Various - Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864

Ænone stood as in a maze of confusion and uncertainty. Were the trials of the day never to end? First her unsatisfactory strife and pleading with her husband; then the undignified contest with her own slave into which she had been betrayed; and now came this old man—her father, to be sure—but so much the more mortifying to her, as his vulgarity, querulous complaining, and insulting strictures were forced upon her ears.

'Are you not comfortable? What more can he or I do for you?' she said, with some impatience.

'Ay, ay; there it is,' growled the centurion. 'One person must have all luxuries—paintings, silver, and the like; but if the other has only mere comforts, an extra tunic, perhaps, or a spare bit of meat for a dog, what more can he want? But I will tell you what you can do? And it is not as a gift, I ask it. Poor and despised as he may be, no one can say that the centurion Porthenus is a beggar. It is as a fair matter of business that I offer it.'

'Well, my father?'

'It is this: I have two slaves, and can afford to keep only one of them, particularly as but one can be of use to me. Will the imperator purchase the other? I will give it for a fair price, and therefore no one can say that I have asked for anything beyond a proper trade, with which either side should be well satisfied.'

Ænone listened with a blush of shame for her father overspreading her face. It did not occur to her that the slave rejected as useless could be any other than the hunchback, whom her husband had bestowed upon the centurion a few days before; and for the receiver to try to sell back a gift to the giver was a depth of meanness for which no filial partiality or affection could find an excuse.

'I will show him to you,' cried the centurion, losing a little of his gruffness in his eagerness to effect a transaction, whereby, under the thin guise of a simple trade, he could extort a benefit. 'I have brought him with me, and left him below. You will see that he is of good appearance, and that the imperator will be pleased and grateful to me for the opportunity of possessing him.'

So saying, Porthenus strode to the head of the stairway, and issued his commands in a stern voice, which made the vaulted ceilings of the palace ring. A faint, weak response came up in answer, and in a moment the slave entered the room.

'Is this the one of whom you spoke?' faltered Ænone, unable for the moment to retain her self-possession as she beheld, not the angular, wiry form of the hunchback, but the careworn and slim figure of Cleotos. 'I thought—indeed I thought that you spoke of the inferior of the two.'

'Ay, and so I do,' responded her father. 'Of what use to me can this man be? The other one, indeed, is of tenfold value. There is no slave in Rome like unto him for cleaning armor or sharpening a weapon, while to run of an errand or manage any piece of business in which brains must bear their part, I will trust him against the world. But as for this man here, with his weak limbs and his simple face—do you know that I did but set him to polish the rim of a shield, and in his awkwardness he let it fall, and spoiled the surface as though a Jewish spear had stricken it.'

Ænone remained silent, scarcely listening to the words of her father, while, in a troubled manner, she again mentally ran over, as she had done hundreds of times before, the chances of recognition by the man who stood before her.

'But listen to me still further,' continued the centurion, fearful lest his disparaging comments might defeat the projected sale. 'I only speak of him as he is useful or not to me. To another person he would be most valuable; for, though he cannot polish armor, he can polish verses, and he can write as well as though he were educated for a scribe. For one favored of fortune like the imperator Sergius Vanno,' and here again the centurion began to roll the high-sounding name upon his tongue with obvious relish, 'who wishes an attendant to carry his wine cup, or to bear his cloak after him, or to trim his lamps, and read aloud his favorite books, where could a better youth than this be found?'

Ænone, still overpowered by her troubled thoughts, made no response.

'Or to yourself,' eagerly continued the centurion, 'he would be most suitable, with his pale, handsome face, and his slender limbs. Have you a page?'

'I have my maidens,' was the answer.

'And that amounts to nothing at all,' asserted her father. 'A plebeian can have her maidens in plenty, but it is not right that the wife of a high and mighty imperator,' and here again the words rolled majestically off his tongue, 'should not also have her male attendants. And the more so when that wife has been taken from an ancient house like that of Porthenus,' he added, with a frown in derogation of any tendency to give undue importance to her present position. 'But with this Cleotos—come forward, slave, and let yourself be seen.'

Cleotos, who, partly from natural diffidence, and partly from being abashed at the unaccustomed splendor about him, had, little by little, from his first entrance, shrunk into a corner, now advanced; and Ænone, once more resolutely assuring herself that, with the changes which time, position, difference of place and costume had thrown about her, she could defy recognition, summoned all her courage, and looked him in the face. It may have been with an unacknowledged fear lest, now that she saw him so freely in the broad daylight, some latent spark of the old attachment might burst into a flame, and withdraw her heart from its proper duty; but at the first glance she felt that in this respect she had nothing to dread. In almost every particular, Cleotos had but little changed. His costume was but slightly different from that which he had always been accustomed to wear; for the centurion, in view of the chance of effecting a profitable sale, had, for that occasion, made him put on suitable and becoming attire. The face was still youthful—the eye, as of old, soft, expressive, and unhardened by the ferocities of the world about him. As Ænone looked, it seemed as though the years which had passed rolled back again, and that she was once more a girl. But it also seemed as though something else had passed away—as though she looked not upon a lover, but rather upon a quiet, kindhearted, innocent friend—one who could ever be dear to her as a brother, but as nothing else. What was it which had so flitted away that the same face could now stir up no fire of passion, but only a friendly interest? Something, she could not tell what; but she thanked the gods that it was so, and drew a long breath of relief.

But it was none the less incumbent upon her, for the sake of that present friendship and for the memory of that old regard, to cast her protection over him. For an instant the thought flashed across her that it would be well to purchase him, not simply for a page, but so that she could have him in the way of kind treatment and attention until some opportunity of restoring him to his native land might occur. But then again was the danger that, if any great length of time should meanwhile elapse, unconsidered trifles might lead to a recognition. No, that plan could not be thought of. She must keep a protecting eye upon him from a distance, and trust to the future for a safe working out of the problem.

'It cannot be,' she murmured, in answer, half to her father, half to her own suggestion.

''Tis well,' muttered the centurion, rising with an air of displeasure which indicated that he thought it very ill. 'I supposed that it would be a kindness to the imperator or to yourself to give the first offer of the man. But it matters little. The captain Polidorus will take him any moment at a fair price.'

'You will not send him to the captain Polidorus?' exclaimed Ænone in affright. For at once the many atrocities of that man toward his slaves rose in her mind—how that he had slain one in a moment of passion—how that he had deliberately beaten another to death for attempting to escape to the catacombs—how that stripes and torture were the daily portion of the unfortunates in his power—and that, not by reason of any gross neglect of their duty, but for the merest and most trifling inadvertencies. Better death than such a fate.