XXIX.

CHANGES.

HEY had passed three days in the catacombs. How sweet and fair seemed the face of nature as they emerged and saw again the glad and glorious sunlight, the green foliage, the rich vegetation, and the abodes of man. That life under ground had a double horror; it was in darkness, and it was among the dead. It was the valley of the shadow of death. Alas! that shadow had passed over their souls.

There was a great change in Marcus. His sensitive and impressible nature had received a shock which promised to be more than temporary. A profound melancholy, which seemed strange and unnatural in a boy, had been forced upon him. The horror of that darkness had impressed itself upon his soul.

They entered again upon their old life at the villa; but that life, such as it once was, could not return again. It was not easy to obliterate the past. All the house was filled with recollections of that night of agony, when Helena clung to Labeo, and Marcus clung to Helena, and the father, in his anguish, looked upon the retreating forms of those loved ones, lost, as he thought, forever. Helena could not forget. She had brought Lydia back with her, a pale, meditative girl, whose life there had changed her nature, and whose new terror had filled with a settled melancholy. They were all safe now, at least for the present; but that great danger

which they had endured seemed to make all life less sweet, and they lived and spoke as though it might come again.

Galdus again united himself to that boy whom he had twice snatched from death; but the boy was changed. No longer did the halls resound with his merry laugh. He had known grief, and had lived years. He was pensive and silent. Formerly he communicated to Galdus all his feelings, his hopes, his fears, his joys, his sorrows; but now he had known a deeper experience, and those feelings which he had had became too strong for utterance.

Galdus never spoke of Hegio to Marcus. He knew the boy's nature, and his abhorrence of strife and blood. To tell him of his vengeance would fill that boy with horror. Galdus felt this in his own dull way, and was silent about it with Marcus.

But there was one to whom he had an opportunity of telling his story, and that was Nero. Cineas was often reminded of it by Cæsar, who urged him to bring the Briton to him. At length he complied. Nero gazed with admiration upon the gigantic frame of his visitor, and read in his stern, resolute face a power which he saw in few around him. Galdus was not all a savage. His own turn of mind, which was elevated, had gained new development from long association with Marcus, and there was some degree of intellectual refinement in his bold, barbaric face, which inspired respect and admiration.

Called on to give an account of his doings to Nero, Galdus told the whole story. His narrative had not that elegance which had characterized the story of Cineas, nor was it so skilfully arranged, or so well brought out in its strong points; but, after all, the effect was at least equal.

For here stood the man himself, and he acted it out. As he proceeded in his relation, his excitement grew more and more intense. He lived it over again. All the feelings that had burned within him on that memorable night lived and glowed over again. His wild face was by turns animated by sorrow,

hate, vengeance, or triumph. His yellow hair, thick beard, and large frame, his guttural intonation and foreign accent, his wild gesticulations, all made him most impressive.

Nero, in his rapture, took from his own neck a gold chain, and flung it around that of Galdus.

He declared that this story had given him a new inspiration. He would go on with his tragedy, and it should astonish the world. He vowed, also, that Galdus should act out the whole scene in person. Such was the effect of this on Nero.

After a while, Labeo went to court, from no particular motive, but partly out of a vague sense of duty, and partly from the force of an old impulse toward promotion. Very faint had that desire for promotion now become. The terrible lesson which he had learned had weakened ambition, and showed him, in a way which he could never forget, the utter uncertainty of the most flattering hopes. He turned his thoughts more fondly than ever on that wife and son whom he had so nearly lost. He began to think of happiness with them, without any larger dignity or greater power than he had now.

But, above all, his position in the court was painful to him for this reason, that he could not endure even the sight of that man by whose warrant so terrible a blow had been dealt on him; that man against whom he had once armed himself, and whose life he had sworn to take. Could he now ask favors from this man, or, even if they were offered, could he accept them? He felt that he could not.

His silence and reserve were not noticed by Nero. Labeo had always been thus, and Nero had been accustomed to look on him as a sort of lay figure in his court, an ornament, a work of art. Nor could the emperor imagine that the events of the arrest were viewed in any other light by Labeo than by himself. The heart of that father and husband lay hidden from his sight; that there should be there bitter memories and deep wounds, was something which was simply inconceivable to a man like him.

After some months Labeo found that this life was unendurable, and he began to loathe it, to loathe the miserable

crew of courtiers, and the hateful tyrant who presided. He determined to leave.

Other things influenced him, but, above all, Marcus. Month after month had passed, but the gloom that had settled down over that young heart had been in no way dissipated. His father and mother looked with deep concern on the thin face, which seemed to grow more melancholy in its expression every day. He was forever brooding over his own thoughts, and nursing the sombre fancies which came over his mind. It was a state of mind over which a man might grow mad, and over which a boy or a child must die. This Labeo saw. He watched with anguish the lack-lustre eye, the listless motion, and the unelastic step of that son, whose bounding life had a short time before animated all the house and filled it with joyousness. Marcus had ceased to laugh and play. His father felt as though he had ceased to be himself. He felt that above all there was needed a total change of scene, and could think of no place so good as Britain.

To go back there was to give up all his hopes of immediate advancement; but Labeo had grown to care little for this, Britain would afford new scenes. They had been there before, and loved it. Marcus would revive, perhaps, in that bracing air from the Northern Sea, and resume his former nature.

Labeo had no difficulty in getting the command of a legion. Nero was quite indifferent whether he went or stayed; and so all was soon arranged for their departure to a place where there would be no gloomy memories forever suggested to them, and no perpetual fear of new dangers.

Sulpicia was left behind with Isaac as steward. Lydia remained also, and Cineas, who had resolved to linger in Rome some time longer. Labeo took with him his wife and boy, and Galdus.

Time passed on, and Tigellinus had endeavored to divert Nero from his revived literary tastes. It was the nature of this man to endure no rivalry of any kind. He wished above all to withdraw the emperor from association with Cineas, for as long as this lasted he felt that his power was only half secured. To effect this he drew the emperor away from Rome more frequently than before, and for longer periods. The Golden House was in process of erection, and till it was finished Nero had no place worthy of his grandeur. Other places afforded greater variety, and at Baiæ, or at Naples Nero could find more novelty and equal luxury. Cineas felt infinitely relieved by this new estrangement of Nero. Association with the emperor was hateful. Now that his loved friends were safe, he had no longer any object at court, and desired nothing no much as to withdraw quietly. His desire was gratified, and in the best way, for the court was withdrawn from him, and Nero with his usual fickleness soon thought no more of his "philosopher." His tragedy remained an unfinished conception, and the creatures of fancy were supplanted by the horrors of fact.

Tigellinus worked on all the evil passions of his master, and on none more successfully than on his cruelty. Many of the best men in Rome fell beneath his machinations. Cineas had vanished from the scene, and Tigellinus thought no more about him, but transferred all his envy to Petronius. This gay, careless, and light-hearted man still clung to the court, for it was his best-loved home, and neither the machinations of Tigellinus nor the increasing cruelty of Nero deterred him.

At last Petronius fell. Tigellinus made up a charge against him that he had taken part in the great conspiracy, and Nero believed, or at least thought fit to pretend so. Nero happened at the time to be on one of his excursions in the neighborhood of Naples Bay. Petronius was following He saw that he was

him, but was arrested at Cumæ.

doomed, and met death with that gayety, and calm contempt