While the servants were busied in preparing the table, the loose leather at the poles in the rear of the tent was repeatedly raised noiselessly and then dropped again. No one observed it. Two of the men now went out, but the cupbearer still lingered to wipe again and again the inside of a magnificent silver goblet, which, supported by three graceful female figures, bore the inscription: "The graces to their favorite, Ausonius."

"Not ready yet, Davus?" the old freedman had asked in a tone of vexation, as he turned away.

"No, Prosper. You know our master will drink only from this cup, the Emperor's gift, and he is so particular about it."

The slave was scarcely alone when the leather flap of the tent was again raised, a watchful face was thrust cautiously in. "Alone at last!" a voice whispered.

"I was waiting for you, my lord."

"Well? To-day? At the nocturnal carouse?"

"No. I dare not attempt it yet. Your uncle is as well as he was at home in Burdigala. Let him first sicken under this Barbarian sky, the unwonted fatigues of camp life in the rain and swamps; then it will be easier. But now--in perfect health? No, no! Have patience. Wait a little longer."

"I cannot. My creditors, the usurers, are hounding me to the death; have followed me here to the camp. And this region, this neighborhood, as you know, is more perilous to me than any other spot in the whole world. So hasten!"

"As soon as he begins to ail a little I'll do it at once. But I must confess--"

"What?"

"The vial of poison you gave me, I--"

"Lost? You blockhead!"

"No, it is broken. During the steep ascent of the mountain recently I slipped, struck my breast against a boulder, and crushed the little bottle, whose contents all poured out."

"Alas, then where else--"

"Have no fear, my lord. I've seen hemlock enough growing in these marshy meadows to poison our whole army. I have already begun to gather and dry it. Do you the same, and as soon--"

Loud voices and the clank of weapons were heard; the face vanished, and the slave pa.s.sed through the doorway of the tent into the open air.

CHAPTER IX.

Directly after, Ausonius and Saturninus entered the Praefectorian tent from the _Via Princ.i.p.alis_, while Hercula.n.u.s, coming from the rear, pa.s.sed in with them. The host shared his seat on the couch with his two guests.

He was a man of fifty-two, but his stately figure showed few signs of approaching age, and his n.o.ble face lacked none of the characteristics of the patrician Roman in the modelling of the forehead, nose, and finely arched brows.

But the mouth had smiled so often--probably far too often in self complacency--that it had forgotten how to close with firm decision; it was much too weak for a man. And the light-brown eyes, so pleasant and kindly, so content with everything and everybody--and not least with Ausonius--betrayed more plainly than any other feature the approach of age; their glance had lost the fire of youth. They seemed weary, not of life but of reading; for Ausonius had been professor, rhetorician, tutor of princes, and poet. In those days that meant a man who read an immense amount and, in default of elevating thoughts of his own, extracted with the industry of a bee the ideas of the writers of four centuries, tore them asunder, and put them together again in such tiny fragments that his readers and himself believed them to be new ones of his own and would have found it very difficult to separate the mosaic into its borrowed portions. Pa.s.sions had never furrowed this smooth face: the lines around the eyes were not graven by pain, but by the pa.s.sage of the years.

This kindly natured man, who himself saw everything on its best side, thought the whole world most admirably arranged. He believed seriously that all men who had not committed great crimes, and therefore deserved punishment, fared just as well as the very, very wealthy, benevolent, and much praised Decimus Magnus Ausonius of Burdigala (Bordeaux), the delightful city of villas; that they fared as well as Ausonius, who was petted by all who surrounded him, and who in the opinion of his contemporaries--and especially his own--was the greatest poet of his age. Even had this been true, it certainly would not have meant much.

This really amiable, kindly man, whose only fault was a little undue self-satisfaction, was now playing the part which best suited him,--far better than that of poet or statesman,--the part of the host who, comfortable himself, desires to make all his guests equally so. His pleasant, cheery, friendly kindness of heart, which would fain see everybody happy, though of course without too much self-sacrifice, found in this _role_ its fullest expression.

"There! now go, slaves." He waved his hand to those who had again entered. "Look after yourselves--as we are doing. Go, too, my faithful Prosper: take for yourself--and give to the others--the better wine from Rhoda.n.u.s; you know it. I saw how hard it was to drag the skins up the steep hill. Go: we will serve ourselves." He stretched himself comfortably on the lectus, thrusting under his head a soft downy pillow filled with the feathers of German geese. "Give yonder amethyst goblet to the Tribune, my dear nephew, for our Illyrian Hercules must drink deeply! No, Saturninus, don't take the mixing vessel! The first cup--unmixed. To the genius of the Emperor Gratia.n.u.s!"

"It's lucky that the Emperor himself doesn't hear you," cried the Tribune, laughing, as he put down the empty goblet. "I am neither Christian nor pagan, only a soldier, and n.o.body asks about my faith.

But you! Gratia.n.u.s's teacher! The Emperor is zealous in the true religion. And you drink to his genius, as though we were living in the reign of Diocletian! Are you a pagan, Prefect of Gaul?"

Ausonius glanced around to see that no slave was within hearing. Then he smiled. "If I were a pagan, that is, if I had not been baptized, I certainly should not be Prefect of Gaul. The dignity is probably worth a few drops of water. They did not penetrate my skin. How could a poet forget the old G.o.ds?"

"Yes, yes, if the learned mythological allusions should be effaced from your verses, the brightest of the borrowed foreign feathers would be plucked from Ausonius's raven."

"Tribune!" cried the nephew angrily,--he shouted much louder than was necessary,--"you are speaking of the greatest Roman writer!"

"No, no," said the man thus lauded, very seriously, "there are probably two or three greater ones."

"Forgive me, Ausonius," said Saturninus. "I understand battles, not verses. Probably it is my own fault that yours don't suit me."

"You know too few of them," replied Hercula.n.u.s reprovingly.

"I'm not of your opinion!" retorted the Illyrian, laughing. "I've never had much time for reading. But I sometimes ride beside your uncle through the olive woods of Aquitania, the vineyards of the Mosella, or the marshy forests of the Alemanni: he has an inexhaustible memory and can repeat his verses for miles."

"Yes," the poet a.s.sented complacently, "my memory must supply the place of imagination."

"Wouldn't it be better if you had imagination, and your readers took pleasure in remembering what it created?" asked the soldier.

"My uncle can repeat the whole of Virgil."

"Yes, that is evident--in his verses! The reader often doesn't know where Virgil and Ovid end and Ausonius begins. But Ausonius prefers to recite his own poetry."

The latter nodded pleasantly.

"That's the best thing about you. Prefect; though a little vain, like all verse-writers, your heart is in the right place: a warm, kind heart which never takes offence at a friend's jest."

"I should be both stupid and contemptible if I did that."

"As a reward I'll tell you now that I owe an exquisite night to one of your poems--or a portion of it."

The poet, much pleased, raised himself on the lectus: "What poem?"

"Your 'Mosella.'"

"Yes, yes," replied Ausonius smiling, "I like it very much, too."

"It is divine!" Hercula.n.u.s protested.

"I'm no theologian," said Saturninus, laughing, "to understand divine things. But the most beautiful part of the poem is the description of the various kinds of fish in the river."

"Yes, yes," observed the author, smiling as he slowly sipped his wine, "verses eighty-two to one hundred and forty-nine: they are very pretty, especially the euphony."

"Oh, never mind the euphony. I read it in the evening, and fell asleep."

"Barbarian!" exclaimed the poet. "But in my dreams I saw before me the most delicious fish; the salm--"

"'Thee, too, I praise, O salmon, with thy roseate flesh!'"

Ausonius quoted.