Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (ebook reader macos TXT) 📕

A greeting, Leo! A greeting, Maximus! A greeting, Diomed!” Young

maidens raised to them eyes full of admiration; they, selecting the

maiden most beautiful, answered with jests, as if no care weighed on

them, sending kisses, or exclaiming, “Embrace me before death does!”

Then they vanished in the gates, through which many of them were never

to come forth again.

New arrivals drew away the attention of the throngs. Behind the

gladiators came mastigophori; that is, men armed with scourges, whose

office it was to lash and urge forward combatants. Next mules drew, in

the direction of the spoliarium, whole rows of vehicles on which were

piled wooden coffins. People were diverted at sight of this, inferring

from the number of coffins the greatness of the spectacle. Now marched

in men who were to kill the wounded; these were dressed so that each

resembled Charon or Mercury. Next came those who looked after order in

the Circus, and assigned places; after that slaves to bear around food

and refreshments; finally, pretorians, whom every Cæsar had always at

hand in the amphitheatre.

At last the vomitoria were opened, and crowds rushed to the centre. But

such was the number of those assembled that they flowed in and flowed in

for hours, till it was a marvel that the Circus could hold such a

countless multitude. The roars of wild beasts, catching the exhalations

of people, grew louder. While taking their places, the spectators made

an uproar like the sea in time of storm.

Finally, the prefect of the city came, surrounded by guards; and after

him, in unbroken line, appeared the litters of senators, consuls,

pretors, ediles, officials of the government and the palace, of

pretorian officers, patricians, and exquisite ladies. Some litters were

preceded by lictors bearing maces in bundles of rods; others by crowds

of slaves. In the sun gleamed the gilding of the litters, the white and

varied colored stuffs, feathers, earrings, jewels, steel of the maces.

From the Circus came shouts with which the people greeted great

dignitaries. Small divisions of pretorians arrived from time to time.

The priests of various temples came somewhat later; only after them were

brought in the sacred virgins of Vesta, preceded by lictors.

To begin the spectacle, they were waiting now only for Cæsar, who,

unwilling to expose the people to over-long waiting, and wishing to win

them by promptness, came soon, in company with the Augusta and

Augustians.

Petronius arrived among the Augustians, having Vinicius in his litter.

The latter knew that Lygia was sick and unconscious; but as access to

the prison had been forbidden most strictly during the preceding days,

and as the former guards had been replaced by new ones who were not

permitted to speak with the jailers or even to communicate the least

information to those who came to inquire about prisoners, he was not

even sure that she was not among the victims intended for the first day

of spectacles. They might send out even a sick woman for the lions,

though she were unconscious. But since the victims were to be sewed up

in skins of wild beasts and sent to the arena in crowds, no spectator

could be certain that one more or less might not be among them, and no

man could recognize any one. The jailers and all the servants of the

amphitheatre had been bribed, and a bargain made with the beast-keepers

to hide Lygia in some dark corner, and give her at night into the hands

of a confidant of Vinicius, who would take her at once to the Alban

Hills. Petronius, admitted to the secret, advised Vinicius to go with

him openly to the amphitheatre, and after he had entered to disappear in

the throng and hurry to the vaults, where, to avoid possible mistake, he

was to point out Lygia to the guards personally.

The guards admitted him through a small door by which they came out

themselves. One of these, named Cyrus, led him at once to the

Christians. On the way he said,—

“I know not, lord, that thou wilt find what thou art seeking. We

inquired for a maiden named Lygia, but no one gave us answer; it may be,

though, that they do not trust us.”

“Are there many?” asked Vinicius.

“Many, lord, had to wait till tomorrow.”

“Are there sick ones among them?”

“There were none who could not stand.”

Cyrus opened a door and entered as it were an enormous chamber, but low

and dark, for the light came in only through grated openings which

separated it from the arena. At first Vinicius could see nothing; he

heard only the murmur of voices in the room, and the shouts of people in

the amphitheatre. But after a time, when his eyes had grown used to the

gloom, he saw crowds of strange beings, resembling wolves and bears.

Those were Christians sewed up in skins of beasts. Some of them were

standing; others were kneeling in prayer. Here and there one might

divine by the long hair flowing over the skin that the victim was a

woman. Women, looking like wolves, carried in their arms children sewed

up in equally shaggy coverings. But from beneath the skins appeared

bright faces and eyes which in the darkness gleamed with delight and

feverishness. It was evident that the greater number of those people

were mastered by one thought, exclusive and beyond the earth,—a thought

which during life made them indifferent to everything which happened

around them and which could meet them. Some, when asked by Vinicius

about Lygia, looked at him with eyes as if roused from sleep, without

answering his questions; others smiled at him, placing a finger on their

lips or pointing to the iron grating through which bright streaks of

light entered. But here and there children were crying, frightened by

the roaring of beasts, the howling of dogs, the uproar of people, and

the forms of their own parents who looked like wild beasts. Vinicius as

he walked by the side of Cyrus looked into faces, searched, inquired, at

times stumbled against bodies of people who had fainted from the crowd,

the stifling air, the heat, and pushed farther into the dark depth of

the room, which seemed to be as spacious as a whole amphitheatre.

But he stopped on a sudden, for he seemed to hear near the grating a

voice known to him. He listened for a while, turned, and, pushing

through the crowd, went near. Light fell on the face of the speaker,

and Vinicius recognized under the skin of a wolf the emaciated and

implacable countenance of Crispus.

“Mourn for your sins!” exclaimed Crispus, “for the moment is near. But

whoso thinks by death itself to redeem his sins commits a fresh sin, and

will be hurled into endless fire. With every sin committed in life ye

have renewed the Lord’s suffering; how dare ye think that that life

which awaits you will redeem this one? To-day the just and the sinner

will die the same death; but the Lord will find His own. Woe to you,

the claws of the lions will rend your bodies; but not your sins, nor

your reckoning with God. The Lord showed mercy sufficient when He let

Himself be nailed to the cross; but thenceforth He will be only the

judge, who will leave no fault unpunished. Whoso among you has thought

to extinguish his sins by suffering, has blasphemed against God’s

justice, and will sink all the deeper. Mercy is at an end, and the hour

of God’s wrath has come. Soon ye will stand before the awful Judge in

whose presence the good will hardly be justified. Bewail your sins, for

the jaws of hell are open; woe to you, husbands and wives; woe to you,

parents and children.”

And stretching forth his bony hands, he shook them above the bent heads;

he was unterrified and implacable even in the presence of death, to

which in a while all those doomed people were to go. After his words,

were heard voices: “We bewail our sins!” Then came silence, and only

the cry of children was audible, and the beating of hands against

breasts.

The blood of Vinicius stiffened in his veins. He, who had placed all

his hope in the mercy of Christ, heard now that the day of wrath had

come, and that even death in the arena would not obtain mercy. Through

his head shot, it is true, the thought, clear and swift as lightning,

that Peter would have spoken otherwise to those about to die. Still

those terrible words of Crispus filled with fanaticism that dark chamber

with its grating, beyond which was the field of torture. The nearness

of that torture, and the throng of victims arrayed for death already,

filled his soul with fear and terror. All this seemed to him dreadful,

and a hundred times more ghastly than the bloodiest battle in which he

had ever taken part. The odor and heat began to stifle him; cold sweat

came out on his forehead. He was seized by fear that he would faint

like those against whose bodies he had stumbled while searching in the

depth of the apartment; so when he remembered that they might open the

grating any moment, he began to call Lygia and Ursus aloud, in the hope

that, if not they, some one knowing them would answer.

In fact, some man, clothed as a bear, pulled his toga, and said,—

“Lord, they remained in prison. I was the last one brought out; I saw

her sick on the couch.”

“Who art thou?” inquired Vinicius.

“The quarryman in whose hut the Apostle baptized thee, lord. They

imprisoned me three days ago, and to-day I die.”

Vinicius was relieved. When entering, he had wished to find Lygia; now

he was ready to thank Christ that she was not there, and to see in that

a sign of mercy. Meanwhile the quarryman pulled his toga again, and

said,—

“Dost remember, lord, that I conducted thee to the vineyard of

Cornelius, when the Apostle discoursed in the shed?”

“I remember.”

“I saw him later, the day before they imprisoned me, He blessed me, and

said that he would come to the amphitheatre to bless the perishing. If

I could look at him in the moment of death and see the sign of the

cross, it would be easier for me to die. If thou know where he is,

lord, inform me.”

Vinicius lowered his voice, and said,—

“He is among the people of Petronius, disguised as a slave. I know not

where they chose their places, but I will return to the Circus and see.

Look thou at me when ye enter the arena. I will rise and turn my face

toward them; then thou wilt find him with thy eyes.”

“Thanks to thee, lord, and peace be with thee.”

“May the Redeemer be merciful to thee.”

“Amen.”

Vinicius went out of the cuniculum, and betook himself to the

amphitheatre, where he had a place near Petronius among the other

Augustians.

“Is she there?” inquired Petronius.

“No; she remained in prison.”

“Hear what has occurred to me, but while listening look at Nigidia for

example, so that we may seem to talk of her hairdressing. Tigellinus

and Chilo are looking at us now. Listen then. Let them put Lygia in a

coffin at night and carry her out of the prison as a corpse; thou

divinest the rest?”

“Yes,” answered Vinicius.

Their further conversation was interrupted by Tullius Senecio, who,

bending toward them, asked,—

“Do ye know whether they will give weapons to the Christians?”