A Struggle for Rome, v. 3

by Felix Dahn

  CHAPTER XII.

  Meanwhile the Prefect had left the river and gone in the direction ofthe Capitol.

  He passed the Porta Trigemina and arrived at the Forum Boarium.

  Before the Temple of Janus he met with a crowd of people by which hewas detained for a short time.

  In spite of his wound he had made such haste that Lucius and Syphaxcould scarcely follow. They had repeatedly lost sight of him. Only nowdid they overtake him.

  He now tried to go through the Porta Carmentalis, and thus gain theback of the Capitol.

  But he found the gate already occupied by numerous Goths. Amongst themwas Wachis. He recognised the Prefect from a distance.

  "Revenge for Rauthgundis!" he cried.

  A heavy stone struck the Prefect's helmless head. He turned and fled.

  He now remembered that there was a sinking of the wall not far from thegate. He determined to climb it at that place.

  As he neared it, the flames from the Capitol again shot high into theair.

  Three men sprang over the wall just in front of him. They wereIsaurians. They recognised him.

  "Fly, general! The Capitol is lost! Teja, the black Gothic devil!"

  "Did he--did Teja kindle the fire?"

  "No; we ourselves set a wooden bulwark, which the barbarians had taken,on fire. The Goths do all they can to extinguish the flames."

  "The barbarians save the Capitol!" said Cethegus bitterly, andsupported himself upon a spear which was handed to him by one of themercenaries.

  "I must get to my house."

  And he turned to the right, the shortest way to the principal entranceto his house.

  "O master, that way is dangerous!" cried one of the Isaurians. "TheGoths will soon be there. I heard the Black Earl ask repeatedly afteryou. He was seeking you everywhere upon the Capitol. He will now seekyou in your house."

  "I _must_ once more go to my house!"

  But he had scarcely gone a few steps, when a troop of Goths and Romans,carrying torches and firebrands, came towards him from the city.

  The foremost, who were Romans, recognised him.

  "The Prefect!"

  "The destroyer of Rome!"

  "He has set the Capitol on fire! Down with him!"

  Arrows, stones, and spears were hurled at Cethegus. One of hisIsaurians fell; the others took to their heels.

  Cethegus was hit by an arrow; it penetrated slightly into his leftshoulder. He tore it out.

  "A Roman arrow, with my own stamp!" he cried with a terrible laugh.

  With difficulty he gained a dark side-street.

  Before his House there was a crowd of soldiers, trying in vain to breakopen the principal door.

  Cethegus heard the uproar, and well understood the cries of rage withwhich the soldiers accompanied their ineffectual exertions.

  "The door is strong," he said to himself. "Before they force anentrance, I shall be again out of the house."

  He hurried to the back of the house. He pressed a secret spring whichopened the door of the court, entered, and, leaving the door openbehind him, hurried in.

  Hark! a stroke--very different from all which had gonebefore--thundered against the front door of the house.

  "That is a battle-axe!" thought Cethegus. "That is Teja?"

  He hastened to a small gap in the wall, which afforded an outlook intothe main street. It was Teja. His long black locks waved about his barehead; in his left hand he carried a firebrand; in his right the dreadedbattle-axe. He was covered with blood.

  "Cethegus!" he shouted at every stroke of his axe. "Cornelius CethegusCaesarius, where art thou? I sought thee in the Capitol, Prefect ofRome! Where art thou? Must I seek thee upon thy hearth?"

  Cethegus, listening, heard hasty steps behind him.

  Syphax had reached the court, and had followed his master through theopen door. He now caught sight of him.

  "O master, fly! I will protect thy threshold with my body."

  And he hastened past Cethegus, through a suite of apartments to thefront door.

  Cethegus turned to the right. He could hardly keep himself upright. Hemanaged to reach the "Hall of Jupiter." Here he sank to the ground. Butthe next moment he again sprang to his feet, for a fearful noise washeard from the front door.

  At last it was broken in.

  With a thundering crash it fell inwards, and Teja entered the dwellingof his enemy.

  Upon the threshold, with a leap like that of a panther, the Moor sprangupon him, grasping his throat and raising a dagger in his hand.

  But the Goth let fall his axe, seized him in his right hand, and, likea stone from a sling, the Moor flew sideways through the door androlled down the steps into the street.

  "Where art thou, Cethegus?" again sounded the voice of Teja, comingnearer and nearer, from the vestibule and the atrium.

  Some doors, which had been bolted by the secretary, Fidus, were forcedone after the other by Teja's axe.

  With difficulty Cethegus dragged himself to the middle of the Hall ofJupiter. He still hoped to be able to reach the study and take thewritings and treasure out of the statue of Caesar.

  He heard the crash of another falling door, and the voice of Teja nowsounded from the study.

  He heard how the soldiers, who had pressed forward after Teja into thelibrary, were demolishing the statues and busts of his ancestors.

  "Where is thy master, old man?" asked Teja's voice.

  The slave had taken refuge in the study.

  "I know not, by my soul!"

  "Not even here! Cethegus! coward! Where hidest thou?"

  It was now evident that the soldiers had also entered the study.

  Cethegus could no longer stand upright.

  He leaned against the marble statue of Jupiter, from which the halltook its name.

  "What shall be done with this house?" he heard some one ask.

  "It shall be burned!" cried Teja.

  "The King has forbidden that," answered the voice of Thorismuth.

  "Yes; but I have begged this house from the King. It shall be razed tothe ground! Down with the temple of that devil! Down with the holiestof holies--this idol!"

  A fearful blow resounded.

  With a crash the Caesar statue fell in fragments to the ground.

  Gold, jewels, and rolls of papyrus covered the floor.

  "Ah! the barbarian!" cried Cethegus, forgetting himself, and he wasabout to rush into the study with his drawn sword, when he fellsenseless at the foot of the statue of Jupiter.

  "Hark! What was that?" cried a boyish voice.

  "The voice of the Prefect!" exclaimed Teja, and opening the door whichled from the study into the hall, he sprang forward, swinging hisbattle-axe.

  But the hall was empty.

  A pool of blood lay at the feet of the Jupiter, and a broad track ofthe crimson fluid led to the window which opened into the inner court.

  The court was empty.

  But some Goths who entered it found the little door closed fromoutside; the key was still in the lock on the side of the street.

  When they had forced this door--some of them had also gone round fromthe front of the house--and had searched the side-street and thedwellings in it, they only found the Prefect's sword, which wasrecognised by Fidus, the secretary.

  With a gloomy look Teja took it up, and returned into the study.

  "Take up carefully all that was concealed in the Prefect's idol,particularly the writings, and carry everything to the King. Where isthe King?"

  "When he left the Capitol, he, with all the Romans and Goths, went intothe sanctuary of St. Peter, to attend a service of thanksgiving."

  "'Tis well. Go to him in the church and give him everything. Also thesword of the fugitive. Tell him that Teja sends it."

  "Thy order shall be obeyed," said Thorismuth. "But thou--wilt thou notgo with us to the church?"

  "No."

  "Where wilt thou spend this night of victory, when all the others aregiving
thanks?"

  "I will spend it in the ruins of this house!"

  And he thrust the firebrand into the purple cushions of the Prefect'scouch.

  BOOK V.--_Continued_.

  TOTILA.

  "Happy are we that this sunny youth still lives!"--_Margrave Ruedigerof Bechelaren_, Act i., Scene i.