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

be gained before the tangle at the gate could be straightened out; therefore he waved his arm, as if making some signal, and, turning again in his saddle, rode on, but without increasing his speed.

Louder shouts followed him, for, as he had intended, his gesture had proved unintelligible. Then, when they saw he did not stop, the cries ceased suddenly and an animated chattering came to his ears. Here was suspicion trying to make itself understood and, at last, succeeding, for, as Sergius glanced back once more to note how the matter progressed, the young captain of the gate sprang forward and shouted for him to halt.

"A third altar—to Mercury the hastener!" exclaimed Sergius. "Quick now! with the knees!" and, pressing the flanks of his Cappadocian, both animals bounded forward into a headlong gallop.

XIII. WINTER QUARTERS.

The beat of hoofs upon the great blocks of basalt rang through the morning air in measured cadence, and soon an answering echo came up from the south. Open flight had at last dispelled all doubt and given the signal for pursuit.

First came the two Africans of the original escort, released and bidden to ride for life or death; a short distance behind was the Carthaginian captain on his own horse which had probably been haltered behind the guard-house; and, last of all, three of the Spanish guard, who had thrown the servants and baggage from the animals that bore them, and appropriated such speed as these afforded for the business in hand.

That the officer was pretty well sobered seemed apparent. A fugitive bearing the ring of the schalischim—the seal of the Great Council—must be a man of importance, or else the possession of such a talisman augured the commission of some terrible crime. Already he saw himself stretched writhing upon the cross; the crowd, reviling or gibing, seemed surging about his feet; and his howls of anguish found voice in a storm of guttural objurgations to men and horses, mingled with prayers and vows to the gods of Carthage.

He had overtaken the two Africans now, for his animal was better than theirs, but the three others laboured hopelessly behind: the Cappadocians flew rather than galloped far in advance. Already nearly three hundred yards separated them from their pursuers, and the gap was widening slowly but surely. Only the officer held his own, for he was now forging ahead of the Africans.

"Ah, cowards! slime! filth!" he shouted to his struggling men. "The cross! the cross! that for you unless we catch them! that for me!—for all! Ah, Eschmoun! Ah, Khamon!—Melkarth!—gifts!—gold, gems, robes, spices!—my first-born to the Baals! to the Baals! Help! speed!"

The man was mad—mad indeed with terror and newly dispelled drunkenness; and his horse, a great African, coal-black save for one white hoof, seemed to partake of his master's frenzy. With ears lying flat along his head, and eyes that burned into those of Sergius, when he ventured to glance behind him,—glaring sheer through distance and dust like the very eyes of those demons his rider invoked,—the beast thundered on, equalling the speed of the light Asiatic chargers by the force of strength alone.

From time to time the fugitives turned their heads to measure the distance, and the sight of this unwearied pursuer appeared to fascinate them as by some weird power. The rest were beaten out,—the Spaniards lost to sight, the Africans visible only by the dust that hung over them far behind.

The mountains to the eastward seemed to be dancing away in a mad chase toward the south, a chase which Tifata itself was urging on. The glimmer of white in the north told of the morning sun striking upon houses. Still they rode on, pursuers and pursued.

Suddenly a sound, half-trumpet note, half bellow, swelled up ahead. Then another answered it, and another and another took up the refrain.

Sergius' face blanched, and, with a sudden effort, he threw his animal almost upon its haunches. Marcia was carried several spear-lengths farther before she could check her speed. Wonder and the dread of some accident drove the blood to her heart. A hoarse shout of triumph came from their pursuer, as she turned to ride back.

She asked no questions. Surely Sergius knew what was best. She saw Iddilcar's long dagger in his hand, and that he was about to fight.

"Back!—back! and to one side," he called, as she rode up. "Did you not hear the elephants? That is Casilinum, and they are besieging it. We should have remembered."

He darted forward to meet the Carthaginian, fearful that he, too, would draw rein and await the coming of his followers. Then indeed all would be lost. Six soldiers on the one side and a camp full on the other were hopeless odds against a wounded man armed only with a Numidian dagger.

But it was Bacchus that fought for Rome that day—Bacchus, to whom no altar had been vowed. A night of debauchery and the sudden terror of its awakening had effectually blurred whatever judgment the officer may have had, and his one thought was to kill or capture his quarry.

So they came together, Sergius swerving his Cappadocian as they met. The officer struck blindly, but the good lord Bacchus put out his hand and turned the blow aside. Then, as they parted, a strange thing happened. Marcia had wondered dimly why Sergius struggled with the long, girdleless garment of Iddilcar, tearing it off as he rode. Now, when the two horses sprang apart, she saw that he had thrown it dexterously over the Carthaginian, blinding his blow and tangling him in its heavy folds.

Prompt to respond to knee and rein, the Cappadocian wheeled, almost as soon as he ran clear, but the African thundered on, while its rider cursed in blind terror and tried to check his horse and to free his face and sword-arm. A moment, and he had succeeded, but he succeeded too late. The Roman was at his back, and Marcia saw the long dagger rise and fall in a swift thrust. She could not see how the point took its victim just at the nape; but she saw him pitch forward like an ox under the axe.

Almost before she could grasp what had happened, Sergius was beside the fallen man, had resumed the priest's tunic, red with new blood stains, and was on his horse again. His brow lay in deep lines as he rode toward her.

"Come," he said. "The gods favouring us, we must pass their camp before the rest come up. Grant that those may linger by the corpse, and that we meet no check."

Again they were galloping toward the lines that lay about Casilinum. All had happened so quickly that even now they could scarcely see the plume in the distant dust cloud that told where the pursuers straggled on. They had turned into the new side-road without meeting a man. Then a small foraging party halted them, and Sergius showed the seal and spoke in Gallic to its Numidian leader. A little farther on was stationed another band, and here the delay was longer ere his halting Punic convinced the Spanish piquet, and they again rode forward unsuspected. All had bowed low to the horse and the palm tree, and no one dared question what weighty mission urged on the man in the torn and blood-stained tunic and the slender youth, his companion.

Now they were back again upon the pavement of the Appian; the last line was passed, and the beleaguered town with its stout-hearted garrison lay well behind. Perhaps that sudden uproar told of the arrival of their pursuers; perhaps those glittering points amid distant dust clouds meant a new pursuit. Surely none but Mercury had winged the feet of the Cappadocians! Unwearied, like springs of steel, the stout muscles drove them on—on over the marshland with the glint of the sea before them—on, up the rising ground.

Again and again Sergius turned in his saddle scanning the road behind, feeling the presence of pursuers whom he could not see. The good horses were weakening fast. No flesh and blood could stand that strain, and naught but the spirit of the breed kept them afoot. Marcia's was limping painfully; the one Sergius rode was wavering in its stride, like the Carthaginian captain when he came out of the guard-house by the gate.

"Gods! What were those shrill sounds—half whistle, half scream?"

Too well he remembered how the Numidians urged on their bridleless chargers. Yes, there they were now—scarce half a milestone behind and coming up like the wind that blew through their dishevelled manes—fifty at least. Death, then, was decreed, after all, and he glanced toward Marcia, measuring the time when he might kiss her and kill her ere he sold his own life to the javelins.

Suddenly he heard her cry out.

"Look!" she called, and, following her finger, he gazed eagerly ahead.

A clump of horsemen, heavy armed with helmet and corselet, crowned the knoll of rising ground over which the road led, and, above them, fluttering in the breeze, he saw the square vexillum of the cavalry of the legion.

He was among them now, lifting Marcia from her horse and dimly conscious of many words being spoken around.

"See, lord, they have halted," said a voice. "Is it your will that we pursue?"

Then, as an answering voice replied in the negative, he kissed Marcia and made her drink wine that some one brought. Barbarous cries that she must not hear or understand came to his ears, and he knew that their pursuers were wheeling in discomfited flight. The circle of soldiers stood back. Something cold and feathery fell upon his upturned face and turned to moisture. He saw a tall man with features of wonderful beauty regarding them kindly and in silence; his white paludamentum was heavily fringed with purple, and Sergius recognized him now,—Marcus Marcellus, the new dictator. Another drop, feathery, cold, and moist, fell upon Marcia's hand, and she roused herself at the touch, peering up into her lover's face and then quickly at the heavens.

"Look!" she cried. "Up! not into my eyes."

He turned, for an instant, to see the blue vault of a few moments since overcast with gray and filled with a swirl of snowy flakes.

"See, now, Lucius, lord of my life; here are the messengers of winter. Winter quarters! he is in winter quarters! See! have we not prevailed?"

It was the voice of the dictator that answered:—

"Yes, truly; and there shall soon be prepared for him eternal summer quarters in Phlegethon—if the Greek tales be true."