"It's a trick!" Calvaster repeated.

On the face of Commodus mirth gave place to wrath.

"Isn't that enough water for you?" he roared. "Anybody would think, the way you behave, that I am the minor Pontiff and you the Emperor. I'll teach you!" He turned and beckoned a centurion of the guard.

With his file of men he came on the double quick.

"Seize that man!" the Emperor commanded.

Two of the Pretorians gripped Calvaster by the elbows.

"March him out there to the edge," came the next order, the Emperor gesturing towards the quay-front on his right.

At the brink of the platform the Pretorians paused.

"Grab him with both your hands," the Emperor commanded, "and pitch him into the river." Over went Calvaster with a mighty splash.

As all Romans were excellent swimmers he came to the surface almost at once. A few strokes in front of him was the boat with the sieves. To it he swam and Truttidius hauled him aboard and located him on a thwart.

After the general merriment had waned and the laughter had abated Commodus faced the assemblage and raised his hand.

Into the ensuing silence he spoke not as a blundering lad nor as a sportsman, but as a ruler. For the moment, in fact, he looked all the Emperor.

"We have all beheld," he said, "a miracle marvellous and convincing. As Prince of the Republic, as Chief Pontiff of Rome, I proclaim this Priestess cleared of all imputations whatever. Manifestly she is dear to Vesta, and worthy of the favor she has shown her. Henceforward let no man dare to smirch her with any slur or slander."

CHAPTER XXII - TRIUMPH



IN recognition of Brinnaria's complete and incontrovertible vindication Commodus decreed an unusually sumptuous state banquet at the Palace, inviting to it all the most important personages of the capital, including the more distinguished senators, every magistrate, the higher Pontiffs, the Flamens in a body and most of his personal cronies.

While old-fashioned households, such as that of Vocco and Flexinna, clung to the antique Roman habit of lying down to meals on three rectangular dining-sofas placed on three sides of a square-topped table, this arrangement had long been supplanted at Court by a newer invention. The mere fact that, from of old, it had been looked upon as the worst sort of bad manners to have more than three diners on a sofa, and as scarcely less ridiculous to have fewer than three, had made the custom vexatious in the extreme, as it constrained all entertainers to arrange for nine guests or eighteen or twenty-seven and ruled out any other more convenient intermediate numbers. In the progressive circles of society and at the Palace, the tables were circular, each supported from the center by one standard with three feet, and each table was clasped, as it were, by a single ample C-shaped sofa on which any number of guests from four to twelve could conveniently recline.

At the Palace banquet in honor of Brinnaria, three tables only were set on the Imperial dais at the head of the dining hall. On one side of the Emperor's table was that where feasted the higher Flamens and Pontiffs, the sofa of the other was occupied by the young Empress, by the wives of the higher Flamens, and by the four Vestals present.

Brinnaria declared that her appetite was as good as on the day when she had returned home from her exile to Aunt Septima's villa.

After two public advertisements of the Emperor's favor and esteem she was entirely free from any sort of worry. Her enemies were few, merely Calvaster and his parasites, and they were thoroughly cowed and curbed their tongues. Not only no defamation of her but not even an innuendo gained currency in the gossip of the city during the remainder of her term of service.

Quite the other way. Her fame as a Vestal whose prayers were sure to be heard, at first a source of natural pride and gratification to her, came to be a burden, even a positive misery. There was an immemorial belief that if a Vestal could be induced to pray for the recapture of an escaped slave, such a runaway, if within the boundaries of Rome, would be overcome by a sort of inward numbness which would make it impossible for him to cross the city limits, so that the retaking of such fugitives became easy, as it was only necessary to search the wards for them. City owners of escaped slaves besieged Brinnaria for years and as it was reported that her intercessions were invariably effective, her fame increased and petitions for her assistance pestered her.

She bore the annoyance resignedly, reflecting that, while she was in such repute, no one was likely to impugn her honor.

Life in the Atrium, for the ensuing six years, altered little. Causidiena, within three years after Brinnaria's ordeal, became totally blind. Care of her devolved particularly upon Terentia, of whom she was dotingly fond.

The routine duties of the maintenance of the sacred fire those two shared, for Causidiena, even stone blind, never required anyone's assistance to tell her the condition of the altar-fire and could care for it and feed it even alone, judging its needs by the sensations of her outstretched hands, never burning herself, never letting brands or ashes fall on the Temple floor. But in all other matters Causidiena and Terentia were concerned only when their participation was demanded by canonical regulations, Terentia devoting herself to attendance on Causidiena, while Causidiena officiated only when the presence of the Chief Vesta was indispensable.

For Numisia, Gargilia, Manlia and Brinnaria, their main concern was to arrange that Causidiena should have as little as possible to do and that Terentia might devote as much as possible of her time to entertaining Causidiena. This was not easy to accomplish, for Causidiena's mind was perfectly clear, her knowledge of every inch of the Atrium enabled her to move about it unhesitatingly at all hours of the day and night, her sense of duty urged her to do all that she had ever done when her sight was perfect, and, like most blind persons, she resented any reference, expressed or implied, to her infirmity. Consideration for her called for almost superhuman tact and dexterity. To the best of their ability the four strove to shield her without her being able to perceive their sedulity. To the charm of Terentia's music she, moreover, yielded readily. Music, as never before, occupied the leisure of the Atrium.

During these years Brinnaria was almost entirely happy. Her duties, her solicitude for Causidiena, her affection for Terentia, her delight in her own and Terentia's music filled up most of her time.

Her horse-breeding continued to interest her, but her interest was milder and far from absorbing. She kept it up largely because she regarded her outings as imperatively necessary to maintain her health, while aimless outings bored her.

As when younger, she dined out very often and regularly with Vocco and Flexinna. But since Calvaster's accusation, she never visited Flexinna alone, always in company with another Vestal, usually Terentia, so that her dinners at Flexinna's became restricted to evenings on which she and Terentia were both off duty. Terentia, who was passionately fond of small children, revelled in her visits to Flexinna's house, where there were children of all ages in abundance, all ready to make friends, all diverting, all pleased at being petted, and, as Flexinna said:

"Not a stutterer among 'em."

>From Almo news came frequently through Flexinna.

His campaign, deliberately prepared and relentlessly carried out, progressed evenly and without any reverse.

The nomads nowhere withstood his legions and their attendant cloud of allied cavalry; one after the other their strongholds were reached and stormed, methodically and unhurriedly he reduced tribe after tribe to submission, his prestige growing from season to season and from year to year.

When Brinnaria's term of service was drawing to an end and only about eleven months of it remained, all Roman society was convulsed by what was variously referred to as the Calvaster scandal, the great poisoning trial or the murder of Pulfennia.

Pulfennia Ulubrana, one of Calvaster's great-aunts, was a dwarfish creature, humpbacked and clubfooted.

She was an only child and her parents, in spite of her deformities, were devoted to her. They lavished on her everything that fondness could suggest, and, as they were very wealthy, she not only lived but enjoyed life in her way and to a very considerable extent.

To begin with she never had an ill hour or an ache or a pain from her earliest years. Then, like many cripples, she had great vitality and a wonderfully alert mind. Amid the small army of maids, governesses, tutors, pages, litter-bearers, and so on, with which her parents surrounded her she did not become merely peevish, exacting and overbearing, as might have been expected. Even the services of her personal physician, of three expert readers to read aloud to her and of a half dozen musicians to divert her whenever she pleased, did not spoil her. She was imperious enough, self-willed and obstinately resolute to have her own way in all matters, but she had a great deal of common-sense, realized what was possible and what impossible and was considerate of her entire retinue, even of such unimportant slave-girls as her three masseuses.

She was greedy of all sorts of knowledge and acquired an education altogether unusual for a Roman woman.

Withal she was feminine in her tastes, spent much time on embroidery and was justly proud of her complex and beautiful productions in this womanly art. She overcame her disabilities to a great extent and, with no lack of conveyances, became a figure almost as well-known in oman society as Nemestronia herself.

As she had an accommodating disposition, an excellent appetite and a witty tongue, she was a welcome guest at banquets and went about a great deal. Also she entertained lavishly.

She survived the pestilence and, like so many of the remnants of the nobility, found herself solitary and enormously wealthy.

Her vast estates she managed herself and she knew to a sesterce the value of every piece of property, the justifiable expenses of maintaining each, and the income each should yield. Self-indulgent as she was and moreover an inveterate gambler, she grew richer every year.

Like all childless Romans of independent means she was the object of unblushing and overwhelming attentions from countless legacy cadgers. She enjoyed the game, accepted everything offered in the way of gifts, services or invitations, and, moreover, played up to it, for she was forever destroying her last will and making a new one. Each was read aloud to a concourse of expectant and envious legatees. Each specified scores of legacies of no despicable amount, and yet more numerous sops to numerous acquaintances. In every will Calvaster, her nearest relative and favorite grandnephew, was named as chief legatee.

She kept on making wills, and, what was more, she kept on living. Naturally her wealth, her eccentricities, her amazing healthiness and her obstinate vitality were subjects of general remark by all the gossips of the capital.

One night, an hour or two after midnight, she was seized with violent internal pains, and, in spite of the ministrations of her private physician, died before dawn.

In Rome any sudden death was likely to be attributed to poison. In her case the indications, from the Roman point of view, all converged on the inference that she had been poisoned. No-one questioned the conclusion.

Calvaster was immediately suspected. The evidence against him would not suffice to put in jeopardy any one in our days. To the Romans it seemed sufficient to justify his incarceration and trial. He had more to gain by the old lady's death than anybody else. He had been chronically in need of money and there had been much friction between him and Pulfennia on this point. She had always provided for his necessities, but had always insisted on scrutinizing every item in his accounts, and on being convinced of his need for every sesterce she gave him. She had supported him, but by an irritating dole of small sums. He had joked with his cronies about her hold on life. He had been heard to say that he would be glad when she was gone. He had bought various drugs from various apothecaries, though none within a year of her death and none used merely as a poison. Under torture some of her slaves and some of his slaves told of his having tried to induce them to put poison in her food.

Roman society promptly divided into two camps on the question of his guilt or innocence. The subject was debated with vehemence, even with acrimony. He had been a disagreeable creature from childhood and had made many enemies. On the other hand, great numbers of fair-minded people asserted that no man, however distasteful to themselves, should be convicted on such flimsy evidence.

His trial was watched with great interest, and when he was convicted and an appeal was successful and a retrial ordered, upper class Rome seethed with altercations. The case, by common consent, was tabooed as a subject of conversation at all social gatherings; feeling ran so high that it was possible to mention the matter only between intimate friends.

Naturally Flexinna and Brinnaria, Terentia and Vocco discussed the case frequently. To her friends' amazement Brinnaria maintained that she did not feel convinced of Calvaster's guilt.

"I always despised him and hated him," she said, "and I despise and hate him as much as ever, if not more. He certainly has been my worst enemy and he came very near to ruining me. But I see no reason why hate should blind me in judging his case. I should be glad to have him plainly convicted and put to death. It would please me. But I am not pleased at his present plight. I am not convinced of his guilt. I don't believe any slave evidence given under torture. A tortured slave will say anything he thinks likely to relax his sufferings or please his questioners. And I see no proof of Calvaster's guilt in the other evidence. Everybody buys such drugs as he bought. And suppose he did joke about Pulfennia's tenacity to life, who wouldn't? I don't believe it is proved that she died of poison anyway. People who have never been ill are reckless eaters. Look at me, I am. She may have died of indigestion or stomach-ache or what not. I'd do anything I could to save him, now."

"D-D-Do you mean to say," spoke Flexinna, "that if you encountered him being led out to execution, you'd reprieve him?

"A Vestal can't use her prerogative of reprieving criminals," said Brinnaria, "unless she encounters by accident a criminal being led to execution. She can't lay in wait for one. Any suspicion of collusion vitiates her privilege. The encounter must be unforeseen."

"Suppose," said Flexinna, "you did meet C-C-Calvaster on his way to execution, wouldn't you g-g-gloat over him and watch him on his way and not interfere?"

"No, I should not, I should interfere," said Brinnaria, "and anyhow, what is the use of supposing? Suppose the moon fell on your front teeth, would you stop stuttering?"

In June of 191 Almo returned from Syria, completely victorious and much acclaimed. He brought with him his veteran legions and was received with every mark of the Emperor's favor. After his official reception he at once left Rome for Falerii, where he was to remain until the last day of Brinnaria's service.

Meanwhile his house on the Carinae was opened and put in order under Flexinna's supervision.

On August 14th, Lutorius, Causidiena, Numisia and Brinnaria had a long conference as to the details of her wedding, which was to take place on August 16th.

The subject needed not a little discussion, as the circumstances were unusual. Having no parents, nor indeed any near connections, it was inevitable that the wedding should vary a great deal from what was customary.

It was decided that on leaving the Atrium after her exauguration, she should spend one night as the guest of Nemestronia; that on the next day she should go to Vocco's house and be married from there; but that in the ceremonies, Lutorius, who had been her spiritual father for many years, should take the part which her own father would have taken had he been alive. It was also decided that the wedding feast should be at Almo's house, after the wedding-procession, instead of at Vocco's before, as it would have been if she had living parents and was being married from her home.

Lutorius, who had a warm personal affection for Brinnaria, had been hovering about her, as it were, for some days, and on this last full day of her service he kept, so to speak, fluttering in and out of the Atrium, repeatedly returning to confer about some trifle or other which he had forgotten.

So it happened that he was approaching the portal as she came out for her afternoon airing.

"You have your light carriage, to-day, I see," he said. "Yesterday you had out your state coach. Why the difference?"

Brinnaria, settling herself among her cushions, leaned out towards him as he stood beside the vehicle, holding on to the tires, his arms stiff, a hand on each wheel.

"This," she said, "is merely a constitutional. Yesterday I took my last outing with all my special privileges as a Vestal, drove all over Rome in my state coach, drove up to the Capitol, and, in a fashion, said farewell to the advantages of my office."

"How do you feel about it all?" he asked.

Brinnaria pulled a wry face and laughed a forced laugh.

"I am finding out," she said, "why so few Vestals ever leave the order. When I realize that, after to-day, I shall have no lictor to clear the streets for me, that I may go out in my litter daily, but even so without a runner ahead, that I may never again drive through Rome, that I have been driven up to the Capitol for the last time and may go there hereafter only afoot or in my litter, I am almost ready to change my mind, give up freedom and matrimony and Almo and all and cling to my privileges. When it comes over me that, as I go out to-day, the lictors of any magistrate will salute me, even the lictors of the Emperor, whereas after to-morrow noon there will be no salutes for me, I understand why most Vestals live out their lives in the order."

"There is time still to change your mind and stay with us," he said, smiling.

Brinnaria laughed a perfectly natural laugh.

"No danger," she said; "my heart is Almo's as always."

"And now, if you have nothing urgent to discuss, I'm off!"

"Where to?" asked Lutorius.

"I don't care," said Brinnaria, "I don't even want to know. Give the coachman any orders that come into your head, sketch a round-about drive for me. I'm in the humor to have nothing on my mind."

Lutorius, with a comprehending smile, whispered to the coachman, who mounted his tiny seat.

Almost at once Brinnaria was lost in thought and jolted through the streets oblivious to her surroundings, not even seeing what was before her eyes.

From her muse she was roused by the halting of the carriage.

Amazed, she looked up.

Still more amazed, she recognized, standing near the head of the off-horse, the state-executioner.

This repulsive public character, tolerated but despised and loathed, was the last living creature in or about Rome who would dare to approach a Vestal.

At sight of him she was inundated with a hot flood of wrath. She was about to call to her lictor, to demand why the carriage had stopped and rebuke him for being so negligent as to allow so unsavory a being to come so near her.

Then she saw between her and the executioner, just in front of that official, a kneeling figure.

She recognized Calvaster.

Also she saw the guards and executioner's assistants grouped about the two.

It came over her that she had encountered, wholly by accident, this gloomy convoy, and that before her, beseeching her for a reprieve, begging for a mere day and night more of life, knelt her inveterate, furtive enemy.

She raised her hand and looked the executioner full in the eyes.

"Send him back," she commanded. "He is reprieved until this hour to-morrow." The guards dragged off Calvaster, babbling his pitiful gratitude.

"Drive home," said Brinnaria to her coachman.

CHAPTER XXIII - SALVAGE



THE exauguration of a Vestal, by which canonical ritual she was formally released from her obligations of chastity and service and became free to go where she liked and to marry or to remain unmarried as she preferred, was a brief and simple ceremony. But it required the presence of all the Vestals, of the major Flamens, of many Pontiffs, of the entire College of Augurs and of the Emperor himself as Pontifex Maximus. Commodus, who was impatient of anything which curtailed the time he might lavish on athletic amusements, arrived precisely at noon, at the very last minute. The moment he had entered the Atrium he hurried the ceremony. It was soon over and Brinnaria no longer a Vestal, but a free woman.

It had been arranged that immediately after her exauguration her successor should be taken as a Vestal there in the Atrium by Commodus himself as Chief Pontiff. Little difficulty had been encountered as to selecting a candidate, since a most suitable child had been offered by her parents, people of xcellent family and of unblemished reputation. Her name was Campia Severina, and she was a small girl, just seven years old, plump, with a round full-moon of a face, a leaden-pasty complexion, and a most un-Roman nose, flat, broad and snub.

Commodus, prompted by Lutorius, droned through the required questions and showed manifest relief when he pronounced the word "Beloved" and the second ceremony was over.

He was, however, not wholly a loutish and unmannerly Emperor, but could be tactful and gracious when his interest was aroused. He took time to speak to each of the Vestals; complimented Terentia on her music and spoke of the Empress's admiration of her organ-playing, had a brief but kindly commendation for Manlia and Gargilia; praised Numisia highly for her efficient discharge of the duties devolving on her, and condoled with Causidiena on her blindness and feebleness, wording what he said so dexterously that she could not but feel cheered and comforted.

Then, aside from the assemblage of Pontiffs, Augurs, Flamens and the rest, he spoke privately with Brinnaria:

"I'm sorry to lose you," he said; "I felt comfortable about the Palladium as long as you were a Vestal. Numisia is a woman to be relied on too, and Gargilia and Manlia are capable creatures, but not one of the three is your equal in any respect and they are but three; the others are a corpse, a doll and an infant.

"Understand I'm not growling at your departure, I am trying to convey to you how highly I esteem you. I'll advertise it to all the world by having you and your husband, the moment you are married, put on the official roster of my personal friends who have the right of access to me at all times and can go in and out of the Palace at their pleasure.

"As to your wedding, I'm sorry I gave you my promise to stay away from it. I think that this recent notion of yours that the marriage of an ex-Vestal is an ill-omened occasion, like a funeral, is morbid and baseless. Every Vestal has a right to leave the order at the end of her term of service and to marry if she pleases. The right is indubitable. Nothing that is right is ill-omened. I think that an ex-Vestal's wedding ought to be regarded precisely as the wedding of anybody else. The most I'll concede is, that it might be likened to the wedding of a widow, considering her service as a sort of first marriage. That is my judgment, not merely as a man but as Chief Pontiff.

"My impulse is to revoke my pledge and to do all I can to make your wedding a grand affair. But I'm too good a betting man to break a promise. Besides, though I impugn your arguments as an ex-Vestal, I respect your personal preference for a quiet wedding. I'll not insist on being invited to the banquet, and, so far from taking part in the procession, I'll not even peep at it down a side street. I'll keep inside the Palace.

"But I want you to release me from my promise in one small detail. I want to be present at Vocco's to see you two break and eat the old-fashioned cake, and I want to be first to sign your marriage register. I promise to leave as soon as I have signed the register."

Brinnaria, of course, could not but acquiesce.

"Good for you!" said the Emperor, "and thank you too. I'll keep away from the procession, but that won't make any difference in the throngs you'll find along your route. They'll jam the streets and you'll have to plough your way through. No Emperor could ever call out more sight-seers than will the wedding of Brinnaria the water-carrier." He then went out into the street which his escort blocked, and departed, accompanied by his coterie of boxers, wrestlers, swordsmen, jockeys and such-like, convoyed by a large and gorgeous retinue of pages, runners, guards nd lictors.

Immediately after his departure Brinnaria said her farewells and set out for Nemestronia's.

Next morning, as she descended from her litter at Vocco's door, a Vestal's carriage drove up and Gargilia got out.

"You're surprised to see me at this hour," she said, "and I don't wonder." When they were indoors and seated with Flexinna she explained:

"We have been having a terrible night at the Atrium and the worst sort of luck this morning. That little fool of a Campia is the most complete cry-baby and the most homesick little wretch I ever saw or heard of. She has sobbed herself ill and screamed us all out of a night's sleep. Terentia and Manlia were up half the night with her and she waked me and Causidiena.

"The result is that Causidiena has had one of her semi-fainting spells and is in her arm-chair for the day, poor Manlia has one of her splitting headaches and Terentia is almost as bad. I never saw the Atrium in such a state. Campia goes to sleep off and on from exhaustion, but she wakes up howling and keeps blubbering and whining and sniveling. I left both Terentia and Manlia in tears. They are so vexed to think that to-morrow they will be entirely well, but for to-day there is absolutely nothing for it but they must both keep abed and in the dark.

"Numisia sent me to tell you that she will be at your wedding, will walk in the procession and will be at the banquet, but that I must be on duty in the Temple. So we'll just have to have our chat now and when I leave we shall not see each other again for the present."

As she climbed into her carriage she said:

"I'm sorry you haven't a bright wedding day."

"So am I," said Brinnaria, glancing up at the gray canopy of rainless cloud which hid the sky; "any day is a good day to be married on, but I hoped for sunshine."

Commodus, faithful to the spirit of his promise, came to Vocco's house with the smallest possible official retinue. He was in the best humor, affable and genial, and cast no chill of formality over the ceremony. He was the first to set his signature to the marriage register, signing in his sprawling school-boy hand. Then he stood aside and looked on while Flexinna, as matron of honor, led Brinnaria to Almo and joined their right hands, while they seated themselves side by side on the traditional cushioned stools, while the Flamen of Jupiter offered on the house-altar the old-fashioned contract-cake, and said the formal prayers for the happiness of the bride and groom; while the Flamen's assistant, one of Flexinna's older boys, carried the cake to Almo and Brinnaria and each broke off a piece and ate it, she uttering the old-time formula:

"Where you are Caius I am Caia."

Above the voices of the guests Commodus' could be distinguished shouting with them:

"Good luck! Good luck!"

In the silence that followed he warned:

"Now, no rising, no bowing. I'm not here to spoil this wedding, I came to enjoy it. No bowing, I tell you, no rising. Let me get out like an ordinary man."

Into the gathering dusk he vanished with his retinue.

As soon as he was gone the arrangement for the procession began, the slaves lit their torches and grouped themselves outside the house-door, the flute players struck up a tune, Flexinna's thirteen-year-old boy lit his white-thorn torch at the altar-fire, her eleven-year-old and nine-year-old, as pages of honor, caught Brinnaria by the hands and led her out at the door. So led by the two little boys, their brother with the white-thorn torch walking before her, she passed through the streets to Almo's house, Nemestronia and Flexinna on either side of Almo, close behind her, Vocco and the other guests following.

The people made good the Emperor's prophecy.

From house-door to house-door the streets were packed with crowds eager to see her pass and loud to acclaim her. Through cheers, good wishes, loud jokes, merry longs and cries of "Talassio! Talassio!" she passed along the upper part of the Fagutal, and past the flank of the Baths of Titus to the Carinae.

Her bridal dress of pearl-gray, with the flame-colored bridal veil, reminded her more than a little of that costume of Flexinna's which she had worn to Aricia and back, only that was mostly pink, this mostly gray.

She looked well in it and wore the six braids and the headband more naturally than most brides, having been habituated to them for thirty years, since all Vestals always wore the bridal coiffure.

At the doorway of Almo's house, the bearer of the white-thorn torch halted and faced about inside the door, his two little brothers let go her hands, Almo himself caught her up clear of the pavement and swung her clear of the door-sill. As he held her in the air, nestling to him, she repeated the formula:

"Where you are Caius, I am Caia."

When he set her down inside the house she was at last a married woman.

She turned and watched the scramble for the white-thorn torch which its bearer first put out and then threw among the crowd after the slaves had also put out their torches.

So watching, Almo's arm about her, she became aware of a strange something in the look of the crowd and of the street.

"What makes it so light?" she asked Almo. "Why are the tops of their heads all bright that way?"

Lutorius, who was near them, explained:

"There is a big fire somewhere the other side of the Capitol. I noticed it at the top of the street. The Capitol stood out black, the outline of both temples plain as in the daylight, against the red smoke behind it."

"Send some of the slaves," said Brinnaria, "to find out where the fire is, and let us lie down to dinner. I'm as hungry as a wolf." And like a true Roman she began with a trifle of three hard-boiled eggs, merely to take the edge off her appetite.

There were six tables set in Almo's dining-room and an ample crescent-shaped sofa to each. The sixty guests made the big room buzz with talk and echo with laughter.

Nemestronia called across to Brinnaria:

"Now you have what you've always wanted. You're a married woman at last."

"And I'll soon have what I've wanted almost as much," Brinnaria replied.

"What's that?" several voices called.

"Two desires," Brinnaria explained, "haunted me all the while I was a Vestal. One was the longing for a horseback ride. I used to revel in galloping bareback. I haven't been astraddle of a horse for thirty years. It won't be many days now before I shall enjoy a good canter on a good horse.

"Then, by to-morrow night, I trust, I shall have had a fine long swim with my husband and six hundred other couples in the big basin of one of the City Baths.

"Words could not tell you how I have longed to go swimming in the public baths with the rest of my kind, as a lady should."

The messengers returned with the news that the fire had started near the round end of the Flaminian Circus, close to the Temple of Bellona. Before a strong wind it had spread both ways, had caught everything in the north slope of the Capitol between it and Trajan's Forum: the silver-smiths' shops were all ablaze; to the south it had crept between the slope of the Capitol and the theatre of Marcellus and was sweeping over the booths of the Vegetable Market.

"It is the biggest fire in our time," said Lutorius.

"Where will it stop?" queried Numisia.

Both sent their lictors to make further report.

Before the dinner was half over they returned, with messengers from the Atrium. The conflagration was roaring up the Vicus Jugarius and Gargilia was alarmed.

Lutorius and Numisia hastily excused themselves, called for their shoes and went off; he in his litter and she in her carriage.

As Brinnaria was about to cut the wedding cake her former lictor, Barbo, thrust himself into the dining-hall, frantic with concern, and narrated how the fire was beyond any hope of control and was already devouring the Basilica Argentaria and Basilica Julia.

"Lutorius has had the sacred fire carried out of the Temple in a copper pan by Gargilia and Manlia," he said, "and Terentia and Numisia, with little Campia, were helping Causidiena along the Holy Street. Causidiena had an earthenware casket in her arms. I saw them turn the corner to their right into Pearl-Dealers Lane. They are safe in the Palace by now."

"Safe in the Palace?" Brinnaria echoed.

"Yes," Barbo repeated. "Safe in the Palace. They say that the Temple and the Atrium must burn, nothing can save them."

"The Temple!" cried Brinnana. "Fire! And everybody ill except Gargilia and Numisia! And all they could think of would be saving that dear old blind saint and that contemptible cry-baby. Ten to one they have missed the Palladium and taken one of the dummies by mistake!

"O, Almo, I must go save the Palladium!"

Of course Almo protested.

"Don't hinder me," she begged. "Go I must, whether you object or not. We'd never forgive ourselves if to-morrow we learned too late that the Vestals missed the true Palladium in the confusion, whereas I might have saved it if I had tried. They may have taken the real Palladium; I may be too late now to save it if they made a mistake, but I am bound to try."

He shut his lips, but she read his eyes.

"That is like my hero," she said. "Patriotism first, self last.

"Barbo," she called, "run before me and clear the way as if I were still a Vestal. It's illegal, but it will work."

She started for the house-door and then paused.

"Have you any fire buckets?" she asked Almo. "Then have two of the slaves each fill a bucket and keep close behind us."

Amid the prayers and blessings of the wedding-guests, they went out hand in hand, the two slaves with leather water-buckets behind them, Barbo ahead, bellowing:

"Room for Brinnaria Epulonia! Room for Brinnaria Epulonia!" At the street corner, before they started down the slope of the Carinae, they had before them a wide view over the city directly towards the Capitol. Between them and the Capitol Hill they could see the buildings about the Great Forum all one sea of flames.

"The Basilica AEmilia is on fire," said Brinnaria, "and the Temple of Augustus is just catching. We shall be in time; our Temple won't catch before we get there.

"Run, let's run."

Run they did, the crowds making way at Barbo's loud adjurations. In their wedding finery, she with her veil wrapped round her head like a market-woman's shawl, they ran, hand in hand between the great Temple of Venus and Rome, black on their right hand against the reddened clouds, and the vast Colosseum on their left, all orange in the glare, the gilding on its awning poles glimmering.

Up the Sacred Street they passed, running when they could, ploughing through the crowds when the crowd was too thick.

By the time they passed through the Arch of Titus they were running, panting and gasping, through a hail of warm ashes, hot cinders, glowing embers, blazing bits of wood, flaming brands.

At the corner of the Pearl-Dealers Exchange Almo halted, detaining her by her gripped left hand.

"It is no use," he said; "we are too late. You might pass the portal of the Atrium alive, but you'd never get back alive. And I doubt if you could reach the portal through this heat. You'd scorch to death."

"I shall reach the portal," Brinnaria declared, firmly. "But I'm not coming back through it. Listen to me and don't forget. I'm going to make a dash for the portal. I can reach it, our Temple has not caught yet, the bronze-tile roof will hold the fire off the beams some time. This end of the Temple of Augustus has not blazed yet; I can see the cornice.

"Once inside the Atrium I'll not try to come back this way, I'll find the Palladium or make sure it is not there; then I'll run upstairs to the south-east corner. Those rooms are on a level with the pavement of the New Street."

"But," Almo interrupted, "there isn't an opening towards the New Street. The outer wall of the Atrium towards the Palace is all blank wall to the cornice, not even a ventilation hole anywhere."

"I know," she rebuked him; "keep still and listen. I'll run into the third room from the corner. All that end of the Atrium is of brick and cement, not a beam anywhere and the ceilings are vaulted; the fire will be a long time reaching me there. You go up Pearl Dealers' Lane to the corner of the New Street. From the corner measure thirty-eight feet along the New Street. At that point have a hole smashed through the wall. There are hordes of firemen about with their axes, sledge-hammers and pick-axes. They'll hack a hole through for you in no time. The wall is thin there; we had a temporary door made there three years ago for the plumbers when they were putting in the new bath-rooms.

"Now, every moment is precious. Hold my hand and help me to make my dash for the portal, but drop my hand and turn back at the portal; no man may enter the Atrium, except a Pontiff or a workman. When I squeeze your fingers, drop my hand and make your dash back.

"Don't try to check me, husband; self last and patriotism first, for every Roman of us all. We have waited thirty years for each other and we've hardly had time for three kisses yet. But if we must lose each other to save Rome, then we must.

"If I fail, good-bye!" Then she turned and called the trembling slaves to come nearer.

She ordered:

"Dash that water over us, one over him, one over me. Don't waste any, pour it on our heads. Now go where you please!"

Dripping, hand in hand, they ran over the cinder-strewn pavement, under the rain of blazing fragments, up the Sacred Street, between the furnace-hot walls.

Under the long arcade they were safe.

At its further end she had to face a dash of some ten yards through the blazing brands, the very air seeming on fire.

"I'm afraid I" she cried. "Be brave, Almo, and give me courage!" Her fingers pressed his, their hands parted.

Her hands over her face she dashed forward.

He saw her vanish through the portal.

He ran back.

Inside the Atrium Brinnaria turned to her right, passed through a small door, traversed four dark rooms and groped, kneeling on the floor.

Her fingers found five earthenware caskets in a row.

Swiftly she felt them.

The third she opened.

Carefully she fingered the statuette inside, running the tips of her finger-ends along the carved folds of the gown, over the helmet, over the fingers clasping the spear.

With the statuette in her hands she stood up. Tearing off her veil she wrapped the statuette in it.

Back she went to the peristyle, and ran round it to her right. Under the roof of the colonnade she was safe from the rain of brands, but even in there the heat was appalling. She felt as if the very marble columns must crumble beside her as she ran.

At the far corner of the courtyard she dashed through a door and ran up two flights of stairs; a short flight in front of her, and a longer flight to her left from the landing of the first. At the top of the stairs she passed through four rooms. In the fifth, lighted from behind her through a door by an orange glow from the glare of the conflagration, she sank down on the floor against its farther wall.

Almost at once she was on her feet, recoiling from the wall. It quivered with the shock of blows from the outside.

A shower of plaster and bits of brick stung her face and spattered all over her.

She saw the point of a pick-axe shine an instant in the fire-glare.

"I'm here," she called. "I'm safe. Take your time. It's not hot in here yet." The excited blows thudded on the wall. The sledges broke a hole as big as her head, four times as big as her head.

"Take your time!" she repeated. "There is no hurry now." Soon she could see the torches outside, the faces of the firemen, Almo's face.

"No!" she said, "I won't be dragged through a crevice. There is plenty of time. Dig that hole bigger!" When it was large enough to suit her she bade her rescuers back away.

"No man must touch what I carry," she warned.

Outside, in Almo's arms, she was hurried through winding alleys, up narrow stone stairways, to the Palace.

At the end of a deep, dark passageway between high walls Lutorius, with some of the Emperor's aides, was waiting for them at a small door. He guided them to where they were eagerly expected. As they threaded the corridors, they heard, at first far off, then closer and closer, the sound of a child wailing, bawling, blubbering. Even in the Palace, Campia was an irrepressible cry-baby.

In the chapel of the Statue of Victory they found the Vestals, the Empress and the Emperor.

"I've got it safe," Brinnaria proclaimed.

"I'm a frightful-looking bride," she added, "wet as a drowned pup, scorched all over, all my hair burnt off; I must look a guy."

"Never mind that," said Commodus; "you can't get home to-night, the conflagration is still spreading. I doubt if the firemen can save the Colosseum. It would take you till daylight to work your way round the districts which are in confusion. You'll sleep here. I've had Trajan's own private suite made ready for you two, as soon as the first messenger told me of your gallantry. You'll find an army of maids and such waiting for you. Go make yourselves comfortable.

" The bedroom of Rome's greatest Emperor is none too ood for you. Nothing is too good for you, Brinnaria.

"You've saved the Palladium, and me, and the Empire and the Republic and Rome."

THE END