear
the oath which that useful and industrious officer uttered as he sought
his rest, face downwards, since for many days thereafter he was unable
to lie upon his back. It was a very ugly oath, sworn by every god who
had an altar in Rome, with the divinities of the Jews and the Christians
thrown in, that in a day to come he would avenge Domitian's rods with
daggers. Had the prince been able to do so, there might have risen in
his mind some prescience of a certain scene, in which he must play a
part on a far-off but destined night. He might have beheld a vision of
himself, bald, corpulent and thin-legged, but wearing the imperial robes
of C�sar, rolling in a frantic struggle for life upon the floor of his
bed-chamber, at death grips with one Stephanus, while an old chamberlain
named Saturius drove a dagger again and again into his back, crying at
each stroke:

"Oho! That for thy rods, C�sar! Oho! Dost remember the Pearl-Maiden?
That for thy rods, C�sar, and that--and that--and _that_----!"

But Domitian, weeping himself to sleep over the tale of the wrongs of
the god-like Achilles, which did but foreshadow those of his divine
self, as yet thought nothing of the rich reward that time should bring
him.

On the morrow of the great day of the Triumph the merchant Demetrius
of Alexandria, whom for many years we have known as Caleb, sat in the
office of the store-house which he had hired for the bestowal of his
goods in one of the busiest thoroughfares of Rome. Handsome, indeed,
noble-looking as he was, and must always be, his countenance presented
a sorry sight. From hour to hour during the previous day he had fought a
path through the dense crowds that lined the streets of Rome, to keep as
near as might be to Miriam while she trudged her long route of splendid
shame.

Then came the evening, when, with the other women slaves, she was put
up to auction in the Forum. To prepare for this sale Caleb had turned
almost all his merchandise into money, for he knew that Domitian was a
purchaser, and guessed that the price of the beautiful Pearl-Maiden, of
whom all the city was talking, would rule high. The climax we know. He
bid to the last coin that he possessed or could raise, only to find that
others with still greater resources were in the market. Even the agent
of the prince had been left behind, and Miriam was at last knocked down
to some mysterious stranger woman dressed like a peasant. The woman was
veiled and disguised; she spoke with a feigned voice and in a strange
tongue, but from the beginning Caleb knew her. Incredible as it might
seem, that she should be here in Rome, he was certain that she was
Nehushta, and no other.

That Nehushta should buy Miriam was well, but how came she by so vast a
sum of money, here in a far-off land? In short, for whom was she buying?
Indeed, for whom would she buy? He could think of one only--Marcus. But
he had made inquiries and Marcus was not in Rome. Indeed he had every
reason to believe that his rival was long dead, that his bones were
scattered among the tens of thousands which whitened the tumbled ruins
of the Holy City in Jud�a. How could it be otherwise? He had last seen
him wounded, as he thought to death--and he should know, for the stroke
fell from his own hand--lying senseless in the Old Tower in Jerusalem.
Then he vanished away, and where Marcus had been Miriam was found.
Whither did he vanish, and if it was true that she succeeded in hiding
him in some secret hole, what chance was there that he could have
lived on without food and unsuccoured? Also if he lived, why had he
not appeared long before? Why was not so wealthy a Patrician and
distinguished a soldier riding in the triumphant train of Titus?

With black despair raging in his breast, he, Caleb, had seen Miriam
knocked down to the mysterious basket-laden stranger whom none could
recognise. He had seen her depart together with the auctioneer and
a servant, also basket-laden, to the office of the receiving house,
whither he had attempted to follow upon some pretext, only to be stopped
by the watchman. After this he hung about the door until he saw the
auctioneer appear alone, when it occurred to him that the purchaser and
the purchased must have departed by some other exit, perhaps in order
to avoid further observation. He ran round the building to find himself
confronted only by the empty, star-lit spaces of the Forum. Searching
them with his eyes, for one instant it seemed to him that far away he
caught sight of a little knot of figures climbing a black marble stair
in the dark shadow of some temple. He sped across the open space, he
ran up the great stair, to find at the head of it a young man in whom he
recognised the auctioneer's clerk, gazing along a wide street as empty
as was the stair.

The rest is known to us. He followed, and twice perceived the little
group of dark-robed figures hurrying round distant corners. Once he
lost them altogether, but a passer-by on his road to some feast told him
courteously enough which way they had gone. On he ran almost at hazard,
to be rewarded in the end by the sight of them vanishing through a
narrow doorway in the wall. He came to the door and saw that it was very
massive. He tried it even, it was locked. Then he thought of knocking,
only to remember that to state his business would probably be to meet
his death. At such a place and hour those who purchased beautiful slaves
might have a sword waiting for the heart of an unsuccessful rival who
dared to follow them to their haunts.

Caleb walked round the house, to find that it was a palace which seemed
to be deserted, although he thought that he saw light shining through
one of the shuttered windows. Now he knew the place again. It was here
that the procession had halted and one of the Roman soldiers who had
committed the crime of being taken captive escaped the taunts of the
crowd by hurling himself beneath the wheel of a great pageant car. Yes,
there was no doubt of it, for his blood still stained the dusty stones
and by it lay a piece of the broken distaff with which, in their
mockery, they had girded the poor man. They were gentle folk, these
Romans! Why, measured by this standard, some such doom would have fallen
upon his rival, Marcus, for Marcus also was taken prisoner--by himself.
The thought made Caleb smile, since well he knew that no braver soldier
lived. Then came other thoughts that pressed him closer. Somewhere in
that great dead-looking house was Miriam, as far off from him as though
she were still in Jud�a. There was Miriam--and who was with her? The
new-found lord who had spent two thousand sestertia on her purchase? The
thought of it almost turned his brain.

Heretofore, the life of Caleb had been ruled by two passions--ambition
and the love of Miriam. He had aspired to be ruler of the Jews, perhaps
their king, and to this end had plotted and fought for the expulsion of
the Romans from Jud�a. He had taken part in a hundred desperate battles.
Again and again he had risked his life; again and again he had escaped.
For one so young he had reached high rank, till he was numbered among
the first of their captains.

Then came the end, the last hideous struggle and the downfall. Once more
his life was left in him. Where men perished by the hundred thousand he
escaped, winning safety, not through the desire of it, but because of
the love of Miriam which drove him on to follow her. Happily for himself
he had hidden money, which, after the gift of his race, he was able to
turn to good account, so that now he, who had been a leader in war
and council, walked the world as a merchant in Eastern goods. All that
glittering past had gone from him; he might become wealthy, but, Jew as
he was, he could never be great nor fill his soul with the glory that
it craved. There remained to him, then, nothing but this passion for
one woman among the millions who dwelt beneath the sun, the girl who had
been his playmate, whom he loved from the beginning, although she had
never loved him, and whom he would love until the end.

Why had she not loved him? Because of his rival, that accursed Roman,
Marcus, the man whom time upon time he had tried to kill, but who had
always slipped like water from his hands. Well, if she was lost to him
she was lost to Marcus also, and from that thought he would take such
comfort as he might. Indeed he had no other, for during those dreadful
hours the fires of all Gehenna raged in his soul. He had lost--but who
had found her?

Throughout the long night Caleb tramped round the cold, empty-looking
palace, suffering perhaps as he had never suffered before, a thing to
be pitied of gods and men. At length the dawn broke and the light crept
down the splendid street, showing here and there groups of weary and
half-drunken revellers staggering homewards from the feast, flushed
men and dishevelled women. Others appeared also, humble and industrious
citizens going to their daily toil. Among them were people whose
business it was to clean the roads, abroad early this morning, for after
the great procession they thought that they might find articles of value
let fall by those who walked in it, or by the spectators. Two of
these scavengers began sweeping near the place where Caleb stood, and
lightened their toil by laughing at him, asking him if he had spent his
night in the gutter and whether he knew his way home. He replied that he
waited for the doors of the house to be opened.

"Which house?" they asked. "The 'Fortunate House?'" and they pointed to
the marble palace of Marcus, which, as Caleb now saw for the first time,
had these words blazoned in gold letters on its portico.

He nodded.

"Well," said one of them, "you will wait for some time, for that house
is no longer fortunate. Its owner is dead, killed in the wars, and no
one knows who his heir may be."

"What was his name?" he asked.

"Marcus, the favourite of Nero, also called the Fortunate."

Then, with a bitter curse upon his lips Caleb turned and walked away.

Back to chapter list of: Pearl-Maiden