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Books: Antonina

W >> Wilkie Collins >> Antonina




'I know you not!' he replied, thrusting her from him. 'Return to his
bosom; you shall never more be pressed to mine. Go to his palace; my
house is yours no longer! You are his harlot, not my daughter! I
command you--go!'

As he advanced towards her with fierce glance and threatening demeanour,
she suddenly rose up. Her reason seemed crushed within her as she looked
with frantic earnestness from Vetranio to her father, and then back
again from her father to Vetranio. On one side she saw an enemy who had
ruined her she knew not how, and who threatened her with she knew not
what; on the other, a parent who had cast her off. For one instant she
directed a final look on the room, that, sad and lonely though it was,
had still been a home to her; and then, without a word or a sigh, she
turned, and crouching like a beaten dog, fled from the house.


During the whole of the scene Vetranio had stood so fixed in the
helpless astonishment of intoxication as to be incapable of moving or
uttering a word. All that took place during the short and terrible
interview between father and child utterly perplexed him. He heard no
loud, violent anger on one side, no clamorous petitioning for
forgiveness on the other. The stern old man whom Antonina had called
father, and who had been pointed out to him as the most austere
Christian in Rome, far from avenging his intrusion on Antonina's
slumber, had voluntarily abandoned his daughter to his licentious will.
That the anger or irony of so severe a man should inspire such an action
as this, or that Numerian, like his servant, was plotting to obtain some
strange mysterious favour from him by using Antonina as a bribe, seemed
perfectly impossible. all that passed before the senator was, to his
bewildered imagination, thoroughly incomprehensible. Frivolous,
thoughtless, profligate as he might be, his nature was not radically
base, and when the scene of which he had been the astounded witness was
abruptly terminated by the flight of Antonina, the look of frantic
misery fixed on him by the unfortunate girl at the moment of her
departure, almost sobered him for the instant, as he stood before the
now solitary father gazing vacantly around him with emotions of
uncontrollable confusion and dismay.

Meanwhile a third person was now approaching to join the two occupants
of the bedchamber abandoned by its ill-fated mistress. Although in the
subterranean retreat to which he had retired on leaving Vetranio, Ulpius
had not noticed the silent entrance of the master of the house, he had
heard through the open doors the sound, low though it was, of the
Christian's voice. As he rose, suspecting all things and prepared for
every emergency, to ascend to the bedchamber, he saw, while he mounted
the lowest range of stairs, a figure in white pass rapidly through the
hall and disappear by the principal entrance of the house. He hesitated
for an instant and looked after it, but the fugitive figure had passed
so swiftly in the uncertain light of early morning that he was unable to
identify it, and he determined to ascertain the progress of events, now
that Numerian must have discovered a portion at least of the plot
against his daughter and himself, by ascending immediately to Antonina's
apartment, whatever might be the consequences of his intrusion at such
an hour on her father's wrath.

As soon as the Pagan appeared before him, a sensible change took place
in Vetranio. The presence of Ulpius in the chamber was a positive
relief to the senator's perturbed faculties, after the mysterious,
overpowering influence that the moral command expressed in the mere
presence of the father and the master of the house, at such an hour, had
exercised over them. Over Ulpius he had an absolute right, Ulpius was
his dependant; and he determined, therefore, to extort from the servant
whom he despised an explanation of the mysteries in the conduct of the
master whom he feared, and the daughter whom he began to doubt.

'Where is Antonina?' he cried, starting as if from a trance, and
advancing fiercely towards the treacherous Pagan. 'She has left the
room--she must have taken refuge with you.'

With a slow and penetrating gaze Ulpius looked round the apartment. A
faint agitation was perceptible in his livid countenance, but he uttered
not a word.

The senator's face became pale and red with alternate emotions of
apprehension and rage. He seized the Pagan by the throat, his eyes
sparkled, his blood boiled, he began to suspect even then that Antonina
was lost to him for ever.

'I ask you again where is she?' he shouted in a voice of fury. 'If
through this night's work she is lost or harmed, I will revenge it on
you. Is this the performance of your promise? Do you think that I will
direct your desired restoration of the gods of old for this? If evil
comes to Antonina through your treachery, sooner than assist in your
secret projects, I would see you and your accursed deities all burning
together in the Christians' hell! Where is the girl, you slave?
Villain, where was your vigilance, when you let that man surprise us at
our first interview?'

He turned towards Numerian as he spoke. Trouble and emergency gift the
faculties with a more than mortal penetration. Every word that he had
uttered had eaten its burning way into the father's heart. Hours of
narrative could not have convinced him how fatally he had been deceived,
more thoroughly than the few hasty expressions he had just heard. No
word passed his lips--no action betrayed his misery. He stood before
the spoilers of his home, changed in an instant from the courageous
enthusiast to the feeble, helpless, heart-broken man.

Though all the ferocity of his old Roman blood had been roused in
Vetranio, as he threatened Ulpius, the father's look of cold, silent,
frightful despair froze it in his young veins in an instant. His heart
was still the impressible heart of youth; and, struck for the first time
in his life with emotions of horror and remorse, he advanced a step to
offer such explanation and atonement as he best might, when the voice of
Ulpius suspended his intentions, and made him pause to listen.

'She passed me in the hall,' muttered the Pagan, doggedly. 'I did my
part in betraying her into your power--it was for you to hinder her in
her flight. Why did you not strike him to the earth,' he continued,
pointing with a mocking smile to Numerian, 'when he surprised you? You
are wealthy and a noble of Rome; murder would have been no crime in
you!'

'Stand back!' cried the senator, thrusting him from the position he had
hitherto occupied in the door-way. 'She may be recovered even yet! All
Rome shall be searched for her!'

The next instant he disappeared from the room, and the master and
servant were left together alone.

The silence that now reigned in the apartment was broken by distant
sounds of uproar and confusion in the streets of the city beneath.
These ominous noises had arisen with the dawn of day, but the different
emotions of the occupants of Numerian's abode had so engrossed them,
that the turmoil in the outer world had passed unheeded by all. No
sooner, however, had Vetranio departed than it caught the attention of
Ulpius, and he advanced to the window. What he there saw and heard was
of no ordinary importance, for it at once fixed him to the spot where he
stood in mute and ungovernable surprise.

While Ulpius was occupied at the window, Numerian had staggered to the
side of the bed which his ill-timed severity had made vacant, perhaps
for ever. The power of action, the capacity to go forth and seek his
child himself, was entirely suspended in the agony of her loss, as the
miserable man fell on his knees, and in the anguish of his heart
endeavoured to find solace in prayer. In the positions they severally
occupied the servant and the master long remained--the betrayer watching
at the window, the betrayed mourning at his lost daughter's bed--both
alike silent, both alike unconscious of the lapse of time.

At length, apparently unaware at first that he was not alone in the
room, Numerian spoke. In his low, broken, tremulous accents, none of
his adherents would have recognised the voice of the eloquent preacher--
the bold chastiser of the vices of the Church. The whole nature of the
man--moral, intellectual, physical--seemed fatally and completely
changed.

'She was innocent, she was innocent!' he whispered to himself. 'And
even had she been guilty, was it for me to drive her from my doors! My
part, like my Redeemer's, was to teach repentance, and to show mercy!
Accursed be the pride and anger that drove justice and patience from my
heart, when I beheld her, as I thought, submitting herself without a
struggle or a cry, to my dishonour, and hers! Could I not have imagined
her terror, could I not have remembered her purity? Alas, my beloved,
if I myself have been the dupe of the wicked, what marvel is it that you
should have been betrayed as well! And I have driven you from me, you,
from whose mouth no word of anger ever dropped! I have thrust you from
my bosom, you, who were the adornment of my age! My death approaches,
and you will not be by to pardon my heavy offence, to close my weary
eyes, to mourn by my solitary tomb! God--oh God! If I am left thus
lonely on the earth, thou hast punished me beyond what I can bear!'

He paused--his emotions for the instant bereft him of speech. After an
interval, he muttered to himself in a low, moaning voice--'I called her
harlot! My pure, innocent child! I called her harlot--I called her
harlot!'


In a paroxysm of despair, he started up and looked distractedly around
him. Ulpius still stood motionless at the window. At the sight of the
ruthless Pagan he trembled in every limb. All those infirmities of age
that had been hitherto spared him, seemed to overwhelm him in an
instant. He feebly advanced to his betrayer's side, and addressed him
thus:--

'I have lodged you, taught you, cared for you; I have never intruded on
your secrets, never doubted your word, and for all this, you have repaid
me by plotting against my daughter and deceiving me! If your end was to
harm me by assailing my child's happiness and honour you have succeeded!
If you would banish me from Rome, if you would plunge me into obscurity,
to serve some mysterious ambition of your own, you may dispose of me as
you will! I bow before the terrible power of your treachery! I will
renounce whatever you command, if you will restore me to my child! I am
helpless and miserable; I have neither heart nor strength to seek her
myself! You, who know all things and can dare all dangers, may restore
her to pardon and bless me, if you will! Remember, whoever you really
are, that you were once helpless and alone, and that you are still old,
like me! Remember that I have promised to abandon to you whatever you
desire! Remember that no woman's voice can cheer me, no woman's heart
feel for me, now that I am old and lonely, but my daughter's! I have
guessed from the words of the nobleman whom you serve, what are the
designs you cherish and the faith you profess; I will neither betray the
one nor assault the other! I thought that my labours for the Church
were more to me than anything on earth, but now, that through my fault,
my daughter is driven from her father's roof, I know that she is dearer
to me than the greatest of my designs; I must gain her pardon; I must
win back her affection before I die! You are powerful and can recover
her! Ulpius! Ulpius!'

As he spoke, the Christian knelt at the Pagan's feet. It was terrible
to see the man of affection and integrity thus humbled before the man of
heartlessness and crime.

Ulpius turned to behold him, then without a word he raised him from the
ground, and thrusting him to the window, pointed with flashing eyes to
the wide view without.

The sun had arisen high in the heaven and beamed in dazzling brilliancy
over Rome and the suburbs. A vague, fearful, mysterious desolation
seemed to have suddenly overwhelmed the whole range of dwellings beyond
the walls. No sounds rose from the gardens, no population idled in the
streets. The ramparts on the other hand were crowded at every visible
point with people of all ranks, and the distant squares and
amphitheatres of the city itself, swarmed like ant-hills to the eye with
the crowds that struggled within them. Confused cries and strange wild
noises rose at all points from these masses of human beings. The whole
of Rome seemed the prey of a vast and universal revolt.

Extraordinary and affrighting as was the scene at the moment when he
beheld it, it passed unheeded before the eyes of the scarce conscious
father. He was blind to all sights but his daughter's form, deaf to all
sounds but her voice; and he murmured as he looked vacantly forth upon
the wild view before him, 'Where is my child!--where is my child!'

'What is your child to me? What are the fortunes of affections of man
or woman, at such an hour as this?' cried the Pagan, as he stood by
Numerian, with features horribly animated by the emotions of fierce
delight and triumph that were raging within him at the prospect he
beheld. 'Dotard, look from this window! Listen to those voices! The
gods whom I serve, the god whom you and your worship would fain have
destroyed, have risen to avenge themselves at last! Behold those
suburbs, they are left desolate! Hear those cries--they are from Roman
lips! While your household's puny troubles have run their course, this
city of apostates has been doomed! In the world's annals this morning
will never be forgotten! THE GOTHS ARE AT THE GATES OF ROME!'


CHAPTER 8. THE GOTHS.


It was no false rumour that had driven the populace of the suburbs to
fly to the security of the city walls. It was no ill-founded cry of
terror that struck the ear of Ulpius, as he stood at Numerian's window.
The name of Rome had really lost its pristine terrors; the walls of
Rome, those walls which had morally guarded the Empire by their renown,
as they had actually guarded its capital by their strength, were
deprived at length of their ancient inviolability. An army of
barbarians had indeed penetrated for conquest and for vengeance to the
City of the World! The achievement which the invasions of six hundred
years had hitherto attempted in vain, was now accomplished, and
accomplished by the men whose forefathers had once fled like hunted
beasts to their native fastnesses, before the legions of the
Caesars--'The Goths were at the gates of Rome!'

And now, as his warriors encamped around him, as he saw the arrayed
hosts whom his summons had gathered together, and his energy led on,
threatening at their doors the corrupt senate who had deceived, and the
boastful populace who had despised him, what emotions stirred within the
heart of Alaric! As the words of martial command fell from his lips,
and his eyes watched the movements of the multitudes around him, what
exalted aspirations, what daring resolves, grew and strengthened in the
mind of the man who was the pioneer of that mighty revolution, which
swept from one quarter of the world the sway, the civilisation, the very
life and spirit of centuries of ancient rule! High thoughts gathered
fast in his mind; a daring ambition expanded within him--the ambition,
not of the barbarian plunderer, but of the avenger who had come to
punish; not of the warrior who combated for combat's sake, but of the
hero who was vowed to conquer and to sway. From the far-distant days
when Odin was driven from his territories by the romans, to the night
polluted by the massacre of the hostages in Aquileia, the hour of just
and terrible retribution for Gothic wrongs had been delayed through the
weary lapse of years, and the warning convulsion of bitter strifes, to
approach at last under him. He looked on the towering walls before him,
the only invader since Hannibal by whom they had been beheld; and he
felt as he looked, that his new aspirations did not deceive him, that
his dreams of dominion were brightening into proud reality, that his
destiny was gloriously linked with the overthrow of Imperial Rome!

But even in the moment of approaching triumph, the leader of the Goths
was still wily in purpose and moderate in action. His impatient
warriors waited but the word to commence the assault, to pillage the
city, and to slaughter the inhabitants; but he withheld it. Scarcely
had the army halted before the gates of Rome, when the news was
promulgated among their ranks, that Alaric, for purposes of his own, had
determined to reduce the city by a blockade.

The numbers of his forces, increased during his march by the accession
of thirty thousand auxiliaries, were now divided into battalions,
varying in strength according to the service that was required of them.
These divisions stretched round the city walls, and though occupying
separate posts, and devoted to separate duties, were so arranged as to
be capable of uniting at a signal in any numbers, on any given point.
Each body of men was commanded by a tried and veteran warrior, in whose
fidelity Alaric could place the most implicit trust, and to whom he
committed the duty of enforcing the strictest military discipline that
had ever prevailed among the Gothic ranks. Before each of the twelve
principal gates a separate encampment was raised. Multitudes watched the
navigation of the Tiber in every possible direction, with untiring
vigilance; and not one of the ordinary inlets to Rome, however
apparently unimportant, was overlooked. By these means, every mode of
communication between the beleaguered city and the wide and fertile
tracts of land around it, was effectually prevented. When it is
remembered that this elaborate plan of blockade was enforced against a
place containing, at the lowest possible computation, twelve hundred
thousand inhabitants, destitute of magazines for food within its walls,
dependent for supplies on its regular contributions from the country
without, governed by an irresolute senate, and defended by an enervated
army, the horrors that now impended over the besieged Romans are as
easily imagined as described.


Among the ranks of the army that now surrounded the doomed city, the
division appointed to guard the Pincian Gate will be found, at this
juncture, most worthy of the reader's attention: for one of the
warriors appointed to its subordinate command was the young chieftain
Hermanric, who had been accompanied by Goisvintha through all the toils
and dangers of the march, since the time when we left him at the Italian
Alps.

The watch had been set, the tents had been pitched, the defences had
been raised on the portion of ground selected to occupy every possible
approach to the Pincian Gate, as Hermanric retired to await by
Goisvintha's side, whatever further commands he might yet be entrusted
with, by his superiors in the Gothic camp. The spot occupied by the
young warrior's simple tent was on a slight eminence, apart from the
positions chosen by his comrades, eastward of the city gate, and
overlooking at some distance the deserted gardens of the suburbs, and
the stately palaces of the Pincian Hill. Behind his temporary dwelling
was the open country, reduced to a fertile solitude by the flight of its
terrified inhabitants; and at each side lay one unvarying prospect of
military strength and preparation, stretching out its animated confusion
of soldiers, tents, and engines of warfare, as far as the sight could
reach. It was now evening. The walls of Rome, enshrouded in a rising
mist, showed dim and majestic to the eyes of the Goths. The noises in
the beleaguered city softened and deepened, seeming to be muffled in the
growing darkness of the autumn night, and becoming less and less audible
as the vigilant besiegers listened to them from their respective posts.
One by one, lights broke wildly forth at irregular distances, in the
Gothic camp. Harshly and fitfully the shrill call of the signal
trumpets rang from rank to rank; and through the dim thick air rose, in
the intervals of the more important noises, the clash of heavy hammers
and the shout of martial command. Wherever the preparations for the
blockade were still incomplete, neither the approach of night nor the
pretext of weariness were suffered for an instant to hinder their
continued progress. Alaric's indomitable will conquered every obstacle
of nature, and every deficiency of man. Darkness had no obscurity that
forced him to repose, and lassitude no eloquence that lured him to
delay.

In no part of the army had the commands of the Gothic king been so
quickly and intelligently executed, as in that appointed to watch the
Pincian Gate. The interview of Hermanric and Goisvintha in the young
chieftain's tent, was, consequently, uninterrupted for a considerable
space of time by any fresh mandate from the head-quarters of the camp.

In outward appearance, both the brother and sister had undergone a
change remarkable enough to be visible, even by the uncertain light of
the torch which now shone on them as they stood together at the door of
the tent. The features of Goisvintha--which at the period when we first
beheld her on the shores of the mountain lake, retained, in spite of her
poignant sufferings, much of the lofty and imposing beauty that had been
their natural characteristic in her happier days--now preserved not the
slightest traces of their former attractions. Its freshness had
withered from her complexion, its fulness had departed from her form.
Her eyes had contracted an unvarying sinister expression of malignant
despair, and her manner had become sullen, repulsive, and distrustful.
This alteration in her outward aspect, was but the result of a more
perilous change in the disposition of her heart. The death of her last
child at the very moment when her flight had successfully directed her
to the protection of her people, had affected her more fatally than all
the losses she had previously sustained. The difficulties and dangers
that she had encountered in saving her offspring from the massacre; the
dismal certainty that the child was the only one, out of all the former
objects of her affection, left to her to love; the wild sense of triumph
that she experienced in remembering, that in this single instance her
solitary efforts had thwarted the savage treachery of the Court of Rome,
had inspired her with feelings of devotion towards the last of her
household which almost bordered on insanity. And, now that her beloved
charge, her innocent victim, her future warrior, had, after all her
struggles for his preservation, pined and died; now that she was
childless indeed; now that Roman cruelty had won its end in spite of all
her patience, all her courage, all her endurance; every noble feeling
within her sunk, annihilated at the shock. Her sorrow took the fatal
form which irretrievable destroys, in women, all the softer and better
emotions;--it changed to the despair that asks no sympathy, to the grief
that holds no communion with tears.

Less elevated in intellect and less susceptible in disposition, the
change to sullenness of expression and abruptness of manner now visible
in Hermanric, resulted rather from his constant contemplation of
Goisvintha's gloomy despair, tan from any actual revolution in his own
character. In truth, however many might be the points of outward
resemblance now discernible between the brother and sister, the
difference in degree of their moral positions, implied of itself the
difference in degree of the inward sorrow of each. Whatever the trials
and afflictions that might assail him, Hermanric possessed the healthful
elasticity of youth and the martial occupations of manhood to support
them. Goisvintha could repose on neither. With no employment but
bitter remembrance to engage her thoughts, with no kindly aspiration,
no soothing hope to fill her heart, she was abandoned irrevocably to the
influence of unpartaken sorrow and vindictive despair.

Both the woman and the warrior stood together in silence for some time.
At length, without taking his eyes from the dusky, irregular mass before
him, which was all that night now left visible of the ill-fated city,
Hermanric addressed Goisvintha thus:--

'Have you no words of triumph, as you look on the ramparts that your
people have fought for generations to behold at their mercy, as we now
behold them? Can a woman of the Goths be silent when she stands before
the city of Rome?'

'I came hither to behold Rome pillaged, and Romans slaughtered; what is
Rome blockaded to me?' replied Goisvintha fiercely. 'The treasures
within that city will buy its safety from our King, as soon as the
tremblers on the ramparts gain heart enough to penetrate a Gothic camp.
Where is the vengeance that you promised me among those distant palaces?
Do I behold you carrying that destruction through the dwellings of Rome,
which the soldiers of yonder city carried through the dwellings of the
Goths? Is it for plunder or for glory that the army is here? I
thought, in my woman's delusion, that it was for revenge!'