Part 56 (2/2)
Achillas, he reported, had wantonly murdered Dioscorides and Serapion, whom Caesar had sent as envoys to Pelusium, and was marching on the city with his whole army of Italian renegades, Syrian banditti, convicts, and runaway slaves, twenty thousand strong.
There was nothing to do but to prepare to weather the storm in the palace enclosure, which, with its high walls, was practically a fortress in itself. There were only four thousand Romans, and yet there was a long circuit of defences to man. But Drusus never saw his general putting forth greater energy. That night, instead of feasting, the soldiers laboured, piling up the ramparts by the light of torches.
The city was surging and thundering without the palace gates. Caesar had placed the king under guard, but Arsinoe--his younger sister--had slipped out of the palace to join herself to the advancing host of Achillas, and speedily that general would be at hand. Caesar as usual was everywhere, with new schemes for the defences, new enthusiasm for his officers, new inspiration for his men. No one slept nor cared to sleep inside the palace walls. They toiled for dear life, for with morning, at most, Achillas would be upon them; and by morning, if Pothinus's plans had not failed, they would have been drugged and helpless to a man, none able to draw sword from scabbard. It was a new experience to one and all, for these Romans to stand on the defensive.
For once Caesar had made a false step--he ought to have taken on his voyage more men. He stood with his handful, with the sea on one side of him and a great city and a nation in arms against him on the other.
The struggle was not to be for empire, but for life. But the Romans were too busy that night to realize anything save the need of untiring exertion. If they had counted the odds against them, four thousand against a nation, they might well have despaired, though their chieftain were Caesar.
Two years earlier Drusus, as he hurried to and fro transmitting orders for his general, might have been fain to draw aside and muse on the strangeness of the night scene. The sky was clear, as almost always in a land where a thunder-storm is often as rare as an eclipse; the stars twinkled out of heavens of soft blackness; the crescent of a new moon hung like a silvered bow out over the harbour, and made a thin pathway of l.u.s.tre across the moving, s.h.i.+mmering waters. Dimly the sky-line was visible; by the Pharos and its mole loomed the vague tracery of masts.
On the west and the south lay the white and dark ma.s.ses of the city, now and then brought into clearer relief as the moonbeams swept across some stately pile, and touched on its Corinthian columns and n.o.bly wrought pediments. But Drusus was a soldier; and the best of poets doubtless work poorly when their lives are hanging in the balance.
Over the flower-strewn walks, under the festooned colonnades, ran the busy legionaries, bestirring themselves as never before; while Diomedes, and Hector, and Patroclus, and fifty other heroic worthies waged perpetual battle on their marble heights above the soldiers'
heads. On occasion Drusus was called to one of the upper terraces and pinnacles of the palace buildings, and then he could catch a glimpse of the whole sweep of the mighty city. Over to the southeast, where was the Jewish quarter, the sky was beginning to redden. The mob had begun to vent its pa.s.sions on the innocent Israelites, and the incendiary was at his work. A deep, low, growling hum, as of ten thousand angry voices, drifted upon the night air. The beast called the Alexandrian rabble was loose, and it was a terrible animal.
It was midnight. Drusus had toiled since noon. He had hardly tasted food or drink since morning, but there were three feet more of brick, stone, and rubbish to be added still to this and that rampart before it would be secure, and a whole wing of the overgrown palace must be pulled down to furnish the material. He had climbed out upon the roof to aid in tearing up the tiles and to encourage the men by his example, when some one plucked him from behind on the cloak--it was Caesar.
”You are not needed here,” said the general, in a voice that seemed a bit strained to keep calm. ”Read this--take all the men you want.”
And the Imperator himself held up the torch, while Drusus took the tablet thrust into his hands and read the hastily scribbled lines:--
”Cleomenes to Drusus. The ladies are in danger. I will resist the mob as long as I can. Send help.”
Drusus threw down the tablet; forgot to so much as salute his commander. He had laid off his armour during the work on the ramparts; he ran for it, put it on with feverish haste. A moment more and he was running among the soldiers, calling this and that legionary by name.
The troops all knew him, and would have followed him to the death.
When he asked for thirty volunteers for dangerous service, none demanded of him the occasion; he simply selected his men as fast as he might. He secured four chariots and placed in them the fastest horses in the royal stables and trusted men for drivers. He mounted the rest of his thirty on other steeds, and the preparations were over. The gate was thrown open; Decimus Mamercus, who was his subaltern, led out the little company. Drusus rode out last, in one of the chariots. The troops on the walls cheered them as they departed.
In the immediate neighbourhood of the palace there prevailed an ominous silence. Earlier in the night a few cohorts had charged out and scattered the street rabble; and the mob had kept at a distance.
There was no light save that of the moon and the distant glow of the burning buildings. Drusus felt his breath coming thick and fast, the drops of sweat were hanging on his forehead, something within was driving his heart into his throat. ”If--” he never went further; unless he brought Cornelia and Fabia back to the palace unscathed, he knew the Alexandrian rabble would howl over his unconscious body.
”Ride!” he commanded, as if the rush of the chariots and horses would drown the fears that nearly drove him frantic. ”Ride!”
The drivers lashed the teams, the hors.e.m.e.n p.r.i.c.ked with the spur.
Drusus caught the reins from his chariot companion, and swung the lash himself over the four steeds. Faster and faster they flew down the splendidly paved and built highways. Temples and majestic public buildings rose in sombre grandeur above their heads; above them winged ”Victories” seemed springing up into dark void, their sculptured symmetries just visible in the moonlight. On and on, swift and more swift--persons began shouting from the buildings which they pa.s.sed, now a few voices, now many, now a hundred. A volley of stones was dashed down from the safe recesses of the pillars at the head of the long flight of steps leading up to a temple. Presently an arrow whirred over Drusus's head and smote on the masonry across the street.
There were lights ahead--scores of torches waving--a small building was on fire; the glare grew redder and brighter every instant; and a din, a din lifted by ten thousand men when their brute instincts are enkindled, grew and grew. Drusus dashed the cold sweat from his brow, his hand was trembling. He had a quiver and bow in the chariot,--a powerful Parthian bow, and the arrows were abundant. Mamercus had taught him to be a good archer, as a boy. Could he turn his old skill to account? Not unless his hand became more steady.
Women screamed out at him and his band from the house roofs; a tile struck one of the chariot horses and made it plunge wildly; Drusus flung his strength into the reins, and curbed in the raging beast; he tossed the lines back to his driver and tore the bow from its casings.
His car had rushed on ahead of Decimus Mamercus and the rest; two furlongs more would bring him to the house of Cleomenes on one of the squares of the city. The chariot swung around a street corner for the final stretch, the way was broad, the buildings on either side (the residences of the Alexandrian gentry) high; but the whole street from wall to wall was a seething ma.s.s of human forms. The fire was spreading; the brightening flames shone down on the tossing, howling mult.i.tude--excited Egyptians from the quarter of Rhacotis, frenzied Asiatics in their turbans, mad sailors from the Eunostian port and the Pharos island. At the head of the street the flames were pressing in upon a stately mansion around which the raging mob was packed thickly.
On the roof of the threatened house figures could be seen in the lurid light, running to and fro, flinging down bricks and stones, and trying to beat back the fire. It was the house of Cleomenes. Insensibly the veteran who had been driving reined in the horses, who themselves drew back, loath to plunge into the living barriers ahead. But Drusus was past fear or prudence; with his own hands he sent the lash stinging over all the four, and the team, that had won more than a single trophy in the games, shot forward. The chariot struck the mult.i.tude and went, not through it, but over it. The on-rush was too rapid, too unexpected, for resistance. To right and left, as the water gives way before the bows of an on-rus.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+p, the crowd surged back, the instinct of panic reigning in every breast. Thick and fast, as quickly as he might set shaft to string, flew Drusus's arrows--not a shaft that failed a mark, as it cut into the living ma.s.ses. The chariot reeled again and again, as this wheel or that pa.s.sed over something animate and struggling. The horses caught the fire of conflict; they raced, they ran--and the others sped after them. The mob left off howling: it screamed with a single voice of mortal dread. And before Drusus or any one else realized, the deed was done, the long lane was cleared, and the drivers were drawing rein before the house of Cleomenes.
The heavily barred carriage-way was thrown open, the valiant merchant and his faithful employees and slaves greeted their rescuers as the little cavalcade drove in. There was not a moment to lose. Cleomenes and his household might indeed have long made good the house against the mere attacks of the mob; but the rioters had set the torch to some adjacent buildings, and all efforts to beat back the flames were proving futile. There was no time to condole with the merchant over the loss of his house. The mob had surged again into the streets and was pressing back, this time more or less prepared to resist the Romans. The colonnades and the house roofs were swarming, the din was indescribable, and the crackling and roar of the advancing flames grew ever louder.
The only alternative was a return to the palace. Cleomenes's employees and slaves were to scatter into the crowd, where they would easily escape notice; he himself, with his daughters, Artemisia, and the Roman ladies, must go in the chariots to the palace. Cornelia came down from her chamber, her face more flushed with excitement than alarm. Troubles enough she had had, but never before personal danger; and she could not easily grasp the peril.
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