Domitia

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE END OF THE DAY

A rumor, none knew from whom it arose, spread rapidly in whispers, sending a quiver of alarm, distress, pity, through the entire wedding party, reaching last of all him most concerned.

None dared breathe in his ear what all feared; but none would separate till it was surely ascertained whether what was surmised was a fact or not.

The slaves knew it and looked wistfully at Lamia.

He was engaged in making trifling presents to the many guests and well-wishers, moving from one to another, attended by slaves with trays piled up with gifts.

Eboracus burst on him, through the throng, forgetting, in his agitation and fear, the diffidence that belonged to his position.

“Sir! Where is the mistress?”

Lamia, without looking at him, or desisting from what he was about, answered:

“Within, being freed from her veil and bridal ornaments.”

“Sir! Lucius! she has been stolen from you! she has been carried away.”

Lamia stood as one petrified.

“How dare you utter such a jest?”

“It is no jest – she has been conveyed hence. She is not in your house.”

Without another word, Lamia flew into the portion of the house to which Domitia had retired.

There all was in confusion. The female slaves were either struck down with terror, or crying out that they were not to blame.

“Where is she?” asked Lamia, hardly realizing that there was actual loss, thinking this was some frolic of his young companions, who on such occasions allowed themselves great licence.

To add to the confusion, a tame magpie with clipped wing, belonging to the gouty old Lamia, got in the way of every one, and screamed when run over; and the elder man roared out reproach and brandished his crutch when the life of his pet was endangered.

Claudia, like a pious woman, had rushed to the

lararium

 to supplicate the assistance of the Gods, especially of Lamius, son of Hercules and Omphale, the reputed half-divine ancestor of the family.

Domitia had disappeared. – How? – none could say. She had been spirited away, one said in this manner, another said in that. One held it as his opinion that she had been carried off by some disbanded Vitellian soldiers who were said to lurk about the suburbs of Rome and commit depredations. Some thought that in maiden shyness she had fled home; some whispered that the Gods had translated her; others that a former lover had suborned the servants to admit him, and that he had conveyed her from her husband’s house to his own.

But in what direction had she been taken? There again opinions differed, and tongues gave conflicting accounts. One had seen a litter hurried down the Clivus Scauri. One declared that he had seen a girl running in the direction of Nero’s lake, and suggested that this was Domitia who had gone thither to destroy herself. One had noticed suspicious-looking men wrapped in military cloaks lounging about, and these had disappeared – he had even seen the backs of some near the Porta Metrovia. Then one cried out: —

“What else can be expected when such an ill-omened bird is kept in the house, as a magpie?”

Not until all guests, visitors, had been excluded from the house, could anything be learned with certainty, and that was little. During the afternoon, shortly before the arrival of the procession, several male and female slaves had arrived under the direction of a Chaldæan soothsayer, who announced that he had been sent along with them to the house of the bridegroom by the bride’s mother, the Lady Duilia, and that they formed a portion of Domitia’s attendance, who had been associated with her in her former home, and would be about her person in her new quarters. No suspicion had been roused, and as the Magian spoke with authority, and gave directions, which it was presumed he was commissioned to do, and as old Lamia was crippled with gout and moreover indisposed to attend to such matters, and the old lady was simple to childishness, these strangers were suffered to do much what they pleased; and on the bride retiring to be divested of the flame colored veil, her wreath and other ornaments, had been allowed to take possession of her.

What happened further they did not know. In the excitement of the arrival of visitors nothing had been observed till some of the household servants remarked that the servants of the family of Duilia had left, – that there had been a bustle in the garden court, and that a litter had departed, borne by men who ran under their load. But even then no notion that the bride had been carried off was entertained. For some time no suspicion of mischief arose. When the slaves became aware that their new mistress was no longer in the house, there was first some surprise entertained that she was not seen, then a notion that she might be unwell or over-tired – but the first word that suggested that she had been conveyed away came from without the house, from a guest who inquired casually what lady had left the house, in a litter, borne by trotting porters. Lamia, in violent agitation, at once hurried to the house whence Domitia had come, to ask for an explanation. There he learned nothing satisfactory. No servants had been sent beforehand. Domitia had taken with her two female slaves, but they had attended her in the procession. The sorcerer, it was true, had disappeared and had not returned.

Lamia was obliged to return home, without his anxiety being in any way removed.

On reaching his palace on the Cœlian, he learned something further. In the room in which Domitia had been divested of her bridal ornaments, which lay scattered in disorder, was a crystal cup that contained the dregs of wine, and this wine was drugged with a powerful narcotic. Of this the slave who acted as house-surgeon and physician was certain. He had tasted it and detected the presence of an opiate. Nothing further could be learned, neither whence came the strange slaves nor whither they had gone.

In the mean time a party surrounding a closed litter had passed through the Porta Capena, and was hurrying along the Appian Way.

Directly the city was left, a tall man who directed the convoy called a halt; – then approaching the litter, he drew back the curtains, and said: —

“Asleep! Two of you take her up, lift her, set her on her feet and rouse her.”

He was obeyed and a helpless body was removed, sustained between two stout slaves, and made to stand on the causeway.

“Shake her,” said the director, who was none other than the Chaldæan. “If she sleep on, she will never wake. Roused and made to walk she must be. We need fear no pursuit. I have left those behind who will spread a false rumor, and send such as think she has been carried away along the wrong road. Make her walk.”

The helpless girl – it was Domitia – staggered with drowsiness and stumbled.

“Let me sleep,” she murmured.

“It must not be, lady. To let you sleep is to consign you to death. You must be constrained to walk.”

“Let me sleep!” she fretfully said.

“If you sleep you die.”

“I want to die – only to sleep. I am dead weary.”

“Make her move along,” said the sorcerer in a low tone, and the slaves who held her up drew her forward. She scarce moved her feet.

“Oh, you are cruel. I want to sleep. An hour! half an hour. For one moment longer!” she pleaded.

Still the bearers drew her forward, they did not lift her so that she need not move her feet. She was constrained to step forward.

“I pray you! I will give you gold. You shall have all my jewels. Lay me down. Let go your hold, and I will lie where I am, and sleep.”

“Draw her further. – Hark! here come horses. Aside! behind that tomb!”

The party stole from off the road and secreted itself behind one of the mausoleums that line the sides of the Appian Way.

“Shake her – lest she doze off in your arms,” said Elymas, and the slaves obeyed.

Then Domitia began to sob. “Have pity! only for a little while, I am so tired. The day has been so long and so wearying.”

“They are passed – mere travellers,” said the sorcerer. “Into the road again. Force her to walk.”

Then she called, “Lamia – my Lucius! come to me, drive these men away. They will not let me sleep,” and she struggled to free herself, and unable to do so by a spasmodic effort, began to sob, and sobbed herself into a half doze.

“She is sleeping. Run with her,” called the Magus.

In vain did she weep, entreat, threaten, naught availed, she was forced to advance; now to take a few steps, to rest on her feet, to walk in actuality. The very anger she felt at not being allowed to cast herself down, fold her hands under her head, and drop off into unconsciousness, tended to rouse her.

After about half an hour, her entreaties to be allowed to rest became less frequent, and alternated with inquiries as to where she was, whither she was going, why she was forced to walk, and that at night. Then she ceased altogether to complain of drowsiness, and finding she met with no response to her inquiries as to her destination, she became silent; she was now conscious, but her brain was clouded, perplexed. She could remember nothing that would account for her present position. Whether she were in a dream, laboring under nightmare, she could not tell, and purposely she struck her foot against one of the paving blocks of lava, and by the pain assured herself that she was actually awake.

But where was she?

She looked up. The sky was besprent with stars, a sky limpid, tender, vaporless and vast, out of which the stars throbbed with iridescent light in all the changeful flicker of topaz, emerald and ruby. And the air was full of flying stars, in tens of thousands, they settled on rushes by the roadside in chains of fire, they flashed across the eyes, they settled down on the dress; and out of the cool grass shone the steady lustre of innumerable glow-worms.

The milky way, like an illumined veil, crossed the vault, vaporous, transparent with stars shining through it.

From the black monuments on each side hooted the owls, bats swept by, diving out of night to brush by the passers along the road and plunge back into night, like old forgotten fancies of the dreaming mind, that recur and vanish again, in waking hours. Out of the grass the crickets shrilled, and frogs called with flutelike tones at intervals, whilst others maintained an incessant chatter.

Where was she? What were these great fantastic edifices on each side of the road? They were no houses, for out of none glimmered a light. No occupants stood in the doors, or sang and piped on the threshold. These were no taverns, for no host invited to rest within, and praised his fare. The road was forsaken, still as death, and these mansions were the dwellings of the dead. She knew this now – that she was on one of the roads that led from the gates of Rome, lined with tombs. How she had got there she knew not. Least of all did she know for what reason she was being dragged along it. She had thus trudged for a considerable time; she had ceased to speak. She was occupied with her thoughts. Weary she was, but in too great anguish of mind to be aware how weary she was, till tripping on a stone she fell.

Then a voice said: —

“She is full awake now. There is naught to fear. Let her again mount the litter.”

“Elymas!” exclaimed the girl, “I know you, I know your voice. What means this? Whither am I being taken?”

“Madam,” said the sorcerer in reply, after a pause, “your own eyes shall answer the question better than my lips, to-morrow.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

ALBANUM

Sleep-drunk, with clouded brain, eyes that saw as in a dream, feet that moved involuntarily, Domitia descended from the litter and tottered in at a doorway when informed that she had reached her destination.

Where that was she did not care, whose house this was mattered nothing to her in her then condition of weariness.

Female slaves bearing lights received her and directed her steps to a chamber where they would have divested her of her garments and put her to bed, had she not refused their assistance, thrown herself on the couch and in a moment fallen fast asleep.

The slaves looked at each other, whispered, and resolved not to torment by rousing her; they accordingly drew the heavy curtains of the doorway and left her to her slumbers.

But weary though Domitia was, her sleep was not dreamless, the song of a thousand nightingales that made the night musical reached her ears and penetrated the doorways of her troubled brain and wove fantasies; the ever-present sense of fear, not dissipated by slumber, weighed on her and gave sombre color to her dreams; the motion of the palanquin had communicated itself in her fancy, to the bed, and that tossed and swayed under her. Her weary feet seemed stung and burnt as though they had been held too close to the fire. Now she saw Lamia’s face, and then it was withdrawn; now her mother seemed to be calling to her from an ever-increasing distance.

Yet troubled though her sleep was, it afforded her brain some rest, and she woke in the morning at a later hour than usual, when by the strip of warm light below the curtains she was made aware that the sun had risen.

She started from sleep, passed her hand across her face, pressed her brows, stepped to the doorway, pushed the curtains aside and looked out into a little atrium, in which plashed a fountain, and where stood boxes of myrtles in full flower, steeping the atmosphere with fragrance.

At once two female servants came to her, bowed low and desired permission to assist in dressing her.

With some hesitation she consented.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“By the lake of Alba,” answered a dark-faced servant with hard lustrous eyes, and in a foreign dialect.

“In whose house?”

The slaves looked at each other, and made no reply.

Again she put the question.

“Lady, we are forbidden to say,” answered one of the slaves.

“At Alba?” muttered Domitia.

Then, as the woman divested her of her tunic, something fell from her bosom on the mosaic floor. The maid stooped, picked it up and handed it to Domitia, who turned it in her palm and looked at it, at first without comprehension. Then she recollected what this was – the amulet given her by Glyceria. It was a red cornelian fish pierced at one end and a fine gold ring inserted in the hole, so that the stone might be suspended.

Domitia was not in a condition of mind to pay attention to the ornament, but she bade one of the servants thread a piece of silk through the ring that she might wear the amulet about her neck, and then she allowed herself to be conducted to the bath.

With suspicious eyes the girl observed everything. She was obviously in a country villa belonging to some Roman noble, and that villa beside the Alban Lake.

The Ælii Lamiæ had no country-house at this place, of that she was aware. She had heard some of the friends of her mother speak of the beauties of the Alban Lake, and then her mother had lamented that the family estate lay by the Gabian puddle. But she could not recall that any one of them had a villa there.

When she left the bath she walked out of the doorway through the vestibule and stood on the terrace.

Below was the sombre lake, almost circular, with the rolling woods of oak and beech flowing down the slopes to the very water’s edge, here and there the green covering interrupted by precipitous crags of tuffa. Yonder was the great ridge on which gleamed white the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the central shrine of the Latin races, the great pilgrimage place to which the country people turned in every distress.

She had not previously seen the Alban Lake, although Gabii had been her residence for some months, and that was seated on a low spur of the mountains, in the crater of one of which slept this tranquil and lovely sheet of water. But she knew enough about it by hearsay to be sure that she was not misinformed by the slaves as to where she now was. She certainly was beside that lake, near which once stretched Alba Longa, the cradle of the Roman race – a race of shepherds driven from its first seat by volcanic fires, to settle beside the Tiber on the Palatine Hill.

That road along which she had been conveyed during the night was the great Appian Way. It could have been none other, and that led, as she was aware, along the spurs of the Alban mountains.

She walked the terrace, her brow moist with anxious thought.

Why had she been carried off?

By whom had she been swept as by a hurricane from her husband’s side?

A sense of numbness was on her brain still, caused by the shock. To Lucius Lamia her heart had turned with the reverence she had borne to her father, with the sweetness and glow of girlish love for one who would be linked with her by a still nearer tie. She could not realize that she was parted from Lamia finally, irrevocably. She was in a waking dream: a dream of great horror, but yet a dream that would roll away and reality would return. She would wake from it in the arms of her dear husband, looking into his eyes, clinging to his heart, hearing his words soothing her mind, allaying her terrors.

If at this time she could have conceived that to be possible which nevertheless was to take place, she would have run to the lake and plunged into its blue waters.

Singularly enough no thought of the vision in the temple of Isis recurred to her. Possibly she was in too stunned a condition of mind; possibly the effects of the narcotic still hung about her, like the vapors that trail along the landscape after a storm of rain at the break of the weather. No thought of hers connected this outrage with Domitian. This was due to the impression produced in her by conversation with her mother, who, she believed, was designing to secure Domitian for herself.

Moreover, the young prince had never shown her any favor. He had studiously neglected her, that he might address himself to Duilia. He had taunted her, sneered at her, but never spoken to her words that might be construed as a declaration of love. She recalled how she had urged her mother to expel him from the house when he sought refuge there; how she had sought to thrust him forth to certain death, to deny him the rights of hospitality. Such was enough to provoke resentment, not to awaken love. Her mother, on the other hand, had bound him to her by the tie of gratitude, for she had saved him at that time of extreme peril.

Seeing the dark slave girl, Domitia signed to her to approach, and asked:

“Where are some of my family? Is not Euphrosyne here – or Eboracus?”

“Lady – none came with you save the servants of our master.”

“And he?”

“Madam, I may not say.”

“There is that Magus, Elymas; send him to me.”

After some delay the sorcerer appeared, and approached, bowed and stood silent with hands crossed on his breast.

“Elymas,” said Domitia, “I require you to enlighten me. What is the meaning of this? Why have I been carried away to Albanum? By whose orders has this been done?”

He bowed again – paused, and then, with obvious uneasiness in his manner replied: —

“Destiny will be fulfilled.”

“What mean you? Destiny! some drive it before them as a