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"tei tei-q">‘To Apollo and the Muses.’ That is a crime now-a-days, in some places at least, Ravenna among them; and he wanted, I suppose, to put me at my ease. ‘Will you not do the same,’ he went on, ‘of all men in the world there is no one who has better cause.’ Pardon me, illustrious Count, if I repeat his flatteries. ‘Whom do you take me for?’ said I, for one gets to be a sad coward after a few days’ hiding, and I was unwilling to declare myself. He replied by repeating some of my verses in so meaning a way that I could not misunderstand him. ‘These wine-bibbers here,’ he went on, ‘don’t know one verse from another, but they might catch up a name. Come along with me; I will give you a flask of something better than this sour stuff.’ Well, we went to his house, which was close to the harbour. He was the owner, I found, of two or three small trading vessels. The house was a veritable temple of the Muses, ornamented with busts of the poets—my own I was flattered to see among them—and containing an excellent library of books. Manlius—that was my friend’s name—had heard me recite at Rome; and he recognized me partly from memory, partly from my resemblance to the bust. To make a long story short, he entertained me most hospitably for several days, while we discussed the question what was to become of me. Home I could not go, not, at least, till there should be a change in [pg 243]the Emperor’s surroundings. The further I got from Italy the more chance there would be of safety. We thought of North-western Gaul or Britain, or of getting across the Rhine. The end of it was that the good fellow took me across Italy, disguised as his servant, to Genoa, where he had correspondents. From Genoa I went to Marseilles, and from Marseilles overland to Narbonne, using now the character of a bookseller’s agent, one which I thought myself better qualified to sustain than any other. At Narbonne I found employment as a bookseller’s assistant, till I could get a letter from my wife in Africa with some money. That came in due course, and then I set off on my travels again, still working northwards. Then, sir, I thought of you. I had often heard the great man speak of you. You served under him against the Bastarnæ,51 I think, and it occurred to me that for Stilicho’s sake you might give me shelter. Not that it matters much to me. To Stilicho I owe so much that I can scarcely imagine life without him. He gave me honour, wealth, even,” added the poet, with a sad little smile, “even my wife, for it was not my courting, but the Lady Serena’s52 letter that won her for me. But to go on, [pg 244]I found an honest trader, and bargained with him to bring me here. I had been sickening for some time, and I remember little or nothing from the time of my embarking. There, sir, you have my history carried up to the latest point.”

“We will put off the future to another day,” said the Count; “meanwhile you may count on me for anything that I can do.”

“Your kindness does much to reconcile me to life,” said the poet, “and now I will retire, for I feel a little tired.”

“Ah,” said Carna half to herself, when he had left the room, “now I understand about Proserpine.”

“About Proserpine? What do you mean?” asked Ælia.

“Why, when he came to himself for the first time I was sitting in the window with a piece of embroidery work in my hand, and I heard him whisper something about Proserpine.” Carna suppressed the flattering epithet. “Don’t you remember that passage where he describes the tapestry which Proserpine was working for her mother, and how we admired it, and thought we would work something of the kind for ourselves, only we could not get any design?”

“Yes, I remember,” replied the other, “and you have had a Pluto, too, to carry you off. Luckily he was not so successful as the god.”

[pg 245] CHAPTER XXIV.

NEWS FROM ITALY.

The Count’s difficulties did not seem to diminish as the year advanced. Money grew scarcer and scarcer, till it was only by pledging his personal credit to the merchants of Londinium and other towns in Britain that he was able to find the pay for the crews of his little squadron. His credit happily was still good, a character of twenty years without a single suspicion on his integrity standing him in good stead. Then a disaster happened to one of the few ships that he had retained. After a fierce encounter with a Saxon galley, in which its crew had been much weakened, it had been caught in a storm and driven on the deadly western shore of the island, still dreaded under the name of the Needles by those who navigate the Channel. The ship became a complete wreck and only a small portion of the crew escaped with their lives, all the disabled men being lost.

But the Count’s chief perplexities were within [pg 246]rather than without. For more than twenty years he had yielded an unquestioning obedience to the authorities at home. It is true that very little had been demanded of him. He had been given a free hand, and left to do his duty with very little interference, if with very little help. But now in the news of Stilicho’s death his loyalty had received a tremendous shock. How was he to bear himself to a ruler who was capable of committing so great a crime? True, he knew enough of the Emperor to be sure that he was only a tool in the hands of others, but this did not

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