Part 57 (1/2)
”Are you afraid, carissima,” said Drusus, lifting her into his chariot, ”to ride back with me to the palace, through that wolf pack?”
”With you?” she said, admiring the ease with which he sprang about in full armour; ”I would laugh at Medusa or the Hydra of Lerna with you beside me.”
Cleomenes had been again upon the housetop to watch the progress of the fire. He came down, and Drusus instantly saw that there was dismay written on his face. The merchant, who was himself armed with sword and target, drew the officer aside and whispered:--
”Pray, Roman, to all your native G.o.ds! I can see a _lochos_[184] of regular troops filing into the square before the house. Achillas is entering the city with his men. We shall have to fight our way through his thousands.”
[184] A company of about one hundred men.
Drusus uttered a deep and silent curse on himself for the mad bravado that led him to leave the palace with but thirty men; why had he not waited to a.s.semble more? He could ride over the mob; to master Achillas's disciplined forces was otherwise.
A freedman came running down from the roof, crying out that it was already on fire. It was a time for action, not thought, yet even at the moment Drusus's schoolboy Polybius was running through his mind--the description of the great riot when Agathocles, the wicked regent of Ptolemaeus Philopator, and his sister Agathocleia, and his mother Oenanthe, had been seized by the mult.i.tude and torn in pieces, bit by bit, while yet they lived. Cornelia seemed to have caught some new cause for fear; she was trembling and s.h.i.+vering when Drusus took her in his arms and swung her into the chariot. He lifted in Fabia likewise, but the Vestal only bowed her head in calm silence. She had overheard Cleomenes's tidings, but, by stress of all the force of her strong nature, remained composed. Decimus Mamercus took Artemisia, frightened and crying, into his own chariot. Monime, Berenice, and their father were to go in the other cars. The fire was gaining on the roof, smoke was pouring down into the court-yard, and now and then a gleam came from a firebrand. The horses were growing restive and frightened.
”Throw open the gate!” commanded Drusus; his anxieties and despair were driving him almost to frenzy, but the G.o.ds, if G.o.ds there were, knew that it was not for himself that he was fearful. His voice sounded hollow in his throat; he would have given a talent of gold for a draught of water. One of his men flung back the gateway, and in at the entrance came the glare of great bonfires lighted in the streets, of hundreds of tossing torches. The yelling of the mult.i.tude was louder than ever. There it was, packed thick on all sides: in its midst Drusus could see bright lines of tossing steel--the armour of Achillas's soldiery! As the portal opened, a mighty howl of triumph burst from the people; the fire had driven forth to the mob its prey.
Cornelia heard the howl--the voice of a wild and raging beast--and trembled more.
”Cornelia,” said Drusus, lowering his head so as to make himself heard, ”do not look above the framework of the chariot. Cling to it tightly, for we may have to pa.s.s over obstacles. Above all, do not spring out, however much we may be swayed and shaken.”
”I will not, Quintus,” and that was all she could be heard to say in the din.
And so the little cavalcade drove forth. Cornelia cowered in the chariot and saw nothing and heard everything, which was the same as nothing. Was she frightened? She did not know. The peril was awful. Of course she realized that; but how could calamity come to pa.s.s, when it was Drusus whose powerful form towered above her, when it was Drusus whose voice rang like a trumpet out into the press swaying around?
It was very dark crouching in the body of the chariot. She could just see the face of Fabia opposite, very white, but, she knew, very calm.
She reached out and caught the Vestal's hand, and discovered that her own was trembling, while the other's was perfectly steady. But the contest, the fighting all about! Now the horses were das.h.i.+ng forward, making the chariot spring as though it were a thing of life; now reined in sharply, and the heavily loaded car swayed this way and that, almost to overturning. The uproar above her head pa.s.sed the telling by words; but there was one shout, now in Greek, now in Egyptian, that drowned all others: ”Death to the Romans! tear them in pieces!” Missiles smote against the chariot; an arrow went cutting into the wood, driving its keen point home, and Cornelia experienced a thrill of pain in her shoulder. She felt for the smart, found the mere tip of the point only had penetrated the wood; but her fingers were wet when she took them away. Drusus was shooting; his bow-string snapped and snapped. Once a soldier in armour sprang behind the chariot when it came to a stop, and his javelin was poised to discharge; but an arrow tore through his throat, and he went down to the pavement with a crash. The car rocked more and more; once the wheels slipped without revolving, as though sliding over some smooth liquid--not water. Cornelia felt powers of discriminating sensation becoming fainter and fainter; a great force seemed pressing out from within her; the clamour and shocks were maddening. She felt driven to raise her head, to look out into the raging chaos, though the first glance were death. Peering back out of the body of the chariot now and then, she saw a little. The Romans were charging this way and that, forcing their pa.s.sage down the street, barred no longer by a mere mob, but by Achillas's infantrymen, who were hastening into action. The chariot horses were wounded, some seriously; she was sure of that.
They could not be driven through the spearmen, and the little handful of cavalry was trying to break through the enemy and make s.p.a.ce for a rush. It was thirty against thousands; yet even in the mortal peril, which Cornelia realized now if she had never before, she had a strange sort of pride. Her countrymen were showing these Orientals how one Roman could slay his tens, could put in terror his hundreds. Drusus was giving orders with the same mechanical exact.i.tude of the drill, albeit his voice was high-pitched and strained--not entirely, perhaps, because of the need of calling above the din.
”Form in line by fours!”
Cornelia raised her head above the chariot frame. The Romans had worked their way down into a square formed by the intersection of streets. Behind them and on every building were swarming the people; right across the eastern avenue, where their escape lay, stood the bristling files of one of Achillas's companies. Stones and roof-tiles were being tossed in a perfect hail from the houses, and now and then an arrow or a dart. The four chariots--one had only three horses left--were standing in the little plaza, and the troopers were forming before them. The arrows of the chariot warriors made the mob behind keep a respectful distance. It was the triumph of discipline over man's animal sense of fear. Even the mob felt this, when it saw the little squadron fall into line with as much precision as on the parade ground. A tile smote one soldier upon the head, and he tumbled from his horse like a stone. His comrades never paused in their evolution.
Then, for the first time, Cornelia screamed with horror and fright.
Drusus, who was setting a new arrow to his bow, looked down upon her; he had never seemed so handsome before, with the fierce light of the battle in his eyes, with his whole form swelling with the exertions of conflict.
”Down, Cornelia!” commanded the officer; and Cornelia did so implicitly--to disobey him at that moment was inconceivable.
”At them, men!”
And then came a new bound from the horses, and then a mighty crash and clash of bodies, blades, and s.h.i.+elds, the snort of dying beasts, the splintering of spear-shafts, the groans and cries of men in battle for their lives. The car rose on one wheel higher and higher; Cornelia was thrown against Fabia, and the two women clung to each other, too terrified and crushed to scream; then on a sudden it righted, and as it did so the soldier who had acted as charioteer reeled, his face bathed in blood, the death-rattle in his throat. Back he fell, pierced in face and breast, and tumbled from the car; and, as if answering to this lightening of their burden, the hoofs of the hard-pressed horses bit on the pavement, and the team bounded onward.
”_Io triumphe!_” It was Drusus who called; and in answer to his shout came the deep Caesarian battle-cry from hundreds of throats, ”_Venus Victrix!_”
The chariot was advancing, but less rapidly. Cornelia rose and looked forth again, not this time to be rebuked. Down the moon-lighted street were moving several infantry cohorts from the palace; the avenue was clear, the mob and hostile soldiery had melted away like a mist; a mounted officer came flying down the street ahead of the legionaries.
”The ladies are safe, Imperator!” Drusus was reporting with military exact.i.tude. ”I have lost twelve men.”
Caesar galloped along beside the chariot. He had his horse under absolute control, and he extended his hand, first to Fabia, then to Cornelia.
”Fortune has been kind to us,” said he, smiling.
”Vesta has protected us,” said Fabia, bowing her head.