CHAPTER XX.
HE SHALL NOT LOSE HIS REWARD.
There was no room for doubt or for delay. "What is to become of you,Callista?" he said; "they will tear you to pieces."
"Fear nothing for me, father," she answered; "I am one of them. They knowme. Alas, _I_ am no Christian! _I_ have not abjured their rites! but you,lose not a moment."
"They are still at some distance," he said, "though the wind gives usmerciful warning of their coming." He looked about the room, and took upthe books of Holy Scripture which were on the shelf. "There is nothingelse," he said, "of special value here. Agellius could not take them.Here, my child, I am going to show you a great confidence. To few personsnot Christians would I show it. Take this blessed parchment; it containsthe earthly history of our Divine Master. Here you will see whom weChristians love. Read it; keep it safely; surrender it, when you have theopportunity, into Christian keeping. My mind tells me I am not wrong inlending it to you." He handed to her the Gospel of St. Luke, while he putthe two other volumes into the folds of his own tunic.
"One word more," she said; "your name, should I want you."
He took up a piece of chalk from the shelf, and wrote upon the wall indistinct characters,
"Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus, Bishop of Carthage."
Hardly had she read the inscription when the voices of several men wereheard in the very neighbourhood of the cottage; and hoping to effect adiversion in favour of Caecilius, and being at once unsuspicious of dangerto herself, and careless of her life, she ran quickly forward to meetthem. Caecilius ought to have taken to flight without a moment's delay, buta last sacred duty detained him. He knelt down and took the pyx from hisbosom. He had eaten nothing that day; but even if otherwise, it was acrisis which allowed him to consume the sacred species without fasting. Hehastily opened the golden case, adored the blessed sacrament, and consumedit, purifying its receptacle, and restoring it to its hiding-place. Thenhe rose at once and left the cottage.
He looked about; Callista was nowhere to be seen. She was gone; so muchwas certain, no enemy was in sight; it only remained for him to make offtoo. In the confusion he turned in the wrong direction; instead of makingoff at the back of the cottage from which the voices had scared him, heran across the garden into the hollow way. It was all over with him in aninstant; he fell at once into the hands of the vanguard of the mob.
Many mouths were opened upon him all at once. "The sorcerer!" cried one;"tear him to shreds; _we'll_ teach him to brew his spells against thecity." "Give us back our grapes and corn," said a second. "Have a guard,"said a third; "he can turn you into swine or asses while there is breathin him," "Then be the quicker with him," said a fourth, who was lifting upa crowbar to discharge upon his head. "Hold!" said a tall swarthy youth,who had already warded off several blows from him, "hold, will you? don'tyou see, if you kill him he can't undo the spell. Make him first reverseit all; make him take the curse off us. Bring him along; take him toAstarte, Hercules, or old Saturn. We'll broil him on a gridiron till heturns all these canes into vines, and makes olive berries of the pebbles,and turns the dust of the earth into fine flour for our eating. When hehas done all this he shall dance a jig with a wild cow, and sit down tosupper with an hyena."
A loud scream of exultation broke forth from the drunken and franticmultitude. "Along with him!" continued the same speaker in a jeering tone."Here, put him on the ass and tie his hands behind his back. He shall goback in triumph to the city which he loves. Mind, and don't touch himbefore the time. If you kill him, you'll never get the curse off. Comehere, you priests of Cybele," he added, "and be his body-guard." And hecontinued to keep a vigilant eye and hand over the old man, in spite ofthem.
The ass, though naturally a good-tempered beast, had been most sadly triedthrough the day. He had been fed, indeed, out of mockery, as being theChristians' god; but he did not understand the shouts and caprices of thecrowd, and he only waited for an opportunity to show that he by no meansacquiesced in the proceedings of the day. And now the difficulty was tomove at all. The people kept crowding up the hollow road, and blocked thepassage, and though the greater part of the rioters had either been leftbehind exhausted in Sicca itself, or had poured over the fields on eachside of Agellius's cottage, or gone right over the hill down into thevalley beyond, yet still it was some time before the ass could move astep, and a time of nervous suspense it was both to Caecilius and the youthwho befriended him. At length what remained of the procession waspersuaded to turn about and make for Sicca, but in a reversed order. Itcould not be brought round in so confined a space, so its rear went firstand the ass and its burden came last. As they descended the hill backagain, Caecilius, who was mounted upon the linen and silk which had adornedthe Dea Syra before the Tertullianist had destroyed the idol, saw beforehim the whole line of march. In front were flaunted the dreadful emblemsof idolatry, so far as their bearers were able still to raise them.Drunken women, ragged boys mounted on men's shoulders, ruffians andbullies, savage-looking Getulians, half-human monsters from the Atlas,monkeys and curs jabbering and howling, mummers, bacchanals, satyrs, andgesticulators, formed the staple of the procession. Midway between thehill which he was descending and the city lay the ravine, of which we haveseveral times spoken, widening out into the plain or Campus Martius, whichreached round to the steep cliffs on the north. The bridle-path, alongwhich he was moving, crossed it just where it was opening and becamelevel, so as to present no abrupt descent and ascent at the place wherethe path was lowest. On the left every vestige of the ravine soon ceased,and a free passage extended to the plain.
The youth who had placed Caecilius on the ass still kept close to him andsung at the pitch of his voice, in imitation of the rest--
"Sporting and snorting in shades of the night, His ears pricking up, and his hoofs striking light, And his tail whisking round, in the speed of his flight."
"Old man," he continued to Caecilius in a low voice, and in Latin, "yourcurse has not worked on me yet."
"My son," answered the priest, "you are granted one day more forrepentance."
"Lucky for you as well as for me," was the reply: and he continued hissong:--
"Gurta, the witch, was out with the rest; Though as lame as a gull, by his highness possessed, She shouldered her crutch, and danced with the best.
"She stamped and she twirled in the shade of the yew, Till her gossips and chums of the city danced too; They never are slack when there's mischief to do.
"She danced and she coaxed, but he was no fool; He'd be his own master, he'd not be her tool: Not the little black moor should send him to school."
He then turned to Caecilius and whispered, "You see, old father, thatothers, besides Christians, can forgive and forget. Henceforth call megenerous Juba." And he tossed his head.
By this time they had got to the bottom of the hill, and the deep shadowswhich filled the hollow showed that the sun was rapidly sinking in thewest. Suddenly, as they were crossing the bottom as it opened into theplain, Juba seized and broke the thong which bound Caecilius's arms, andbestowing a tremendous cut with it upon the side of the ass, sent himforward upon the plain at his greatest speed. The youth's manoeuvre wassuccessful to the full. The asses of Africa can do more on an occasion ofthis kind than our own. Caecilius for the moment lost his seat; but,instantly recovering it, took care to keep the animal from flagging; andthe cries of the mob, and the howlings of the priests of Cybele cooperatedin the task. At length the gloom, increasing every minute, hid him fromtheir view; and even in daylight his recapture would have been a difficultmatter for a wearied-out, famished, and intoxicated rabble. BeforeCaecilius well had time to return thanks for this unexpected turn ofevents, he was out of pursuit, and was ambling at a pace more suitable tothe habits of the beast of burden that carried him, over an expanse ofplain which would have been a formidable night-march to a fasting man.
Callista : a Tale of the Third Century Page 25