Virgilia | Page 2

with surprise, then, remembering that girls have
strange fancies, he was silent, and guided her safely out into the blazing
sunshine. The sun was still an hour above the horizon; the pine-trees on
the Palatine Hills, where Caesar's palaces were, stood up like giant
sentinels against a sky of limpid blue.
Aurelius Lucanus led the way through the Forum, where his wife, an
ardent worshipper of the gods, stopped to lay a bunch of roses on the
base of a large statue of Ceres, standing near the Temple and a building
dedicated to the use of the Vestal Virgins.
The Chief Virgin was being carried to the entrance in her chair, borne
by four bearers, while in front of her walked the two men who held
high the symbols of her priestly office. Claudia fell upon her knees as

the holy vestal went by, until her chair had been carried through the
iron gates.
Virgilia watched her mother, with an anxious look on her young face.
"Why didst thou not also kneel before the holy one?" her mother said,
in a stern tone. "Dost not know that in her hands she holds such power
that even the emperor himself trembles before her and does her bidding,
lest the gods send upon him disaster and ruin?"
Virgilia made no reply, but walked quietly by her mother's side through
the Forum, beneath the great arches, up over the Capitoline Hill where
Jupiter's Temple arose in grandeur, its ivory-tinted marbles beginning
to turn a dull rose in the rays of the fast-lowering sun.
They descended on the other side and entered a labyrinth of narrow
streets, winding in and out between rows of houses, most of them
showing a plain, windowless front, the only decoration being over and
around the door.
With a quick double-knock at one of these doors, the lawyer summoned
a servant, who bowed deeply as the two ladies and his master entered.
Aurelius Lucanus lingered a moment, while his wife passed on into the
atrium, but here, it was hot, so she went further, into a court,
transformed into a beautiful garden. Around the fountain, which cooled
the air, bloomed literally hundreds of calla lilies, masses of stately
blossoms with snowy chalices and hearts of gold. Around the pillars
twined the June roses, pink and yellow, and mixed with them were
vines, of starry jessamine, shedding forth a faint, delicious odor, akin to
that of orange-blossoms.
Here were chairs of rare woods inlaid with ivory, and couches,
gracefully formed, covered with soft silks and cushions embroidered in
gold.
Claudia sank down, as if she were weary, and a slave sprang forward to
remove the white outer garment, worn upon the street to cover the
costly silk one, and the jewels which she had worn in the amphitheatre.
Aurelius was conversing with the dark-skinned porter.
"Has Martius returned?" he asked.
"Yes, master. He came in about two hours after noon, but went out
again almost immediately."
"Leaving no word?"
"No, master."

The porter stood watching his master as he walked away. There was a
strange expression on his strongly marked face. He was pitted with
small-pox, and over one eye was a deep scar. He had never forgotten
how he got that scar, how he had fallen beneath a blow struck by that
man's hand, the man who owned his body, but not his soul. In falling,
he had struck his head against the corner of the marble pedestal
supporting the statue of the god who ruled in this household, and had
been carried away unconscious.
Ah, no, he had not forgotten!
Aurelius entered the court just in time to hear his wife saying To
Virgilia in her severest tone: "Thou art exactly like thy step-brother,
Martius, self-willed and foolish. Why else has he been exiled from
Rome by thy father? He has worshipped strange gods, has followed
after a man named Christus, a malefactor, a thief, crucified with
thieves--"
"Mother!" exclaimed Virgilia, and there was that in her voice which
stopped the stream of language, and made Claudia sit up straight and
grasp the griffin-heads on the arms of her chair.
"Wilt tell me that thou, too, art mad over the dead Christus?" she
shrieked. "Then art thou no daughter of mine! Thou shall go forth from
here, homeless, an outcast. Join thyself with the beggarly band of men
and women who hide in the dark places of the earth that they may work
their spells--"
"Claudia, cease thy talking," exclaimed Aurelius, taking his daughter in
his arms. "Canst thou not see that the child is fainting? She is ill. I saw
it but now in the Circus. Hast thou no heart?"
"What, thou, too, Aurelius! Thou art but half a man, and worshipeth the
gods only in form. Long have