I know not, my friends, how to proceed with the narrative of what followed. Thoughts, passions, fears, hopes, succeeding so rapidly, give to that strange night, when I look back upon it through the vista of years, the likeness of some incoherent, agonizing dream. Much, without doubt, of what passed within my own mind I have forgotten; but it seems to me as if what I saw or heard were still present in the distinctness of reality. That chamber in the Mammertine! Its walls are before me blazing with the reflection of torch-light, and then again, all dim and shadowy—the stars shining feebly upon them from the twilight sky—every thing around lonely and silent, except the voice of Silo’s little maiden,—bewailing no doubt in her privacy the departure of Athanasia.

Her father after a little time rejoined me. “Sir,” said he, “all is now quiet here; will you walk with me towards the Palatine, that we may at least be near to know what is reported of their proceedings? My brother will stay here till we return.”

We soon had descended from the Capitoline, passed through the silent Forum, and gained the brow of the opposite eminence, where, as shortly before at the Mam[pg 321]mertine, all was light and tumult. Every court was guarded with soldiery, and groups of busy men were passing continually about the imperial gates and porticos. Silo led me round and round the buildings, till we reached what seemed an abandoned wing. “Sir,” said he, “you do not know more familiarly the house in which you were born and reared, than I do every corner within these wide walls. But I have not crossed the threshold since the day Cæsar died.—I was the slave of Domitian, and he gave me my freedom.—He was kind to his household.”

We entered beneath a small portico—and Silo drew a key from his bosom. The lock, after two or three trials, yielded to its pressure. A large empty hall received us, the circumference of which was scarcely visible by the light of the newly-risen moon, streaming down from a cupola.

Another and another sombre chamber we in like manner traversed, till at length Silo opened one so comparatively light, that I started back, apprehending we had intruded farther than he intended. A second glance, however, seemed to indicate that we were still in the region of desolation, for a statue lay in the midst of the floor, one of its limbs snapped over, as if it had fallen and been permitted to remain.

“Where are we, Silo?” I whispered, “what means this unnatural light among so many symptoms of confusion?”

“Sir,” said the freedman, “this is the place in which alone Domitian used to eat and sleep, and walk about for the last months of his life, when he was jealous of all men; and he contrived these walls, covered all over [pg 322]with the shining Ethiopian stone, that no one might be able to approach him without being discovered. Even when a slave entered, he would start as if every side of the chamber had been invaded by some host of men; fifty different reflections of one trembling eunuch. It was, they say, behind this shattered piece of marble that he ran when he had felt the first treacherous blow. Yonder in the corner is the couch he slept upon, and he had always a dagger under his head, and he called to the little page that was waiting upon him to fetch it from the place; but the scabbard only remained; and then in came Parthenius and Claudianus, and the gladiator, and the rest, who soon finished what the cunning Stephanus had begun. Let us go on;—we have not yet reached the place to which I wished to bring you—but it is not far off now.”

With this Silo walked to the end of the melancholy chamber, and pressing upon a secret spring, where no door was apparent, opened the way into a room, darker and smaller than any of those through which we had come. He then said to me, “Now, sir, you must not venture upon one whisper more—you touch on the very heart of Domitian’s privacy. It is possible that the place I have been leading you to may have been shut up—it may exist no longer; but the state in which all things are found here makes me think it more likely that Trajan has never been master of its secret. And in that case, we shall be able both to see and to hear, without being either seen or heard, exactly as Domitian used to do, when there was any council held either in the Mars or the Apollo.”

I started at the boldness of the project which now, [pg 323]for the first time, I understood; but Silo laid his finger on his lip again,—cautiously lifted up a piece of the dark-red cloth with which this chamber was hung,—and essayed another spring in the pannelling beneath. Total darkness appeared to be beyond; but the jailer motioning to me to remain for a moment where I was, and to keep up the hanging, glided boldly into the recess. I wondered how he should tread so lightly, that I could not perceive the least echo; but this no longer surprised me, when I had the sign to follow. The floor felt beneath my foot as if it were stuffed like a pillow; and, after I had dropped the hanging, every thing was totally dark, as it had at first appeared to me, except only at certain points, separate and aloft, which let in gleams of light, manifestly artificial. Silo, taking hold of me by the hand, conducted me up some steps towards the nearest of these tiny apertures; and, as I approached it, I heard distinctly the voices of persons talking together in the room beyond. I did not draw my breath, you may well believe, with much boldness; but my eye was soon fixed at one of the crevices, and, after the first dazzle was over, I saw clearly. Silo took his station by my side, gazing through another of these loop-holes, which, that you may understand every thing, were evidently quite concealed among the rich carved-work of an ivory cornice.

The chamber was lighted by three tall candelabra of silver, close beside one of which was placed a long table covered with an infinity of scrolls and tablets. One person, who had his back turned towards us, was writing, and two others, in one of whom I instantly [pg 324]recognized the Emperor, were walking up and down on the other side.

“No, Palma,” said Trajan, for it was that old favourite whom he addressed—“I have made up my mind as to this matter. I shall never permit any curious inquisition as to private opinion. Every man has a right, without question, to think—to believe—exactly what pleases him; and I shall concede as much in favour of every woman, Palma, if you will have it so. But it is totally a different affair, when the fact, no matter how, is forced upon my knowledge, that a subject, no matter who or what he be—a subject of the Roman empire, refuses to comply with the first, the elemental, and the most essential of the laws. The man—aye or the woman—that confesses in my presence contempt for the deities whom the commonwealth acknowledges in every step of its procedure—that person is a criminal; and I cannot dismiss him unpunished, without injuring the commonwealth by the display of weakness in its chief. As for these poor fanatics themselves, it is the penalty of my station that I must control my feelings.”

“But you are satisfied, my lord,” said Palma, “that these people are quite innocent as to Cotilius’s designs; and as it was upon that suspicion they were apprehended, perhaps it may be possible——”

“Yes, Palma,” interrupted the Prince; “quite possible and quite easy, provided they will condescend to save themselves by the most trivial acknowledgment of the sort which, I repeat to you, I do and must consider as absolutely necessary. And women too—and girls forsooth—I suppose you would have me wait till the [pg 325]very urchins on the street were gathering into knots to discuss the nature of the Gods.—Do you remember what Plato says?”—

“No, my lord, I do not know to what you refer.”

“Why, Plato says that nobody can ever understand any thing accurately about the Deity, and that, if he could, he would have no right to communicate his discoveries to others; the passage is in the Timæus, and Tully has translated it besides. And is it to be endured that these modest fanatics are to do every hour what the Platos and the Ciceros spoke of in such terms as these? I think you carry your tolerance a little farther than might have been expected from a disciple of the Academy.”

“I despise them, my lord, as much as yourself; but, to tell you the truth, it is this young lady that moves me to speak thus—and I crave your pardon, if I have spoken with too much freedom.—Her father was one of the best soldiers Titus had.”

“The more is the pity, Palma. Have you ever seen the girl yourself? Did you give orders that she should be brought hither? I have not the least objection that you should have half an hour, or an hour if you will, to talk with her quietly; perhaps your eloquence may have the effect we desire.”

“I doubt it, my lord, I greatly doubt it,” he replied; “but, indeed, I know not whether she be yet here—Did you not send to the Mammertine?”

The man writing at the table, to whom this interrogation was addressed, said, “I believe, sir, both this lady and the old man that was in the same prison are now in attendance.” And upon this Trajan and Palma [pg 326]retired together towards the farther end of the apartment, where they conversed for some minutes in a tone so low, that I could not understand any thing of what was said. Trajan at length turned from his favourite with an air, as I thought, of some little displeasure, and said aloud, coming back into the middle of the room,—“I know it is so; but what is that to the affair in hand? I am very sorry for the Sempronii, but I doubt if even they would be so unreasonable as you are.”

“Will you not see the poor girl yourself, Cæsar?”

“You do not need to be told, that my seeing her would only make it more difficult for me to do that, which, seeing or not seeing her, I know to be my duty. Do you accept of my proposal? Are you willing to try the effect of your own persuasion? I promise you, if you succeed, I shall rejoice not less heartily than yourself; but it is rather too much to imagine that I am personally to interfere about such an affair as this—an affair which, the more I think of it, seems to me to be the more perfectly contemptible. Nay, do not suppose it is this poor girl I am talking of—I mean the whole of this Jewish, this Christian affair, which does indeed appear to me to be the most bare-faced absurdity, that ever was permitted to disturb the tranquillity of the empire. A mean and savage nation have but just suffered the penalty of obstinacy and treachery alike unequalled, and from them—from the scattered embers of this extinguished fire, we are to allow a new flame to be kindled—ay, and that in the very centre of Rome. I tell you, that if my own hand were to be scorched in the cause, I would disperse this combustion to the winds of heaven; I tell you, that I stand here [pg 327]Cæsar, and that I would rather be chained to the oar, than suffer, while the power to prevent it is mine, the tiniest speck to be thrown upon the Roman majesty. By all the Gods, Palma, it is enough to make a man sick to think of the madness that is in this world, and of the iron arguments by which we are compelled to keep those from harming us, that at first sight of them excite no feeling but our pity. But I am weary of these very names of Palestine—Jew—Christian. Go to this foolish girl, and try what you can make of her; I give you fair warning—no breeders of young Christians here.”

[pg 328]