Her figure was tall, slender, and very graceful, her hair and eyes were dark, and her features delicate and perfectly moulded. Over all was now an expression of hoydenish mirth that bespoke the complete forgetfulness of serious things that only comes to young girls. His attentive silence seemed at last to disturb her. An annoyed look drove the smile from her lips, and, with an almost imperceptible side motion of her small head, she went on:--

"Surely Lucius Sergius Fidenas has not allowed my father to go to the Senate House with only Caius to attend him! Lucius respects my father too much for that--and too disinterestedly. It is an even more serious omission than his failure to attend the consul at Trasimenus--"

Sergius' eyes blazed at the taunt, and, struggling with the answer that rose to his lips, he said nothing for fear he might say too much.

The girl watched him closely. Her mirth returned a little at the sight of his confusion, and, with her mirth, came something of mercy.

"Oh, to be sure, his wound. I almost forgot that. Tell me, my brave Lucius, did the Gauls bite hard when they caught you in the woods and drove you and my brave uncle to Tanes? How funny for naked Gauls to ambush Roman legionaries and chase them home! Father has not spoken to Uncle Cneus since. He says it was his duty to have remained on the field, and I suppose he thinks it was yours, too, instead of running away like a fox to be shut up in his hole."

Sergius had recovered his composure now, but his brow was clouded.

"You are as cruel as ever, Marcia," he said. "And yet I know you have heard that it was the men of my maniple who carried me away, senseless from the blow of a dead man."

"Oh, you _did_ kill him. I remember now," she resumed, with some display of interest. "You had run him through, had you not? and he just let his big sword drop on your head. I got Caius to show me about it, and I was the Gaul. Caius did not stab me, but I let the stick fall pretty hard, and Caius had a sore head for two days. I meant it for you, because you are trying to make an old woman of me when I am hardly a girl."

"Marcia--" began Lucius; but she raised her hand warningly and went on:--

"Do you want me to tell you why my father will not let you marry me now? There are two reasons. One because I don't want him to, and another because he thinks you must do something great to wipe out the stain of a Roman centurion's even being _carried_ away before the Gauls."

"That will be an easy task, judging by the news we receive each day. I wish I felt as certain of the safety of the Republic as I am that my honour shall be satisfactorily vindicated."

He spoke bitterly, but she went on without taking note of his meaning.

"These are auspicious words, my Lucius. You will regain your honour; father will once more receive you into his favour, and, by that time, I shall doubtless be old enough to marry,--perhaps too old,--but, no, I must not wait so long as that. Perhaps I shall have married some one else by the time you are worthy of my favour."

"More probably I shall have ceased to care for the favour of living men and women."

"Truly? And you think you will have to die? Perhaps you will be a Decius Mus, and stand on the javelin and wear the Cincture Gabinus; and then I shall mourn for you and hang so many garlands on your tomb that all the shades of your friends will be mad with jealousy--"

"Marcia, is it possible for you to be serious?"

He was pale with suppressed pa.s.sion, and, as he spoke, he stepped forward and laid his hand upon her wrist.

She sprang back and half raised a light staff she carried, while her face flushed crimson.

"I will be more serious than will please you," she said, "if you please me as little as you do now. Learn, I am not your wife that you should seek to restrain me, and it is quite possible that I never shall be."

"You speak truly," he said; "it is quite possible that no woman shall be a new mother to the house of Fidenas--that our name shall die in me.

So be it; and may the G.o.ds only avert the evils that threaten the Republic, nor look upon one of the race of the Trojan Segestes as an unworthy offering."

Bending his head in respectful salutation, he turned toward the entrance hall.

Marcia stood silent beside the fountain, and her face clouded with thought. The sound of her lover's footsteps grew fainter and fainter.

She started forward as if to follow him. Then she stopped and listened. The noise of the street had drowned their echoes; the door had creaked twice on its pivots. He was gone. Then she called, "Lucius!" but there was no answer. Her eyes drooped with a little frown of regret, but in a moment she turned away laughing.

"Never mind. He cannot do anything very desperate yet, and I will treat him better next time--perhaps."

III.

PARTING.

The ensuing days were pregnant with rumour and action. The waves of terror and despair that lashed over the city, as blow after blow fell, had now receded. The white banner, that was always lowered at the approach of an enemy, still spread its undulating folds above Janiculum; the crops and fruit trees and vines smiled upon the hillsides; the flocks and herds browsed peacefully along the Campagna with never a Numidian pillager to disturb their serenity; and, amid all, there was no rumour of allied gates opened to receive the invader, no welcome from the Italians whom he had striven to conciliate.

Courage returned, and with courage firmness, and with firmness confidence to endure and dare and do, so long as invaders presumed to set foot upon the heritage of Rome.

How far this new confidence was born of the news that the Carthaginian was turning aside to the west, through Umbria and Picenum, how far by the rumour that Spoletum had closed her gates and repulsed his vanguard, or how far by wrath at the tales of ravage and the numberless murders of Roman citizens that marked his line of march, it would be difficult to apportion.

However these, the city was now seething with energetic preparation.

The Senate sat daily and into each night. No word of peace was uttered--all was war and revenge. Quintus Fabius Maximus was elected pro-dictator by a vote of the Comitia--not dictator, because that could only be done through appointment by the surviving consul, then absent in Gaul--or none knew where. By the same power, and in order to appease the commons irritated by criticisms of Flaminius, Marcus Minutius Rufus was elected master of the horse. Nor were the G.o.ds neglected. Their stimulating influence was invoked by the dictator to inspire the people with confidence, while he soothed them with the intimation that Flaminius had failed rather through overcourage and neglect of divine things than through mere plebeian temerity and ignorance. Fabius took care to impress it upon all that he himself would take full warning from the lesson. He moved that the Sibylline books should be consulted, and the Senate promptly acted upon the motion. These directed that a holy spring be proclaimed forthwith; that every animal fit for sacrifice, and born between the Kalends of March and May throughout all Italy, should be offered to Jupiter.

Votive games were decided upon, couches were set by the judges, whereon the twelve G.o.ds should feast in splendour, temples were vowed, to Venus Erycina by the dictator himself, to Mens by t.i.tus Otacilius, the praetor.

But with all, and, as Fabius put it, that the immortal G.o.ds should not be overburdened with the petty affairs of mortals, every care that human prudence and warcraft could suggest was taken. Walls and towers were strengthened, and bridges were broken down; the inhabitants of open towns were driven into places of security, and their houses and crops destroyed. Amid all, the rumour came that Servilius was hastening back from Gaul; then, that he was close at hand, and, finally, Fabius set out to meet him, sending orders in advance that the consul should come without lictors, so that the dignity of the dictatorship might stand high before the people. And when Servilius had come, in all respects as commanded, then he, the consul, after first delivering up his legions which he had left at Ariminum, was ordered to Ostia and the fleet to keep watch and ward over the Italian coast and to protect the corn ships. So all the armies of the Republic went to the pro-dictator, together with authority to raise such more as he should consider needful; two new legions in the place of those dead on the sh.o.r.es of Trasimenus, and some thousands of poorer citizens from the tribes, to man the quinqueremes of Servilius and the walls of Rome.

Amid these days of bustle and preparation, Sergius had found little difficulty in keeping his footsteps from Marcia's threshold. After the first grief of the conviction that she did not love him, pride came to his rescue. Should he, the head of the n.o.blest house of the n.o.ble Sergian gens, should he abase himself and submit to scornful words even from a daughter of Torquatus? or, yet, should he, as a man, desire to bear the torch before an unwilling bride? These were simple questions, and there was but one word that could answer them; so Sergius struggled to put Marcia from his heart, until he flattered himself that the difficult task had at last been accomplished.

During this internal struggle, there came, also, to help him, word that he had been named as one of the military tribunes in the new Fourth Legion, and, his wound being now almost well, he threw himself headlong into the work of the levy and of exercising his men, striving to bring them to such a degree of efficiency as might win honour for himself and advantage to the Republic. Now and again twinges of the old heart-pain would rack him, but he obstinately attributed all depression and melancholy to the inferior quality, both physically and socially, of many of the new levies, and to his misgivings as to the account they would render of themselves when confronted by the veterans of Hannibal.

At last the day of marching arrived, and with it the greatest struggle of all. Suddenly a suspicion awoke within him, whispering that the task he had set for himself was but poorly done; that the image of Marcia still smiled unbanished above the altar of his heart; and, with all his pride and strength, this suspicion of his weakness was, oddly enough, a source of positive exultation. Caius had been with him through much of his work, for Caius served in the same legion. It was evident, however, that the young man had received strict orders on one subject; for, in all their talks, the name of Marcia never pa.s.sed his lips. This was unlike Caius, who was thought by many to be given to overmuch speaking, and, for that reason, it irritated Sergius the more, who would sooner have cut away his hand than questioned his friend concerning his sister. Thus the two men, illogically but humanly enough, continued to grow apart, until, with never a thought but of friendliness, their intercourse became limited, through sheer embarra.s.sment, to the commonplaces of fellow-soldiers who held light acquaintance with each other's names and faces.

As the hour drew near, the city bubbled with excitement, and the altars of the G.o.ds reeked with unnumbered victims. Especially invoked were Castor, Fortune, Liberty, and Hope, but, above all, the mighty trinity of the Capitol. Lest the pang of so great a parting with men who were about to encounter such grave dangers might sap the courage of those remaining, and thence that of the new levies, the dictator had wisely decreed that the army should a.s.semble at Tibur. So it happened that there was none to go now save himself and a small escort of cavalry, five turmae, at the head of which was Sergius. With these went Rome's last hope: the cast behind which lay only ruin, but for the averting favour of the G.o.ds.

At midday the fasces would be carried forth, and it lacked but an hour of the time. Sergius had prepared everything; his men were ready to mount at the blast of the trumpet, and his household was set in order against the absence of its master. He was standing within the Viminal Gate, while an attendant held his horse close by and a little apart from the crowds of weeping women who surrounded the soldiers of the dictator's escort. Suddenly he felt some one pluck him by the cloak, and turned quickly to see a young woman in the single tunic of a slave.

Her dress, however, was of finer texture than that worn by most of her cla.s.s, and seemed to bespeak a rich mistress and especial favour. She stood with her finger to her lips, her eyes great with the importance of her mission.

"My mistress, the Lady Marcia, orders that you come and bid her farewell," she whispered hurriedly.

Then she darted away among the crowd, before the young tribune could make answer to an invitation so oddly worded.

His first impulse was to show the Lady Marcia that he was not to be dismissed and sent for--much less ordered back at the caprice of a girl. His next was to humour the whim of a child, and his third was to obey humbly and thankfully, without a thought but of Marcia's beauty and his own good fortune.

A word to his slave and another to his horse, whereat the former loosed the bridle, and the latter knelt for his master. Then came a wild gallop across the crest of the Viminal Hill, through the ill-omened street where the wicked Tullia had driven over her father's corpse, into the Forum, and out up the New Way to the house of Torquatus.

Throwing his rein to the porter, Sergius entered the court of the atrium, vacant and resounding to the hurried tread of his cothurni.

Pausing for a moment and hesitating to penetrate farther into the house, he became aware that the porter had followed him. Like most of his cla.s.s, he was a man considerably past middle life, and thus considered suited to the comparative ease and responsibility of his position. With a freedom and garrulity born of long service, he began:--

"It was a word I was commanded to deliver to the most n.o.ble Sergius, and I doubt not it would have been well and truly delivered, but for his springing from his horse so quickly and rushing past me. It is possible that I might have come to him sooner had he not left me to take care of the animal, and it needed time to summon the groom, whose duty such work is. Therefore--"

"By Hercules, man, give me the message! Do you think I can listen all day to your gabbling?" cried the soldier, furious with impatience.

A faint laugh seemed to come from somewhere beyond the hallway.

"I was about to say, most n.o.ble lord," pursued the porter, hardly ruffled by the outburst; "and I trust you will pardon me if I dallied over-much; but--"

Sergius raised his hand. Then, thinking better of the blow, he seized the man by the throat.

"Perhaps I can shake the words out like dice from a box. Now for the Venus cast!" he cried, suiting the action to the speech.