Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz [fox in socks read aloud .txt] 📗

“who burns with red-hot iron to see if the bodies which we carry out are dead. But he will take even a few sestertia not to touch the face of the dead with iron. For one aureus he will touch the coffin, not the body.”

“Tell him that he will get a cap full of aurei,” said Petronius. “But canst thou find reliable assistants?”

“I can find men who would sell their own wives and children for money.”

“Where wilt thou find them?”

“In the prison itself or in the city. Once the guards are paid, they will admit whomever I like.”

“In that case take me as a hired servant,” said Vinicius.

But Petronius opposed this most earnestly. “The pretorians might recognize thee even in disguise, and all would be lost. Go neither to the prison nor the ‘Putrid Pits.’ All, including Caesar and Tigellinus, should be convinced that she died; otherwise they will order immediate pursuit. We can lull suspicion only in this way: When she is taken to the Alban Hills or farther, to Sicily, we shall be in Rome. A week or two later thou wilt fall ill, and summon Nero’s physician; he will tell thee to go to the mountains. Thou and she will meet, and afterward⁠—”

Here he thought a while; then, waving his hand, he said⁠—

“Other times may come.”

“May Christ have mercy on her,” said Vinicius. “Thou art speaking of Sicily, while she is sick and may die.”

“Let us keep her nearer Rome at first. The air alone will restore her, if only we snatch her from the dungeon. Hast thou no manager in the mountains whom thou canst trust?”

“I have,” replied Vinicius, hurriedly. “Near Corioli is a reliable man who carried me in his arms when I was a child, and who loves me yet.”

“Write to him to come tomorrow,” said Petronius, handing Vinicius tablets. “I will send a courier at once.”

He called the chief of the atrium then, and gave the needful orders. A few minutes later, a mounted slave was coursing in the night toward Corioli.

“It would please me were Ursus to accompany her,” said Vinicius. “I should be more at rest.”

“Lord,” said Nazarius, “that is a man of superhuman strength; he can break gratings and follow her. There is one window above a steep, high rock where no guard is placed. I will take Ursus a rope; the rest he will do himself.”

“By Hercules!” said Petronius, “let him tear himself out as he pleases, but not at the same time with her, and not two or three days later, for they would follow him and discover her hiding-place. By Hercules! do ye wish to destroy yourselves and her? I forbid you to name Corioli to him, or I wash my hands.”

Both recognized the justice of these words, and were silent. Nazarius took leave, promising to come the next morning at daybreak.

He hoped to finish that night with the guards, but wished first to run in to see his mother, who in that uncertain and dreadful time had no rest for a moment thinking of her son. After some thought he had determined not to seek an assistant in the city, but to find and bribe one from among his fellow corpse-bearers. When going, he stopped, and, taking Vinicius aside, whispered⁠—

“I will not mention our plan to anyone, not even to my mother, but the Apostle Peter promised to come from the amphitheater to our house; I will tell him everything.”

“Here thou canst speak openly,” replied Vinicius. “The Apostle was in the amphitheater with the people of Petronius. But I will go with you myself.”

He gave command to bring him a slave’s mantle, and they passed out. Petronius sighed deeply.

“I wished her to die of that fever,” thought he, “since that would have been less terrible for Vinicius. But now I am ready to offer a golden tripod to Aesculapius for her health. Ah! Ahenobarbus, thou hast the wish to turn a lover’s pain into a spectacle; thou, Augusta, wert jealous of the maiden’s beauty, and wouldst devour her alive because thy Rufius has perished. Thou, Tigellinus, wouldst destroy her to spite me! We shall see. I tell you that your eyes will not behold her on the arena, for she will either die her own death, or I shall wrest her from you as from the jaws of dogs, and wrest her in such fashion that ye shall not know it; and as often afterward as I look at you I shall think, These are the fools whom Caius Petronius outwitted.”

And, self-satisfied, he passed to the triclinium, where he sat down to supper with Eunice. During the meal a lector read to them the Idyls of Theocritus. Out of doors the wind brought clouds from the direction of Soracte, and a sudden storm broke the silence of the calm summer night. From time to time thunder reverberated on the seven hills, while they, reclining near each other at the table, listened to the bucolic poet, who in the singing Doric dialect celebrated the loves of shepherds. Later on, with minds at rest, they prepared for sweet slumber.

But before this Vinicius returned. Petronius heard of his coming, and went to meet him.

“Well? Have ye fixed anything new?” inquired he. “Has Nazarius gone to the prison?”

“He has,” answered the young man, arranging his hair, wet from the rain. “Nazarius went to arrange with the guards, and I have seen Peter, who commanded me to pray and believe.”

“That is well. If all goes favorably, we can bear her away tomorrow night.”

“My manager must be here at daybreak with men.”

“The road is a short one. Now go to rest.”

But Vinicius knelt in his cubiculum and prayed.

At sunrise Niger, the manager, arrived from Corioli, bringing with him, at the order of Vinicius, mules, a litter, and four trusty men selected among slaves from Britain, whom, to save appearances, he had left at an inn in the Subura. Vinicius, who had watched all night, went to meet him. Niger, moved