Part 14 (1/2)

”We must look stern and deliberate,” said Ancyrus. ”Dost know, O Caius Nepos, if he is at one with us?”

”We must enlist him,” rejoined the latter hurriedly; ”he holds the plebs, and without his help our position might become difficult. A word from him to the crowd and the new Caesar is a.s.sured of peace within the city.”

”Then do thou tell him what has been decided,” said one of the others who was busy smoothing his tangled hair.

”No, no!” whispered cautious Ancyrus, the elder, ”have a care ... thou, Caius Nepos, must probe him ere thou speakest.”

”Tell him naught of Escanes' dagger,” added another hurriedly.

”Speak of abdication,” said the older man, ”of anything that comes in thy mind. Some men there are who----”

But he had no time to explain his meaning further, for the next moment Taurus Antinor stepped into the room.

CHAPTER IX

”There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.”--PROVERBS XXVI. 13.

He had exchanged his embroidered tunic for a gorgeous synthesis of crimson embroidered with gold, which set off to perfection the somewhat barbaric splendour of his personality, and as he stood there ma.s.sive and erect, beneath the gilded beams of Caius Nepos' dining-hall, with the slaves at his feet undoing the strings of his shoes, he looked every inch the ruler for whom all these men here were blindly and senselessly seeking.

His deep-set eyes beneath that stern frown had swept quickly over the a.s.sembly as he entered, and though now comparative order had been restored and a semblance of calm reigned around the table, Taurus Antinor did not fail to note the flushed faces and glowing eyes, the broken goblets, and stained and tattered cloths which gave ugly evidence of the riotous orgy that had gone before.

But though forty pairs of eyes were fixed upon his face, none could boast that they had perceived any change in its somewhat severe impa.s.siveness as he now advanced towards his host.

”Greeting to thee, O Caius Nepos!” he said. ”I crave thy pardon for my late coming, but I had other duties to which to attend.”

”Duties?” said Caius Nepos lightly; ”nay, Taurus Antinor, there are just now duties so high and sacred that others must of necessity stand aside for these! But of this more anon. Wilt rest now and partake of wine?”

”I thank thee, good Caius,” replied the praefect, ”but I have supped, and only came at thy bidding, because thou didst say that affairs of State would claim our attention this night.”

To all those present he gave courteous if not very hearty greeting. Then did his glance encounter that of Hortensius Martius who alone had said no word or made a movement to welcome him.

There was a vacant place beside young Hortensius, and Taurus Antinor took it, but he did not lie along the cus.h.i.+ons as the others did but half sat, half leaned on the couch, and turning to the young man said simply:

”I give thee greeting, O Hortensius! I had no thought of meeting thee here.”

”I told thee yesterday that I would be present,” said the other curtly.

”I remember now and am proud and honoured to sit by thy side; wilt pledge me in a goblet of wine?”

He had forced his rough voice to tones of gentleness. Hortensius Martius raised his glowering eyes with some curiosity on his face.

But a day and a night had elapsed since his life had lain wholly at the mercy of this powerful giant whom he had insulted, and who had been on the point of punis.h.i.+ng that insult with death.

Young Hortensius, held aloft in the mighty grip of the praefect twenty feet above the flagstones of the Forum, seeing a hideous death waiting for him below, did not even now realise how it came to pa.s.s that--when he recovered from the swoon into which horror and fear had thrown him--he found himself being tended by an old woman, and anon delivered safe and sound into the keeping of his slaves; he had entered his litter and been borne to his home still marvelling, but of the praefect of Rome he had not since then seen a trace.

He had questioned his slaves who swore that from the arcades of the tabernae, where they had been waiting, they had seen nothing of what went on around the rostra. Hortensius knew that they lied, they must have seen something of the quarrel; they must have seen him being carried like a recalcitrant child up to the top of the highest rostrum, and threatened with awful punishment by the very man whom he had affected to despise. They must also have seen the praefect relenting, carrying him down again, content apparently with the fright which he had given him.

His slaves must have been witnesses to his humiliation, and now were afraid to tell him what they had seen; and for the first time in his life Hortensius Martius felt a wave of cruelty pa.s.s over him, in an insensate desire to make the slaves speak under pressure of torture.