Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero
every day, and extends itself over all human understandings. This struck
him also with reference to Lygia, for he was convinced that, had
she wished to flee from the city, there would be guards willing to
facilitate her flight. He thanked the gods then that this had not
happened.
After they had passed vacant places beyond the wall, the Christians
began to scatter. There was need, therefore, to follow Lygia more from
a distance, and more carefully, so as not to rouse attention. Chilo fell
to complaining of wounds, of pains in his legs, and dropped more
and more to the rear. Vinicius did not oppose this, judging that the
cowardly and incompetent Greek would not be needed. He would even have
permitted him to depart, had he wished; but the worthy sage was detained
by circumspection. Curiosity pressed him evidently, since he continued
behind, and at moments even approached with his previous counsels; he
thought too that the old man accompanying the Apostle might be Glaucus,
were it not for his rather low stature.
They walked a good while before reaching the Trans-Tiber, and the sun
was near rising when the group surrounding Lygia dispersed. The Apostle,
an old woman, and a boy went up the river; the old man of lower stature,
Ursus, and Lygia entered a narrow vicus, and, advancing still about a
hundred yards, went into a house in which were two shops,--one for the
sale of olives, the other for poultry.
Chilo, who walked about fifty yards behind Vinicius and Croton, halted
all at once, as if fixed to the earth, and, squeezing up to the wall,
began to hiss at them to turn.
They did so, for they needed to take counsel.
“Go, Chilo,” said Vinicius, “and see if this house fronts on another
street.” Chilo, though he had complained of wounds in his feet, sprang
away as quickly as if he had had the wings of Mercury on his ankles, and
returned in a moment.
“No,” said he, “there is but one entrance.”
Then, putting his hands together, he said, “I implore thee, lord, by
Jupiter, Apollo, Vesta, Cybele, Isis, Osiris, Mithra Baal, and all the
gods of the Orient and the Occident to drop this plan. Listen to me--”
But he stopped on a sudden, for he saw that Vinicius’s face was pale
from emotion, and that his eyes were glittering like the eyes of a wolf.
It was enough to look at him to understand that nothing in the world
would restrain him from the undertaking. Croton began to draw air into
his herculean breast, and to sway his undeveloped skull from side to
side as bears do when confined in a cage, but on his face not the least
fear was evident.
“I will go in first,” said he.
“Thou wilt follow me,” said Vinicius, in commanding tones.
And after a while both vanished in the dark entrance.
Chilo sprang to the corner of the nearest alley and watched from behind
it, waiting for what would happen.
Chapter XXII
ONLY inside the entrance did Vinicius comprehend the whole difficulty
of the undertaking. The house was large, of several stories, one of the
kind of which thousands were built in Rome, in view of profit from rent;
hence, as a rule, they were built so hurriedly and badly that scarcely
a year passed in which numbers of them did not fall on the heads of
tenants. Real hives, too high and too narrow, full of chambers and
little dens, in which poor people fixed themselves too numerously. In a
city where many streets had no names, those houses had no numbers; the
owners committed the collection of rent to slaves, who, not obliged by
the city government to give names of occupants, were ignorant themselves
of them frequently. To find some one by inquiry in such a house was
often very difficult, especially when there was no gate-keeper.
Vinicius and Croton came to a narrow, corridor-like passage walled in on
four sides, forming a kind of common atrium for the whole house, with a
fountain in the middle whose stream fell into a stone basin fixed in the
ground. At all the walls were internal stairways, some of stone, some of
wood, leading to galleries from which there were entrances to lodgings.
There were lodgings on the ground, also; some provided with wooden
doors, others separated from the yard by woollen screens only. These,
for the greater part, were worn, rent, or patched.
The hour was early, and there was not a living soul in the yard. It was
evident that all were asleep in the house except those who had returned
from Ostrianum.
“What shall we do, lord?” asked Croton, halting.
“Let us wait here; some one may appear,” replied Vinicius. “We should
not be seen in the yard.”
At this moment, he thought Chilo’s counsel practical. If there were
some tens of slaves present, it would be easy to occupy the gate, which
seemed the only exit, search all the lodgings simultaneously, and thus
come to Lygia’s; otherwise Christians, who surely were not lacking in
that house, might give notice that people were seeking her. In view
of this, there was risk in inquiring of strangers. Vinicius stopped to
think whether it would not be better to go for his slaves. Just then,
from behind a screen hiding a remoter lodging, came a man with a sieve
in his hand, and approached the fountain.
At the first glance the young tribune recognized Ursus.
“That is the Lygian!” whispered Vinicius.
“Am I to break his bones now?”
“Wait awhile!”
Ursus did not notice the two men, as they were in the shadow of the
entrance, and he began quietly to sink in water vegetables which
filled the sieve. It was evident that, after a whole night spent in the
cemetery, he intended to prepare a meal. After a while the washing
was finished; he took the wet sieve and disappeared behind the screen.
Croton and Vinicius followed him, thinking that they would come directly
to Lygia’s lodgings. Their astonishment was great when they saw that the
screen divided from the court, not lodgings, but another dark corridor,
at the end of which was a little garden containing a few cypresses, some
myrtle bushes, and a small house fixed to the windowless stone wall of
another stone building.
Both understood at once that this was for them a favoring circumstance.
In the courtyard all the tenants might assemble; the seclusion of the
little house facilitated the enterprise. They would set aside defenders,
or rather Ursus, quickly, and would reach the street just as quickly
with the captured Lygia; and there they would help themselves. It was
likely that no one would attack them; if attacked, they would say that
a hostage was fleeing from Cæsar. Vinicius would declare himself then to
the guards, and summon their assistance.
Ursus was almost entering the little house, when the sound of steps
attracted his attention; he halted, and, seeing two persons, put his
sieve on the balustrade and turned to them.
“What do ye want here?” asked he.
“Thee!” said Vinicius.
Then, turning to Croton, he said in a low, hurried voice:
“Kill!”
Croton rushed at him like a tiger, and in one moment, before the Lygian
was able to think or to recognize his enemies, Croton had caught him in
his arms of steel.
Vinicius was too confident in the man’s preternatural strength to wait
for the end of the struggle. He passed the two, sprang to the door of
the little house, pushed it open and found himself in a room a trifle
dark, lighted, however, by a fire burning in the chimney. A gleam of
this fire fell on Lygia’s face directly. A second person, sitting at the
fire, was that old man who had accompanied the young girl and Ursus on
the road from Ostrianum.
Vinicius rushed in so suddenly that before Lygia could recognize him he
had seized her by the waist, and, raising her, rushed toward the door
again. The old man barred the way, it is true; but pressing the girl
with one arm to his breast, Vinicius pushed him aside with the other,
which was free. The hood fell from his head, and at sight of that face,
which was known to her and which at that moment was terrible, the blood
grew cold in Lygia from fright, and the voice died in her throat. She
wished to summon aid, but had not the power. Equally vain was her wish
to grasp the door, to resist. Her fingers slipped along the stone, and
she would have fainted but for the terrible picture which struck her
eyes when Vinicius rushed into the garden.
Ursus was holding in his arms some man doubled back completely, with
hanging head and mouth filled with blood. When he saw them, he struck
the head once more with his fist, and in the twinkle of an eye sprang
toward Vinicius like a raging wild beast.
“Death!” thought the young patrician.
Then he heard, as through a dream, the scream of Lygia, “Kill not!”
He felt that something, as it were a thunderbolt, opened the arms with
which he held Lygia; then the earth turned round with him, and the light
of day died in his eyes.
Chilo, hidden behind the angle of the corner house, was waiting for
what would happen, since curiosity was struggling with fear in him. He
thought that if they succeeded in carrying off Lygia, he would fare well
near Vinicius. He feared Urban no longer, for he also felt certain that
Croton would kill him. And he calculated that in case a gathering should
begin on the streets, which so far were empty,--if Christians, or people
of any kind, should offer resistance,--he, Chilo, would speak to them as
one representing authority, as an executor of Cæsar’s will, and if need
came, call the guards to aid the young patrician against the street
rabble--thus winning to himself fresh favor. In his soul he judged
yet that the young tribune’s method was unwise; considering, however,
Croton’s terrible strength, he admitted that it might succeed, and
thought, “If it go hard with him, Vinicius can carry the girl, and
Croton clear the way.” Delay grew wearisome, however; the silence of the
entrance which he watched alarmed him.
“If they do not hit upon her hiding-place, and make an uproar, they will
frighten her.”
But this thought was not disagreeable; for Chilo understood that in that
event he would be necessary again to Vinicius, and could squeeze afresh
a goodly number of sestertia from the tribune.
“Whatever they do,” said he to himself, “they will work for me, though
no one divines that. O gods! O gods! only permit me-”
And he stopped suddenly, for it seemed to him that some one was bending
forward through the entrance; then, squeezing up to the wall, he began
to look, holding the breath in his breast.
And he had not deceived himself, for a head thrust itself half out of
the entrance and looked around. After a while, however, it vanished.
“That is Vinicius, or Croton,” thought Chilo; “but if they have taken
the girl, why does she not scream, and why are they looking out to the
street? They must meet people anyhow, for before they reach the Carinæ
there will be movement in the city--What is that? By the immortal gods!”
And suddenly the remnant of his hair stood on end.
In the door appeared Ursus, with the body of Croton hanging on his arm,
and looking around once more, he began to run, bearing it along the
empty street toward the river.
Chilo made himself as flat against the wall as a bit of mud.
“I am lost if he sees me!” thought he.
But Ursus ran past the corner quickly, and disappeared beyond the
neighboring house. Chilo, without further waiting, his teeth chattering
from terror, ran along the cross street with a speed which even in a
young man might have roused admiration.
“If he sees me from a distance when he is returning, he will catch and
kill me,” said he to himself. “Save me, Zeus; save me, Apollo; save
me, Hermes; save me, O God of the Christians! I will leave Rome, I will
return to Mesembria, but save me from the hands of that demon!”
And that Lygian who had killed Croton seemed to him at that moment some