A Friend of Cæsar: A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. by - (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

he would have given a talent of gold for a draught of water. One of his men flung back the gateway, and in at the entrance came the glare of great bonfires lighted in the streets, of hundreds of tossing torches. The yelling of the multitude was louder than ever. There it was, packed thick on all sides: in its midst Drusus could see bright lines of tossing steel—the armour of Achillas's soldiery! As the portal opened, a mighty howl of triumph burst from the people; the fire had driven forth to the mob its prey. Cornelia heard the howl—the voice of a wild and raging beast—and trembled more.

"Cornelia," said Drusus, lowering his head so as to make himself heard, "do not look above the framework of the chariot. Cling to it tightly, for we may have to pass over obstacles. Above all, do not spring out, however much we may be swayed and shaken."

"I will not, Quintus," and that was all she could be heard to say in the din.

And so the little cavalcade drove forth. Cornelia cowered in the chariot and saw nothing and heard everything, which was the same as nothing. Was she frightened? She did not know. The peril was awful. Of course she realized that; but how could calamity come to pass, when it was Drusus whose powerful form towered above her, when it was Drusus whose voice rang like a trumpet out into the press swaying around?

It was very dark crouching in the body of the chariot. She could just see the face of Fabia opposite, very white, but, she knew, very calm. She reached out and caught the Vestal's hand, and discovered that her own was trembling, while the other's was perfectly steady. But the contest, the fighting all about! Now the horses were dashing forward, making the chariot spring as though it were a thing of life; now reined in sharply, and the heavily loaded car swayed this way and that, almost to overturning. The uproar above her head passed the telling by words; but there was one shout, now in Greek, now in Egyptian, that drowned all others: "Death to the Romans! tear them in pieces!" Missiles smote against the chariot; an arrow went cutting into the wood, driving its keen point home, and Cornelia experienced a thrill of pain in her shoulder. She felt for the smart, found the mere tip of the point only had penetrated the wood; but her fingers were wet when she took them away. Drusus was shooting; his bow-string snapped and snapped. Once a soldier in armour sprang behind the chariot when it came to a stop, and his javelin was poised to discharge; but an arrow tore through his throat, and he went down to the pavement with a crash. The car rocked more and more; once the wheels slipped without revolving, as though sliding over some smooth liquid—not water. Cornelia felt powers of discriminating sensation becoming fainter and fainter; a great force seemed pressing out from within her; the clamour and shocks were maddening. She felt driven to raise her head, to look out into the raging chaos, though the first glance were death. Peering back out of the body of the chariot now and then, she saw a little. The Romans were charging this way and that, forcing their passage down the street, barred no longer by a mere mob, but by Achillas's infantrymen, who were hastening into action. The chariot horses were wounded, some seriously; she was sure of that. They could not be driven through the spearmen, and the little handful of cavalry was trying to break through the enemy and make space for a rush. It was thirty against thousands; yet even in the mortal peril, which Cornelia realized now if she had never before, she had a strange sort of pride. Her countrymen were showing these Orientals how one Roman could slay his tens, could put in terror his hundreds. Drusus was giving orders with the same mechanical exactitude of the drill, albeit his voice was high-pitched and strained—not entirely, perhaps, because of the need of calling above the din.

"Form in line by fours!"

Cornelia raised her head above the chariot frame. The Romans had worked their way down into a square formed by the intersection of streets. Behind them and on every building were swarming the people; right across the eastern avenue, where their escape lay, stood the bristling files of one of Achillas's companies. Stones and roof-tiles were being tossed in a perfect hail from the houses, and now and then an arrow or a dart. The four chariots—one had only three horses left—were standing in the little plaza, and the troopers were forming before them. The arrows of the chariot warriors made the mob behind keep a respectful distance. It was the triumph of discipline over man's animal sense of fear. Even the mob felt this, when it saw the little squadron fall into line with as much precision as on the parade ground. A tile smote one soldier upon the head, and he tumbled from his horse like a stone. His comrades never paused in their evolution. Then, for the first time, Cornelia screamed with horror and fright. Drusus, who was setting a new arrow to his bow, looked down upon her; he had never seemed so handsome before, with the fierce light of the battle in his eyes, with his whole form swelling with the exertions of conflict.

"Down, Cornelia!" commanded the officer; and Cornelia did so implicitly—to disobey him at that moment was inconceivable.

"At them, men!"

And then came a new bound from the horses, and then a mighty crash and clash of bodies, blades, and shields, the snort of dying beasts, the splintering of spear-shafts, the groans and cries of men in battle for their lives. The car rose on one wheel higher and higher; Cornelia was thrown against Fabia, and the two women clung to each other, too terrified and crushed to scream; then on a sudden it righted, and as it did so the soldier who had acted as charioteer reeled, his face bathed in blood, the death-rattle in his throat. Back he fell, pierced in face and breast, and tumbled from the car; and, as if answering to this lightening of their burden, the hoofs of the hard-pressed horses bit on the pavement, and the team bounded onward.

"Io triumphe!" It was Drusus who called; and in answer to his shout came the deep Cæsarian battle-cry from hundreds of throats, "Venus Victrix!"

The chariot was advancing, but less rapidly. Cornelia rose and looked forth again, not this time to be rebuked. Down the moon-lighted street were moving several infantry cohorts from the palace; the avenue was clear, the mob and hostile soldiery had melted away like a mist; a mounted officer came flying down the street ahead of the legionaries.

"The ladies are safe, Imperator!" Drusus was reporting with military exactitude. "I have lost twelve men."

Cæsar galloped along beside the chariot. He had his horse under absolute control, and he extended his hand, first to Fabia, then to Cornelia.

"Fortune has been kind to us," said he, smiling.

"Vesta has protected us," said Fabia, bowing her head.

Cæsar cast a single inquiring, keen glance at the Vestal.

"Your excellency doubts the omnipotence of the goddess," continued she, looking him steadily in the face.

"That a power has protected you," was his answer, "I am the last to deny."

But the Imperator and Drusus were exchanging glances; that a woman of the intelligence of Fabia could believe in the regular, personal intervention of the Deity in human affairs was to them, not an absurdity, but a mystery unfathomable.

And so, safe-guarded by the troops, they rode back to the palace, where the preparations for defence were ready, and all were awaiting the onset of Achillas. The weary men on the walls cheered as the carriages with their precious burdens rolled in at the gate; and cheered again for Drusus and his eighteen who had taught the Alexandrian rabble how Roman steel could bite. But Drusus himself was sad when he thought of the twelve good men that he had left behind—who need not have been sacrificed but for his headlong rashness.

And how had the mob come to attack the house of Cleomenes? It was a long story, but in a few words probably this. Pratinas had come and demanded of Cleomenes that he surrender the ladies (doubtless because they would be useful hostages) to go with him to Achillas. Cleomenes had refused, the more especially as Cornelia adjured him not to deliver them over to the clutches of such a creature; and Pratinas went away full of anger and threatenings. How he came to be in Alexandria, and had returned so soon from Achillas's forces, if he had indeed gone to Achillas, was neither clear nor important. But that he had excited the mob to assail Cleomenes's mansion needed no great proof. Cleomenes himself had seen his artful fellow-countryman surveying the riot from a housetop, though doubtless he had kept at a prudent distance during the fighting.

So ended that exciting day, or rather that night. It was Cleopatra who with her own hands laid the bandages on Cornelia's wounded shoulder, but the hurt was not serious; only, as Drusus laughingly assured her, it was an honourable scar, as became the descendant of so many fighting Claudii and Cornelii.

"Ah! delectissime," replied she, "it isn't the hurt that gives me pain; it is that I was frightened—frightened when you were acting like one of the Heroes!"

"Mehercle!" laughed Drusus, before he left her to snatch a few hours of well-earned rest and see to the dressing of his own bruises, "I would not blame a veteran for being panic-struck in that mêlée, if he didn't have a chance to swing a weapon and so keep his heart from standing still."

II

On the next day Achillas moved up his thousands and attacked the palace fortifications. There was a desperate struggle in the streets outside the royal residence; the assailants were five to the defenders' one, and the mob was arming to aid in the assault; but the Egyptians soon realized that it was no light thing to carry barricades held by men who had fought in Gaul, Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Greece, and never tasted overthrow. Fiercest of all was the fight at the harbour, where the navy of the king lay, and which, if seized, would have put Cæsar at his enemies' mercy. But here, also, Roman valour prevailed over Oriental temerity. All the ships that Cæsar could not use were burned. With the rest he sailed over to the Pharos island, and landed men to make good the tower on that point of vantage. So ended the first round of battle; and the initial danger of being overwhelmed by sheer force was over.

But day after day of conflict followed. Princess Arsinoë and Achillas quarrelled in the camp of the besiegers, and this occasioned some respite to the Romans. Still there was no end to the fighting. Cæsar sent off to Asia Minor, Syria, and Crete for reënforcements; but these, all knew, could not come at once. A sharp struggle cleared the houses nearest to the palace, and the general caused them to be razed and the positions thoroughly fortified. He seized the low-lying ground which ran as an insignificant valley down between the halves of the city and tried to cut his enemies' position in twain. So the struggle dragged on. Achillas had been murdered by Arsinoë, and she had placed in command her governor, the eunuch Ganymed, who was more dangerous by his sly craft than fifty common generals. One day a frightened centurion reported to Cæsar that all the cisterns used by the troops were becoming flooded with sea-water. It was a contrivance of Ganymed. The soldiers were in a panic, and it was all that their leader could do to pacify them. And then one of those strokes of fortune which will always come to a favoured few was vouchsafed; as the terrified Romans delved in the earth where rain had seldom fallen, lo! on the very first night of their toil fresh water bubbled up, and all the danger was at an end.

But it is needless to tell how the contest was waged; how the thirty-seventh legion arrived as help, how the wind kept them off port exposed to the enemy, and how Cæsar sailed out and succoured them, and worsted the Alexandrian ships. Then, again, Ganymed stirred the disheartened citizens to build another fleet, and, by tremendous exertions, a new flotilla arose to threaten to cut Cæsar off; and there was a second battle for dear life—this time on sea close by the city; while Roman and Alexandrian stood staring on the housetops, with their hearts beating quickly, for defeat meant ruin to the Romans. And, again, the gods of the waters fought for Cæsar, and the beaten Alexandrian fleet drifted back to the shelter of its mole in the harbour of Eunostus.

Next came a great struggle for the possession of the Pharos. The fighting was severe, the footing on the island hard to win, up steep