Chapter XII

ST. PATRICK’S CHILDREN IN ST. LEO’S CITY.

Great was the exultation in Rome at the news of the victory on the Catalaunian plains, the defeat of Attila, and his retreat with his Huns to their camps beyond the Danube.

The echo of the triumph soon reached the quiet portico of the palace on the Aventine, where Damaris and Lucia were sitting together in the hush of a July noon. Fabricius came in with the news.

“Attila is in retreat; there has been a battle, with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, and here is a letter for thee.”

It was the one Marius had written from the battle-field. In a few days followed the second from Troyes. It was to Lucia, and she read it as they sat together in the quiet evening.

“‘The wound was worse than I knew.’”

“I felt sure of that,” said the mother.

“‘But I have had tender care and nursing in the house of a Jew called Eleazar, from his wife Miriam and two young Christian captives.’”

“In the house of a Jew!” exclaimed Fabricius, doubtfully. “God grant they dealt fairly by him. The Jews have many wrongs to avenge on us and ours.”

Lucia read on—“‘I am quite strong again,’” and then she paused a moment before she proceeded, “‘I think I have found the Fountain of Youth, and I hope to bring some drops home to thee.’”

“A curious mixture of religions,” said Fabricius. “A Jew, and the old Pagan fountain. What can he mean?”

“He means, I suppose,” said Lucia, “that the world around us seems rather old, and that he has found among these new people some freshness of new life.”

“I understand,” said Damaris.

Lucia read on—“‘Tell my mother of the two young Christian captives, the son and daughter of a king or chieftain from the farthest West, the land of the Scots, Hibernia, the island Rome never conquered. They were kidnapped by British pirates, and bought by the old Jew Eleazar, who, with his wife Miriam, lives at Rome, and is taking them thither. They must be ransomed.’”

“It seems a very wild story,” said Fabricius. “Are you quite sure it is from Marius?”

“Quite sure,” said Lucia; and she resumed, “There is a postscript. He thinks the sister would be delightful to me, and that the brother would be invaluable to our father on his lands among the Sabine hills. There is also a dog, a deer-hound of the purest Scottish breed, that he thinks would be priceless for the chase.”

“A wonderful treasure-trove, in good sooth,” said Fabricius, rather grimly. “A dog, two captives to ransom, and a Fountain of Youth.”

Afterwards he said to his wife when they were alone, “Dilectissima, understandest thou what this means? Art thou ready to have thy youth renewed by a daughter-in-law from the Scottish wilds?”

“We will wait and see,” she replied. “Marius is no dreamer. If he thinks he has found a treasure, I believe he has.”

“The Scots are many of them Pelagian heretics,” Fabricius replied, not without malice.

“Then we must bring them under the instruction of our Pope Leo,” she said. “We will wait and see.”

They had not long to wait. The very next evening Damaris and Lucia were in their lectica, with its purple curtains and golden lattices, on the great road leading northward, when they met a little company of four, walking beside two strong, heavily-laden mules. The old man who led the way, walking alone, had the dark, Oriental colouring and aquiline features which they recognized as Hebrew. Behind him walked two women, with veils drawn around the head and shoulders, one dark and stooping slightly with age, the other tall and young and fair, with a sweet light in the grey eyes which met those of Damaris. Behind them came a fair, athletic young man, holding a powerful deer-hound in leash.

Damaris and Lucia looked significantly at each other. They would have followed the strangers, but their horses had suddenly changed their pace, and were galloping towards the hills, rocking the heavy carriage (or highly-decorated wagon) from side to side. The mother and daughter had not a doubt that, as in a momentary flash of lightning, they had seen the group described in Marius’ letter. As they drove on they met a troop of the slaves of the Imperial household.

Meantime in the opposite direction the little company they had met entered the gate of the city, and were passed by the same troop of the Imperial household.

The officer who was at the head of the band of slaves seemed struck by the four travellers, so contrasted in types of face and figure, and yet so evidently belonging to each other. Especially he fixed his eyes on the fair face of Ethne, the athletic form of Baithene, and the dog of the much-prized Irish breed. After he had passed them he turned back, and asked Eleazar where he lived, and if the dog was to be purchased, and said he might look in some day and inquire about it.

Something in the officer’s look and bearing made Ethne look down and draw closer to Miriam, and Baithene look up defiantly and throw his arm around the dog, whilst the dog pricked up his ears, and gave a suspicious low growl.

When they reached Eleazar’s lodging at the top of a tall house on the further side of the Tiber, where many of his countrymen congregated, and had separated into their different rooms for the night, Ethne said to her brother—

“Have you the tablet the Roman soldier at Troyes gave us for his mother and father, who live in a palace on one of these hills?”

“Surely,” he said; “why do you ask?”

“I can scarcely say why,” she answered, with a shiver. “But this great Rome seems to me lonelier than the sea, and stranger than our first step into a strange land, and more like a den of lions than besieged Orleans or the camp of the Huns. The people look at us so strangely, as if we were foreign animals, or pieces of merchandise for sale.”

“And _we are_!” moaned Baithene.

“Let us say the paternoster and Patrick’s hymn,” she rejoined, “and try and go to sleep.” But they slept little.

Nor did Miriam and Eleazar sleep much better.

“Dost thou know that man with the sinister face,” she said, “who spoke to thee about the dog to-day?”

“No,” he replied, “save that he is of the Imperial household, and must not be offended.”

“He must be _escaped_,” she replied decidedly. “It is not the dog only that he wants, and he looks a son of Belial. The Imperial household is said to be a sink of iniquity; we must never sell these children into that.”

He was silent; heart and conscience were with her, but he murmured sullenly—

“I told thee these Gentile strangers were no merchandise for us.”

“The God of the fatherless sent them to us,” she replied; “and our own child is fatherless and motherless; and if we suffer God’s orphans to be ruined, how are we to ask Him to care for our own?”

“We are no princes now,” he answered, “to have young men and maidens in our service, and beasts of the chase. What would you do?”

“They have a tablet from that young Roman officer,” she said. “A letter to his family in a palace on the Aventine.”

“What of that?” he grumbled.

“I will go to-morrow,” she said, “with the maiden, to see the lady on the Aventine, the young Roman noble’s mother, and tell her all. Perchance she will have compassion on these Christian captives, and help them and us.”

“Thou wilt do what seemeth thee best,” he rejoined, in a tone of oppressed acquiescence. “If we are ruined, we are ruined; and the All-Merciful have mercy on thee and our lost child.”

Miriam, having gained her point, was too wise to prolong the debate and imperil the victory, which was, she well knew, the victory of his own conscience, by the most brilliant or devout retort.

So the next morning early she gently tapped at the door of the rooms where the young captives were, and said—

“Put on thy raiment quietly, my daughter, and bring the tablet the young Roman gave thee, and come with me, and let thy brother and the dog follow close behind.”

In the dusk of the morning they crossed the Tiber, and gliding along the silent quays at the foot of the Aventine, climbed from their level between the walls of the vineyard and palace gardens till they reached the gate of the house of Fabricius.

Eleazar came after them, and stood near them at the gate, in the shadow, a little apart. One or two slaves were stirring, and seemed at first determined not to heed them, but in a few minutes the steward of the household appeared, and demanded what they wanted at that unseasonable hour.

“We want thee to bear this epistle instantly to thy lady,” said Miriam; “it is from her son. He gave it us at the city of Troyes, far away in Gaul, to bring hither to her.”

The steward looked doubtfully at the group, but nevertheless accepted the tablet, went quickly into the house, and in a few minutes returned with his young mistress. Lucia’s smile reassured them.

“Does the matter press?” she asked.

“It presses sore,” was Miriam’s reply. “A few hours’ delay may prove the ruin of two innocent lives.”

Lucia went instantly to her mother’s room.

“Mother,” she said, “it is the people we met yesterday, the people who nursed Marius, with a letter from him.”

Together they glanced at the few words in the letter from Marius, commending the fugitives to the care of his father and mother. In a few minutes Damaris and Lucia received the strangers in the atrium. Miriam asked to see Damaris apart, and few words of explanation were needed between them.

“My husband purchased these captives on the coast of Gaul,” she said. “They are noble. They were taken by pirates. They are Christians. They are good. Lady, save them from becoming slaves in the household of the Emperor. One of his people has seen them, and is coming, I fear, to purchase them to-day.”

“It must not be,” said Damaris. “What would you have us do?”

“Ransom them, purchase them, lady; make them your own. They belong to your Christ!”

“You are not Christian?” Damaris asked courteously.

“My family are of the tribe of Judah—of the family of your Christ. Christians robbed us of all, of our only child. But I believe your Christ was good.”

Damaris looked into the dark, sad, Oriental eyes and read much there. After a moment’s pause she took Miriam’s hand.

“You have pity on these captives,” she said tenderly, “as your great prophets commanded you; you know the heart of a captive. You have pity on this maiden for the sake of your own dead maiden child.”

“Our daughter is not dead,” exclaimed Miriam, with a tremulous voice. “But she is a captive, perhaps a slave, we know not where. We search for her year after year. We pray for her night and day. There is One Who lives and hears.”

“One Who sees and loves!” responded Damaris; “Who sees thee caring for these His children, and I believe brings them through thee to me. I will do all I can.”

She went straight to her husband, who was in consultation with his steward, in his room of business. After dismissing the attendant, she said,

“Fabricius, these captives, the friends of Marius, who helped to save his life, are here. We shall have to ransom them at once.”

“My lady is imperious,” he replied, smiling, “and must of course be obeyed. But where are the revenues? The taxes and imposts for these wars are ruinous. Only just now the forester from our farms on the Sabine hills has been telling me the slaves will not work. They are probably meditating another flight to the barbarians, as in the days of Alaric, and everything is going to ruin.

“We must sell some of our land,” she said.

“No one will buy,” he replied. “They say Attila the Hun will soon return to avenge his defeat and ravage the country.”

“I will part with my jewels,” she said.

He made a deprecatory gesture, and said—

“I was but pointing out to thee we were not Olympians to command the clouds, nor, alas! of those who found the tribute-money miraculously stored in the mouths of fishes. What thou commandest must certainly be done. But what can then be done with the captives we shall have to see.”

They returned together to the atrium, and Fabricius, addressing Baithene, said gravely—

“My son writes that thou art a prince in thine own land. I fear we have too many princes here already to have much room for more.”

“I am no prince now,” said Baithene, raising his frank, fearless eyes to Fabricius, “at least I have no kingdom and no subjects; and what we call a kingdom in our country would perhaps seem but a wilderness to thee.”

There was no complaining in his tone, simply the acknowledgment of an unpleasant fact; and no defiance in his look, only a kind of princely sense that nothing could rob him of his birthright, or change what he was in himself, or prevent his conquering circumstances by making the best of them.

The old Roman patrician was touched, he felt he had met an equal; but all he said was—

“Thy dog, at all events, seems a prince of dogs.”

And Bran acknowledged the compliment by an acquiescent wag of his tail.

Then turning to Miriam, Fabricius said—“I would see thy husband.”

“I will fetch him at once,” she replied. And without another word she went and brought in Eleazar, who was still keeping guard outside the gate.

Fabricius took the old man to his private room, and as a matter of course there was some bargaining between them. The Roman noble pleaded with much truth the badness of the times; the Jewish merchant pleaded with much plausibility the poverty of his race, and his own especial losses on this purchase. But the arrangement was soon concluded; and Eleazar and Miriam returned alone to the tall houses beyond the Tiber, leaving Ethne, Baithene, and the dog in the palace on the Aventine.

As Miriam went, she bowed with an Oriental gesture, and kissed the hand of Damaris.

“Your Christ is good,” she murmured with a quivering voice, “and so are some of His Christians.”

“Our Christ is yours!” said Damaris, in a low voice.

Miriam made no reply for a moment, and then with passionate intensity she said—

“Pray to your God and ours, that if your Christ is ours we may know it in time, I and my husband, and our captive child whom we have lost.”