Part 56 (1/2)
Their pleasure at this reunion, however, began to abate when they realized the disturbed state of the city.
”I can't say I like the situation,” admitted Cleomenes, as soon as he had been introduced to Drusus, and the first greetings were over; ”you know when Caesar landed he took his consular insignia with him, and the mob made this mean that he was intending to overthrow the government and make Egypt a Roman province. If you had not left for Pelusium so hastily, you would have been present at a very serious riot, that was with great difficulty put down. The soldiers of the royal garrison are in an ugly mood, and so are the people. I suspect the king, or rather Pothinus, is doing nothing to quiet them. There have been slight riots for several days past, and a good many Roman soldiers who have straggled away from the palace into the lower quarters of the city have been murdered.”
”I am glad,” replied Drusus, ”that I can leave Cornelia and my aunt under your protection, for my duty may keep me continuously with the Imperator.”
The young officer at once hastened to the palace and reported for service. Caesar questioned him as to the situation at Pelusium, and Drusus described the unpromising att.i.tude of Pothinus, and also mentioned how he had found Cornelia and his aunt.
The general, engrossed as he was with his business of state and threatening war, put all his duties aside and at once went to the house of Cleomenes. It was the first time Cornelia had ever met the man whose career had exerted such an influence upon her own life. She had at first known of him only through the filthy, slanderous verses of such oligarchs as Catullus and Calvus; then through her lover she had come to look upon Caesar as an incarnation as it were of omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence--the man for whom everything was worth sacrificing, from whom every n.o.ble thing was to be expected.
She met the conquerer of Ariovistus, Vercingetorix, and Pompeius like the frank-hearted, patrician maiden that she was, without shyness, without servility.
”My father died in your army,” she said on meeting; ”my affianced husband has taught me to admire you, as he himself does. Let us be friends!”
And Caesar bowed as became the polished gentleman, who had been the centre of the most brilliant salons of Rome, and took the hand she offered, and replied:--
”Ah! Lady Cornelia, we have been friends long, though never we met before! But I am doubly the friend of whosoever is the friend of Quintus Livius Drusus.”
Whereupon Cornelia was more completely the va.s.sal of the Imperator than ever, and words flew fast between them. In short, just as in the case with Cleopatra, she opened her heart before she knew that she had said anything, and told of all her life, with its shadows and brightness; and Caesar listened and sympathized as might a father; and Drusus perfectly realized, if Cornelia could not--how many-sided was the man who could thus turn from weighing the fate of empires to entering unfeignedly into a sharing of the hopes and fears of a very young, and still quite unsophisticated, woman.
When the Imperator departed Drusus accompanied him to the palace.
Neither of the two, general nor subaltern, spoke for a long while; at last Caesar remarked:--
”Do you know what is uppermost in my mind, after meeting women like Fabia or Cornelia?”
Drusus shook his head.
”I believe that there are G.o.ds, who bring such creatures into the world. They are not chance accretions of atoms.” And then Caesar added, half dreamily: ”You ought to be a very happy man. I was once--it was many years ago. Her name was Cornelia also.”
Serious and more serious, grew the situation at Alexandria. King Ptolemaeus and Pothinus came to the city from Pelusium. Caesar had announced that he intended to examine the t.i.tle of the young monarch to the undivided crown, and make him show cause why he had expelled Cleopatra. This the will of Ptolemaeus Auletes had enjoined the Roman government to do; for in it he had commissioned his allies to see that his oldest children shared the inheritance equally.
But Pothinus came to Alexandria, and trouble came with him. He threw every possible obstacle in Caesar's way when the latter tried to collect a heavy loan due the Romans by the late king. The etesian winds made it impossible to bring up reenforcements, and Caesar's force was very small. Pothinus grew more insolent each day. For the first time, Drusus observed that his general was nervous, and suspicious lest he be a.s.sa.s.sinated. Finally the Imperator determined to force a crisis. To leave Egypt without humbling Pothinus meant a great lowering of prestige. He sent off a private message to Palestine that Cleopatra should come to Alexandria.
Cleopatra came, not in royal procession, for she knew too well the finesse of the regent's underlings; but entered the harbour in disguise in a small boat; and Apollodorus, her Sicilian confidant, carried her into Caesar's presence wrapped in a bale of bedding which he had slung across his back.
The queen's suit was won. Cleopatra and the Imperator met, and the two strong personalities recognized each other's affinity instantly. Her coming was as a thunder-clap to Pothinus and his puppet Ptolemaeus.
They could only cringe and acquiesce when Caesar ordered them to be reconciled with the queen, and seal her restoration by a splendid court banquet.
The palace servants made ready for the feast. The rich and n.o.ble of Alexandria were invited. The stores of gold and silver vessels treasured in the vaults of the Lagidae were brought forth. The arches and columns of the palace were festooned with flowers. The best pipers and harpers of the great city were summoned to delight with their music. Precious wine of Tanis was ready to flow like water.
Drusus saw the preparations with a glad heart. Cornelia would be present in all her radiancy; and who there would be more radiant than she?
Chapter XXIV
Battling for Life
And then it was,--with the chariots bearing the guests almost driving in at the gates of the palace,--that Cerrinius, Caesar's barber, came before his master with an alarming tale. The worthy man declared that he had lighted on nothing less than a plot to murder the Romans, one and all, by admitting Achillas's soldiery to the palace enclosure, while all the banqueters were helpless with drugged wine. Pratinas, who had been supposed to be at Pelusium, Cerrinius had caught in retired conference with Pothinus, planning the arrangement of the feast. Achillas's mercenary army was advancing by stealthy marches to enter the city in the course of the evening. The mob had been aroused by agitators, until it was in a mood to rise en ma.s.se against the Romans, and join in destroying them. Such, in short, was the barber's story.
There was no time to delay. Caesar was a stranger in a strange and probably hostile land, and to fail to take warning were suicide. He sent for Pothinus, and demanded the whereabouts of Achillas's army.
The regent stammered that it was at Pelusium. Caesar followed up the charge by inquiring about Pratinas. Pothinus swore that he was at Pelusium also. But Caesar cut his network of lies short, by commanding that a malefactor should be forced to swallow a beaker of the wine prepared for the banquet. In a few moments the man was in a helpless stupor.
The case was proved and Caesar became all action. A squad of legionaries haled Pothinus away to an execution not long delayed.
Other legionaries disarmed and replaced the detachment of the royal guard that controlled the palace gates and walls. And barely had these steps been taken, when a courier thundered into the palace, hardly escaped through the raging mob that was gaining control of the city.