Perpetua. A Tale of Nimes in A.D. 213

At once the young lawyer sped to meet his client, manifesting the utmost impatience.

“What tidings – what news?” was his breathless question.

“As good as may be,” answered Callipodius. “The gods work to fulfill thy desire. It is as if thou wert a constraining destiny, or as though it were a pleasure to them to satisfy the wishes of their favorite.”

“I pray, lay aside this flattery, and speak plain words.”

“Resplendent genius that thou art! thou needest no flattery any more than the sun requires burnishing.”

“Let me entreat – the news!”

“In two words – ”

“Confine thyself to two words.”

“She is safe.”

“Where? How?”

“Now must I relax my tongue. In two words I cannot satisfy thy eagerness.”

“Then, Body of Bacchus! go on in thine own fashion.”

“The account may be crushed into narrow compass. When I left your radiant presence, then I betook myself to the town and found the place in turmoil – the statue of the god had been broken, and the deity was braying like a washerwoman’s jackass. The populace was roused and incensed by the outrage, and frightened by the voice of the god. All had quieted down previously, but this worked up the people to a condition of frantic rage and panic. I hurried about in quest of the Lady Perpetua; and as I learned that she had been conveyed from the pool by Baudillas Macer, I went into the part of the town where he lives; noble once, now slums. Then, lo! thy genius attending and befriending me, whom should I stumble against but a fellow named Tarsius, a slave of a wool merchant to whom I owe moneys, which I haven’t yet paid. I knew the fellow from a gash he had received at one time across nose and cheek. He was drunk and angry because he had been expelled the Christian society which was holding its orgies. I warrant thee I frightened the poor wretch with promises of the little horse, the panthers, and the cross, till he became pliant and obliging. Then I wormed out of him all I required, and made him my tool to obtain possession of the pretty maid. I learned from him that the Lady Quincta and her daughter were at the house of Baudillas, afraid to return home because their door was observed by some of the Cultores Nemausi. Then I suborned the rascal to act a part for me. From thy house I dispatched two litters and carriers, and sent that tippling rogue with them to the dwelling of Macer, to say that he was commissioned by his master, Litomarus, to conduct them to his country house for their security. They walked into the snare like fieldfare after juniper berries. Then the porters conveyed the girl to thy house.”

“To my house!” Æmilius started.

“Next, she was hurried off as soon as ever the gates were opened, to your villa at Ad Fines.”

“And she is there now, with her mother?”

“With her mother! I know better than to do that. I bade the porters convey the old lady in her palanquin to the goose and truffle market and deposit her there. No need to be encumbered with her.”

“The Lady Quincta not with her daughter?”

“You were not desirous for further acquaintance with the venerable widow, I presume.”

“But,” said Æmilius, “this is a grave matter. You have offered, as from me, an insult most wounding to a young lady, and to a respectable matron.”

“Generous man! how was it possible for me to understand the niceties that trouble your perspicuous mind? But be at ease. Serious sickness demands strong medicines. Great dangers excuse bold measures. The priestess has demanded the restoration of the virgin. The flamen Augustalis is backing her up. So are all the Seviri. The religious corporation feel touched in their credit and insist on the restitution. They will heap on fuel, and keep Nemausus in a boil. By no possibility could the damsel have remained hidden in the town. I saw that it was imperiously necessary for me to remove her. I could think of no other place into which to put her than Ad Fines. I managed the matter in admirable fashion; though it is I who say it. But really, by Jupiter Capitolinus, I believe that your genius attended me, and assisted in the execution of the design, which was carried out without a hitch.”

Æmilius knitted his arms behind his back, and took short turns, in great perturbation of mind.

“By Hercules!” said he, “you have committed an actionable offense.”

“Of course, you look on it from a legal point of view,” said Callipodius, a little nettled. “I tell you it was a matter of life or death.”

“I do not complain of your having conveyed the young lady to Ad Fines, but of your not having taken her mother there along with her. You have put me in a very awkward predicament.”

“How was I to judge that the old woman was to be deported as well?”

“You might have judged that I would cut off my right hand rather than do aught that might cause people to speak lightly of Perpetua.”

The client shrugged his shoulders. “You seem to breed new scruples.”

“I thank you,” said Æmilius, “that you have shown so good a will, and have been so successful in your enterprise. I am, perhaps, over hasty and exacting. I desired you to do a thing more perfectly than perhaps you were able to perform it. Leave me now. I must clear my mind and discover what is now to be done.”

“There is no pleasing some folk,” said Callipodius moodily.

CHAPTER XVII

PEDO

Baudillas had been lowered into the pit of the robur, and he sank in the slime half-way up his calves. He waded with extended arms, groping for something to which to cling. He knew not whether the bottom were even, or fell into deep holes, into which he might stumble. He knew not whether he were in a narrow well or in a spacious chamber.

Cautiously, in obscurity, he groped, uncertain even whether he went straight or was describing a curve. But presently he touched the wall and immediately discovered a bench, and seated himself thereon. Then he drew up his feet out of the mire, and cast himself in a reclining position on the stone seat.

He looked up, but could not distinguish the opening by which he had been let down into the horrible cess-pit. He was unable to judge to what depth he had been lowered, nor could he estimate the extent of the dungeon in which he was confined.

The bench on which he reposed was slimy, the walls trickled with moisture, were unctuous, and draped with a fungous growth in long folds. The whole place was foul and cold.

How long would his confinement last? Would food, pure water be lowered to him? Or was he condemned to waste away in this pit, from starvation, or in the delirium of famine to roll off from his shelf and smother in the mire?

After a while his eyes became accustomed to the dark and sensitive to the smallest gradations in it; and then he became aware of a feeble glowworm light over the surface of the ooze at one point. Was it that some fungoid growth there was phosphorescent? Or was it that a ray of daylight penetrated there by some tortuous course?

After long consideration it seemed to him probable that the light he distinguished might enter by a series of reflections through the outfall. He thought of examining the opening, but to do so he would be constrained to wade. He postponed the exploration till later. Of one thing he was confident, that although a little sickly light might be able to struggle into this horrible dungeon, yet no means of egress for the person would be left. Precautions against escape by this means would certainly have been taken.

The time passed heavily. At times Baudillas sank into a condition of stupor, then was roused to thought again, again to lapse into a comatose condition. His cut lip was sore, his bruises ached. He had passed his tongue over his broken teeth till they had fretted his tongue raw.

The feeble light at the surface became fainter, and this was finally extinguished. The day was certainly at an end. The sun had set in the west, an auroral glow hung over the place of its decline. Stars were beginning to twinkle; the syringa was pouring forth its fragrance, the flowering thorns their too heavy odor. Dew was falling gently and cool.

The deacon raised his heart to God, and from this terrible pit his prayer mounted to heaven; a prayer not for deliverance from death, but for grace to endure the last trial, and if again put to the test, to withstand temptation. Then he recited the evening prayer of the Church, in Greek: “O God, who art without beginning and without end, the Maker of the world by Thy Christ, and the sustainer thereof, God and Father, Lord of the spirit, King of all things that have reason and life! Thou who hast made the day for the works of light, and the night for the refreshment of our infirmity, for the day is Thine, the night is Thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun – do Thou now, O Lord, lover of mankind, fountain of all good, mercifully accept this our evening thanksgiving. Thou who hast brought us through the length of the day, and hast conducted us to the threshold of night, preserve us by Thy Christ, afford us a peaceful evening, and a sinless night, and in the end everlasting life by Thy Christ, through whom be glory, honor and worship in the Holy Spirit, for ever, amen.”8 After this prayer Baudillas had been wont in the church to say, “Depart in peace!” and to dismiss the faithful. Now he said, “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Out of that fetid abyss and its horrible darkness rose the prayer to God, winged with faith, inspired by fervor sweet with humility, higher than the soaring lark, higher than the faint cloud that caught the last rays of the set sun, higher than the remotest star.

Presently a confused sound from above reached the prisoner, and a spot of orange light fell on the water below. Then came a voice ringing hollow down the depth, and echoed by the walls, “Thy food!” A slender rope was sent down, to which was attached a basket that contained bread and a pitcher of water. Baudillas stepped into the ooze and took the loaf and the water vessel.

Then the jailer called again: “To-morrow morning – if more be needed – I will bring a second supply. Send up the empty jar when I lower that which is full, if thou art in a condition to require it.” He laughed, and the laugh resounded as a bellow in the vaulted chamber.

Few were the words spoken, and they ungracious. Yet was the deacon sensible of pleasure at hearing even a jailer’s voice breaking the dreadful silence. He waded back to his ledge, ate the dry bread and drank some of the water. Then he laid himself down again. Again the door clashed, sending thunders below, and once more he was alone.

As his hand traveled along the wall it encountered a hard round knot. He drew his hand away precipitately, but then, moved by curiosity, groped for it again. Then he discovered that this seeming excrescence was a huge snail, there hibernating. He dislodged it, threw it from him and it plashed into the mire.

Time dragged. Not a sound could be heard save the monotonous drip of some leak above. Baudillas counted the falling drops, then wearied of counting, and abandoned the self-imposed task.

Now he heard a far-away rushing sound, then came a blast of hot vapor blowing in his face. He started into a sitting posture, and clung to his bench. In another moment he heard the roar of water that plunged from above; and a hot steam enveloped him. What was the signification of this? Was the pit to be flooded with scalding water and he drowned in it? In a moment he had found the explanation. The water was being let off from the public baths. There would be no more bathers this night. The tide of tepid water rose nearly level with the ledge on which he was crouching, and then ebbed away and rolled forth at the vent through which by day a pale halo had entered.

Half suffocated, part stupefied by the warm vapor, Baudillas sank into a condition without thought, his eyes looking into the blackness above, his ears hearing without noting the dribble from the drain through which the flood had spurted. Presently he was roused by a sense of irritation in every nerve, and putting his hand to his face plucked away some hundred-legged creature, clammy and yet hard, that was creeping over him. It was some time before his tingling nerves recovered. Then gradually torpor stole over him, and he was perhaps unconscious for a couple of hours, when again he was roused by a sharp pain in his finger, and starting, he heard a splash, a rush and squeals. At once he knew that a swarm of rats had invaded the place. He had been bitten by one; his start had disconcerted the creatures momentarily, and they had scampered away.

Baudillas remained motionless, save that he trembled; he was sick at heart. In this awful prison he dared not sleep, lest he should be devoured alive.

Was this to be his end – to be kept awake by horror of the small foes till he could endure the tension no longer, and then sink down in dead weariness and blank indifference on his bench, and at once be assailed from all sides, to feel the teeth, perhaps to attempt an ineffectual battle, then to be overcome and to be picked to his bones?

As he sat still, hardly breathing, he felt the rats again. They were rallying, some swimming, some swarming up on to the shelf. They rushed at him with the audacity given by hunger, with the confidence of experience, and the knowledge of their power when attacking in numbers.

He cried out, beat with his hands, kicked out with his feet, swept his assailants off him by the score; yet such as could clung to his garment by their teeth and, not discomfited, quickly returned. To escape them he leaped into the mire; he plunged this way, then that; he returned to the wall; he attempted to scramble up it beyond their reach, but in vain.

Wherever he went, they swam after him. He was unarmed, he could kill none of his assailants; if he could but decimate the horde it would be something. Then he remembered the pitcher and felt for that. By this time he had lost his bearings wholly. He knew not where he had left the vessel. But by creeping round the circumference of his prison, he must eventually reach the spot where he had previously been seated, and with the earthenware vessel he would defend himself as long as he was able.

Whilst thus wading, he was aware of a cold draught blowing in his face, and he knew that he had reached the opening of the sewer that served as outfall. He stooped and touched stout iron bars forming part of a grating. He tested them, and assured himself that they were so thick set that it was not possible for him to thrust even his head between them.

All at once the rats ceased to molest him. They had retreated, whither he could not guess, and he knew as little why. Possibly, they were shrewd enough to know that they had but to exercise patience, and he must inevitably fall a prey to their teeth.

Almost immediately, however, he was aware of a little glow, like that of a spark, and of a sound of splashing. He was too frightened, too giddy, to collect his thoughts, so as to discover whence the light proceeded, and what produced the noise.

Clinging to the grating, Baudillas gazed stupidly at the light, that grew in brightness, and presently irradiated a face. This he saw, but he was uncertain whether he actually did see, or whether he were a prey to an illusion.

Then the light flashed over him, and his eyes after a moment recognized the face of his old slave, Pedo. A hand on the further side grasped one of the stanchions, and the deacon heard the question, “Master, are you safe?”

“Oh, Pedo, how have you come into this place?”

“Hush, master. Speak only in a whisper. I have waded up the sewer (cloaca), and have brought with me two stout files. Take this one, and work at the bar on thy side. I will rasp on the other. In time we shall cut through the iron, and then thou wilt be able to escape. When I heard whither thou hadst been cast, then I saw my way to making an effort to save thee.”

“Pedo! I will give thee thy liberty!”

“Master! it is I who must first manumit thee.”

Then the slave began to file, and as he filed he muttered, “What is liberty to me? At one time, indeed! Ah, at one time, when I was young, and so was Blanda! But now I am old and lame. I am well treated by a good master. Well, well! Sir! work at the bar where I indicate with my finger. That is a transversal stanchion and sustains the others.”

Hope of life returned. The heart of Baudillas was no longer chilled with fear and his brain stunned with despair. He worked hard, animated by eagerness to escape. There was a spring of energy in the little flame of the lamp, an inspiring force in the presence of his slave. The bar was thick, but happily the moisture of the place and the sour exhalations had corroded it, so that thick flakes of rust fell off under the tool.

“Yesterday, nothing could have been done for you, sir,” said Pedo, “for the inundation was so extensive that the sewer was closed with water that had risen a foot above the opening into the river. But, thanks be to God, the flood has fallen. Those who know the sky declare that we shall have a blast of the circius (the mistral) on us suddenly, and bitter weather. The early heat has dissolved the snows over-rapidly and sent the water inundating all the low land. Now with cold, the snows will not melt.”

“Pedo,” said the deacon, “hadst thou not come, the rats would have devoured me. They hunted me as a pack of wolves pursue a deer in the Cebennæ.”

“I heard them, master, as I came up the sewer. There are legions of them. But they fear the light, and as long as the lamp burns will keep their distance.”

“Pedo,” whispered Baudillas again, after a pause, whilst both worked at the bar. “I know not how it was that when I stood before the duumvir, I did not betray my Heavenly Master. I was so frightened. I was as in a dream. They may have thought me firm, but I was in reality very weak. Another moment, or one more turn of the rack and I would have fallen.”

“Master! God’s strength is made perfect in weakness.”

“Yes, it is so. I myself am a poor nothing. Oh, that I had the manhood of Marcianus!”

“Press against the bar, master. With a little force it will yield.”

Pedo removed the lamp that he had suspended by a hook from the crossbar. Baudillas threw himself with his full weight against the grating, and the stanchion did actually snap under the impact, at the place where filed.

“That is well,” said the slave. “Thy side of the bar is also nearly rasped through. Then we must saw across this upright staff of iron. To my thinking it is not fastened below.”

“It is not. I have thrust my foot between it and the paving. Methinks it ends in a spike and barbs.”

“If it please God that we remove the grating, then thou must follow me, bending low.”

“Is the distance great?”

“Sixty-four paces of thine; of mine, more, as I do but hobble.”

“Hah! this is ill-luck.”

With the energy of filing, and owing to the loosened condition of the bar, the lamp had been displaced, and it fell from where it had been suspended and was extinguished in the water.

Both were now plunged in darkness as of Erebus, and were moreover exposed to danger from the rats. But perhaps the grating of the files, or the whispers of the one man to the other, alarmed the suspicious beasts, and they did not venture to approach.

“Press, master! I will pull,” said the slave. His voice quivered with excitement.

Baudillas applied his shoulder to the grating, and Pedo jerked at it sharply.

With a crack it yielded; with a plash it fell into the water.

“Quick, my master – lay hold of my belt and follow. Bow your head low or you will strike the roof. We must get forth as speedily as may be.”

“Pedo! the jailer said that if alive I was to give a sign on the morrow. He believes that during the night I will be devoured by rats, as doubtless have been others.”

“Those executed in the prison are cast down there.”

“Perhaps,” said Baudillas, “if he meet with no response in the morning he will conclude that I am dead, and I do not think he will care to descend and discover whether it be so.”

After a short course through the arched passage, both stood upright; they were to their breasts in water, but the water was fresh and pure. Above their heads was the vault of heaven, not now spangled with stars but crossed by scudding drifts of vapor.

Both men scrambled out of the river to the bank, and then Baudillas extended his arms, and said, with face turned to the sky:

“I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me, and heard my calling. He hath brought me also out of the horrible pit, out of the mire and clay, and hath set my feet upon the rock. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even a thanksgiving unto our God.”9

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE CITRON-HOUSE

Perpetua, at Ad Fines, was a prey to unrest. She was in alarm for the safety of her mother, and she was disconcerted at having been smuggled off to the house of a man who was a stranger, though to him she owed her life.

The villa was in a lovely situation, with a wide outstretch of landscape before it to the Rhône, and beyond to the blue and cloudlike spurs of the Alps; and the garden was in the freshness of its first spring beauty. But she was in too great trouble to concern herself about scenery and flowers. Her thoughts turned incessantly to her mother. In the embarrassing situation in which she was – and one that was liable to become far more embarrassing – she needed the support and counsel of her mother.

Far rather would she have been in prison at Nemausus, awaiting a hearing before the magistrate, and perhaps condemnation to death, than be as at present in a charming country house, attended by obsequious servants, provided with every comfort, yet ignorant why she had been brought there, and what the trials were to which she would be subjected.

The weather had changed with a suddenness not infrequent in the province. The warm days were succeeded by some of raging wind and icy rains. In fact, the mistral had begun to blow. As the heated air rose from the stony plains, its place was supplied by that which was cold from the snowy surfaces of the Alps, and the downrush was like that to which we nowadays give the term of blizzard. So violent is the blast on these occasions that the tillers of the soil have to hedge round their fields with funereal cypresses, to form a living screen against a wind that was said, or fabled, to have blown the cow out of one pasture into that of another farmer, but which, without fable, was known to upset ricks and carry away the roofs of houses.

To a cloudless sky, traversed by a sun of almost summer brilliancy, succeeded a heaven dark, iron-gray, with whirling vapors that had no contour, and which hung low, trailing their dripping skirts over the shivering landscape.

Trees clashed their boughs. The wood behind the villa roared like a cataract. In the split ledges and prongs of limestone, among the box-bushes and junipers, the wind hissed and screamed. Birds fled for refuge to the eaves of houses or to holes in the cliffs. Cattle were brought under shelter. Sheep crouched dense packed on the lee side of a stone wall. The very ponds and lagoons were whipped and their surfaces flayed by the blast. Stones were dislodged on the mountain slopes, and flung down; pebbles rolled along the plains, as though lashed forward by whips. The penetrating cold necessitated the closing of every shutter, and the heating of the hypocaust under the house. In towns, in the houses of the better classes, the windows were glazed with thin flakes of mica (lapis specularis), a transparent stone brought from Spain and Cappadocia, but in the country this costly luxury was dispensed with, as the villas were occupied only in the heat of summer, when there was no need to exclude the air. The window openings were closed with shutters. Rooms were not warmed by fireplaces, with wood fires on hearths, but by an arrangement beneath the mosaic and cement floor, where a furnace was kindled, and the smoke and heated air were carried by numerous pipes up the walls on all sides, thus producing a summer heat within when all was winter without.

In the fever of her mind, Perpetua neither felt the asperity of the weather nor noticed the comfort of the heated rooms. She was incessantly restless, was ever running to the window or the door, as often to be disappointed, in anticipation of meeting her mother. She was perplexed as to the purpose for which she had been conveyed to Ad Fines. The slave woman, Blanda, who attended her, was unable or unwilling to give her information. All she pretended to know was that orders had been issued by Callipodius, friend and client of Æmilius Lentulus, her master, that the young lady was to be made comfortable, was to be supplied with whatever she required, and was on no account to be suffered to leave the grounds. The family was strictly enjoined not to mention to any one her presence in the villa, under pain of severe chastisement.