Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📗

whom thou canst trust?”

 

“I have,” replied Vinicius, hurriedly. “Near Corioli is a reliable man

who carried me in his arms when I was a child, and who loves me yet.”

 

“Write to him to come tomorrow,” said Petronius, handing Vinicius

tablets. “I will send a courier at once.”

 

He called the chief of the atrium then, and gave the needful orders. A

few minutes later, a mounted slave was coursing in the night toward

Corioli.

 

“It would please me were Ursus to accompany her,” said Vinicius. “I

should be more at rest.”

 

“Lord,” said Nazarius, “that is a man of superhuman strength; he can

break gratings and follow her. There is one window above a steep, high

rock where no guard is placed. I will take Ursus a rope; the rest he

will do himself.”

 

“By Hercules!” said Petronius, “let him tear himself out as he pleases,

but not at the same time with her, and not two or three days later, for

they would follow him and discover her hiding-place. By Hercules! do ye

wish to destroy yourselves and her? I forbid you to name Corioli to

him, or I wash my hands.”

 

Both recognized the justice of these words, and were silent. Nazarius

took leave, promising to come the next morning at daybreak.

 

He hoped to finish that night with the guards, but wished first to run

in to see his mother, who in that uncertain and dreadful time had no

rest for a moment thinking of her son. After some thought he had

determined not to seek an assistant in the city, but to find and bribe

one from among his fellow corpse-bearers. When going, he stopped, and,

taking Vinicius aside, whispered,—

 

“I will not mention our plan to any one, not even to my mother, but the

Apostle Peter promised to come from the amphitheatre to our house; I

will tell him everything.”

 

“Here thou canst speak openly,” replied Vinicius. “The Apostle was in

the amphitheatre with the people of Petronius. But I will go with you

myself.”

 

He gave command to bring him a slave’s mantle, and they passed out.

Petronius sighed deeply.

 

“I wished her to die of that fever,” thought he, “since that would have

been less terrible for Vinicius. But now I am ready to offer a golden

tripod to Esculapius for her health. Ah! Ahenobarbus, thou hast the

wish to turn a lover’s pain into a spectacle; thou, Augusta, wert

jealous of the maiden’s beauty, and wouldst devour her alive because thy

Rufius has perished. Thou, Tigellinus, wouldst destroy her to spite me!

We shall see. I tell you that your eyes will not behold her on the

arena, for she will either die her own death, or I shall wrest her from

you as from the jaws of dogs, and wrest her in such fashion that ye

shall not know it; and as often afterward as I look at you I shall

think, These are the fools whom Caius Petronius outwitted.”

 

And, self-satisfied, he passed to the triclinium, where he sat down to

supper with Eunice. During the meal a lector read to them the Idyls of

Theocritus. Out of doors the wind brought clouds from the direction of

Soracte, and a sudden storm broke the silence of the calm summer night.

From time to time thunder reverberated on the seven hills, while they,

reclining near each other at the table, listened to the bucolic poet,

who in the singing Doric dialect celebrated the loves of shepherds.

Later on, with minds at rest, they prepared for sweet slumber.

 

But before this Vinicius returned. Petronius heard of his coming, and

went to meet him.

 

“Well? Have ye fixed anything new?” inquired he. “Has Nazarius gone to

the prison?”

 

“He has,” answered the young man, arranging his hair, wet from the rain.

“Nazarius went to arrange with the guards, and I have seen Peter, who

commanded me to pray and believe.”

 

“That is well. If all goes favorably, we can bear her away tomorrow

night.”

 

“My manager must be here at daybreak with men.”

 

“The road is a short one. Now go to rest.”

 

But Vinicius knelt in his cubiculum and prayed.

 

At sunrise Niger, the manager, arrived from Corioli, bringing with him,

at the order of Vinicius, mules, a litter, and four trusty men selected

among slaves from Britain, whom, to save appearances, he had left at an

inn in the Subura. Vinicius, who had watched all night, went to meet

him. Niger, moved at sight of his youthful master, kissed his hands and

eyes, saying,—

 

“My dear, thou art ill, or else suffering has sucked the blood from thy

face, for hardly did I know thee at first.”

 

Vinicius took him to the interior colonnade, and there admitted him to

the secret. Niger listened with fixed attention, and on his dry,

sunburnt face great emotion was evident; this he did not even try to

master.

 

“Then she is a Christian?” exclaimed Niger; and he looked inquiringly

into the face of Vinicius, who divined evidently what the gaze of the

countryman was asking, since he answered,—

 

“I too am a Christian.”

 

Tears glistened in Niger’s eyes that moment. He was silent for a while;

then, raising his hands, he said,—

 

“I thank Thee, O Christ, for having taken the beam from eyes which are

the dearest on earth to me.”

 

Then he embraced the head of Vinicius, and, weeping from happiness, fell

to kissing his forehead. A moment later, Petronius appeared, bringing

Nazarius.

 

“Good news!” cried he, while still at a distance.

 

Indeed, the news was good. First, Glaucus the physician guaranteed

Lygia’s life, though she had the same prison fever of which, in the

Tullianum and other dungeons, hundreds of people were dying daily. As

to the guards and the man who tried corpses with red-hot iron, there was

not the least difficulty. Attys, the assistant, was satisfied also.

 

“We made openings in the coffin to let the sick woman breathe,” said

Nazarius. “The only danger is that she may groan or speak as we pass

the pretorians. But she is very weak, and is lying with closed eyes

since early morning. Besides, Glaucus will give her a sleeping draught

prepared by himself from drugs brought by me purposely from the city.

The cover will not be nailed to the coffin; ye will raise it easily and

take the patient to the litter. We will place in the coffin a long bag

of sand, which ye will provide.”

 

Vinicius, while hearing these words, was as pale as linen; but he

listened with such attention that he seemed to divine at a glance what

Nazarius had to say.

 

“Will they carry out other bodies from the prison?” inquired Petronius.

 

“About twenty died last night, and before evening more will be dead,”

said the youth. “We must go with a whole company, but we will delay and

drop into the rear. At the first corner my comrade will get lame

purposely. In that way we shall remain behind the others considerably.

Ye will wait for us at the small temple of Libitina. May God give a

night as dark as possible!”

 

“He will,” said Niger. “Last evening was bright, and then a sudden

storm came. To-day the sky is clear, but since morning it is sultry.

Every night now there will be wind and rain.”

 

“Will ye go without torches?” inquired Vinicius.

 

“The torches are carried only in advance. In every event, be near the

temple of Libitina at dark, though usually we carry out the corpses only

just before midnight.”

 

They stopped. Nothing was to be heard save the hurried breathing of

Vinicius. Petronius turned to him,—

 

“I said yesterday that it would be best were we both to stay at home,

but now I see that I could not stay. Were it a question of flight,

there would be need of the greatest caution; but since she will be borne

out as a corpse, it seems that not the least suspicion will enter the

head of any one.”

 

“True, true!” answered Vinicius. “I must be there. I will take her

from the coffin myself.”

 

“Once she is in my house at Corioli, I answer for her,” said Niger.

Conversation stopped here. Niger returned to his men at the inn.

Nazarius took a purse of gold under his tunic and went to the prison.

For Vinicius began a day filled with alarm, excitement, disquiet, and

hope.

 

“The undertaking ought to succeed, for it is well planned,” said

Petronius. “It was impossible to plan better. Thou must feign

suffering, and wear a dark toga. Do not desert the amphitheatre. Let

people see thee. All is so fixed that there cannot be failure. But—

art thou perfectly sure of thy manager?”

 

“He is a Christian,” replied Vinicius.

 

Petronius looked at him with amazement, then shrugged his shoulders, and

said, as if in soliloquy,—

 

“By Pollux! how it spreads, and commands people’s souls. Under such

terror as the present, men would renounce straightway all the gods of

Rome, Greece, and Egypt. Still, this is wonderful! By Pollux! if I

believed that anything depended on our gods, I would sacrifice six white

bullocks to each of them, and twelve to Capitoline Jove. Spare no

promises to thy Christ.”

 

“I have given Him my soul,” said Vinicius.

 

And they parted. Petronius returned to his cubiculum; but Vinicius went

to look from a distance at the prison, and thence betook himself to the

slope of the Vatican hill,—to that hut of the quarryman where he had

received baptism from the hands of the Apostle. It seemed to him that

Christ would hear him more readily there than in any other place; so

when he found it, he threw himself on the ground and exerted all the

strength of his suffering soul in prayer for mercy, and so forgot

himself that he remembered not where he was or what he was doing. In

the afternoon he was roused by the sound of trumpets which came from the

direction of Nero’s Circus. He went out of the hut, and gazed around

with eyes which were as if just opened from sleep.

 

It was hot; the stillness was broken at intervals by the sound of brass

and continually by the ceaseless noise of grasshoppers. The air had

become sultry, the sky was still clear over the city, but near the

Sabine Hills dark clouds were gathering at the edge of the horizon.

 

Vinicius went home. Petronius was waiting for him in the atrium.

 

“I have been on the Palatine,” said he. “I showed myself there

purposely, and even sat down at dice. There is a feast at the house of

Vinicius this evening; I promised to go, but only after midnight, saying

that I must sleep before that hour. In fact I shall be there, and it

would be well wert thou to go also.”

 

“Are there no tidings from Niger or Nazarius?” inquired Vinicius.

 

“No; we shall see them only at midnight. Hast noticed that a storm is

threatening?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Tomorrow there is to be an exhibition of crucified Christians, but

perhaps rain will prevent it.”

 

Then he drew nearer and said, touching his nephew’s shoulder,—“But thou

wilt not see her on the cross; thou wilt see her only in Corioli. By

Castor! I would not give the moment in which we free her for all the

gems in Rome. The evening is near.”

 

In truth the evening was near, and darkness began to encircle the city

earlier than usual because clouds covered the whole horizon. With the

coming of night heavy