Part 11 (2/2)
”We can talk now,” said the host; ”these slaves will not heed us. They,”
he added, nodding in the direction of the carver and his half-dozen henchmen, ”are all deaf as well as mute, so we need have no fear of them.”
”What treasures,” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed young Escanes with wondering eyes fixed upon his lucky host; ”where didst get them, Caius Nepos? By the G.o.ds, I would I could get an army of deaf-mute slaves.”
”They are not easy to get,” rejoined the other, ”but I was mightily lucky in my find. I was at Cirta in Numidia at a time when the dusky chief there--one named Hazim Rhan--had made a haul of six malcontents who I understood had conspired against his authority. It seems that these rebels had a leader who had succeeded in escaping to his desert fastness, and whom Hazim Rhan greatly desired to capture. To gain this object he commanded the six prisoners to betray their leader; this they refused to do, whereupon the dusky prince ordered their ears to be cut off and threatened them that unless they spoke on the morrow, their tongues would be cut off the next day. And if after that they still remained obdurate, their heads would go the way of their tongues and ears.”
Exclamations of horror greeted this gruesome tale, the relevancy of which no one had as yet perceived. But Caius Nepos, having pledged his friends in a draught of Sicilian wine, resumed:
”I, as an idle traveller from Rome had been received by the dusky chieftain with marked deference, and I was greatly interested in the fate of the six men who proved so loyal to their leader. So I waited three days, and when their tongues and ears had been cut off and their heads were finally threatened, I offered to buy them for a sum sufficiently large to tempt the cupidity of Hazim Rhan. And thus I had in my possession six men whose sense of loyalty had been splendidly proved and whose discretion henceforth would necessarily be absolute.”
This time a chorus of praise greeted the conclusion of the tale. The cynical calm with which it had been told and the ferocious selfishness which it revealed seemed in no way repellent to Caius Nepos' guests. A few pairs of indifferent eyes were levelled at the slaves and that was all. And then Philippus Decius remarked coolly:
”So much for thy carvers and henchmen, O Caius Nepos, but thy waiting-maids?--are they deaf and dumb too?”
”No,” replied the host, ”but they come from foreign lands and do not understand our tongue.”
”Then you all think that the next few days will be propitious for our schemes?” here broke in young Escanes who seemed the most eager amongst them all.
”Aye!” said Caius Nepos, ”with a little good luck even to-morrow might prove the best day. The Caesar is half frenzied now, gorged with his triumph, the mockery of which he does not seem to understand. He is more like a raving madman than ever, much more feeble in mind and body than before this insensate expedition to Germany.”
”I suppose that there is no doubt as to the truth of the tales which are current about the expedition,” quoth Marcus Ancyrus, whose years rendered him more cautious than the others.
”No doubt whatever,” rejoined the host, ”and some of the tales fall far short of the truth. There never was a real blow struck during the whole time that madman was away. He travelled from place to place in his litter borne by eight men, and sent his soldiers ahead of him with sprays and buckets of water that they should lay the dust along the road on which he would travel. At Trevirorum on the banks of the Rhine, he caused two hundred of his picked guard to dress up as barbarians and to make feint to attack the camp at midnight. This they did with necessary shoutings and clas.h.i.+ngs of steel against steel. Then did the greatest and best of Caesars sally forth in full battle array followed by a few of his most trusted men, and in the darkness there was heard more shouting and more clas.h.i.+ngs of steel until Caligula returned in triumph at sunrise to his camp. He had pa.s.sed hempen ropes round the necks of the mock barbarians, and ever after had them dragged in the wake of his litter, even as if they were prisoners of war. No doubt he had paid them well for acting such a farce.”
”But was the army blind to all this folly?”
”The Caesar only kept some five hundred picked men round him in his camp.
These he bribed into acquiescence of all his mad pranks. The rest of the legions were some distance away all the time. They believed all that they were told; mayhap they thought it wisest to believe.”
”I know that in Belgica, on the sh.o.r.es of the ocean----” began Augustus Philario after a while.
But he was not allowed to proceed. Shouts of derision broke in upon the tale, followed by expressions of rage.
”What is the good of retailing further follies,” said Caius Nepos at last; ”we all know that a madman, a vain, besotted fool wields now the sceptre of Julius Caesar and of great Augustus. The numbers of his misdeeds are like the grains of sand on the seash.o.r.e, his orgies have shamed our generation, his debauches are a disgrace upon the fame of Rome. Patricians awake! The day hath come, the hour is close at hand.
To-morrow, mayhap, at the public games ... a tumult amongst the people ... it should be easy to rouse that ... then a well-edged dagger ... and the Empire is rid of the most hideous and loathsome tyrant that ever brutalised a nation and shamed an empire.”
Even as he spoke, and despite the deaf-mute slaves and the foreign girls, he lowered his voice until it sank to the merest whisper.
Reclining upon the couches with elbows buried in silken cus.h.i.+ons the others all stretched forward now, until two score of heads met in one continued circle, forehead to forehead and ear to ear, whilst in the midst of them an oil lamp flickered low and lit up at fitful intervals the sober, callous faces with the hard mouths and cruel, steely eyes.
The slaves--those who had lost ears and tongue and those who spoke no language save their own foreign one--had retreated to the far corners of the room, up against the columns of Phrygian marble or the hangings of Tyrian tapestries; their great uncomprehending eyes were fixed on that compact group at the head of the table, where round the bowls of roses and of lilies and the goblets of wine, the future of the Empire of Rome was even now being discussed.
”The tumult can be easily provoked,” said one of the guests presently--a young man whose black hair and dark eyes bespoke his Oriental blood.
”The Caesar is certain to provoke it himself by some insane act of tyrannical folly. Ye must all remember how, two years ago, during the Megalesian games he ordered the women of his retinue to descend into the arena and to engage the gladiators in combat. At this outrage the discontent among the people nearly broke out into open revolt. It was thou, Caius Nepos, who checked the tumult then.”
”The hour was not ripe,” said the latter, ”and we were not allied. It will be different to-morrow.”
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