The Gladiators. A Tale of Rome and Judæa

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

  CHAPTER V

  GLAD TIDINGS

  [Initial T]

  The eye of Calchas did indeed brighten, and his colour went and came whenfood was placed before him in the Roman general's tent. It was with astrong effort that he controlled and stifled the cravings of hunger, neverso painful as when the body has been brought down by slow degrees to existon the smallest possible quantity of nourishment. It was long since a fullmeal had been spread even on Eleazar's table; and the sufferings fromfamine of the poorer classes in Jerusalem had reached a pitch unheard-ofin the history of nations. Licinius could not but admire the self-controlwith which his guest partook of his hospitality. The old man was resolvednot to betray, in his own person, the straits of the besieged. It was astaunch and soldierlike sentiment to which the Roman was keenly alive, andLicinius turned his back upon his charge, affecting to give longdirections to some of his centurions from the tent-door, in order toafford Calchas the opportunity of satisfying his hunger unobserved.

  After a while, the general seated himself inside, courteously desiring hisguest to do the same. A decurion, with his spearmen, stood at theentrance, under the standard where the eagles of the Tenth Legion hoveredover his shining crest. The sun was blazing fiercely down on the whitelines of canvas that stretched in long perspective on every side, andflashing back at stated intervals from shield, and helm, and breastplate,piled in exact array at each tent-door. It was too early in the year forthe crackling locust; and every trace of life, as of vegetation, haddisappeared from the parched surface of the soil, burnished and slipperywith the intense heat. It was an hour of lassitude and repose even in thebeleaguering camp, and scarce a sound broke the drowsy stillness of noon,save the stamp and snort of a tethered steed, or the scream of an ill-tempered mule. Scorched without, and stifled within, even the well-disciplined legionary loathed his canvas shelter; longing, yearning vainlyin his day-dreams for the breeze of cool Praeneste, and the shades ofdarkling Tibur, and the north wind blowing through the holm-oaks off thecrest of the snowy Apennines.

  In the general's pavilion the awning had been raised a cubit from theground, to admit what little air there was, so faint as scarce to stir thefringe upon his tunic. Against the pole that propped the soldier's home,rested a mule's pack-saddle, and a spare breastplate. On the wooden framewhich served him for a bed, lay the general's tablets, and a sketch of theTower of Antonia. A simple earthenware dish contained the food offered tohis guest, and, like the coarse clay vessel into which a wineskin had beenpoured, was nearly empty. Licinius sat with his helmet off, but otherwisecompletely armed. Calchas, robed in his long dark mantle, fixed his mildeye steadily on his host.

  The man of war and the man of peace seemed to have some engrossingthought, some all-important interest in common. For a while they conversedon light and trivial topics, the discipline of the camp, the fertility ofSyria, the distance from Rome, and the different regions in which herarmies fought and conquered. Then Licinius broke through his reserve, andspoke out freely to his guest.

  "You have a hero," said the Roman, "in your ranks, of whom I would fainlearn something, loving him as I do like a son. Our men call him theYellow Hostage; and there is not a warrior among all the brave championsof Jerusalem whom they regard with such admiration and dread. I myself sawhim but yesterday save your whole army from destruction beneath thewalls."

  "It is Esca!" exclaimed Calchas. "Esca, once a chief in Britain, andafterwards your slave in Rome."

  "The same," answered Licinius; "and, though a slave, the noblest and thebravest of men. A chief, you say, in Britain. What know you of him? Henever told me who he was, or whence he came."

  "I know him," replied Calchas, "as one who lives with us like a kinsman,who takes his share of hardship, and far more than his share of danger, asthough he were a very chief in Israel--who is to me, indeed, and thosedearest to me, far more precious than a son. We escaped together fromRome--my brother, my brother's child, and this young Briton. Many a nighton the smooth AEgean has he told me of his infancy, his youth, his manhood,the defence his people made against your soldiers, the cruel stratagems bywhich they were foiled and overcome, how nobly he himself had braved thelegions; and yet how the first lessons he learned in childhood were tofeel kindly for the invader, how the first accents his mother taught himwere in the Roman tongue."

  "It is strange," observed Licinius, musing deeply, and answering, as itseemed, his own thought. "Strange lesson for one of that nation to learn.Strange, too, that fate seems to have posted him continually in armsagainst the conqueror."

  "They were his mother's lessons," resumed Calchas; "and that mother he hasnot forgotten even to-day. He loves to speak of her as though she couldsee him still. And who shall say she cannot? He loves to tell of herstately form, her fond eyes, and her gentle brow, with its lines ofthought and care. He says she had some deep sorrow in her youth, which herchild suspected, but of which she never spoke. It taught her to be kindand patient with all; it made her none the less loving for her boy. Ay,'tis the same tale in every nation and under every sky. The garment hasnot yet been woven in which the black hank of sin and sorrow does notcross and recross throughout the whole web. She had her burden to bear,and so has Esca, and so hast thou, great Roman commander, one of theconquerors of the earth; and so have I, but I know where to lay mine down,and rest in peace."

  "They are a noble race, these women of Britain," said Licinius, followingout the thread of his own thoughts with a heavy heart, on which one ofthem had impressed her image so deeply, that while it beat, a memory wouldreign there, as it had reigned already for years, undisturbed by a livingrival. "And so the boy loves to talk of his childhood, and his lostmother--lost," he added bitterly, "surely lost, because so loved!"

  "Even so," replied Calchas; "and deep as was the child's grief, it carrieda sharper sting from the manner of her death. Too young to bear arms, hehad seen his father hurry away at the head of his tribe to meet the Romanlegions. His father, a fierce, imperious warrior, of whom he knew butlittle, and whom he would have dreaded rather than loved, had the boydreaded anything on earth. His mother lay on a bed of sickness; and eventhe child felt a nameless fear on her account, that forbade him to leaveher side. With pain and difficulty they moved her on her litter to afastness in their deep, tangled forests, where the Britons made a laststand. Then certain long-bearded priests took him by force from hismother's side, and hid him away in a cavern, because he was a chief's son.He can recall now the pale face and the loving eyes, turned on him in alast look, as he was borne off struggling and fighting like a young wolf-cub. From his cavern he heard plainly the shouts of battle and the veryclash of steel; but he heeded them not, for a vague and sickening dreadhad come over him that he should see his mother no more. It was even so.They hurried the child from his refuge by night. They never halted tillthe sun had risen and set again. Then they spoke to him with kind,soothing words; but when he turned from them, and called for his mother,they told him she was dead. They had not even paid her the last tribute ofrespect. While they closed her eyes, the legions had already forced theirrude defences; her few attendants fled for their lives, and the high-bornGuenebra was left in the lonely hut wherein she died, to the mercy of theconquerors."

  When Calchas ceased speaking, he saw that his listener had turned ghastlypale, and that the sweat was standing on his brow. His strong frame, too,shook till his armour rattled. He rose and crossed to the tent-door as iffor air, then turned to his guest, and spoke in a low but steady voice--

  "I knew it," said he--"I knew it must be so; this Esca is the son of onewhom I met in my youth, and why should I be ashamed to confess it? whoseinfluence has pervaded my whole life. I am old and grey now. Look at me;what have such as I to do with the foolish hopes and fears that quickenthe young fresh heart, and flush the unwrinkled cheek? But now, to-day, Itell thee, warworn and saddened as I am, it seems to me that the cup oflife has been but of
fered, and dashed cruelly away ere it had so much ascooled my thirsty lips. Why should I have known happiness, only to bemocked by its want? What! thou hast a human heart? Thou art a brave man,too, though thy robes denote a vocation of peace, else thou hadst not beenhere to-day in the heart of an enemy's camp. Need I tell thee, that when Ientered that rude hut in the Briton's stronghold, and saw all I loved onearth stretched cold and inanimate on her litter at my feet, had I notbeen a soldier of Rome my own good sword had been my consolation, and Ihad fallen by her there, to be laid in the same grave; and now I shallnever see her more!" He passed his hand across his face, and added, in abroken whisper, "Never more! never more!"

  "You cannot think so. You cannot believe in such utter desolation,"exclaimed Calchas, roused like some old war-horse by the trumpet sound, ashe saw the task assigned him, and recognised yet another traveller on thegreat road, whom he could guide home.

  "Do you think that you or she, or any one of us, were made to suffer, andto cause others suffering--to strive and fail, and long and sorrow, for alittle while, only to drop into the grave at last, like an over-ripe figfrom its branch, and be forgotten? Do you think that life is to end foryou, or for me, when the one falls in his armour, at the head of the TenthLegion, pierced by a Jewish javelin, or the other is crucified before thewalls for a spy, by Titus, or stoned in the gate for a traitor, by his owncountrymen? And this is the fate which may await us both before to-morrow's sun is set. Believe it not, noble Roman! That frame of yours isno more Licinius than is the battered breastplate yonder on the ground,which you have cast aside because it is no longer proof against sword andspear; the man himself leaves his worn-out robe behind, and goes rejoicingon his journey--the journey that is to lead him to his home elsewhere."

  "And where?" asked the Roman, interested by the earnestness of his guest,and the evident conviction with which he spoke. "Is it the home to which,as our own poets have said, good AEneas, and Tullus, and Ancus have gonebefore? the home of which some philosophers have dreamed, and at whichothers laugh--a phantom-land, a fleeting pageant, impalpable plains beyonda shadowy river? These are but dreams, the idle visions of men of thought.What have we, who are the men of action, to do with aught but reality?"

  "And what is reality?" replied Calchas. "Is it without or within? Lookfrom your own tent-door, noble Roman, and behold the glorious array thatmeets your eye--the even camp, the crested legionaries, the eagles, thetrophies, and the piles of arms. Beyond, the towers and pinnacles ofJerusalem, and the white dome of the Temple with its dazzling roof ofgold. Far away, the purple hills of Moab looking over the plains of theDead Sea. It is a world of beautiful reality. There cometh a flash from athunder-cloud or an arrow off the wall, and your life is spared, but youreyesight is gone: which is the reality now, the light or the darkness? thewide expanse of glittering sunshine, or the smarting pain and the blacknight within? So is it with life and death. Titus in his golden armour,Vespasian on the throne of the Caesars, that stalwart soldier leaningyonder on his spear, or the wasted captive dying for hunger in thetown--are they beings of the same kind? and why are their shares so unequalin the common lot? Because it matters so little what may be the differentillusions that deceive us now, when all may attain equally to the samereality at last."

  Licinius pondered for a few minutes ere he replied. Like many anotherthinking heathen, he had often speculated on the great question whichforces itself at times on every reflective being, "Why are these thingsso?" He, too, had been struck ere now with the obvious discrepancy betweenman's aspirations and his efforts--the unaccountable caprices of fortune,the apparent injustice of fate. He had begun life in the bold confidenceof an energetic character, believing all things possible to the resolutestrength and courage of manhood. When he failed, he blamed himself withsomething of contempt; when he succeeded, he gathered fresh confidence inhis own powers and in the truth of his theories. But in the pride of youthand happiness, sorrow took him by the hand, and taught him the bitterlesson that it is good to learn early rather than late; because, until theplough has passed over it, there can be no real fertility, no healthyproduce on the untilled soil. The deeper they are scored, the heavier isthe harvest from these furrows of the heart. Licinius, in the prime oflife, and on the pinnacle of success, became a thoughtful, because alonely and disappointed, man. He saw the complications around him; heacknowledged his inability to comprehend them. While others thought him sostrong and self-reliant, he knew his own weakness and his own need; thebroken spirit was humble and docile as a child's.

  "There must be a _reason_ for everything," he exclaimed at last; "theremust be a clue in the labyrinth, if a man's hand could only find it. Whatis truth? say our philosophers. Oh, that I did but know!"

  Then, in the warlike tent, in the heart of the conquering army, the Jewimparted to the Roman that precious wisdom to which all other learning isbut an entrance and a path. Under the very shadow of the eagles that weregathered to devastate his city, the man to whom all vicissitudes werealike, to whom all was good, because he knew "what was truth," showed tohis brother, whose sword was even then sharpened for the destruction ofhis people, that talisman which gave him the mastery over all createdthings: which made him superior to hunger and thirst, pain and sorrow,insult, dishonour, and death. It is something, even in this world, to weara suit of impenetrable armour, such as is provided for the weakest and thelowest who enter the service that requires so little and that grants somuch. Licinius listened eagerly, greedily, as a blind man would listen toone who taught him how to recover his sight. Gladdening was the certaintyof a future to one who had hitherto lived so mournfully in the past. Freshand beautiful was the rising edifice of hope to one whose eye was dullwith looking on the grey ruins of regret. There was comfort for him, therewas encouragement, there was example. When Calchas told, in simple,earnest words, all that he himself had heard and seen of glorious self-sacrifice, of infinite compassion, and of priceless ransom, the soldier'sknee was bent, and his eyes were wet with tears.

  By the orders of his commander, Licinius conducted his guest back to theGreat Gate of Jerusalem with all the customary honours paid to anambassador from a hostile power. He bore the answer of Titus, granting tothe besieged the respite they desired. Placidus had been so far right thatthe prince's better judgment condemned the ill-timed reprieve; but inthis, as in many other instances, Titus suffered his clemency to prevailover his experience in Jewish duplicity and his anxiety to terminate thewar.