Part 47 (1/2)

As he spoke he gave the dagger a slight kick with his foot, so that it slid clinking and rattling along the smooth floor, until its progress was stopped by the corner of the altar steps against which the Caesar cowered in abject fear. ”My guard is in the next room,” said Caligula with an evil sneer, ”an I call but once and they will kill thee at my word.”

”That is as thou commandest and as G.o.d wills,” said Taurus Antinor, ”but remember ere thou strikest, O Caesar, that with my death thou wilt lose the one man who can save thee now.”

He spoke quite calmly nor did the tone of deference ever depart from his speech. He stood in the dim light which came in a straight shaft down through the opening above, his splendid person in full view of the Caesar who still crouched in the shadow. The power of his individuality imposed itself upon the miserable coward who threatened him. Caligula--tyrant and half crazy though he was--had sufficient shrewdness in his tortuous brain to recognise the truth of what the praefect had told him. Had this man come with evil intent he would not have come alone and unarmed: had he wished to gain his own ends, he would have had but to say a word and the mob had been ready to wreak its desired vengeance upon the Caesar.

”The people of Rome,” resumed Taurus Antinor after a while, seeing that Caligula was silent and more inclined to listen to him, ”are angered against thee. Thou knowest, O Caesar! what the anger of the people portends. For the moment a violent storm has driven the malcontents away from the vicinity of thy palace. They are congregated under the arcades of the Forum and nurse there their thoughts of rancour and of revenge.”

”Until such time as my wrath overtakes them,” broke in Caligula with one of his most evil oaths. ”I am not dead yet, and whilst I live I'll not forget. Rome shall rue this day in blood and in tears. Vengeance and rancour, sayest thou?” and he drew in his breath with a moist, hissing sound like the snakes of the Campania of which he spoke just now.

”Vengeance and rancour will overtake the rebels! _My_ vengeance and _my_ rancour, beside which all others shall pale! Rome can wait, I say: the Caesar is not yet dead.”

The words fell choked and thick from his quivering lips, nor did Taurus Antinor attempt to interrupt him; but as the Caesar finished speaking, exhausted and breathing heavily, there was a moment's silence in the room, and through that silence could be heard quite distinctly the call of the people from the distance below.

”Death to the Caesar! Death!”

Caligula uttered a loud cry of rage and of fear and struggled to his feet. He staggered forward out of the darkness and into the light, his trembling arms outstretched, his spa.r.s.e hair plastered against his moist forehead, his eyes, protruding and bloodshot, fixed upon the praefect.

”They'll murder me,” he cried, as he almost fell on his knees and only saved himself by clinging desperately with both hands to Taurus Antinor's outstretched arm. ”They'll murder me! Save me, O praefect; save me! and I'll heap wealth upon thee--money, honours, power, all that thou dost desire! Save me! Do not let them murder me! I will not die....

I will not! I will not!... Cowards! cowards! I am a defenceless man!...

I will not die ... I cannot die.... Cowards!”

Taurus Antinor had to brace himself up against the sickening sense of almost physical nausea that came over him at sight of this pitiful creature, more abject than any cur.

Among the many moments of terrible doubt and still more terrible temptation through which he had fought to-day, this was perhaps the most intolerable because the worldly man in him cried out against the futility of his own sacrifice.

To give up every hope of happiness, every aspiration for the welfare of an entire nation for the sake of this miserable coward, whose thoughts of self-preservation only alternated with those of maniacal tyranny, seemed indeed insensate mockery. Duty could not possibly lie in this.

This base creature's worthless life surely could not be weighed in the balance against the countless others which--despite any promises that might be wrung from him now--he would inevitably sacrifice to his own l.u.s.t for blood and for revenge.

The worldly man, the thinking philosopher, the pagan in fact, faced these propositions and placed them before the Christian. But the time had gone by for mental conflict. The Christian had fought until his numbed soul had almost lost the power of suffering; all he knew now was that he must not reason, he must neither think nor philosophise. The Master whom he had seen with limbs stretched upon a Cross in unspeakable agony and humiliation, might also have overturned a Caesar and ruled the world from the heights of a throne. He chose to rule it from a place of infamy, and when His dying lips proclaimed to that same world the supreme finality of its salvation: ”It is accomplished!” it was not to the sound of triumphal music, with banners flying and the spoils of conquest around, it was to the accompaniment of taunts and of derision and with body stripped naked before a jeering world.

”I have offered thee my service, O Caesar,” said Taurus Antinor with a mighty effort at deference and calm. ”An thou wilt follow mine advice I can s.h.i.+eld thee from the wrath of the people until such time as that which has occurred to-day, lies buried in the bosom of the past.”

”What must I do?... What must I do?” muttered Caligula between his chattering teeth. He was clinging to the praefect with both hands, for his knees were shaking under him and he would have fallen had he attempted to stand up alone. ”Save me, praefect.... Save me.... Do not let them kill me.... I cannot die.... I will not ... and those cowards would murder me....”

”Wilt trust thyself to me, O Caesar?”

”Yes, yes, what must I do?”

”Come forth with me into the streets. Wrapped in dark cloaks the people will not recognise us. They would never expect the Caesar to leave his palace while his life is in danger, and well disguised thou couldst come with me through devious ways to a house I know of on the Aventine where thou wouldst be safe.”

But at this suggestion that he should leave the security of this lonely palace for the open dangers of the streets, Caligula's terrors increased tenfold. His teeth chattered more loudly in his head, and his hands on the praefect's arm became convulsive in their grasp.

”I dare not go, praefect,” he stammered, and it had been pitiable were it not abject to see the look of insane terror which he cast around him.

”I dare not go.... They would kill me if they saw me ... and I don't want to die....”

”No one would recognise thee,” said Taurus Antinor with ill-restrained patience, ”dressed as scribes we can mingle with the fringe of the crowd. The shades of evening will be on us in an hour and our dark mantles will excite no attention. Have no fear, Caesar! no one would suspect thee of running in the teeth of danger.”

The tone of bitter irony was lost on the dulled perceptions of this miserable coward.

”I would not dare,” he murmured intermittently, ”I would not dare.”