Domitia

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 wheelbarrow, and such seem you to be. Why am I here and not in Lamia’s house in Rome?”

“Did you not, lady, behold in vision that which was to be?”

She started, lost color and shivered.

“What mean you?”

“The purple.”

“The purple! I desire no purple. You speak enigmatically. You have acted a treacherous part in forwarding this act of violence. I have been snatched from my dear husband’s side, the Gods who gave me to him have been outraged, I – I, a member of a noble house, a daughter of Domitius Corbulo, have been treated as though the prey of a party of slave-hunters. What next? Am I to be taken into the market-place, and sold by auction? Or am I carried off by freebooters – to be let go for a price? Name me the captain of this robber band, and the price at which I may be ransomed. I promise it shall be paid. But that condign chastisement be inflicted for this insult, that I will also guarantee. I thank the Gods, Rome is not on the confines of the world, that these deeds can be perpetrated with impunity. We are not at Nizibis or Edessa to be fallen upon by Parthians, or held to ransom by Armenians – ”

“Young lady,” said the Magian, “your words are high-sounding, but your threats are such as cannot be executed, nor is any price asked for your redemption. When you set your foot on the Clivus Scauri, it is a narrow way, between high walls – and there is no option, you must go on. You cannot turn aside to right or left.”

“I can turn back.”

“The way is broken up behind. You must go forward.”

“Whither?”

“Look!”

A number of male slaves came forth from the villa; they were in white.

“Do you know that livery?” asked the sorcerer.

Then Domitia uttered a cry of despair, and threw herself on the ground. Now she did know where she was, in whose power she was, and how hopeless it was for her to expect to escape.

The white was the Imperial livery.

CHAPTER XXV.

BY A RAZOR

Two days passed, and Domitia remained undisturbed. No tidings reached her from Rome, but to her great relief the Cæsar Domitian did not appear. That a meeting with him must take place, she was aware, but in what manner he would address her, that she could not guess; whether he would take occasion to exhibit ignoble revenge for her treatment of him on the night when he sought refuge in her house, or whether he would approach her as a lover. This the sequel could alone disclose. The second alternative was what she mainly dreaded.

On the third day, hearing a bustle in the hall, and conjecturing that some one had arrived, and that the critical moment had come, Domitia waited in her chamber with beating heart, and long-drawn sighs. When the curtains were sharply withdrawn, to her surprise and delight her mother entered, radiant in her best toilette, her face, as far as could be judged through the paint, wreathed with smiles.

“Well!” said she. – “But first a seat. You sly fox! who would have thought it? But there – I am content. I have sent out no invitations to a little supper, there is now no occasion for it, and one does not care to spend – without an expectation of it leading to results. To look at your face no one would have supposed that depth in you – and to play us all such a trick, poor Lamia and me. It would really make a widow of a week old laugh. Don’t smother me, my dear, and above all, don’t cry – that is to say, if you cry do not let your tears fall on my cheek, you know I am – well – well – it might spoil my complexion.”

“Mother,” gasped the unhappy girl – “O, how can you speak to me in this manner. You know, you must know, I have been carried away against my will. O mother, Lucius does not suppose that – ”

“My dear child, it does not concern me in the least, whether the kitten carried off the rat, or the rat the kitten. Here you are in the rat’s hole, and all you have to look to is to eat your rat and not let the rat eat you.”

“Oh, mother! mother! take me home with you.”

“Domitia, do not be a baby. Of course you cannot return. You have bidden farewell to the household Gods, and renounced the paternal threshold.”

“Mother – I have embraced the gate-posts of the Lamiæ.”

“But the Gods of that family have been unable or unwilling to retain you, they have resigned you to – I cannot say, in conscience, nobler hands, for the Flavian family – well, we know what we know, – but to more powerful hands, that will not let you go. Besides, my dear, I have no wish to have you home again. When a bird has flown, it has said farewell to the nest, to its cracked eggshells and worms, and must find another.”

“Do not be cruel!”

“I am not cruel – but what has happened must be accepted, that is the true philosophy of life, better than all that nonsense declaimed by philosophers.”

“Mother! I will not stay here.”

“Domitia, here you must stay till somebody comes to take you away. Why! as the Gods love me! I expect yet to hear you proclaimed Augusta, and to have to offer incense and to pour a libation on your altar. Think – what an honor to have your wax head among the ancestors, as a divinity to be worshipped – but no – I am wrong there, you would be in the lararium, or set up in the vestibule, a deified ancestress or member of the family is exalted from the atrium to the temple. I really will go out of my way and have a little supper to honor the occasion. I see it all – we shall before long have a college of Flavian priests, and all the whole bundle of mouldy old usurers, and tax-collectors, and their frowsy womankind will be gods, with temples and a cult, and you, my dear! It makes my mouth water.”

“But, mother, why am I carried away?”

“Why! O you jocose little creature, why? because some person I know of has taken a fancy to your monkey ways and baby face.”

“I belong to Lamia. I have been married to him.”