CHAPTER IV.
THERE IS NO STAR.
A quarter of an hour had elapsed since Corbulo entered the peristyle ofthe villa, when the young man Lamia came out.
He was still pale as death, and his muscles twitched with strong emotion.
He glanced about him in quest of Longa Duilia, but that lady had retiredprecipitately to the _gynaikonitis_, or Lady's hall, where she hadsummoned to her a bevy of female slaves and had accumulated about her anapothecary's shop of restoratives.
Domitia was still in the garden, playing with the kid, and Lamia at oncewent to her, not speedily, but with repugnance.
She immediately desisted from her play, and smiled at his approach. Theywere old acquaintances, and had seen much of each other in Syria.
Corbulo had not been proconsul, but legate in the East, and had madeAntioch his headquarters. He had been engaged against the Parthians andArmenians for eight years, but the war had been intermittent, and betweenthe campaigns he had returned to Antioch, to the society of his wife andlittle daughter.
The former, a dashing, vain and ambitious woman, had made a _salon_ therewhich was frequented by the best society of the province. Corbulo, aquiet, thoughtful and modest man, shrunk from the stir and emptiness ofsuch life, and had found rest and enjoyment in the company of hisdaughter.
Lamia had served as his secretary and aide-de-camp. He was a youth of muchpromise, and of singular integrity of mind and purity of morals in asociety that was self-seeking, voluptuous, and corrupt.
He belonged to the AElian _gens_ or clan, but he had been adopted by aLamia, a member of a family in the same clan, that claimed descent fromLamius, a son of Poseidon, or Neptune, by one of those fictions so dear tothe Roman noble houses, and which caused the fabrication of mythicalorigins, just as the ambition of certain honorable families in England ledto the falsification of the Roll of Battle Abbey.
Pliny tells a horrible story of the first Lamia of importance, known toauthentic history. He had been an adherent of Caesar and a friend ofCicero. He was supposed to be dead in the year in which he had beenelected praetor, and was placed on the funeral pyre, when consciousnessreturned, but too late for him to be saved. The flames rose and envelopedhim, and he died shrieking and struggling to escape from the bandages thatbound him to the bier on which he lay.
Lucius Lamia had been kindly treated by Corbulo, and the young man's hearthad gone out to the venerated general, to whom he looked up as a model ofall the old Roman virtues, as well as a man of commanding military genius.The simplicity of the old soldier's manner and the freshness of his mindhad acted as a healthful and bracing breeze upon the youth's moralcharacter.
And now he took the young girl by the hand, and walked with her up anddown the pleached avenues for some moments without speaking.
His breast heaved. His head swam. His hand that held hers workedconvulsively.
All at once Domitia stood still.
She had looked up wondering at his manner, into his eyes, and had seenthat they were full.
"What ails you, Lucius?"
"Come, sit by me on the margin of the basin," said he. "By the Gods! Iconjure thee to summon all thy fortitude. I have news to communicate, andthey of the saddest----"
"What! are we not to return to Rome? O Lamia, I was a child when I leftit, but I love our house at Gabii, and the lake there, and the garden."
"It is worse than that, Domitia." He seated himself on the margin of abasin, and nervously, not knowing what he did, drew his finger in thewater, describing letters, and chasing the darting fish.
"Domitia, you belong to an ancient race. You are a Roman, and have theblood of the Gods in your veins. So nerve thy heroic soul to hear theworst."
And still he thrust after the frightened fish with his finger, and shelooked down, and saw them dart like shadows in the pool, and her ownfrightened thoughts darted as nimbly and as blindly about in her head.
"Why, how now, Lamia? Thou art descended by adoption from theEarth-shakes, and tremblest as a girl! See--a tear fell into the basin. Oh,Lucius! My very kid rears in surprise."
"Do not mock. Prepare for the worst. Think what would be the sorest illthat could befall thee."
Domitia withdrew her eyes from the fish and the water surface rippled byhis finger, and looked now with real terror in his face.
"My father?"
Then Lamia raised his dripping finger and pointed to the house.
She looked, and saw that the gardener had torn down boughs of cypress, andtherewith was decorating the doorway.
At the same moment rose a long-drawn, desolate wail, rising, falling,ebbing, flowing--a sea of sound infinitely sad, heart-thrilling,blood-congealing.
For one awful moment, one of those moments that seems an eternity, Domitiaremained motionless.
She could hear articulate words, voices now.
"Come back! O Cnaeus! Come, thou mighty warrior! Come, thou pillar of thyrace! Come back, thou shadow! Return, O fleeted soul! See, see! thytabernacle is still warm. Return, O soul! return!"
She knew it--the _conclamatio_; that cry uttered about the dead in thehopes of bringing back the spirit that has fled.
Then, before Lamia could stop her, Domitia started from the margin of thepool, startling the fish again and sending them flying as rays from whereshe had been seated, and ran to the house.
The gardener, with the timidity of a slave, did not venture to forbidpassage.
A soldier who was withdrawing extended his arm to bar the doorway. Quickas thought she dived below this barrier, and next moment with a cry thatcut through the wail of the mourners, she cast herself on the body of herfather, that lay extended on the mosaic floor, with a blood-stained swordat his side, and a dark rill running from his breast over the enamelledpavement.
Next moment Lamia entered.
Around the hall were mourners, slaves of the house, as also some of thoseof Longa Duilia, raising their arms and lowering them, uttering theircries of lamentation and invocations to the departed soul, some rendingtheir garments, others making believe to tear their hair and scratch theirfaces.
In the midst lay the dead general, and his child clung to him, kissed him,chafed his hands, endeavored to stanch his wound, and addressed him withendearments.
But all was in vain. The spirit was beyond recall, and were it to returnwould again be expelled. Corbulo was dead.
The poor child clasped him, convulsed with tears; her copious chestnuthair had become unbound, and was strewed about her, and even dipped in herfather's blood. She was as though frantic with despair; her gestures, hercry very different from the formal expressions and utterances of theservile mourners.
But Lamia at length touched her, and said--
"Come away, Domitia. You cannot prevent Fate."
Suddenly she reared herself on her knees, and put back the burnished rainof hair that shrouded her face, and said in harsh tones:--
"Who slew him?"
"He fell on his own sword."
"Why! He was happy?"
Before an answer was given, she reeled and fell unconscious across herfather's body.
Then Lamia stooped, gathered her up tenderly, pitifully, in his arms, andbore her forth into the garden to the fountain, where he could bathe herface, and where the cool air might revive her.
Why was Corbulo dead? and why had he died by his own hand?
The Emperor Nero was, as Duilia had told her husband, at this very time inGreece, and further, hard by at Corinth, where he was engaged insuperintending the cutting of a canal, that was to remove the difficultyof a passage from the Saronic to the Corinthian Gulf.
Nero had come to Greece attended by his Augustal band of five thousandyouths with flowing locks, and gold bangles on their wrists, divided intothree companies, whose duty it was to applaud the imperial mountebank, androuse or lead enthusiasm, the Hummers by buzzing approval, the Clappers bybeating their hands together, and the Clashers by kickin
g pots about so asto produce a contagious uproar.
Nero was possessed with the delusion that he had a fine voice, and that hewas an incomparable actor. Yet his range was so small, that when strivingto sink to a bass note, his voice became a gurgle, and when he attemptedto soar to a high note, he raised himself on his toes, became purple inface, and emitted a screech like a peacock.
Not satisfied with the obsequious applause of the Roman and Neapolitancitizens who crowded the theatre to hear the imperial buffoon twitter, heresolved to contest for prizes in the games of Greece.
A fleet attended him, crowded with actors, singers, dancers, heaped upwith theatrical properties, masks, costumes, wigs, and fiddles.
He would show the Greeks that he could drive a chariot, sing and strut thestage now in male and then in female costume, and adapt his voice to thesex he personated, now grumbling in masculine tones, then squeaking infalsetto, and incomparable in each.
But with the cunning of a madman, he took with him, as his court, thewealthiest nobles of Rome, whom he had marked out for death, eitherbecause he coveted their fortunes or suspected their loyalty.
Wherever he went, into whatsoever city he entered, his artistic eye notedthe finest statues and paintings, and he carried them off, from temple asfrom marketplace, to decorate Rome or enrich his Golden House, the palacehe had erected for himself.
Tortured by envy of every one who made himself conspicuous; hating,fearing such as were in all men's mouths, through their achievements, ornotable for virtue, his suspicion had for some time rested on DomitiusCorbulo, who had won laurels first in Germany and afterwards in Syria.
He had summoned him to Rome, with the promise of preferments, his purposebeing to withdraw him from the army that adored him, and to destroy him.
No sooner did the tidings reach the tyrant at Corinth, that the veteranhero was arrived at Cenchraea, than he sent him a message to commitsuicide. A gracious condescension that, for the property of the man whowas executed was forfeit and his wife and children reduced to beggary,whereas the will of the testator who destroyed himself was allowed toremain in force.
Lamia washed the stains from the hands and locks of the girl, and bathedher face with water till she came round.
Then, when he saw that she had recovered full consciousness, he asked tobe allowed to hasten for assistance. She bowed her head, as she could notspeak, and he entered the women's portion of the villa to summon some ofthe female slaves. These were, however, in no condition to answer his calland be of use. Duilia had monopolized the attentions of almost all such ashad not been commissioned to raise the funeral wail. Some, indeed, therewere, scattered in all directions, running against each other, doingnothing save add to the general confusion, but precisely these wereuseless for Lamia's purpose.
Unwilling to leave the child longer alone, Lucius returned to the garden,and saw Domitia seated on the breastwork of the fountain.
Ten years seemed to have passed over her head, so altered was she.
She was not now weeping. The rigidity of the fainting fit seemed not tohave left her face, nor relaxed the stony appearance it had assumed. Hereyes were lustreless, and her lips without color.
The young man was startled at her look.
"Domitia!" said he.
She raised her eyes to him, and said in reply,
"Lucius!" Then letting them fall, she added in hard, colorless tones,"There is one thing I desire of thee. By some means or other, I care notwhat, bring me into the presence of the monster. I know how my father hascome by his death--as have so many others, the best and the noblest. I havebut one ambition on earth, I see but a single duty before me--to drive ifit be but a silver bodkin into his heart."
"Domitia!"
"Lucius, the last words my father used to me were to bid me look to thestars and to sail by them. I look and I see one only star. I feel but oneonly duty on earth--to revenge his death."
"My friend!" said Lamia, in a low tone. "Be careful of thy words. Ifoverheard, they might cause your blood to be mingled with his."
"I care not."
"But to me it matters sovereignly."
"Why? Dost thou care for me?"
"Above all in the world."
"Then revenge me."
"Domitia, my grief is little less than thine. If you would revenge theloss, so would I. But what can be done? He, the coward, is carefullyguarded. None are suffered to approach him who have not first beensearched, and even then are not allowed within arm's length. Nothing canbe done, save invoke the Gods."
"The Gods!" laughed the girl hoarsely. "The Gods! They set up the base,the foul, and crown him with roses, and trample the noble and good intothe earth. The Gods! see you now! They set a star in heaven, they grave aduty in my heart, and the star is unattainable, and the duty, they makeimpossible of achievement. Bah! There is no star. There are no duties onearth, and no Gods in heaven."