A Thorny Path — Complete by Georg Ebers (i can read with my eyes shut .txt) 📕

voice and gesture, he explained that “some wretch had fastened a rope to one of the doors of the sanctuary, and had written below it the blasphemous words: ‘Hail! For so welcome a guest never came to the sovereign of Hades. Who ever peopled his realm, Caesar, more freely than thou? Laurels refuse to grow green in the darksome abode of Serapis; Take, then, this rope for a gift, never more richly deserved.’”

“It is disgraceful!” exclaimed the prefect.

“Your indignation is well founded. But the biting tongue of the frivolous mixed races dwelling in this city is well known. They have tried it on me; and if, in this instance, any one is to blame, it is not I, the imprisoned prefect, but the chief and captain of the night-watch, whose business it is to guard Caesar’s residence more strictly.”

At this Theocritus was furious, and poured out a flood of words, expatiating on the duties of a prefect as Caesar’s representative in the provinces. “His eye must be as omniscient as that of the all-seeing Deity. The better he knew the uproarious rabble over whom he ruled, the more evidently was it his duty to watch over Caesar’s person as anxiously as a mother over her child, as a miser over his treasure.”

The high-sounding words flowed with dramatic emphasis, the sentimental speaker adding to their impressiveness by the action of his hands, till it was more than the invalid could bear. With a pinched smile, he raised himself with difficulty, and interrupted Theocritus with the impatient exclamation, “Still the actor!”

“Yes, still!” retorted the favorite, in a hard voice. “You, however, have been even longer—what you have, indeed, been too long—Prefect of Egypt!” With an angry fling he threw the corner of his toga over his shoulder, and, though his hand shook with rage, the pliant drapery fell in graceful folds over his athletic limbs. He turned his back on the prefect, and, with the air of a general who has just been crowned with laurels, he stalked through the anteroom and past Philip once more.

The philosopher had told his sister all this in a few sentences. He now paused in his walk to and fro to answer Melissa’s question as to whether this upstart’s influence were really great enough to turn so noble and worthy a man out of his office.

“Can you ask?” said Philip. “Titianus had no doubts from the first; and what I heard in the Serapeum—but all in good time. The prefect was sorry for my father and Alexander, but ended by saying that he himself needed an intercessor; for, if it were not to-day, at any rate to-morrow, the actor would inveigle Caesar into signing his death-warrant.”

“Impossible!” cried the girl, spreading out her hands in horror; but Philip dropped into a seat, saying:

“Listen to the end. There was evidently nothing to be hoped for from Titianus. He is, no doubt, a brave man, but there is a touch of the actor in him too. He is a Stoic; and where would be the point of that, if a man could not appear to look on approaching death as calmly as on taking a bath?

“Titianus plays his part well. However, I next went to the Serapeum—it is a long way, and it was very hot in the sun—to ask for help from my old patron, the high-priest. Caesar is now his guest; and the prefect, too, had advised me to place my father’s cause in his hands.”

Here Philip sprang up again, and rushed up and down, sometimes stopping for a moment in front of his sister while he went on with his story.

Theocritus had long since reached the Serapeum in his swift chariot when the philosopher at last arrived there on foot. He was well known as a frequent visitor, and was shown at once into the hall of that part of his abode which Timotheus had reserved for himself when he had given up all the best rooms to his imperial visitor.

The anteroom was crowded, and before he got any farther he heard that the favorite’s accusations had already led to serious results, and rumors were rife concerning the luckless witticisms of some heedless youth, which would bring grief upon the peaceable citizens. But before he could ask what was meant, he was admitted to the high-priest’s room.

This was a marked favor on such a day as this, and the benevolence with which he was received by the head of the priesthood of the whole city filled him with good hopes of a successful issue. But hardly had Philip begun to speak of his brother’s misdemeanor, than Timotheus laid his hand on his bearded lips, as a hint to be cautious, and whispered in his ear, “Speak quickly and low, if you love your life!”

When Philip had hastily explained that Zminis had imprisoned his father, the old man started to his feet with a promptitude to which his majestic person was unaccustomed, and pointed to a curtained doorway on one side of the room.

“Through that door,” he whispered, “you will reach the western steps, and the passage leading out of the precincts to the stadium. You are known to the Romans in the anteroom. It is not the god to whom this building is dedicated who now rules within these walls. Your brother’s rash words are repeated everywhere, and have even come to Caesar’s knowledge; and he has been told that it was the same traitor—who has for the moment escaped Zminis and his men—who nailed a rope on one of our doors, and with it an audacious inscription. To speak a single word in behalf of Alexander or your father would be to fling myself into the fire without putting it out. You do not know how fiercely it is burning. Theocritus is feeding the flame, for he needs it to destroy the prefect. Now, not another word; and, come what may, so long as the Roman visitors dwell under this roof, beware of it!”

And the high-priest opened the door with his own hand.

“I hurried home,” Philip added, “and if I forgot, in my dismay at this fresh disaster, to warn Glaukias to be careful—But, no, no! It is unpardonable!—Alexander is by this time crossing the lake, perhaps. I am like Caracalla—my brother’s murderer!”

But Melissa laid her arm on his shoulder and besought the poor fellow to be comforted; and her loving words of excuse seemed to have some good effect. But why was he always so reserved? Why could not Philip be as frank with her as Alexander was? She had never been very near to him; and now he was concealing from her something which moved him deeply.

She turned away sadly, for she could not even comfort him. But then again Philip sighed from the bottom of his heart, and she could contain her self no longer. More tenderly than she had ever addressed him before, she besought her brother to open his heart to her. She would gladly help him to endure what oppressed him; and she could understand, for she herself had learned what the joys and sorrows of love were.

She had found the right clew. Philip nodded, and answered gloomily:

“Well, then, listen. It may do me good to speak.” And thereupon he began to tell her what she had already heard from Alexander; and, covering her tingling cheeks with her hands, she listened with breathless attention, not missing a word, though the question rose to her mind again and again whether she should tell him the whole truth, which he as yet could not