"Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."—EPHESIANS VI. 13.
Without looking to right or left he strode across the atrium.
"A cloak quickly," he commanded as Dion and Nolus, obedient and expectant of orders, rushed forward at his approach.
From the triclinium on the right came the sound of loud laughter and the strains of a bibulous song, voices raised in gaiety and pleasure: Taurus Antinor recognised that of Caius Nepos, fluent and mellow, and that of my lord Hortensius Martius resonant and clear.
To what their revelries meant he did not give a thought. Dea had told him why these men had come to her house. The intrigues hatched two days ago over a supper-table were finding their culmination now. The Cæsar was a fugitive and the people rebellious: the golden opportunity lay ready to the hand of these treacherous self-seekers: and Dea Flavia was to be their tool, their puppet, until such time as they betrayed her in her turn into other hands that paid them higher wage.
Taurus Antinor wrapped the dark cloak which Dion had brought him closely around his person. He gave the slaves a mute, peremptory sign of silence and then quickly walked past the janitors, through the vestibule and out into the open street.
The midday light had yielded to early afternoon. It still was grey and lurid, with a leaden mist hanging over the distance and moisture rising up from the rain-sodden ground. The worst of the storm had passed from over the city, but the thunder still rolled dully at intervals above the Campania and great gusts of wind drove the heavy rain into Taurus Antinor's face.
It seemed to him, as he walked rapidly down the narrow street in front of the Augusta's palace, that the noise from the Forum below had gained in volume and in strength. When the raging tempest of rebellion was at its height earlier in the day, he had lain in a drugged sleep, unconscious of the shouts, the threats, the groans which had resounded from palace to palace on the very summit of the Palatine. When he awoke these terrifying sounds were already more subdued. The people had been driven by the storm-fanned conflagration which they themselves had kindled, to seek shelter under the arcades of the tabernae in the Forum below. But now, after a couple of hours of enforced inactivity, they were ready once more for mischief: in compact groups of a dozen or so they were slowly emerging from beneath the shelters, and it only needed the amalgamation of these isolated groups for the fire of open insurrection to be ablaze again.
Time, therefore, was obviously precious. At any moment now, if the rain ceased altogether, the populace—in no way cooled by the drenching—would once more storm the hill and would discover the fugitive Cæsar in his retreat. Already from afar there came to the lonely pedestrian's ear the roar of a mighty wave composed of many sounds, which, gathering force and fury, was ready to dash itself anew upon the imperial hill.
But up here on the summit there still reigned comparative quietude. True that as he walked rapidly along Taurus Antinor spied from time to time groups of excited, chattering men congregated at street corners or under the shelter of a jutting portico; whilst now and then from behind the huge piles of builders' materials, which littered this portion of the Palatine, darkly swathed figures would emerge at sound of the praefect's footsteps on the flagstones, and as quickly vanish again. But to these Taurus Antinor paid no heed; they were but the remote echoes of the angry storm below.
Soon the majestic pile of Augustus' palace loomed before him on the left, with its unending vistas of marble and porphyry colonnades. On the right was the temple of Jupiter Victor on the very summit of the hill.
An undefinable instinct led the man's footsteps to that lonely height. He skirted the temple and anon stood looking down on the panorama of Rome stretched out at his feet: the Palatine sloping downwards in a gentle gradient—covered with the dwellings of the rich patricians which formed here a network of intricate and narrow streets; below these the great Circus redolent of the memories of the past four-and-twenty hours; beyond it the Aventine and the winding ribbon of the Tiber now lost in a leaden-coloured haze.
The streets from the valley upwards all round the hill were swarming with men, who from this distance looked like pygmies, fussy and irresponsible, spectral too in the rain-laden mist as they appeared to be running hither and thither in compact groups, but with seeming aimlessness, whilst shouting, always shouting, that perpetual call for vengeance and for death.
The watcher looked down in silence, for that crowd of Pygmies was the people of Rome, who at a word from him would proclaim him Cæsar and master of the world. The immensity of the sky was above him, the far horizon partly hidden in gloom, but down there were the people whose voice was raised to deify their chosen hero in the intervals of demanding the death of a tyrant.
And the people were the lords of Rome just now. Entrenched in the narrow streets a crowd—one hundred thousand or more strong—held the imperial hill in a solid blockade. Down below, in and around the Circus, steel and bronze glittered in the distant vapours. One thousand men of the praetorian guard, cut off from the Cæsar, had been unable to forge a way through the serried ranks of the populace.
Dark masses—that lay immovable and stark in the open space around the Circus—spoke mutely of combats that had been fierce and bloody: but the people had remained victorious; the people held their ground. One hundred thousand fists and staves, a few agricultural and building implements had asserted their mastery over one thousand swords and shields.
The people were the masters of Rome, and they had chosen their Cæsar in the hero whom they had already deified.
Taurus Antinor's gaze swept over the vista that lay stretched out before him: it pictured the entire political situation of the world-city. With treachery lurking on the hill and a determined mob in the valley, the murder of the Cæsar was but a question of hours.
And after that?
After that the Empire of Rome and the dominion of the world for this man who stood here on the watch. He had but to say the word and that Empire would be his. He had but to go back now, to find his way with softly treading footsteps to the couch where Dea Flavia's exquisite body lay stretched out in semi-unconsciousness. He had but to take her once more in his arms, to murmur the words of love that—unspoken—seared his lips even now; he had but to close his ears to the still small voice that was God's, and Rome, the mistress of the world, and Dea Flavia, the peerless woman, would be his at the word.
Rome and Dea Flavia! the two priceless guerdons of the earth! They called to him now on the wings of the distant storm, from over the hills and from across the grey, dull mist that obscured the sky.
The man stretched out his arms with a gesture of passionate longing. How easy it were to take all! How impossible it seemed to give up everything that made life glorious and sweet.
A voice low and insinuating trembled in the air.
"Take all!" it said, "it is thine for the taking. Thine by the will of thousands, thine by the call of one pair of perfect lips ... Rome, the unconquered queen ... Dea Flavia holding in her white hands a cup brimming over with happiness ... all are thine at the word."
The silent watcher cried out in his loneliness and his agony; he held his hands to his ears, for the voice grew more insidious and more real:
"The Empire of the world and Dea Flavia ... and in the balance what?... an oath rendered to a tyrannical madman, the scourge and terror of mankind ... an oath which reason itself doth repudiate with scorn ... even thy God would not exact obedience from thee at such a price...."
His head fell upon his breast and his knees bent to the earth. It was all so difficult ... it seemed well-nigh impossible now....
No words escaped his lips; he knelt here silent and alone before the face of Rome that but waited to be conquered—before the face of God veiled to his gaze, and around him the distant roll of thunder and the confused shouts of the people from below.
Christian! this is thine hour! In silence and in tears thou must make thy last stand against temptation greater mayhap than suffering manhood hath ever had to withstand alone.
Everything in the man cried out to him to yield; his love for Dea and his love for Rome, and that pride of manhood in him that calls for power over other men. Born and bred in luxury-loving paganism, in the worship of might and the deification of the imperium, the Christian had to choose between the world and the Master. The battle was fierce and cruel. Gone now was the consciousness of strength, the dignity of the patrician! Here was but a lonely wretched human creature fighting the tempter for his own soul.
He cowered on the ground, the while driving rain beat against the tawny masses of his hair, and lashed the proud stiff neck that found it so difficult to bend. The tearing wind searched the loosened folds of his mantle and the purple silk of his tunic, the emblem of patrician rank. His face was buried in his hands, heavy sobs shook his broad shoulders. The face of Dea Flavia, exquisitely fair, smiled at him through his closed lids, the warm, mellow masses of her hair entwined themselves around his tear-stained fingers, her cooing voice called to him with the ineffable sweetness of love.
Christian, it is thine hour! and the battle must be fought out in anguish and in loneliness, with no one nigh thee to comfort and to succour, with no one to see the rending of thy soul or the slow breaking of thy love-filled heart.
"When thou art lonely and wretched," Dea Flavia had cried in the agony of her wounded love, "call on thy god then and thou wilt find him silent unto thy prayer and deaf unto thy woe."
And the cry was wrung out from the depths of the tortured heart: "Oh, God, my God, if Thou be willing take this cup from me!" whilst the man prayed to his God to take his soul into His keeping ere it became perjured and accursed.
But God was silent, because the soul, though racked and tempted, was too great for the tasting of an easy victory. God was silent, but He saw the tears that fell heavy and hot upon the ground. He was silent, but He heard the cries of anguish, the bitter moans of pain.
Christian, this is thine hour! for when thy soul and heart have suffered enough, when they have been weighed in the crucible of divine love and not been found wanting, then will the peace of God which passeth all understanding descend in exquisite comfort upon thee.
Gradually the tears ceased to fall, the sobs to shake the massive frame of the kneeling man. His hands dropped from his face and his gaze went up to the storm-tossed firmament, there where land and sky merged in the grey mists of approaching evening.
And on the horizon, as he gazed, beyond the valley, beyond the Aventine and the murmuring Tiber, already wrapped in gloom, a ray of golden light had rent the lowering clouds.
It shone serene and bright, illumined from behind limitless depths by the slanting rays of a slowly sinking sun. Taurus Antinor rose to his feet; he looked and looked upon that light until it tore a wider and ever wider gap in the angry clouds, and its golden radiance spread right across the horizon far away.
The very mist now seemed aglow; the waters of the Tiber, tossed by the gale, throw back brilliant sparks of reflected lights.
From the low-lying marshes among the reeds two birds rose in rapid flight and disappeared in that golden haze.
"My God, not mine but Thy will be done!" murmured the lonely man; and anguish folded its sable wings and the tortured heart was at peace.