And he stood on his hands, feet waggling in the air, apparently from mere exuberance of spirits. Standing up again, he threw three flip-flops forward, then two backward, then turned a half a dozen cart wheels, during which gyrations he pa.s.sed out of our field of view.

Torix sulkily agreed that the second plan remain unknown except to Maternus and Cossedo, the a.s.semblage not supporting him when he pressed for its disclosure. But he was insistent about the third plan.

"The third plan," said Maternus, "is merely the first plan over again, except that I lead instead of Caburus and that we try after dark instead of by day. From all I can hear the opportunity will be even better by torchlight in the gardens about the temple than it will be by day in the jammed streets. I mean to be as cautious as I expect Caburus to be: there is no use making an attempt unless a really promising chance presents itself. If I see an opening I'll kill the monster myself, and I do not expect to need any help from anybody, except a little jostling in the crowd to increase the confusion. As rigged up in Praetorian uniforms we will be laughed at and indulged. Either in the noonday swelter or in the torchlit darkness it ought to be easy to pa.s.s from aping, mimicking and burlesquing Praetorians to personating and counterfeiting Praetorians.

Once mistaken for real guards we ought to be able to get close to Commodus. Then in the torchlight it should be easy for me to finish him and for you others to escape. I shall not think of escape until the deed is done. Then I'll escape, if I can, but I shall let no thought of escape interfere with my doing what I purpose."

This speech was acclaimed by everyone except Torix. He said:

"All this is most ingenious. But there is in this plan one flaw which no one has noted. I suppose that you, Maternus, evolved this really promising idea from pondering on what Claudius told us. All the hearsay about Rome and its festivals which ever came to the ears of all of us put together is as nothing at all compared with what Claudius told us in two months.

Claudius had lived in Rome, Claudius knew every alley in Rome. With Claudius to pilot us we might have hoped to succeed. But Claudius is dead, dead somewhere in the Alps, where he is no use to us. He had seen the Emperor, he knew him by sight. Not one of us does. And, as Claudius told us, at the Festival of Cybele, as at several other religious festivals, the Emperor does not wear his official robes, so that anyone may recognize him, but appears in the garb of a priest of the deity celebrated, as High Priest or a.s.sistant High Priest, or as a dignitary of some other degree, the rank in the hierarchy varying with the deity worshipped.

"Now not one of us, who have never set eyes on him, can tell Commodus, in the garb of a priest of Cybele, from any other priest of Cybele. We have no reasonable a.s.surance of recognizing the mark at which we aim. Thus we have only a small chance of success, by sunlight or torchlight."

This utterance started another wrangle; the men, apparently, about equally divided as backers of Maternus and of Torix. As I lay listening to this hubbub someone stepped on the calf of my leg, his foot slipped off of it, and he fell on top of me, with a smothered exclamation.

"Who are you?" he demanded, adding some words which I did not catch. It seemed that another man was occupied similarly with Agathemer. The man who had fallen on me, in the act of scrambling up, yelled out:

"Here are two men lying and listening and they do not seem to belong to us. They do not respond to the pa.s.s-word."

At that every voice stilled and every face turned to our alcove-balcony where our captors, now four, gripped us and had lifted us to our knees.

"Throw 'em down!" came a chorus of voices, "throw 'em down!"

Down we were thrown, none too tenderly, but we landed without breaking any bones.

Two men clutched each of us and haled us towards the fire. There we had our first glimpse of Maternus, who sat on a pack, his back against the rock, not too close to the fire, the light of which played on his left cheek.

He looked plump and lazy.

"Strip them," he commanded.

As he was being obeyed somebody did something to the fire which increased the light it gave.

"Turn them round," Maternus commanded. "Humph," he commented, "by their faces they are a Roman gentleman and his Greek secretary; by their backs they are fugitive slaves with bad records."

"They are both branded," added Torix, who had been inspecting us.

"Where?" queried Maternus. "I don't see any brand marks."

"On the left shoulder, each of them," Torix replied.

"Humph!" Maternus commented, "rascally slaves and indulgent master, or canny owner of valuable, if restive, property."

Just as he said this there was a yell at our left and Caulonius Pelops rushed in from somewhere beyond the firelight, probably from outside the cave.

"Here's the solution of our dilemma," he cried. "We are all right now.

We've two men who know Commodus by sight. This is Andivius Hedulio, my former master's nephew, and the other is his secretary, Agathemer."

"What, in the name of Mithras," Maternus breathed, "is your master's nephew doing in a cave in the Apennines, with his back all scourge-marks and a runaway-slave brand on his shoulder?"

Then ensued a long series of questions and answers, in the course of which Agathemer and I pretty well told our story.

Maternus asked the a.s.semblage whether they believed us and the consensus was that they believed us and Pelops, who reminded them that Claudius had read to them lists of those involved in conspiracies, who had been executed or banished and their properties confiscated; that my name had been among those he read; and that he, Pelops, had then told about me; all of which most of them did not recollect at all, and the few who claimed to recollect it recollected only vaguely.

Maternus, in his mild way, suggested that we would make valuable additions to their a.s.sociation. Torix opposed the idea, but Maternus pointed out that no one of them had as much to gain by the Emperor's death as I had: that after it I might hope to be restored to my rank and wealth, and that, after my miseries, I ought to hate Commodus more viciously than any of them. The a.s.semblage approved, and, while throat-cutting was not mentioned, as that was the obvious alternative, Agathemer and I took oath as brothers in the confraternity.

Upon this we were released and our wallets, cloaks, hats and staffs, which had been deposited before Maternus, were restored to us. But Maternus informed us that no member of the band was allowed any money of his own.

We must give up to him any coins we had.

Agathemer spread his cloak, spread mine on it, and upon it I emptied my wallet, that all might see its contents. I was allowed to retain everything, except the denarii. Agathemer did the like, with the like result. But at the sight of his flageolet there were exclamations and questions. He kept it out when he repacked his belongings, only giving the coins to Maternus. After we had fed he played tunes on it, to the delight of the whole band. It seemed to me they would never let him stop playing that flageolet and I was desperately drowsy.

At last all were for sleep. Maternus decreed that Agathemer and I might climb up again on the dry shelf where we had been found. Neither he nor any of the band seemed to object to, or indeed to notice, the dampness of the cave floor.

Agathemer and I slept at once. Our precious amulet-bags, of course, had not been investigated, or so much as suspected, and were safe on our neck- thongs.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FESTIVAL

Thus most strangely, and through no fault of mine, I found myself a full fledged formally sworn member of a conspiracy against the life of Commodus.

Maternus, whether from innate considerateness or because it happened to coincide with his plans, let us have our sleep out and wake naturally. We woke hungry and fed with the whole band, totalling forty-nine with ourselves, according to my count and to the statement of Pelops. He was most absurdly, but naturally, more than a little shy and bashful at finding himself in a position of complete equality with me. As we ate he narrated his reasons for running away and how he had escaped to Clampetia, from there on a fishing-boat to Sarcapus in Sardinia, and from there on a trading ship to Ma.r.s.eilles. There he had attached himself to a slave- dealer and with him had travelled to Tolosa and Narbo, where he had gotten into trouble and had fled to the mountains. There he had joined some outlaws, who had joined Maternus.

The fellows who had found me and Agathemer told cheerfully how the shepherd lad, their local guide, who knew nothing of them except that they were accepted a.s.sociates of some local mountain brigands, had been showing them the inner pa.s.sages of the cave, into which Agathemer and I had not ventured, and, on their return, had proposed to lead them up the side- pa.s.sage to the outlook-opening. There they had trodden on us and so captured us.

After eating we set out on our way southwards to Rome.

On the march, inevitably, I became acquainted with Maternus and marvelled at that most amazing man. I had heard of him, of course, for his exploits as mutineer, outlaw, insurgent and rebel had made him notorious, not only in Spain and Gaul, but in Italy, even among the circles of society amid which I moved by inheritance. His reputation for strength, vigor, valor, resolution, ruthlessness, ferocity and cunning had made me picture him as different as possible from what he really was.

He was neither tall nor burly and nothing about him gave any hint of the great strength for which he was reputed and which, on occasion, I have seen him exert. Only one man of the band was shorter than Maternus and no other looked so much the reverse of hard and tough.

Maternus, in fact, looked soft. His very outline was plump, his feet and hands small, his toes and fingers delicate. He was not a handsome man, but he was by no means ill-looking and in some respects was almost boyish, or even girlish. He had glossy, straight brown hair, soft brown eyes, a complexion almost infantile in its rosy freshness, and all his features were small, his ears close to his head, his mouth even tiny, his nose likewise: and withal, Maternus was habitually mild, serene of expression, slow and soft of speech, and deliberate in all his movements. I never heard him raise his voice or speak or act hurriedly or urgently.

Of course, I had been dumbfounded to find him in Italy and in the Apennines when everybody supposed him a hunted fugitive, hiding in the Pyrenees or the Cevennes; or even, perhaps, in the wilds of North Spain.

Still more was I amazed at the boldness of a man who could conceive such plans for a.s.sa.s.sinating the Prince of our Republic and could feel serenely confident of being able to execute them.

He was perfectly open with me. He had been a worshipper and adorer of Aurelius. If Aurelius had lived to a reasonable old age, he averred, the Republic would have been firmly established, the Empire solidified, the administration purified and the frontiers defended. Everything that had happened in the past five years he blamed on Commodus. It was the indifference of Commodus which had ruined the administration of the army, so that incompetent, dishonest, and tyrannical under-officers drove young patriots like himself into mutiny, outlawry and their consequences. Had Commodus been a capable ruler he and his fellow malcontents would have been listened to, placated and sent off, aflame with patriotic enthusiasm and bent on redeeming their past records, to hurl back from the hardest- pressed part of our frontiers the most dangerous foes of the Republic.

Upon Commodus he blamed his mutiny, all the atrocities he had committed in the course of his insurrections, and all the blood he had shed, as well as all the towns he had sacked and burnt in the course of his raids; also on Commodus he blamed the destruction of his army of insurgents.

He freely discussed with me his plans for a.s.sa.s.sinating Commodus. I could not deny that they were brilliantly conceived.

Almost equally brilliant I thought his management of his expedition. From where I joined it, near the crest of the Apennines, somewhere between the head-waters of the Trebia and the Nura, we advanced on Rome as rapidly as footfarers could travel. In the Ligurian Apennines, until we had crossed the upper tributaries of the Tarus, the Macra and the Auser, and were between Luna and Pistoria, we travelled all together, tramping all night in single file after a guide and sleeping all day in well hidden camps.

Everywhere we were well fed. Nowhere did we lose our way or meet anyone not forewarned and friendly. It was as if the highwaymen, brigands and outlaws of the whole Empire had formed an a.s.sociation, so that any of them could travel secretly anywhere by the help of those of the regions which they crossed. We advanced as if swift and reliable runners had preceded us, advised of our approach the outlaws of each district and they had prepared to entertain us and to forward us on our way.

From somewhere between Pistoria and Luca we broke up into small parties of three to seven, and travelled by day like ordinary wayfarers. Somewhere not far south of the Arnus we rea.s.sembled, evidently by prearrangement and as accurately as a well-managed military-expedition. Through the mountains past Arretium we marched at night as in the Apennines. Again somewhere to the west of Clusium, before we reached the Pallia, we again dispersed. We struck the Clodian Highway about halfway between Clusium and the Pallia. From there we proceeded like ordinary footfarers.