The Last Days of Pompeii Part 15

'Hark ye,' said Burbo, drawing forth his purse, and c.h.i.n.king its contents: 'you hear this music, wife; by Pollux! if you do not break in yon colt with a tight rein, you will hear it no more.'

'The girl is tired,' said Stratonice, nodding to Calenus; 'she will be more docile when you next want her.'

'You! you! who is here?' cried Nydia, casting her eyes round the apartment with so fearful and straining a survey, that Calenus rose in alarm from his seat.

'She must see with those eyes!' muttered he.

'Who is here! Speak, in heaven's name! Ah, if you were blind like me, you would be less cruel,' said she; and she again burst into tears.

'Take her away,' said Burbo, impatiently; 'I hate these whimperings.'

'Come!' said Stratonice, pus.h.i.+ng the poor child by the shoulders. Nydia drew herself aside, with an air to which resolution gave dignity.

'Hear me,' she said; 'I have served you faithfully--I who was brought up--Ah! my mother, my poor mother! didst thou dream I should come to this?' She dashed the tear from her eyes, and proceeded: 'Command me in aught else, and I will obey; but I tell you now, hard, stern, inexorable as you are--I tell you that I will go there no more; or, if I am forced there, that I will implore the mercy of the praetor himself--I have said it. Hear me, ye G.o.ds, I swear!'

The hag's eyes glowed with fire; she seized the child by the hair with one hand, and raised on high the other--that formidable right hand, the least blow of which seemed capable to crush the frail and delicate form that trembled in her grasp. That thought itself appeared to strike her, for she suspended the blow, changed her purpose, and dragging Nydia to the wall, seized from a hook a rope, often, alas! applied to a similar purpose, and the next moment the shrill, the agonized shrieks of the blind girl, rang piercingly through the house.

Chapter III

GLAUCUS MAKES A PURCHASE THAT AFTERWARDS COSTS HIM DEAR.

'HOLLA, my brave fellows!' said Lepidus, stooping his head as he entered the low doorway of the house of Burbo. 'We have come to see which of you most honors your lanista.' The gladiators rose from the table in respect to three gallants known to be among the gayest and richest youths of Pompeii, and whose voices were therefore the dispensers of amphitheatrical reputation.

'What fine animals!' said Clodius to Glaucus: 'worthy to be gladiators!'

'It is a pity they are not warriors,' returned Glaucus.

A singular thing it was to see the dainty and fastidious Lepidus, whom in a banquet a ray of daylight seemed to blind--whom in the bath a breeze of air seemed to blast--in whom Nature seemed twisted and perverted from every natural impulse, and curdled into one dubious thing of effeminacy and art--a singular thing was it to see this Lepidus, now all eagerness, and energy, and life, patting the vast shoulders of the gladiators with a blanched and girlish hand, feeling with a mincing gripe their great brawn and iron muscles, all lost in calculating admiration at that manhood which he had spent his life in carefully banis.h.i.+ng from himself.

So have we seen at this day the beardless flutterers of the saloons of London thronging round the heroes of the Fives-court--so have we seen them admire, and gaze, and calculate a bet--so have we seen them meet together, in ludicrous yet in melancholy a.s.semblage, the two extremes of civilized society--the patrons of pleasure and its slaves--vilest of all slaves--at once ferocious and mercenary; male prost.i.tutes, who sell their strength as women their beauty; beasts in act, but baser than beasts in motive, for the last, at least, do not mangle themselves for money!

'Ha! Niger, how will you fight?' said Lepidus: 'and with whom?'

'Sporus challenges me,' said the grim giant; 'we shall fight to the death, I hope.'

'Ah! to be sure,' grunted Sporus, with a twinkle of his small eye.

'He takes the sword, I the net and the trident: it will be rare sport. I hope the survivor will have enough to keep up the dignity of the crown.'

'Never fear, we'll fill the purse, my Hector,' said Clodius:

'let me see--you fight against Niger? Glaucus, a bet--I back Niger.'

'I told you so,' cried Niger exultingly. 'The n.o.ble Clodius knows me; count yourself dead already, my Sporus.'

Clodius took out his tablet. 'A bet--ten sestertia. What say you?'

'So be it,' said Glaucus. 'But whom have we here? I never saw this hero before'; and he glanced at Lydon, whose limbs were slighter than those of his companions, and who had something of grace, and something even of n.o.bleness, in his face, which his profession had not yet wholly destroyed.

'It is Lydon, a youngster, practised only with the wooden sword as yet,'

answered Niger, condescendingly. 'But he has the true blood in him, and has challenged Tetraides.'

'He challenged me,' said Lydon: 'I accept the offer.'

'And how do you fight?' asked Lepidus. 'Chut, my boy, wait a while before you contend with Tetraides.' Lydon smiled disdainfully.

'Is he a citizen or a slave?' said Clodius.

'A citizen--we are all citizens here,' quoth Niger.

'Stretch out your arm, my Lydon,' said Lepidus, with the air of a connoisseur.

The gladiator, with a significant glance at his companions, extended an arm which, if not so huge in its girth as those of his comrades, was so firm in its muscles, so beautifully symmetrical in its proportions, that the three visitors uttered simultaneously an admiring exclamation.

'Well, man, what is your weapon?' said Clodius, tablet in hand.

'We are to fight first with the cestus; afterwards, if both survive, with swords,' returned Tetraides, sharply, and with an envious scowl.

'With the cestus!' cried Glaucus; 'there you are wrong, Lydon; the cestus is the Greek fas.h.i.+on: I know it well. You should have encouraged flesh for that contest: you are far too thin for it--avoid the cestus.'

'I cannot,' said Lydon.

'And why?'

'I have said--because he has challenged me.'

'But he will not hold you to the precise weapon.'

'My honour holds me!' returned Lydon, proudly.

'I bet on Tetraides, two to one, at the cestus,' said Clodius; shall it be, Lepidus?--even betting, with swords.'

'If you give me three to one, I will not take the odds, said Lepidus: 'Lydon will never come to the swords. You are mighty courteous.'

'What say you, Glaucus?' said Clodius.

'I will take the odds three to one.'

'Ten sestertia to thirty.'

'Yes.'

Clodius wrote the bet in his book.

'Pardon me, n.o.ble sponsor mine,' said Lydon, in a low voice to Glaucus: 'but how much think you the victor will gain?'

'How much? why, perhaps seven sestertia.'