The Lion's Brood Part 25

She could restrain her feelings no longer; all her resolves seemed to slip from her in the presence of this man; she thrust out her hands and turned her head away with a s.h.i.+ver of utter disgust. Her movement was vague in the dim light, but he saw it, and his face darkened.

"What is this house?" he exclaimed harshly. "How long will it stand against me? Shall I not crush its root, even as its branch was torn off to-day? Filth! vermin! dust! Shall not its flower lie in my bosom to bloom forever, if she wills--or to bloom for a moment and wither and be cast away, if she wills not?"

He strode forward and caught her wrist; his hot breath steamed in her face.

"No! no! I _hate_ you! Go!" The words sprang from her lips, without power to hold them back, and she struggled frantically in his grasp; she heard his teeth grinding, as, mad with pa.s.sion, he strove to bind her arms to her sides. At that moment a rattling of weapons from the peristyle seemed to bring him to a consciousness of his surroundings.

Releasing her, he half turned, and she sank down in the corner of the cell. The visit was evidently over, and Hannibal, about to take his leave, was glancing around, evidently in search of the missing priest.

Iddilcar spoke low and rapidly:--

"I will return at once. Wait me till I come, or I will have you given to a syntagma of Africans."

He was out in the peristyle now, bowing low before the captain-general.

Then he whispered in his ear--probably some explanation of his absence, of how he had been keeping watch against treachery; for Hannibal nodded several times, and, again embracing Calavius, accepted his escort to the door, giving his arm to steady the steps of the older man.

IX.

THE BAIT.

Marcia crouched, huddled in the farthest corner of the cell, and listened to the receding footsteps of the visitors. Then she heard new sounds echoing through the house: the rus.h.i.+ng feet of slaves descending from their quarters, striving to gain their stations un.o.bserved; the sharp tongue of Calavius now loosed from the bonds of terror, and rating them soundly for their unfaithfulness and cowardice; the patter of excuses and protestations. In a few moments the quarters above resounded with the shrieks and groans of those condemned to the lash; for the wrath and indignation of Calavius, generally the mildest of masters, were spurred to vindictive bitterness by a consciousness of his late terror and abas.e.m.e.nt. "They were guilty of all crimes, and, worst of all, of the rankest ingrat.i.tude. Let them learn that their master was still strong enough to punish." So the scourges fell, and the victims screamed and writhed.

All these things Marcia heard, but they meant little to a mind so full of internal conflict as was hers. What was she to believe of herself?

Had she not marked out a course of self-devotion and sacrifice which was to gain respite and safety for her country, revenge upon its enemies? Had not others, notably Decius Magius, been forced unwillingly to admit the possible efficiency of her plan? Yet now, when the G.o.ds had shown her favour beyond all antic.i.p.ation--had brought the chosen quarry into her net--she had thrown all aside and yielded to her womanly weakness, her instinct of modesty, her sense of personal repulsion. What right had she to think of herself as a woman! He, for whose love her s.e.x had been dear to her, was gone--a pallid shade who could no longer be sensitive to her beauty, a vague being sent far hence into the land of the four rivers by these very men whom she had devoted to destruction. What though the virtues that had beaten down her resolves had been good once--good for Marcia the woman? They were evil for that Marcia who had resolved to be a heroine, and who was now learning how hard it is for the female to seek the latter crown without losing the former. Again and again she struggled with herself, swayed back and forth by the counter-currents of conflicting shames, until the thought of death, as a final possibility, revived to steel her purpose.

The sacrifice and the shame would be short, and, in the consciousness of her work accomplished, she could die, going before the lady Proserpine with a pure heart that need not fear to meet the eyes of Sergius when they should ask its secret.

Rising quickly, she hastened to her chamber by pa.s.sages where she would not be likely to meet her host. Whatever intentions he might have entertained toward her had been effectually suspended, if not obliterated, by the course of events, and now he was much too busy setting in order his demoralized household to think of her presence.

Therefore, she reached her apartment unnoticed, and, summoning her tirewomen, surrendered herself to the tedious process of adornment according to the accepted taste of Magna Graecia.

The afternoon was spent, ere all had been finished. Then she ate hurriedly and with little appet.i.te, drinking deeply of the Lesbian wine till her cheeks flushed through the rouge, and her eyes sparkled.

Calavius had gone out, busy about affairs of state, and eager to collect the strained threads of his influence--threads that might be strengthened by their very straining, in the hands of a politician who realized how men were ready to grant every complaisance to one whom they had deserved ill of and whose vengeance they feared. Marcia found herself wondering whether Iddilcar would indeed return as he had said.

Perhaps her att.i.tude had seemed to him so unfavourable that he would strike first;--but when and how? Perhaps affairs of state detained him also. Perhaps, even, this man, Hannibal, whose eye pierced through all subterfuges, had already divined the danger and set himself to nullify it. Perhaps--and then, as she was reclining in the larger dining hall, one of the slaves entered and whispered in her ear. She rose quickly.

"Tell my lord that she whom he favours awaits him at the hemicycle in the garden, and guide him to me."

She spoke, marvelling at her steady tones, and, turning, walked, with drooping head, to the semicircular, marble seat;--not the single seat, back amongst the foliage, where she had met Perolla; "the philosopher's chair," as Calavius had called it laughingly, where his son retired to commune with thoughts too great for men. Sinking down at one end of the hemicycle, she studied the carved lion's head that ornamented the arm-rest, and the paw, thrusting out from the side-support, upon the pavement beneath. It troubled her that such wonderful handicraft had not considered that the head was entirely out of proportion with the paw; and yet, if the former were larger or the latter smaller, surely they would not fit well in the places they were intended to ornament.

What a provoking dilemma, to be sure--and at such a time, for, glancing suddenly up, she saw Iddilcar's dark, repulsive features bent upon her with a terrible intentness. All her former loathing surged back over her heart with tenfold force, sickening her with its suffocating weight.

"Light of the two eyes of Baal," he murmured softly. "Look kindly upon thy servant. Smile upon his love, that thy light and his wors.h.i.+p may be eternal. Behold! for thee I cast aside the wors.h.i.+p of the lord Melkarth!"

He tore apart his long, violet tunic, showing his throat and bosom hung with necklaces. His arms, bare to the shoulders, glittered with heavy bracelets.

"Lo! the spoils of Italy a.s.signed to my Lord I give to thee,"; and, taking off necklace and bracelet, he knelt and piled them at her feet, raising and parting his arms in the att.i.tude of oblation.

Charmed as by a serpent, Marcia watched him with horrible disgust, yet unable to turn her eyes aside.

"What is Tanis to thee!" he went on. "What, Ceres! What, Proserpine!

Ashera! Derceto!--G.o.ddesses afar from men--G.o.ddesses whom, not seeing, we wors.h.i.+p faintly with sacrifice and ceremony. But thou--thou shalt dwell forever in the temple upon the Square of Melkarth. Come!"

Again, and in spite of every resolve, Marcia felt the overmastering sense of woman's loathing that stood so obstinately between herself and the role she had marked out. It was too much. She could not--could not suffer this man for a moment, even with the release of swiftly hastening death before her eyes. She struggled to her feet, groping about, turning, and, with a stifled scream, she sought to fly; but her strength refused her even this service.

In an instant, he was up and beside her; his hand had roughly grasped her shoulder, half tearing away the cyclas; his little eyes blazed with vindictive fury; his nostrils dilated; his coa.r.s.e lips writhed in hungry pa.s.sion.

"Ah, slave! You would escape? Where? where? In this house? Ah, fool! Could you not measure the comedy of this morning? Do you think this old imbecile, this man condemned to follow his mouse-killing son, can protect you from the meanest Nubian in the army? Do you think--ah!" and he raised his hand, as if to strike.

Wrenching herself loose by a quick movement, Marcia turned and faced him with all the blood of the Torquati flus.h.i.+ng in her cheeks, all their fire blazing in her eyes.

"Dog of a pulse-eater!" she cried, and he shrank back before the vehemence of her tone. "Do I care what you do? Break your alliance with these people if you wish--an alliance of fools with fools, knaves with knaves! Break it, before it be cloven asunder for you by the sword of Rome. Doubtless your chief will sacrifice all his plans to your cowardly l.u.s.t. Kill my protector, tear down his house, and--kill me!--me, for whom there is neither sowing nor reaping in this matter."

All his arrogance and violence had vanished, cowed and crushed by her outbreak; but, even as he cringed before her, the gleam of Oriental cunning had taken its place.

"Ah! now, indeed, art thou more beautiful than the lady Tanis," he muttered, clasping and unclasping his hands, as if in ecstasy. "Now, indeed, do I love thee." His voice sank to a whisper, and he glanced about timorously. "And so it is neither sowing nor reaping with you, my pretty?" he went on. "Fools we may be, but not the fools to be blind to your sowing--not the fools who shall not root up your seed before the day of reaping. Did not you, a Roman, counsel Mago to delay? Did you not, foolish one, even give such counsel at the banquet of welcome to the schalischim, until I laughed in my cup to see a silly girl who would cajole men of government and of war?"

Marcia stood, rigid and pale. All her plans seemed s.h.i.+vering about her. She was doomed to fail then--fail after all, through the cunning of these vermin. Still she struggled to retain her composure.

"Liar!" she said. "Do I not know that if you spoke truth I would already be buried under hurdles weighted with stones?"

He laughed softly. "Why?" he asked. "What can you avail, coining lead for us who perceive its falseness? Nay, you are even of use to Hannibal, for, by your very eagerness, he has come to Maharbal's thinking, that all must be done speedily, if we would take Rome. Even now Capuans work night and day building our engines. Soon they will set them up before your gates. We shall winter in Rome, as the guests of the lady Marcia who has invited us. Therefore Hannibal grants you life and to be a comfort to his friend and father, Pacuvius Calavius, in his declining years;" and he laughed again, but harshly and sneeringly.

Marcia could scarcely keep her feet under the crus.h.i.+ng force of these blows. In what vain manner had she, an inexperienced girl, blind to all but a n.o.ble purpose, contended with men whose cunning had sufficed to snare the chiefs of her people! Worse even, she had herself forged the weapons for the destruction of all she had hoped to save. Iddilcar watched her from under half-closed lids, noting every line of her face, and reading its struggle and its despair.

"And so it is wisdom for us to march north at once?" he said softly.

"How do I know?--a woman?"

He smiled subtly and ignored the change of front he had wrested from her.

"Love me, and I swear by the crown of Melkarth that Hannibal shall winter in Capua."

She started, as if from the touch of fire. Had her ears heard words of his, or was it only a belated thought coursing from her brain to her heart?

He stepped nearer and spoke again:--

"Love me, pretty one, and Hannibal shall winter in Capua,--yea, though he hangs on the cross for it,--though all the armies of Carthage become food for dogs."

At first she had been dreaming of new snares; but these last words and the vehemence of his tone brought her to an intuitive realization that this man was indeed prepared to give up G.o.d, country, general, friends,--all, so only that he might gratify his overmastering pa.s.sion.

The G.o.ds were indeed with her, after all,--were guiding her aright; and the knowledge steadied her self-control and strengthened her resolve.

What omen of favour could be more potent than this s.n.a.t.c.hing of victory out of the very hands of ruin--this moulding of ruin into a source of victory?

So she spoke, calmly and evenly:--

"Perhaps you tell the truth, perhaps folly. How shall I know, any more than I know of this power to command commanders, of which you make such silly boast?"

"Not I---not I, lady," he protested eagerly. "Listen! It is the lord Melkarth that has always loved the colonies of Phoenicia, first among which is Carthage. It is he that has guided and guarded us through the perils of the deep and of the desert, of the skies and of the earth, of hunger and thirst, of beasts and men. What G.o.d equals him in our city!

What G.o.d receives such gifts, such incense, such sacrifices! What though we fear Baal Moloch! Is it not the lord Melkarth whom we love?

It is he who goes before our armies, that he may tell them when to attack, when to await the foe. I am his priest. Do you understand? I have spoken his words many times. Now he shall speak mine."