Virgilia | Page 4

cool water, as it passed through the mouth of a hideous gorgan mask and fell into a basin where soft green mosses clung and ferns waved their feathery fronds.
Seating herself on a granite bench, supported by two carved lions, Virgilia fell into deep thought. It was the everlasting problem, old as human life. Ought she to obey her mother, or God? To do the former, meant to stifle her conscience and destroy her inner life. Worship the gods she could not since this new, this pure love for the meek and lovely Jesus had entered into her very being.
She clasped and unclasped her slender white hands in her agitation. What should she do? If God would only show her where duty lay.
Glorified in the silvery whiteness of the moonlight, arose the splendid palaces of the Caesars. Virgilia could see them plainly if she lifted her eyes, for they stood high, on the Palatine Hill. There was revelry yonder. The notes of flutes and harps came faintly to her ears. Below, wound the Tiber, back and forth, like the coils of a huge, glistening serpent. Many boating parties were enjoying the river and its coolness, while the moon rode high in the heavens and shone upon the sheeny garments and fair faces of the women.
Up the river, from the port of Ostia, came a big merchant vessel bringing from Constantinople and Egypt, carpets and costly stuffs, richly wrought in gold, filmy tissue and rare embroideries for Roman ladies and papyrus volumes for the learned Senators.
Far out on the Campagna, Virgilia knew that the Christians were gathering to-night, coming from all parts of the city. Some were freedmen and others were slaves; among the figures gliding out on the cobble-stoned Appian Way were members of Caesar's household, and one or two tall Praetorian guards. The religion of Christ had found converts among all classes. Rome was full of Christians, many of whom feared to openly confess their faith, though later, they dared to do so, even in the face of a cruel death.
Virgilia was so intent on her thoughts that she did not observe the cat-like approach of her mother's personal slave, the daughter of Alyrus, the porter. She and her father had been brought to Rome as prisoners of war after a victorious conquest by the Romans in North Africa. They were by descent, Moors, having dark skins but very regular, even classical features. Sahira, the slave, walked like a queen and was so proud that she would not mingle with the other servants. Her father, Alyrus, chief of hundreds in the desert-land of his own country, was but a door-keeper in the house of Aurelius Lucanus, and he was, very bitter in spirit.
"Your mother has need of you," said Sahira, in her velvet voice. "I think that the Lady Claudia is very ill."
"I will come at once."
The Lady Claudia was indeed very ill and continued so for several weeks. The summer waxed and waned. The cool winds of September blew strongly from the West and the calla lilies and jessamine had long since withered in the garden before Claudia was able once again to sit in the chair under the late tea-rose vines and listen to the rippling water of the fountain.
The old, proud Claudia seemed to have disappeared and in her place was a feeble woman, with trembling hands, whose glance followed every move her daughter made, who seemed to be happy only when Virgilia was near. She ignored the ministrations of the slave Sahira, whose heart warmed to only one person except her father, and that was her beautiful mistress. Sahira cast angry looks at Virgilia's fair head, bending over her embroidery while she talked cheerfully to her mother. The slave went away and cried, for she was of a deep, passionate nature, loving few and ready to lay down her life for those whom she adored.
Alyrus, her father, found her crying one night in her tiny room in the section of the house assigned to the servants. He succeeded in finding out the thing that caused her sorrow. When he went away there was a resolution formed in his soul which boded ill to Virgilia. He would bide his time--and then--
The young Christian wondered often whether her mother had forgotten that scene on the day she was taken so ill, had forgotten that she, as well as Martius, was one of the despised sect. Up to the present, Virgilia had never refused to twine the garlands to be laid on the altars of the household gods or at the feet of the special god which Claudia worshipped in her own room. She had not refused because she felt that it would agitate her mother too much, and the man who came from the School of Esculapsius on