The Last Days of Pompeii
Page 36
Chapter X
WHAT BECOMES OF NYDIA IN THE HOUSE OF ARBACES. THE EGYPTIAN FEELSCOMPASSION FOR GLAUCUS. COMPASSION IS OFTEN A VERY USELESS VISITOR TOTHE GUILTY.
IT will be remembered that, at the command of Arbaces, Nydia followedthe Egyptian to his home, and conversing there with her, he learned fromthe confession of her despair and remorse, that her hand, and notJulia's, had administered to Glaucus the fatal potion. At another timethe Egyptian might have conceived a philosophical interest in soundingthe depths and origin of the strange and absorbing passion which, inblindness and in slavery, this singular girl had dared to cherish; butat present he spared no thought from himself. As, after her confession,the poor Nydia threw herself on her knees before him, and besought himto restore the health and save the life of Glaucus--for in her youth andignorance she imagined the dark magician all-powerful to effectboth--Arbaces, with unheeding ears, was noting only the new expediency ofdetaining Nydia a prisoner until the trial and fate of Glaucus weredecided. For if, when he judged her merely the accomplice of Julia inobtaining the philtre, he had felt it was dangerous to the full successof his vengeance to allow her to be at large--to appear, perhaps, as awitness--to avow the manner in which the sense of Glaucus had beendarkened, and thus win indulgence to the crime of which he wasaccused--how much more was she likely to volunteer her testimony whenshe herself had administered the draught, and, inspired by love, wouldbe only anxious, at any expense of shame, to retrieve her error andpreserve her beloved? Besides, how unworthy of the rank and repute ofArbaces to be implicated in the disgrace of pandering to the passion ofJulia, and assisting in the unholy rites of the Saga of Vesuvius!Nothing less, indeed, than his desire to induce Glaucus to own themurder of Apaecides, as a policy evidently the best both for his ownpermanent safety and his successful suit with Ione, could ever have ledhim to contemplate the confession of Julia.
As for Nydia, who was necessarily cut off by her blindness from much ofthe knowledge of active life, and who, a slave and a stranger, wasnaturally ignorant of the perils of the Roman law, she thought rather ofthe illness and delirium of her Athenian, than the crime of which shehad vaguely heard him accused, or the chances of the impending trial.Poor wretch that she was, whom none addressed, none cared for, what didshe know of the senate and the sentence--the hazard of the law--theferocity of the people--the arena and the lion's den? She wasaccustomed only to associate with the thought of Glaucus everything thatwas prosperous and lofty--she could not imagine that any peril, savefrom the madness of her love, could menace that sacred head. He seemedto her set apart for the blessings of life. She only had disturbed thecurrent of his felicity; she knew not, she dreamed not that the stream,once so bright, was dashing on to darkness and to death. It wastherefore to restore the brain that she had marred, to save the lifethat she had endangered that she implored the assistance of the greatEgyptian.
'Daughter,' said Arbaces, waking from his reverie, 'thou must rest here;it is not meet for thee to wander along the streets, and be spurned fromthe threshold by the rude feet of slaves. I have compassion on thy softcrime--I will do all to remedy it. Wait here patiently for some days,and Glaucus shall be restored.' So saying, and without waiting for herreply, he hastened from the room, drew the bolt across the door, andconsigned the care and wants of his prisoner to the slave who had thecharge of that part of the mansion.
Alone, then, and musingly, he waited the morning light, and with itrepaired, as we have seen, to possess himself of the person of Ione.
His primary object, with respect to the unfortunate Neapolitan, was thatwhich he had really stated to Clodius, viz., to prevent her interestingherself actively in the trial of Glaucus, and also to guard against heraccusing him (which she would, doubtless, have done) of his former actof perfidy and violence towards her, his ward--denouncing his causes forvengeance against Glaucus--unveiling the hypocrisy of his character--andcasting any doubt upon his veracity in the charge which he had madeagainst the Athenian. Not till he had encountered her that morning--nottill he had heard her loud denunciations--was he aware that he had alsoanother danger to apprehend in her suspicion of his crime. He huggedhimself now at the thought that these ends were effected: that one, atonce the object of his passion and his fear, was in his power. Hebelieved more than ever the flattering promises of the stars; and whenhe sought Ione in that chamber in the inmost recesses of his mysteriousmansion to which he had consigned her--when he found her overpowered byblow upon blow, and passing from fit to fit, from violence to torpor, inall the alternations of hysterical disease--he thought more of theloveliness which no frenzy could distort than of the woe which he hadbrought upon her. In that sanguine vanity common to men who throughlife have been invariably successful, whether in fortune or love, heflattered himself that when Glaucus had perished--when his name wassolemnly blackened by the award of a legal judgment, his title to herlove for ever forfeited by condemnation to death for the murder of herown brother--her affection would be changed to horror; and that histenderness and his passion, assisted by all the arts with which he wellknew how to dazzle woman's imagination, might elect him to that thronein her heart from which his rival would be so awfully expelled. Thiswas his hope: but should it fail, his unholy and fervid passionwhispered, 'At the worst, now she is in my power.'
Yet, withal, he felt that uneasiness and apprehension which attendedupon the chance of detection, even when the criminal is insensible tothe voice of conscience--that vague terror of the consequences of crime,which is often mistaken for remorse at the crime itself. The buoyantair of Campania weighed heavily upon his breast; he longed to hurry froma scene where danger might not sleep eternally with the dead; and,having Ione now in his possession, he secretly resolved, as soon as hehad witnessed the last agony of his rival, to transport his wealth--andher, the costliest treasure of all, to some distant shore.
'Yes,' said he, striding to and fro his solitary chamber--'yes, the lawthat gave me the person of my ward gives me the possession of my bride.Far across the broad main will we sweep on our search after novelluxuries and inexperienced pleasures. Cheered by my stars, supported bythe omens of my soul, we will penetrate to those vast and gloriousworlds which my wisdom tells me lie yet untracked in the recesses of thecircling sea. There may this heart, possessed of love, grow once morealive to ambition--there, amongst nations uncrushed by the Roman yoke,and to whose ear the name of Rome has not yet been wafted, I may foundan empire, and transplant my ancestral creed; renewing the ashes of thedead Theban rule; continuing in yet grander shores the dynasty of mycrowned fathers, and waking in the noble heart of Ione the gratefulconsciousness that she shares the lot of one who, far from the agedrottenness of this slavish civilization, restores the primal elements ofgreatness, and unites in one mighty soul the attributes of the prophetand the king.' From this exultant soliloquy, Arbaces was awakened toattend the trial of the Athenian.
The worn and pallid cheek of his victim touched him less than thefirmness of his nerves and the dauntlessness of his brow; for Arbaceswas one who had little pity for what was unfortunate, but a strongsympathy for what was bold. The congenialities that bind us to othersever assimilate to the qualities of our own nature. The hero weeps lessat the reverses of his enemy than at the fortitude with which he bearsthem. All of us are human, and Arbaces, criminal as he was, had hisshare of our common feelings and our mother clay. Had he but obtainedfrom Glaucus the written confession of his crime, which would, betterthan even the judgment of others, have lost him with Ione, and removedfrom Arbaces the chance of future detection, the Egyptian would havestrained every nerve to save his rival. Even now his hatred wasover--his desire of revenge was slaked: he crushed his prey, not inenmity, but as an obstacle in his path. Yet was he not the lessresolved, the less crafty and persevering, in the course he pursued, forthe destruction of one whose doom was become necessary to the attainmentof his objects: and while, with apparent reluctance and compassion, hegave against Glaucus the evidence which condemned him,
he secretly, andthrough the medium of the priesthood, fomented that popular indignationwhich made an effectual obstacle to the pity of the senate. He hadsought Julia; he had detailed to her the confession of Nydia; he hadeasily, therefore, lulled any scruple of conscience which might have ledher to extenuate the offence of Glaucus by avowing her share in hisfrenzy: and the more readily, for her vain heart had loved the fame andthe prosperity of Glaucus--not Glaucus himself, she felt no affectionfor a disgraced man--nay, she almost rejoiced in the disgrace thathumbled the hated Ione. If Glaucus could not be her slave, neithercould he be the adorer of her rival. This was sufficient consolationfor any regret at his fate. Volatile and fickle, she began again to bemoved by the sudden and earnest suit of Clodius, and was not willing tohazard the loss of an alliance with that base but high-born noble by anypublic exposure of her past weakness and immodest passion for another.All things then smiled upon Arbaces--all things frowned upon theAthenian.