Marcus: the Young Centurion Part 13

"My friend!" said Cracis, bitterly. "My greatest enemy, he meant."

"I was, Cracis, in the past. In my ignorance and pride it was only after we had parted that I learned all that I had lost in my separation from my bravest colleague, my truest and wisest counsellor."

"And now," said Cracis, coldly, "you have found out the truth and have tracked me to my home to accuse me with some base invention to my son."

"Believe me, no!" cried Julius, warmly, and he held out his hand.

"Cracis, after much thought and battling with my pride, the pride that has come with the position to which I have climbed, I have mastered self so as to come humbly to my oldest and best friend."

"Why?" said Cracis.

"Because you are the only man I know whose counsel I can respect, and in whom I could fully trust."

"My greatest enemy comes to me to utter words like these, in the presence of my son?"

"Yes, and I am proud that he should hear them, so that he may fully understand that, when I spoke to him lightly as I did, it was but to test him, to try his spirit, to see whether he was fully worthy to bear his great father's name."

Cracis was silent for a few moments, gazing searchingly into his visitor's eyes, which met his frankly and without blenching.

"Is this the truth?" said Cracis, sternly.

"The simple truth. Cracis, we were great friends once, and later the greatest enemies; but in all those troubles of the past did we ever doubt each other's words?"

"Never," said Cracis, proudly. "But there is a reason for all this-- something more than a late repentance for the injuries you have done me in the years that have gone. I ask you again--why have you come?"

"For our country's sake. I have climbed high since we parted, but only to stand more and more alone, till now, perhaps at the most critical period of my life, I have been forced to look around me for help, for a man in whom I can place implicit trust, who will give me his counsel in the State, and stand beside me in the perils that lie ahead. Cracis, there is only one man in whom I could trust like that, one only who would bare his sword and fight bravely by my side, and you are he."

Cracis was silent as he shook his head slowly and turned his eyes away from his visitor, to let them rest upon his son's upturned face, as the boy gazed at him in wonder and astonishment at what he heard.

"You do not believe me," cried Julius. "You think that something is underlying all this," and he spoke with deep earnestness, his voice broken and changed.

"Yes," said Cracis; "I cannot do otherwise. I do believe you--every word."

"Then why do you speak so coldly and calmly, when I come to you penitent, to humble myself to you and ask your help?"

"I speak coldly like this," said Cracis, "because I am fighting hard to beat down the feelings of pride and triumph that the time has come when he who drove me from my high position in Rome has sought me out to make so brave and manly an appeal, for, knowing you as I do to the very core, I can feel the battle that you must have had with self before you stooped--you, great general as you are--to come and tell me that you need my help."

"Stooped!" cried the other. "No, Cracis, that is an ill-chosen word.

It is that I have mastered self and cast away all pride and weakness so that I might come to you and say: 'For the sake of the old times, help me in this bitter pa.s.s, so fraught with peril as it is'; and say, 'I forgive the bygones, and be to me as my brother once again.'"

Cracis was silent, and stood drawing his son closer to him so that he could rest his arm upon the boy's shoulder, while his visitor stood before him with his white robe gathered up so as to leave free his extended arm.

For a few minutes neither spoke, and from the garden there came loud and clear the joyous trilling of the birds.

"You do not take my hand," said Caius Julius, pa.s.sionately.

"No, not yet," said Cracis; "but do not mistake me. There is no bitterness or pride left in my breast. That died out years ago. I am only thinking."

"Ha!" cried his visitor, with a sigh of relief, "and forgetting the courtesy due to a long-estranged friend."

"Caius Julius, sit down. You are welcome to my simple, humble home.

Marcus, my boy, you can believe that all our visitor said was to try his old friend's son to see of what metal he was made. He is a man who, for years past, has found the necessity of testing those he would have to trust, of placing them in the balance to try their worthiness and weight. Boy, we are honoured to-day by the presence of Rome's greatest son, your father's oldest friend, then his greatest enemy, and now, in the fulness of time, his brother once again."

As he spoke he took a step forward with extended hands, which the future conqueror of the world clasped at once in his own, and once more there was silence in the room.

A minute later Cracis drew back and motioned to his son, who, earnest and alert, stepped forward, to find himself clasped to their visitor's breast, before he was released, to draw back wondering whether he liked or hated this man of whose prowess he had heard so much, and stood gazing at him wonderingly, as Julius, the Caesar yet to be, sank back, quivering with emotion, in the nearest seat.

A few minutes later Marcus stood trying to catch his father's eye, for he too had sunk into a chair and sat back gazing away through the open window at the sunlit hills.

At last he turned his eye upon his son and read the question in his speaking face.

"Yes, boy," he said, "you may leave us now. My old friend has much to say, and I too have much to think. Go and see that proper preparations are made for our guest. You will honour us--No," he continued, with a pleasant smile, as he turned to his guest, "we are very simple here, but you will be welcome and stay here to-night."

"Gladly," cried Julius, eagerly. "Believe me, I shall be proud, for I have gained my ends."

"Not yet," said Cracis, gravely. "It means so much, and I must have the night to think. There, Marcus, boy, you know what should be done.

Leave us for a while."

The boy hurried away, to seek the servants, and then to make for Serge, but checked himself before he was half way to his old companion's room.

"Not yet," he said. "How do I know that I ought to speak?" And he drew back with a feeling of relief on seeing that the old soldier was right away crossing one of the fields. "It would not have been right without speaking to my father first," thought Marcus. "I wonder what they are saying now?"

CHAPTER NINE.

THE OLD ARMOUR.

When Marcus went to bed his habit was to drop his head upon his pillow, close his eyes in the darkness, and, as it seemed to him, open them the next minute to find it was broad daylight, and spring out of bed; but, almost for the first time in his life, he, that night, lay tossing about, thinking how hot it was, getting in and out of bed to open the window wider or to close it again, changing from side to side, and trying as hard as he possibly could to go off to sleep; and, even when at last he succeeded, it seemed that he had suddenly plunged into a new state of wakefulness in which he was listening to Caius Julius and then quarrelling with him.

Then his father seemed mixed up with his dream, and all kinds of the wildest imaginings came forming processions through his fevered brain.

Armies of barbarians were marching to attack Rome. His father was a great warrior and general once again, fighting to save his country.

Then he was the quiet student once more in his white toga, chiding him for his love of arms and armour; and, directly after, Serge seemed to come upon the scene, to catch their strange visitor by the ankle with his crook and threaten to thrash him for breaking down the fir-poles and stealing the grapes.

From dreams peopled in this incongruous way the boy woke up again and again, making up his mind that he would not go to sleep any more to be worried by what he termed such a horrible muddle.

The night, which generally pa.s.sed so quickly, seemed as if it would never end, and when at last he did start up from perhaps the worst and most exciting dream of all, to find that the sun was just about to rise, he sprang off his bed with a sigh of relief, dressed, and went out into the garden to have what he called a good rest.

His intention was to go round to the back and rouse up Serge, not to make any confidence, but just to have a talk about the coming of the visitor and the surly reception the old soldier had given to his father's friend; but, before he had gone many yards, a gleam of something white amongst the trees caught his attention, and he found himself face to face with his father.

"You out so soon?" he cried, in astonishment.

"Yes, boy; it has been no time for sleep. I have had too much to think about."

"But, father--" began the boy.

Cracis held up his hand.

"Wait," he said. "Our visitor, Marcus, seems to have been as sleepless as I; here he comes." For at the same moment they caught sight of Caius Julius leaving the doorway; and, upon seeing them, he came quickly to join them, with extended hand.