I had but one anxiety and that was not small and it steadily increased. It was caused by a progressive alteration and deterioration in the character of my master. In all other respects he remained the man he had been when he first bought me, but as a gem-fancier his hobby became a pa.s.sion which deepened into a mania and colored, or discolored, all he did. He had, as he always had had, a very large surplus of income over and above what was needful to maintain his huge estates in Africa, his many luxurious villas and town-palaces there, his yacht and his palaces in Italy at Baiae and at Rome. The normal acc.u.mulation of this surplus had taxed his sagacity as an investor, for it was always harder for him to find advantageous investments for his redundant cash than to find cash for tempting investments. Certainly his excess income more than sufficed for any reasonable indulgence in gem-collecting.

Yet his outlay for rare gems ran up to and outran and far outran his resources. The strange result was that he, who had huge revenues from estates and safe investments, desired a still greater income. He began to embark in risky ventures which promised large and quick returns. He went into partnership with two different n.o.bles, who made a practice of bidding on the taxes of frontier provinces exposed to enemy raids. Bidders were shy of investing their cash in the problematical returns of such regions and those who had the hardihood to enter into contracts with the government made huge profits if lucky. Falco was lucky each time. He plunged again and again.

He also embarked similarly in bidding for unpromising contracts and in buying up estates thrown unexpectedly on the market. All his ventures turned out successfully, he gained great resources for indulging his fad for gems and rare curios, his collection grew and became one of the most famous private collections in Rome.

Also his mania for speculation grew as fast as his mania for collecting gems.

This led to my exposure to the oddest and most alarming peril which I had run since Agathemer and I crawled through the drain-pipe at Villa Andivia; greater I think, than the risk I ran when I nearly encountered Gratillus at Placentia. This happened about eleven months after I came to Rome with Falco, in the spring of the year when Pedo Ap.r.o.nia.n.u.s and Valerius Bradua were consuls.

This occurrence and the circ.u.mstances which led up to it I cannot forbear narrating, but I shall not go into details, for it involves at least allusion to behavior not at all creditable to my owner and I am unwilling to disparage or seem to disparage one who was to me a dear friend and a generous benefactor. The truth is that his pa.s.sion for gem-collecting had not only undermined his character but had, in a way, sapped the foundations of his native uprightness. If he had remained the man he was when he bought me he would not have been capable of entertaining, let alone of acting on, the considerations which actuated him.

He thought he saw a chance to make vast profits quickly with no risks. But to achieve this he needed the presence and the countenance of another wealthy n.o.bleman of the African province, who, like him when he purchased me, had never been in Rome or, indeed, out of the colony. The name of this man, whom I had met while in Thysdrus, was Salsonius Salinator. His wealth, inherited by his father and grandfather from a long line of wealthy ancestors, came from many vast salt works along the coast, which, by the custom of the province, remained private property and merely paid the government a lease-tax or rent. The family had been, many generations before, named from these works and was very proud of its names.

Now Falco had so far progressed with his negotiations that the other parties to the proposed bargain were unwilling to close the deal and sign a contract with Falco and his a.s.sociates unless Salsonius Salinator, in person, appeared to make some necessary statements, and were willing and eager to sign and seal, the projected agreement if he did appear in person and did make those required statements. I am averse to smirching Falco's memory by going more minutely into detail.

Now Salinator had written Falco that he was coming to Rome and later, when he received a letter from Falco outlining the pending negotiations and their object, he had written promising to be in Rome by a specified date.

He was most enthusiastic as to Falco's project and thought as well of it as did Falco. Falco told his a.s.sociates of Salinator's letter and promise and they adjusted their outstanding investments so as to be able to close the contract as soon as Salinator appeared.

He did not appear on the date specified. Naturally Falco was perturbed, his a.s.sociates vexed and the men with whom they were dealing increasingly restive. They threatened to break off the negotiations and close a contract with other bidders. Falco begged for an extension of the time and they grudgingly granted it. Still no signs of or word from Salinator. The negotiations appeared likely to fall through.

In his distress Falco conceived and set about putting into practice a scheme such as he would never have thought of or entertained if he had been the man he was when he bought me. When he was himself he had been the reverse of dishonorable. He came to me and said:

"We are at the end of our tether, Pullanius and his gang will break off negotiations tomorrow if I can't get hold of Salinator. I have no hope of his arrival, he may have not yet sailed from Carthage; he may have changed his mind about coming at all. I am not willing to lose so brilliant a chance. I have thought of just what to do.

"You would look like a Roman if you had your beard trimmed and your hair cut and all that powder and paint and rouge washed off your face: I took you for a full-blooded Roman when I first set eyes on you. What is more you would look so utterly unlike what you look like in your fantastic fripperies that no one would even suspect you of being the same man.

Anyhow, Pullanius and his crowd have never set eyes on you, not one of them.

"All you have to do is to have your beard cut to about the fashionable length and your hair trimmed to conform similarly with current fashions for Roman n.o.blemen and get into full-dress shoes, a n.o.bleman's tunic and toga, and you'll pa.s.s anywhere for a genuine, free-born, full-blooded Roman.

"I'll take you to Pullanius tomorrow and introduce you as Salsonius Salinator. I'll coach you carefully as to how to behave and what to say.

You are clever enough to a.s.sume the natural Roman demeanor to a nicety: also to rise to any unexpected situations and act and talk precisely as would Salinator himself.

"It will be sharp practice, in a sense. But I know Salinator would say all I want him to say, all Pullanius requires him to say, and more, if he were actually here. He is as keen on closing this contract as I am. So I am not asking you to be a party to an actual fraud. You will only be bringing about what would come about without you if something unforeseen had not prevented Salinator from getting here in time."

Now I had often differed with Falco, argued with him, opposed him, refused requests of his, and he had acquiesced and had acted as if I were not his property, but a free man and his complete social equal. But this was a situation wholly different from any I had encountered before. When it came to gem-collecting or to anything which gave him or would give him or was expected to yield him surplus cash for buying more gems for his collection, Falco was a monomaniac. I dared not refuse, or oppose him or argue or show any hesitation. A master can change in a twinkling from an indulgent friend to an infuriated despot. In spite of the laws pa.s.sed by Hadrian and his successors limiting the authority of masters over their slaves and giving slaves certain rights before magistrates, in practice an angry master can go to any length to coerce a recalcitrant slave. I saw not only privations, discomforts, hunger, confinement and chains threatening me, but scourging and torture.

I acquiesced.

Now I am not going into any details as to what I did and said to induce Pullanius and his a.s.sociates to execute the desired contract. I acted the part of Salinator to perfection and my imposture succeeded completely.

But the negotiations dragged, for all that, and I had to impersonate Salsonius Salinator not only before Pullanius and his partners but generally all over Rome: had to submit to being shown the sights in my character of a provincial magnate in Rome for the first time; had to allow myself to be dragged to morning receptions of senators and wealthy n.o.blemen and introduced to them; had to accept invitations to dinners given by n.o.blemen and senators; even had to attend a public morning reception in the Audience Hall of the Palace. That I escaped undetected was more than miraculous; I could not believe it myself. But I did escape.

I escaped unsuspected the ordeal of being haled to a morning reception of Vedius Vedia.n.u.s and presented to him as Salsonius Salinator of Carthage, Nepte and Putea. I should have been lost had he had at his elbow to jog his memory if he forgot a visitor's name the slave he had had in that capacity seven years before, since that alert _nomenclator_ would have recognized me at once. But he had died of the plague and his successor had never set eyes on me. Vedius himself would certainly have known me for my true self but for his inveterate selfishness, and self-absorption and his incapacity for being diverted from whatever thought or idea happened to be uppermost in his narrow mind. He was, for some reason, eager to be done with his reception and had no eyes for any visitors except those from whom he expected immediate and positive advantage to himself. I escaped, but I went out sweating and limp with excitement.

I was even more faint and weak after having to attend a Palace levee.

Fortunately Commodus had wearied of his father's methods of holding receptions and had reverted to the regulations in vogue under Trajan and Hadrian, according to which only such senators as were summoned approached the throne and were personally greeted by the Prince; the rest of the senators and all the lesser n.o.blemen merely pa.s.sed before the Emperor as he stood in front of the throne, pa.s.sing four abreast along the main pavement at the foot of the steps of the dais and saluting him as they pa.s.sed. Amid this crush of mediocrities I pa.s.sed unnoticed, unremarked, unscathed.

But I marvelled at my luck, for I knew many eyes of secret-service experts scanned that slow-moving column of togaed n.o.blemen and such adepts have a marvellous memory for the shape of an ear, a nose, a chin, or any such feature. After my hair and beard had been trimmed to suit Falco's notions and my face was innocent of powder, rouge and paint and I was habited in a tunic and toga with stripes of the width belonging to Salinator's rank and dress-boots of the cut and color proper for him I conned my reflection in the mirror in my dressing-room and was certain that anyone who had known me as myself must recognize me at first glance.

My two worst ordeals came when I went out with Falco to my second and fourth formal dinner in Rome in my character of provincial magnate. I went with him, altogether, to eight different dinners at the houses of capitalists a.s.sociated with or supposed to have influence with Pullanius.

Not once, in any of these eight perilous expeditions, did it occur to Falco to inform me beforehand where I was to dine. And I thought it best not to ask him, since I reflected that his complete ignorance of my past was an important factor in my chances of continued concealment and safety; and since I felt that some word, tone or look of mine might put him on the road to suspecting the truth about me. Therefore I set out to each of these eight dinners totally ignorant of our destination.

The first time I knew I was to dine with Appellasius Clavviger, a Syrian capitalist who had been in Rome not much longer than Falco himself. Judge of my feelings when, in the mellow light which bathes Rome just after the sun has set from a clear sky and before day has begun to fade, I perceived that my litter-bearers, following Falco's, were turning into the street where I had lived before my ruin! Imagine my sensations when we halted before the palatial dwelling which had been my uncle's abode and mine! I was even more perturbed and overwhelmed by my emotions when on entering behind Falco I found nothing changed, scarcely anything altered from what had been there on the fatal morning on which, without any premonition of disaster, I had set off to the Palace levee and had, on my way, been saved by Vedia's intervention and letter. The appointments of the vestibule, of the porter's lodge, were as I had known them in my uncle's lifetime. So were the furnishings of the atrium and _tablinum_. Scarcely a statue had been added or so much as moved, most of the pictures being where my uncle had had them hung. Appellasius, a fat, jovial, jolly man, did not see my confusion. We were the last guests to arrive and he was hungry. We pa.s.sed at once into the _triclinium_. There also the wall-decorations were precisely as I had last seen them; but the square table and three square sofas had vanished and, in their place, was a new C-shaped sofa and a circular table covered with a magnificent embroidered cloth. In the course of the dinner, the company, as was natural with vulgarians newly enriched, fell to talking of their residences, of their size, convenience, and cost. I took the opportunity to compliment Appellasius on his abode and, as he warmed to the subject, I inquired whether he had inherited it or bought it.

"Neither," said he. "I have merely leased it, and leased it furnished. It belongs to the _fiscus_; it was confiscated some years ago when its owner was proscribed for joining in one of the conspiracies against, the Emperor. It is a pearl. I am told that the father of its last owner was an art connoisseur. Anyhow I could not improve on its decorations or furnishings. I have made few changes, chiefly installing this up-to-date dining-outfit. The fittings of this room were all of one hundred years old, very fine in material and ornamentation, but unbearably inconvenient."

I had learned all I hoped for or dared attempt, and for the rest of the entertainment I kept to subjects as far as possible from anything likely to compromise me.

My second and far my severest ordeal was when a few evenings later I was dazed to realize that my litter, behind Falco's, was halting before the well-known residence of that b.o.o.by, Faltonius Bambilio. But I was not afraid of him. I rated him such a dolt, such an a.s.s, that even if he exclaimed that I was the image of Andivius Hedulio I had no doubt I could convince him that I was what I pretended to be and could even expunge from his mind any recollections of his having noticed such a striking resemblance. In fact he did not make any remark on my appearance or seem to have any inkling that he had ever seen me before, but accepted me as an interesting stranger.

I dreaded what guests he might have and the actuality surpa.s.sed my capacities to forecast possibilities.

I found the middle sofa at his table, for he adhered to the old-fashioned furnishings for a _triclinium_, occupied by his wife, Nemestronia and Vedia! Vedia, after one tense moment of incredulous numb staring, regained her composure.

Evidently she had not confided in anyone the fact of my survival and existence. For, if she had, she would have taken dear old Nemestronia into her confidence, since she was as able to keep a secret as any woman who ever lived and had loved me as if I had been her own and only grandson.

For Nemestronia manifestly had believed me dead. At sight of me she was as thunderstruck as if she had seen an indubitable specter. She was smitten dumb and rigid and her discomposure was remarked by all present. But she recovered herself in time, pa.s.sed off her agitation as having been due to one of her sudden attacks of pain in the chest. After that she did as much as Vedia to dispel any tendency to suspicions which she might have aroused. She was plainly, to my eyes, overjoyed at the sight of me in the flesh.

I have branded on my memory for life the picture I saw as I entered the _triclinium_. Its wall decorations expressed old Bambilio's enthusiasm for Alexandrian art and literature. The ceiling was adorned with a copy of Apellides' Dance of the Loves; and the walls were decorated with copies of equally celebrated paintings by masters of similar fame. The wall niches were filled with statues of the Alexandrian poets, the two opposite the entrance door with those of Euphorion and Philetas, the brilliant hues of the paint on them depicting garments as gaudy as I myself had been wearing a few days before. From the pink faces of the bedizened poets their jeweled eyes sparkled as if they were chuckling at the situation. Under the mellow light shed by the numerous hanging lamps, against the intricate particolored patterns of the wall between the statue-niches, I saw the vacuous baby face of Asellia, Bambilio's pretty doll of a wife, between Vedia's countenance cleverly a.s.suming a normal social expression after her brief glare at me, and Nemestronia's mask of horror, accentuated by the agony of the gripping spasm which throttled her, for the pain in her chest was induced by anything which startled her, and was not a.s.sumed.

Once we were composed on the sofas the dinner pa.s.sed off almost comfortably. For Nemestronia played her part in my behalf fully as well as did Vedia, who conversed with me easily, her demeanor precisely as if I had been Salsonius Salinator, a stranger whom she had just met, our talk mostly about Carthage, salt-works, the lagoons of the edge of the desert, date palms, local fruits, gazelles and such like topics, Nemestronia seconding her with questions about temple libraries, the cult of Isis in Hippo, and such matters. I became almost gay, I was enjoying myself.

The enjoyment, toward the close of the banquet, was marred by Bambilio, who, inevitably, had told Falco of his capture by brigands on the Flaminian Highway and, after his tale was told at great length, insisted on Vedia telling hers.

Worst of all, when she came to her night in her travelling carriage, alone (as of course all supposed) and surrounded by escaped beasts, hyenas, leopards, panthers, tigers and lions, Bambilio must needs remark:

"I'll wager you wished that the ghost of your old lover, Hedulio, had come to your a.s.sistance. He could wrestle with leopards; perhaps even his ghost might be able to control wild beasts."

"Perhaps," Vedia rejoined, unruffled, "maybe he was there to help me and maybe that was why I never felt really afraid that any beast would burst into my coach and seize me, though several snuffed at its panels and I could see them plain in the clear moonlight. Perhaps, in spirit, he was close to me to keep off the ravenous beasts and to strengthen my heart."

After she also had ended her story Bambilio eyed me:

"Did you ever hear a story excel hers and mine, Salsonius?" he queried.

"Never," I admitted, my gaze full on his.

The b.o.o.by showed not a gleam of suspicion!

Inwardly I could not but remark that whereas I despised and loathed Bambilio for his pomposity and self-esteem, he made and kept friends.

Plainly both Nemestronia and Vedia liked him, esteemed him and respected him.

After we left, I felt positively exhilarated at having had an evening in Vedia's company and having talked with her. Her escort, fortunately for me, had not been Flavius Clemens but young Duillius Sila.n.u.s, son of the consul, who had never met me before.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

PALUS THE INCOMPARABLE