Part 15 (1/2)

”You chose him----”

”Since then he hath become a besotted despot.”

”Still your Emperor--to whom you owe your dignities, your power, your rank----”

”Thou dost defend him warmly, O praefect of Rome,” suddenly interposed Hortensius Martius who had followed every phase of the discussion with heated brow and eyes alert and glowing. ”Thou art ready to continue this life of submission to a maniacal tyrant, to a semi-b.e.s.t.i.a.l mountebank----”

”The life which I lead is of mine own making,” rejoined Taurus Antinor proudly; ”the life ye lead is the one ye have chosen.”

And with significant glance his dark eyes took in every detail of the disordered room--the littered table, the luxurious couches, the numberless empty dishes and broken goblets as well as the flushed faces and the trembling hands, and involuntarily, perhaps, a look of harsh contempt spread over his face.

Hortensius caught the look and winced under it; the words that had accompanied it had struck him as with a lash, and further whipped up his already violent rage.

”And,” he retorted with an evil sneer, ”to the Caesar thou wilt render homage even in his most degraded orgies, and wilt lick the dust from off his shoes when he hath kicked thee in the mouth.”

Slowly Taurus Antinor turned to him, and Hortensius Martius appeared just then so like a naughty child, that the look of harshness died out of the praefect's eyes, and a smile almost of amus.e.m.e.nt, certainly of indulgence, lit up for a moment the habitual sternness of his face.

”Loyalty to Caesar,” he said simply, ”doth not mean obsequiousness, as all Roman patricians should know, oh Hortensius!”

”Aye! but meseems,” rejoined the young man, whose voice had become harsher and more loud as that of Taurus Antinor became more subdued and low, ”meseems that at the cost of thy manhood thou at least art prepared to render unto Caesar----”

But even as these words escaped his lips the praefect, with a quick peremptory gesture, placed one slim, strong hand on Hortensius' wrist.

It seemed as if in a moment--and because of those words--a strange power had gone forth from the soul within right down to the tips of the slender fingers that closed on those of the younger man with a grip of steel.

He had raised himself wholly upright on the couch, his ma.s.sive figure, in the gorgeous crimson tunic, standing out clear and trenchant against the shadowy whiteness of the marble walls behind him. His head, with the ruddy ma.s.s of hair on which the flickering lamps threw brilliant, golden lights, was thrown back, and the eyes, deep, intent, and glowing with unrevealed ardour, looked straight out before him into the shadows.

”Render unto Caesar,” he said slowly, ”the things which are Caesar's, and unto G.o.d the things that are G.o.d's.”

His voice was low and unmodulated, as of one who repeats something that he has heard before, whilst the eyes suddenly shone as if with a fleeting memory of an exquisite vision.

The action, the words, were but momentary, but for that brief moment the angry retort was checked on Hortensius' lips, even as were the sneers and the bibulous scowls on the faces of those around. Taurus Antinor, towering above them all, and imbued with a strange dignity, seemed to be gazing into a s.p.a.ce beyond the walls of the gorgeous dining-hall; into a s.p.a.ce hidden from their understanding but peopled with the sweet memory of a sacred past. And even as he gazed a strange spell fell over these voluptuaries; a spell which they were unable to withstand. Whilst it lasted every ribald word was stilled and every drunken oath lulled to silence. The very air seemed hushed and only from a bunch of dying roses the withered petals were heard to fall one by one.

Then the grasp on Hortensius' wrist relaxed, the dark head was lowered, the falling lids once more hid the mysterious radiance of the eyes. The spell was broken as Taurus Antinor resumed quietly:

”The Caesar,” he said, ”hath not yet abdicated; he is still our chosen ruler and Emperor. To speak of his successor now savours of treachery and----”

”And what thou sayest stinks of treachery,” broke in Hortensius Martius with redoubled wrath, and shaking himself free from the brief spell of superst.i.tious awe which Antinor's words and Antinor's grip on his arm had momentarily cast over him. ”Hast come here, O praefect, but to spy on us, to probe our souls and use them for thine own selfish ends?”

”Silence, Hortensius!” admonished Ancyrus, the elder.

”Nay, I'll not be silent!” retorted the young man, who seemed at last to have lost all control over his jealous pa.s.sion. His eyes, in which gleamed the fire of intense hate, swept from the face of his enemy to that of his friends whom they challenged. His voice had become raucous and hoa.r.s.e and his tongue refused him service, making his words sound inarticulate.

”Do ye not see,” he shouted, turning his flushed face toward the others, ”do you not see how you are being fooled? The praefect stands high in the Caesar's favour, he has the Caesar's ear----”

”Silence!” broke in in peremptory accents the voice of Caius Nepos, the host.

”Silence!” cried some of the younger men.