The Lion's Brood, Duffield Osborne [i love reading txt] 📗

with a broken shoulder. Believe me, my friend, the dictator thought better of you than he spoke, and would have regretted the axe. Jupiter grant that it be yours to justify his opinion!"

No stimulant could have given such strength to the convalescent as did these words, and from such a source. The dictator had not condemned, then; he had even spoken well of him. The knowledge of it put to flight the embarrassment he had felt when he realized that he was going perforce to Marcia's house—perhaps into her presence; and he found himself standing straighter and stepping out with longer and bolder strides.

"Good words are better than bad ones for a good man," mused Torquatus, wagging his head sententiously, and darting at his companion a comprehensive glance, behind which lurked a grim smile. "If women could ever learn as much, they might govern us the more readily—which the gods forefend! as I doubt not they will."

Then the company halted. It was many months since Sergius had stood before that door, and he could not, without grave discourtesy, refuse the invitation to enter. Well, what mattered it? Marcia cared nothing; why should he? Then, too, the stimulus of the dictator's approval was still upon him, as the warning cry of the porter bade those nearest stand back while the door swung out. Most of the party took their leave here, but several followed into the atrium for adieus more appropriate to their station.

At last all had departed save Sergius, who, having given orders that his attendants should await him in the street, passed on into the peristyle with his host.

There, beside the fountain, spinning, as he had so often seen her—as he had seen her through all the days and nights of the campaign—sat the lady Marcia. Two of her maidens were assisting: one who glanced up at Sergius and smiled tauntingly; and another who turned her face away, and seemed to be trying to hide it in the close inspection of a great bunch of fleece. But both the forwardness of the one and the bashfulness of the other were wasted upon the visitor. As a matter of fact, he was so lost in wonder at his courage and self-control as to be well past observing the idiosyncrasies of slaves; and, if his own attitude was acceptable, even to himself, his admiration for that of his hostess amounted to absolute bitterness. That she, a mere girl, should rise and come forward with so conventional yet friendly a greeting, that neither her lip should tremble nor her cheek flush, was little short of intolerable. Nevertheless it helped to brace his own resolves yet more firmly. Such poise, after all that had been between them, could have its source only in the most absolute indifference.

"Health to the noble Lucius! Let him believe that there is no one of his friends who thanks the gods more fervently for his recovery."

On its face the speech was cordial—much too cordial for love that has quarrelled; therefore he bent his head and answered:—

"Were it not impiety, the noble Lucius would thank his well-wisher for her words, more, even, than he thanks the gods for his recovery."

"Ah!" she replied lightly, "then he must scatter his thanks yet more broadly, for there cannot be a defenceless woman in Rome who does not rejoice that so brave a defender is spared to the State."

Sarcasm for sarcasm, he thought bitterly, but he answered as carelessly:—

"In that case, I shall not bear my thanks beyond the gods; for if my health be no greater care to you than to all the white stoles in the city, I think I can measure its value."

An expression of almost infantile surprise and reproach crossed her features.

"You are either very forgetful or very ungrateful," she said. "If Venus has healed so faithful a votary, surely mortal women have not been lacking in their sympathy; nor, if report tells truly, has the noble Lucius been lacking in gratitude—until now."

That shaft struck home, and, for a moment, Sergius could find no answer. He could only remember the episode of the girl who had come to him, and wonder which one of his household could have borne treacherous word to Marcia of his weakness and his discomfiture. Meanwhile she had turned carelessly and dismissed her women, and one had gone, throwing back laughing glances, the other, with her face still buried in the wool with which she had filled her arms.

Torquatus had been standing near, somewhat puzzled by what he felt to be a battle of words between his daughter and his guest, but a battle whose plans of attack or defence he found himself at a loss to fathom. Feeling at last that it was incumbent upon him as host to break in upon badinage that bade fair to become embarrassing, he spoke briefly of his encounter with the mob and of Lucius' timely aid and clever ruse. Marcia listened closely, nodding her head from time to time, but her colour had deepened and her hand was clenched tight when the story was finished.

"Who will be safe in Rome, father!" she burst out. "The rabble elect their magistrates, and the magistrates, in return, let them do as they please. When it comes to attacking you; a consular—a Manlius! We must sleep no more in our houses unless the household be in arms and on guard."

Sergius gazed in astonishment. A Marcia spoke whom he had never known; but the old man smiled grimly.

"It is the blood," he said. "She is truly 'Manlia,' though called, against custom, for my dead Marcius. When Claudians change the toga for the paludamentum, and Ogulnians cease to babble of Greek philosophy, then shall a Manlian be lacking in the spirit of our order—ay, and in the courage to act."

Marcia did not seem to hear his words. Her brows were drawn together in what Sergius considered a very pretty frown. She turned toward him.

"They have gotten their butcher for consul," she went on; "now let him lead them. How long before they will be begging for the swords they have despised! Let them alone! Let Hannibal work his will; then we shall stand forth, like the exiled Camillus, to defend a Rome purged of its black blood—a Rome worth defending—"

But Sergius had recovered from his surprise, and his face was serious, as he interrupted the torrent of words.

"Patrician and plebeian must stand or fall together, my Marcia," he said quietly. "It is the Republic that we shall defend, and defend the more bravely because it is, in a way, defenceless. If a time of madness come upon a parent, do we not guard her the more tenderly who cannot guard herself?—ay, and even against the foolish acts she may herself attempt?"

"And you—you—a Sergius, will serve under this Varro?" she exclaimed.

"Truly," he said bowing, "I am a Roman, and the barbarians are in Italy. When they are gone, I will fight Varro on the rostra, in the Senate. Perhaps I shall even lead my clients to drag him, stabbed, from his house."

She was gazing at him with great, round eyes in which the contempt and anger began to give place to a softer look—a look which no man might hope quite to interpret; then she threw her head to one side and laughed, but the laugh was short and nervous.

"I congratulate your eloquence and patriotism, as I sympathize with your unpropitious gallantry. May Venus make happy your next pursuit of a pretty slave."

Again she laughed, and this time her laugh was unfeignedly malicious. Sergius flushed crimson; Torquatus looked scandalized and stern; but before either could answer, she was gone.

"You will return to the army, then?" said the old man, hurriedly and as if to cover his annoyance. "How soon will your strength be sufficient?"

"I shall set out to-night," said Sergius. The flush had gone from his face, and he was very pale, while his voice sounded as if from far away. "By so doing I shall journey by easier stages, and shall avoid accompanying the consul; nor will he reach the camp before me."

"There is talk of new levies," said Torquatus, vaguely.

"Yes, and there will be fighting soon."

"Flaminius fought."

"May Jupiter avert the omen! and you will forgive me, my father, if I bid you a too hasty farewell? I had not determined to go so soon—but it is best. And there is preparation to be made."

Torquatus followed him silently to the door, and watched the light of his torches till it died out below the hill; then he shook his head with a puzzled, sad expression.

"Yes, truly," he said; "let the omen be lacking."

XIII. THE RED FLAG.

The red flag fluttered in the breeze above the tent of Varro.

Months had come and gone since the plebeians had triumphed in the Field of Mars; months of weary lying in camp, months of anxious watching, months of marches and countermarches. Contrary to the expectations of Sergius, neither of the new consuls had gone straight to the legions, and the pro-consuls, Servilius and Regulus, remained in command. Paullus had busied himself in preparing for the coming spring, levying new men and new legions, and directing from the city a policy not unlike that of Fabius; while Varro, on the other hand, as if maddened by his sudden elevation, rushed from Senate House to Forum and from Forum to every corner where a mob could congregate; everywhere rolling his eyes and waving his hands, now shrieking frantic denunciations against the selfish, the criminal, the traitorous nobles who had brought the war to Italy and sustained it there by their wicked machinations and contemptible cowardice; now congratulating his hearers that the people had at last taken the conspirators by the throat and had elected a fearless consul, an incorruptible consul, an able consul, one who would soon show the world that there were men outside of the three tribes. Then he would fall to mapping out his campaign—a different plan for each cluster of gaping listeners, but each ending in such a slaughter of invaders as Italy had never seen, and a picture of the long triumph winding up the Sacred Way, of Hannibal disappearing forever within the yawning jaws of the Tullianum. At times, when his imagination ran riot most, he went so far as to depict with what luxuriance the corn would grow on the farm of that happy man whose land should be selected by the great consul, the plebeian consul, the consul Varro, for his slaughter of the enemies of the Roman people.

To these harangues Paullus and the nobles listened in wonder and disgust—even in terror; and when, at length, the consuls set out to take command of the greatest army Rome had ever put into the field, the story was passed from mouth to mouth of how Fabius had spoken with Paullus and warned him that he must now do battle against two commanders: Hannibal and his own colleague; and of how Paullus had answered in words that told more of foreboding than of hope.

Even the Senate seemed to have fallen under the coarse spell of this mouthing ranter. News had come that Hannibal was at Cannae, had seized upon the Roman stores in the citadel there; that, strongly posted, he was scouring the country in all directions; that the allies could not be expected to stand another season of ravage; and so, when the consuls set out to take command of the legions, it was with the express direction of the fathers to give battle on the first favourable opportunity.

Still, there was room left them for some discretion, and when Paullus had viewed the country along the banks of the Aufidus, level as it lay and open to the sweep of cavalry, his soldier eye told him that the opportunity was not here, and that, with a short delay, the enemy must, in the lack of safe forage, retire to more favourable ground.

Then followed quarrels and denunciations and furious mouthings; but Varro did not neglect to use one day of his command to lead the army forward to a point between the Carthaginians and the sea, whence it would be impossible for Paullus to hope to withdraw them safely in the face of the foe.

It was on the first of Sextilis that Hannibal offered battle; but this was Paullus' day, and he had lain quiet in camp, "Sulking," as his colleague exultantly put it, "because a plebeian's generalship had kept another do-nothing patrician commander from running away." Then the next morning broke—Varro's day—and the red flag fluttered from the spear above Varro's tent.

A group of men were gathered