Part 39 (2/2)

But the proconsul looked serious and sad.

”_Vah_, my friends! Would that I could say that your loyalty to my cause would cost you nothing! It is easy to promise to win back for you everything you have abandoned, but as the poets say, 'All that lies in the lap of the G.o.ds.' But you shall not be any longer the mere recipients of my bounty. Stern work is before us. I need not ask you if you will play your part. You, Curio, shall have a proper place on my staff of legates as soon as I have enough troops concentrated; but you, my dear Drusus, what post would best reward you for your loyalty?

Will you be a military tribune, and succeed your father?”

”Your kindness outruns your judgment, Imperator,” replied Drusus.

”Save repelling Dumnorix and Ahen.o.barbus, I never struck a blow in anger. Small service would I be to you, and little glory would I win as an officer, when the meanest legionary knows much that I may learn.”

”Then, amice,” said Caesar, smiling, perhaps with the satisfaction of a man who knows when it is safe to make a gracious offer which he is aware will not be accepted, though none the less flattering, ”if you will thus misappraise yourself, you shall act as centurion for the present, on my corps of _praetoriani_,[155] where you will be among friends and comrades of your father, and be near my person if I have any special need of you.”

[155] General's body-guard of picked veterans.

Drusus proffered the best thanks he could; it was a great honour--one almost as great as a tribunes.h.i.+p, though hardly as responsible; and he felt repaid for all the weariness of his desperate ride to Ravenna.

And then, with another of those strange alternations of behaviour, Caesar led him and Curio off to inspect the fencing-school; then showed them his favourite horse, pointed out its peculiar toelike hoofs, and related merrily how when it was a young colt, a soothsayer had predicted that its owner would be master of the world, and how he--Caesar,--had broken its fiery spirit, and made it perfectly docile, although no other man could ride the beast.

The afternoon wore on. Caesar took his friends to the games, and watched with all apparent interest the rather sanguinary contests between the gladiators. Drusus noticed the effusive loyalty of the Ravenna citizens, who shouted a tumultuous welcome to the ill.u.s.trious _editor_, but Caesar acted precisely as though the presidency of the sports were his most important office. Only his young admirer observed that as often as a gladiator brought his opponent down and appealed to the _editor_ for a decision on the life or death of the vanquished, Caesar invariably waved his handkerchief, a sign of mercy, rather than brutally turned down his thumb, the sentence of death. After the games, the proconsul interchanged personal greetings with the more prominent townspeople. Drusus began to wonder whether the whole day and evening were to pa.s.s in this manner; and indeed so it seemed, for that night the Imperator dispensed his usual open-handed hospitality.

His great banqueting hall contained indeed no army officers, but there were an abundance of the provincial gentry. Caesar dined apart with his two friends. The courses went in and out. The proconsul continued an unceasing flow of light conversation: witty comments on Roman society and fas.h.i.+on, sc.r.a.ps of literary lore, now and then a bit of personal reminiscence of Gaul. Drusus forgot all else in the agreeable pleasure of the moment. Presently Caesar arose and mingled with his less exalted guests; when he returned to the upper table the attendants were bringing on the beakers, and the Cisalpine provincials were pledging one another in draughts of many _cyathi_, ”prosperity to the proconsul, and confusion to his enemies.” Caesar took a shallow gla.s.s of embossed blue and white bas-relief work,--a triumph of Alexandrian art,--poured into it a few drops of undiluted Caecuban liquor, dashed down the potion, then dropped the priceless beaker on to the floor.

”An offering to Fortuna!” he cried, springing from his couch. ”My friends, let us go!” And quietly leaving the table on the dais, the three found themselves outside the banqueting hall, while the provincials, unconscious that their host had departed, continued their noisy revelry.

Drusus at once saw that everything was ready for departure. Antiochus was at hand with travelling cloaks, and a.s.sured the young man that due care had been taken to send in advance for him a complete wardrobe and outfit. The proconsul evidently intended to waste no time in starting.

Drusus realized by the tone of his voice that Caesar the host had vanished, and Caesar the imperator was present. His words were terse and to the point.

”Curio, you will find a fast horse awaiting you. Take it. Bide at full speed after the legion. Take command of the rear cohorts and of the others as you come up with them. Lead rapidly to Ariminum.”

And Curio, who was a man of few words, when few were needed, saluted and disappeared in the darkness. Drusus followed the general out after him. But no saddle-horses were prepared for Caesar. Antiochus and one or two slaves were ready with lanterns, and led the general and Drusus out of the gloomy cantonment, along a short stretch of road, to a mill building, where in the dim light of the last flickers of day could be seen a carriage with mules.

”I have hired this as you wished,” said the freedman, briefly.

”It is well,” responded his patron.

Antiochus clambered upon the front seat; a stout German serving-man was at the reins. Caesar motioned to Drusus to sit beside him behind.

There were a few necessaries in the carriage, but no other attendants, no luggage cart. The German shook the reins over the backs of the two mules, and admonished them in his barbarous native dialect. The dim shadow of the mill faded from sight; the lights of the praetorium grew dimmer and dimmer: soon nothing was to be seen outside the narrow circle of pale light shed on the ground ahead by the lantern.

The autumn season was well advanced. The day however had been warm.

The night was sultry. There were no stars above, no moon, no wind. A sickening miasmic odour rose from the low flat country sloping off toward the Adriatic--the smell of overripe fruit, of decaying vegetation, of the harvest grown old. There had been a drought, and now the dust rose thick and heavy, making the mules and travellers cough, and the latter cover their faces. Out of the darkness came not the least sound: save the creaking of the dead boughs on trees, whose dim tracery could just be distinguished against the sombre background of the sky.

No one spoke, unless the incoherent shouts of the German to the mules be termed speech. Antiochus and Caesar were sunk in stupor or reverie.

Drusus settled back on the cus.h.i.+ons, closed his eyes, and bade himself believe that it was all a dream. Six months ago he had been a student at Athens, wandering with his friends along the trickling Cephissus, or climbing, in holiday sport, the marble cone of Hymettus. And now--he was a proscribed rebel! Enemies thirsted for his blood! He was riding beside a man who made no disclaimer of his intention to subvert the const.i.tution! If Caesar failed, he, Drusus, would share in ”that bad eminence” awarded by fame to the execrated Catilinarians. Was it--was it not all a dream? Connected thought became impossible. Now he was in the dear old orchard at Praeneste playing _micare_[156] with Cornelia and aemilia; now back in Athens, now in Rome. Poetry, prose, sc.r.a.ps of oratory, philosophy, and rules of rhetoric,--Latin and Greek inextricably intermixed,--ideas without the least possible connection, raced through his head. How long he thus drifted on in his reverie he might not say. Perhaps he fell asleep, for the fatigue of his extraordinary riding still wore on him. A cry from Antiochus, a curse from the German, startled him out of his stupor. He stared about. It was pitch dark. ”The G.o.ds blast it!” Antiochus was bawling. ”The lantern has jolted out!”

[156] A finger-guessing game.

To relight it under existing circ.u.mstances, in an age when friction matches were unknown, was practically impossible.

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