The fetters of freedom

Preface

As everybody knows who is familiar with the making of my many books, but one out of the number I have written is without a preface. Like everybody addicted to the preface habit I have been accustomed to write the preface after everything else has been completed. This time I reverse the practice. Gentle reader, not one word of the story has as yet been put on paper! I am resolved to be honest in at least one book, and my preface shall be not only the thing that goes before, but the thing that is before ; hence this beginning.

When a man creates a certain number of subjects in the kingdom of his imagination, when he endows them with temper and temperament, when they are imbued with personality, which manifests itself in character and is set forth in characteristics, and finally when he sets them upon the stage of his world of romance, he cannot always be quite sure where they will go, what they will do, what they will say, and what will happen to them. It is harder sometimes to control the child of the imagination than it is to direct the real boy or girl. I have had much experience with both kinds of children and I speak with authority ! Yet it is an imprudent parent that does not lay some plans for his offspring in the beginning, therefore I have certain designs for my people, young and old.

Long, long study and heartfelt and boundless admiration have made me thoroughly familiar with Paulus,

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Tiii PREFACE

the Roman citizen of Tarsus. I do not possess him, he possesses me. He will do what a man of his temper and temperament must do, which indeed he did. I am not quite so sure of Roman Attilius, the patrician pretorian, and I am even less sure of British Gwenna, a lady as I see her of somewhat uncertain temper and of great spirit, as might be expected from the glint of red in her golden hair.

I have pictured in my mind's eye these people on the sea, in the great Roman city, and on the sea again; Paulus on the ship, on the island of Malta, and in " his own hired house " convenient for that pretorian supervision to which he was subjected for two long, weary but useful years ; I have seen Attilius also on the ship and in his magnificent palace on Aventine Hill ; while Gwenna has appeared to me in the slave market, in the domus of Attilius, in the lodging of Paulus ; and all these at the court of Nero and finally on the ship at last.

So much for the positive. For the negative, hereafter I promise you shall follow no extended description of Roman life or manners. That subject has been done and done so well of late in the works of Tucker, Dill, Friedlander, Fowler, and many others — to say nothing of the historians, satirists, and poets of Rome itself— that it does not seem worth while for me to try to do it over again. I have no desire to instruct anybody. I have no ambition to show what I know. Although I have read largely and studied long in these fields it is not my intention to try to emulate the meticulous Farrar in historical knowledge x or the fascinating Davis in l" Darkness and Dawn."

PREFACE ix

minute and careful erudition 1 or the great Sienkiewicz in graphic and realistic description,2 to say nothing of " Ben Hur," or " The Sign of the Cross," or all the other books of the kind. I pledge you my word, so far as a poor author can, that I intend to keep my people out of the Circus Maximus, for instance. It is not my plan to describe any revelry in the " Transitory House " of Nero. " Christians to the lions! " shall not be heard in my pages. I delineate no wild orgies, no rulgar and licentious revels of the Caesar and his degenerate friends. Yet Nero and Tigellinus both have parts to play and both exercise their baleful influence over the fortunes of Attilius and Gwenna. Paulus will preach his gospel, and the religion of his Christ will be set forth in opposition to heathenism just as decisively, and the results will be seen just as clearly as if the sanded arena were wet with the blood of the slain. So much by way of introduction. The preface goes to the printer to-day. Let us see whether I can keep to my text, as an author should as well as a preacher, in what follows, which finally I assure you is not sermon but story.

CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.

1 " A Friend of Caesar. " » " Quo Vadis ? "

Book I In The Sea Of Adria Chapter Page

I THE EMPEROR'S TREASURE ... 3

II THE SHREWD BLOW OP THE TRIBUNE . 19

III THE CORN SHIP OF ALEXANDRIA . . 35

IV THE PRISONER IN COMMAND ... 50 V THE SIGN AND THE BLESSING . . 66

Book II Master And Slave VI The Block Of Phryx .... 79

VII IN THE DOMUS OF ATTILIUS ... 97

VIII THE MESSAGE FROM CESAR . . . 109

IX NERO AND His SONG .... 121

X THE TRIBUNE GOES UPON A JOURNEY . 140

Book III The Displeasure Of The Emperor

XI THE MAIDEN Is LOST .... 155 XII THE GRATITUDE OF THE TRIBUNE . .168

XIII THE TRIBUNE DEALS WITH Two WOMEN 186

xi

Xll

CONTENTS

CHAPTBE

XIV XV

XVI XVII

XVIII

THE FORGOTTEN PROMISE .

THE TRIBUNE SEEKS RELEASE .

THE DRUNKEN GOD AND THE SLAVE .

THE CRAFT OF THE VETERAN CEN- TURION

THE DEGRADATION OF THE TRIBUNE .

PA6B

201 214 229

243 256

XIX LOLLIA CLAUDIA SPEAKETH HER MIND 269

XX THE STROKE AND THE SPURNING . . 288

XXI MOCKED IN THE GARDEN . . . 301

XXII HUSKS OF THE SWINE . . . .311

XXIII THE LETTER TO PHILIPPI . . .321

XXIV BREAKING THE BREAD . 337

BOOK V THE APPEAL UNTO CfiSAR

XXV How PAULUS SPOKE FOR HIMSELF XXVI THE INTERPOSITION OF GOD .

353 369 387

ILLUSTRATIONS

" I am no man's plaything ! " burst out Gwenna, her fiery temper ablaze . . . (page 192) Frontispiece

" I have reserved her for the last. It is a maid from wave-washed Britain " Facing page 86

" T-thou shalt p-pay for this insult,"

he hissed out ....** " 240

" That divinity that thou hast

claimed, oh Nero " . . . " " 382

Chapter I

THERE was no doubt that Caius Attilius, the young military tribune, was a very ill man, — perhaps had been would be the better tense of the verb, for it appeared to his officers and to the shipmaster, men of long and varied experience of a rough-and-ready sort, although none of them was a professional physician, that the crisis of the disease had passed and that the grip of the fever had been broken.

Regulus, the primipilus, or first centurion of the legion, with two of his brother captains, stood over their tribune where he lay asleep in the after cabin, and thoughtfully and compassionately noted the ravages of the fever. They were not much given to pity, these Romans, but the old veteran was deeply attached to the young patrician. He and the tribune had been associated a long time in the Fourteenth Legion and in many of the hard-fought battles with the wild Ethiopians and Abyssinians of the southern Egyptian frontier they had stood side by side. Indeed, Regulus had taught the youth the art of war, and this veteran centurion was by no means an indifferent teacher. There was no more renowned soldier of his rank in Caesar's thirty-odd legions. He laid his horny, knotted hand lightly on the brow of the sleeper and discovered with satisfaction that the burning heat of the African fever, which had gripped him so long and so fiercely, and because of which he had been invalided home, had at last left him. The forehead of the patient was even cool.

It was late in the season, verging upon winter indeed, and Regulus, after a moment's pause, drew a light covering of wool over the linen sheet which was thrown over the young man. Caius Attilius, a patrician and of senatorial rank, owned an immense number of slaves who, after the custom of Rome, were always ready and available for every conceivable bodily service, but the ship was already overloaded and the few slaves who had attended him in the army had been left behind to take passage on other ships later. The soldiers of the legion, who were fellow-passengers with the tribune, had vied with each other in loving service to their officer, for there was no more popular man in the legion, and indeed in the army of Egypt, than Caius Attilius. These veterans, who were going home with their discharge papers after many years of honourable service, jealously compassed their young leader with sweet observances cheerfully rendered by themselves.

There was something grotesque, yet infinitely touching in the attempts they made to be gentle, to be tender. It was a great tribute to the character and personality of Caius Attilius, and it would have pleased him greatly if he had perceived it. He had known nothing about it, of course; he had been too ill.

He had been stricken in the far south with the dreaded African, or jungle, fever and had lost consciousness early in the hasty voyage down the ancient river

Nile. He knew nothing of the efforts made by the skilled leeches and physicians of Alexandria to effect his cure. He did not know that the prastor, the Emperor's legate, who governed the province, had at last determined that his only chance would be at home in Rome. The Greek-Alexandrian physicians had concurred in this view and had also pointed out that the sea voyage might do him good. Hence his position that morning in the after cabin of the I sis.

The hopes of the Emperor's legate and the prognostications of the clever Egyptian practitioners had been abundantly justified. Although scarcely a week had elapsed since the great Pharos at the mouth of the harbour had sunk beneath the horizon, the fever was already broken, Caius Attilius was in the first sound sleep he had enjoyed for many days, and all was well. If no setback occurred his recovery was assured. In the mind of Regulus and the other centurions of the legion, the voyage was a success.

The Isis was one of the largest and best equipped of the huge imperial freight and passenger boats which plied between Alexandria and Italy. The navigation season for the year was practically over, but in an emergency ships did not hesitate to venture upon the passage at any time. Not only was the Isis carrying Caius Attilius, the young tribune and friend of Csesar, but in place of her usual lading of corn she was also transporting a huge cargo of the richest, rarest, and most costly products of- Egypt, destined for the imperial treasury. Included in her lading was a report from the quaestor of the province accompanying a vast treasure of gold and silver — the yearly tribute — and a small parcel of jewels of great price designed for the personal use of the Emperor and the Augusta, his wife.

In addition to the ordinary crew of the ship there were on board some two hundred men of the Fourteenth Legion with the primipilus and two other veteran centurions, whose time of service had expired, who had reached the age of retirement, and were returning to Italy to receive such rewards as were usually heaped upon veteran soldiers. They had not been established in one of the colonies of the Emperor with grants of land because the Fourteenth Legion had been raised and constantly recruited in Italy itself; these men were Romans and would live nowhere but in the City of the Seven Hills. Caius Attilius was, of course, theoretically in command of them, but in his disability the charge had devolved upon Regulus.

The voyage had been a rather tempestuous one. The I sis had become severely strained in a series of half gales which she had encountered. She had been forced by the storm to run into Fair Havens, a harbour near Lasea on the south side of the island of Crete. Upon their arrival there if another ship had offered Regulus would have taken the liberty of trans-shipping the cargo because of the leaky condition of the I sis, but there was no ship available in the harbour save another huge, lumbering trader, the Osiris, also of Alexandria, which had just arrived from Myra on the coast of Asia Minor, and which, in addition to an immense cargo of wheat, was carrying a large number of prisoners of various sorts from Syria to Rome for trial. These she had picked up from a coaster at Myra, a Lycian port to which the Osiris had been driven by heavy weather. This ship was not in much better condition than the Isis, Regulus found after consulting with the centurion who had it in charge, an old friend of his, whose name was Julius.

It was important that the cargo of the Isis should reach Rome, that the jewels should be delivered, and that young Caius Attilius should be landed as soon as possible; therefore Regulus, although the Isis was in a measure unseaworthy, determined to proceed in her, rather than winter at Crete. Before he left the harbour, which was scarcely more than an open roadstead by the way, he caused the treasure and some of the least bulky and most precious merchandise to be landed at Crete and turned over to the proconsular officers in Lasea, to be held for a safer ship and a more favourable time for transportation to Rome. This was done secretly and at night because the virtue of the inhabitants of Crete was not above suspicion and the storing of so great a treasure in the city might have excited the cupidity of the islanders and made it a matter of some difficulty for the scanty garrison to protect it.

Regulus was in some doubt as to the landing of the jewels, but concluded, since they were not of great bulk, that he could put them in a bag and attach it to his person, where they would be safe enough in case of accident. He had faced and had surmounted every conceivable danger that could menace a soldier during his long life, and he had an auspicious confidence in his own good fortune. If the ship sank he at least would be saved.

When all had been done in accordance with his views, the Isis weighed anchor and spread sail before a strong but favourable breeze that blew from the eastward, leaving the Osiris, the sister ship, about ready to weigh and follow. Two days after her departure she had, in the opinion of Agacles, the old shipmaster, gained sufficient westing to enable him to lay his course to the northward through the Sea of Adria to the port of Brundisium, which, as it was nearer than Puteoli on the west coast, the port the ship usually made, seemed the more desirable haven under the circumstances. The wind, shifting to the southward, was still fair for the run northward, and although it was increasing in force, Agacles concluded that the ship would bear her canvas, except the little topsail which was often hoisted above the great mainsail upon the single mast amidships. The smaller sail being furled and the upper yard struck, the Isis plunged through the rolling seas under the grey sky on her final run of perhaps four hundred miles toward safety and the haven.

It was noticed that the leak which had threatened ere they reached Crete had become actual after they passed Clauda, and that the ship was taking in water at a continually increasing rate. Efforts to get at the leak had proved futile, but the water was not coming in fast enough to give them any great amount of uneasiness at present. Later it might become necessary to resort to pumps and buckets to get rid of the water, but there was no great need for anxiety yet.

In fact the thought of the leak was lost in a more obvious and threatening danger which had developed that morning. It was to consult about that danger that Regulus and the others were summoned from the cabin of Attilius to the deck of the ship by one of the seamen, there to confer with the shipmaster. Since the tribune slept so soundly, Regulus concluded that to send watchers into the cabin would but disturb him. Indeed, since no harm could possibly come to him he would best be left alone. He carefully closed the door behind him and went out on deck with the other two.

The sleep of Attilius was indeed calm and peaceful. A long time he lay still in the comparative quiet of the cabin; his ears had long since become accustomed to the creaking and groaning of the timbers, as well as his body to the rolling and pitching of the huge, unwieldly, heavily loaded ship. Presently, however, his eyes unclosed and he stared uncertainly and uncomprehendingly about him. When the fever had left him the night before and ere he slept again, he had asked questions enough to put himself in possession of most of the facts of the situation. He knew at last that he had been stricken in the desert, that he had been brought down the Nile and placed on the ship at Alexandria, and was now homeward bound, but his mind was naturally not yet clear and alert, and it took him some time on his awaking to reconstruct the story that had been told him and to appreciate the situation once more.

From the berth in which he lay, which was built across the cabin, athwartships that is, he had a plain view of the sea for a long distance through the windows of the after cabin, which overhung the stern. As he lay idly staring a triple-banked ship, swiftly propelled by oars, suddenly flashed across his vision, although she was yet a long way off. Her purple mainsail was set, and under the impetus of wood and canvas she was going at a great pace. The sight was sufficiently unusual and remarkable to have aroused the closer attention of Attilius in an instant had he been in his normal condition. As it was he only speculated with an idle, weak curiosity as to what the ship might be and what she might be doing there and what was the impelling motive for the furious haste with which she was driving through the seas. The problem was too great for his weakened condition, and though for a while he feebly pondered it, he finally dismissed it as the strange trireme drew out of his range of vision.

His eyes wandered around the cabin, which was bare of furniture save for a table, chair, and his sleeping berth, until they fell upon his armour piled up upon a transom. From a hook above it and near where he lay hung his short Roman sword. Two or three pila, or short Roman spears, leaned in the same corner.

Attilius was a soldier who loved his profession. His eyes lighted a little and a faint colour came into his pale cheeks as his glance lingered on these military trappings. By stretching out his hand he found he could touch his sword. He languidly made the motion, and his fingers caressed with satisfaction the chased scabbard which contained the short blade. That weapon had served him well in many a campaign. Little flashes of reminiscence came over him, in the midst of which he presently fell contentedly asleep again.

Out on the deck Regulus and Agacles with the other centurions had at once engaged in an interested debate. The same ship which Attilius saw later was visible to them on the eastern horizon. A short distance from it they also saw a sister ship, and the two were making straight for the Isis.

Now Pompeius with his great fleet many years before had cleared the Mediterranean of the numerous squadrons of pirate ships which had made navigation so hazardous. The subsequent Caesars had maintained a navy for the sole purpose of keeping down these ferocious and pestilent marauders, and piracy, once an easy and not very hazardous method of making a living, had become a most dangerous trade. When they were captured and convicted the punishment that was visited upon pirates was of the severest description — crucifixion. It was nevertheless impossible to stamp out piracy completely, and ever and anon some ship sailed away from some harbour and failed to reach its destination. Sometimes its fate was due to the storms and perils of the sea, sometimes, if there had been a survivor, tales of rapine, bloodshed, frightful outrage, and murder could have been told.

Certain pirates of Cilicia had heard at Tarsus of the projected despatch of the treasure ship from Alexandria. They had stationed themselves off the north coast of Crete expecting, when the time of their calculations had arrived, to fall on the ship in the Sea of Adria. Fortune had favoured them, for when the Isis had put into Fair Havens some of their crew were in the city of Lasea. The pirate ships had touched on the north coast for water and provisions, and these men strayed over to Lasea, where they had remained until the Isis sailed. Then they had made haste to recross the island and give the news to their commander. The men of these galleys were expert at their trade and knew all the tricks thereof; they were seamen of the first quality, too, and they were thus able to locate the Isis with almost wizardlike accuracy. Three days from Fair Havens they saw her, hull-down before them, on the western horizon. They made all speed to close with her.

The pirate galleys were of different build from the bluff-bowed merchant ship, whose best speed under sail was perhaps five knots an hour. These plundering triremes could make that speed under sail without difficulty, and when the triple-banked oars were used they could go half again as fast. The oarsmen were usually galley-slaves, but in the case of these two pirate ships the men of the band themselves did the rowing until the ships closed with their quarry ; after which, abandoning their oars, each seized his weapons and became a fighting man. The triremes of the pirates were, compared to the Isis, of smaller size, and if the oarsmen had been slaves they could not have carried enough fighting men to have overcome their prey in case of much resistance.

Two hundred and fifty fighting men could be crowded into a galley in this way. Although they lacked drill, discipline, and organisation, they had courage, ferocity, ruthless brutality, and long experience in battle, and they were consequently a formidable body of men. They were recruited from all the nations that bordered the Mediterranean, including many Greeks, some renegade Italians, men of Little Asia and of the Orient, some from Syria, and even a few masterless and outcast Jews.

Their plans were quite simple. They would run the I sis aboard, one to the starboard and one to the port, fling a mass of men upon her decks, master the ship, murder the crew and passengers, relieve her of such of her cargo as was of value to them, scuttle or burn her, and go on their way rejoicing.

Their information, however, was faulty in several particulars. They had not learned, for instance, that the more precious part of her lading, the gold and the silver, had been landed at Crete ; neither had they been informed that the Isis carried a detachment of Roman soldiers. These had been embarked at the last minute with Attilius, after the informant of the rovers had sailed away from Alexandria to meet them at Paphos in Cyprus. They would not have raced down upon the great merchantman with such confidence and zeal had they known of the legionaries aboard her.

" Worthy centurion," began the shipmaster, " what thinkest thou of those ships yonder? "

Regulus turned his head and shaded his brows the better to see. Glasses, or telescopes, were of course unknown in those days, but the eye of the Roman was trained to take in much more than the unaided vision would be apt to discover to-day.

" If I know anything about them, they are ships of war, Master Agacles," answered the chief centurion after a long look.

" Aye, but not imperial galleys despite their purple canvas."

" It doth not seem so to me," added Regulus.

"What thinkest thou of them, under-pilot?" continued Agacles, turning to the steersman.

The pilot who stood aft by the huge oar thrust out of its port, attending to the steerage of the ship, turned and surveyed the two ships drawing rapidly nearer.

" Pirates, by Neptune ! " he cried, " if I know the breed."

Regulus nodded.

" Salvus," he said to a brother centurion who stood with the little group, " send Balbo to me at once."

The centurion saluted, turned, and the call for Balbo went echoing through the ship. In a moment a bronzed, weather-beaten, bowlegged legionary came rolling aft.

" Balbo, thou hast been a sailor on Caesar's ships, a pilot, if I mistake not "

" Aye, sir," was the answer, " that I have."

" Good. What thinkest thou of yonder pair?"

Balbo stepped to the extreme after part of the ship, shaded his eyes with his hand, and stared.

" Ships of war," he muttered, " but not those of Caesar, whom the gods preserve. Cilicians, I take it, worthy centurion," he added, turning. " To thee, Master Agacles, my advice is, do thou put the ship v THE EMPEROR'S TREASURE 15

in position of defence without delay. These be sea wolves who have somehow escaped the Emperor's fleet, and will be upon us " — he looked over the side and then aft again, appearing to calculate in his mind the rate of sailing — " within an hour."

"The advice is good," interposed Regulus. He looked at the shipmaster. " What dost thou propose? " he asked.

" My business is to sail the ship," said Agacles, " and thine to defend her."

" And couldst thou sail away from them? "

" By no means. There is presage of storm in the air." He turned his head up in the direction of the wind and sniffed the breeze. " The wind is scarcely as strong as it was when day dawned, and oftentimes there is a previous calm for an hour or two before the storm breaks upon us. Is that not thine experience, chief-pilot? "

" My judgment agrees with thine," said Ramses, an Egyptian who occupied that important position on the ship and who had just come aft from his cabin where he had been off watch.

" If the wind fall," said Regulus thoughtfully, " have we not oars "

" A few," answered Agacles, " but if we took the men to man them we should be more helpless than we are and our speed would be as nothing in respect to theirs."

" Then we must meet their attack. Salvus ! "

" Sir."

" Take thou seventy-five of the men of the legion and occupy the fore part of the ship. I, with Paetus, will command the aft part with seventy-five more. As to the remainder "

" Give me leave, most noble centurion," interrupted Agacles, " I am not a fighting man, but the ship is mine and all my fortune is embarked in her. May not I, too, be of service under thy direction? I have wielded the sword and lance in Thrace and Bithynia

" Good. Thou and thy men shall keep the waist with Balbo and the remaining legionaries to assist thee."

"And how about the tribune?" interposed Paetus, the third centurion.

" We will leave the noble Attilius to his needed rest, I think," continued Regulus, looking upon the men who crowded the decks and who had heard all. " I and my brave comrades of the Fourteenth Legion can hold the ship without disturbing a sick man who can scarcely raise his head."

" We will protect the noble Attilius and the ship with our lives," burst from the men.

" Good," said Regulus. " Now put on your armour, lay aside your baggage, and repair to your stations. Conceal yourselves in the fore cabin or by lying on the floor of the deck close under the bulwarks. Let no light upon a spear point or gle'am upon a helmet betray us. And do thou, Master Agacles, keep thine even course and we shall see how yonder pirates will like the welcome prepared for them by the men of the Thundering Legion."

So the Fourteenth Legion was named, its device being a thunderbolt, or lightning flash, darting through a mass of clouds. Great Jupiter himself was its patron deity.

There ensued a few moments of hasty yet orderly preparation while the men buckled on their armour, donned their helmets, slung their short swords over their shoulders, slipped their left arms through their shield-holds, and looked to the heavy spears and javelins which formed part of their war gear. As fast as they were equipped they were mustered, divided into three groups of seventy-five under Salvus, seventy-five under Pastus, and the remainder under old Balbo. The group forward concealed itself in the forecastle, or seamen's cabin, those amidships lay down upon the deck behind the low bulwarks, those aft filled the after castle, every space, indeed, except the cabin in which the sleeping tribune lay. And it was amusing to note how softly and with what little jingling of armour the rude legionaries moved into the greater outer cabin so as not to disturb the life-giving, refreshing sleep of their young leader. The sailors and men of the ship, mainly from Alexandria, armed themselves with bows, slings, spears, swords, and shields, and made ready to contribute what they could to the defence.