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Marcus: The Young Centurion, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 8. That Great Man |
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_ CHAPTER EIGHT. THAT GREAT MAN For a few moments there was utter silence, Cracis looking as if stunned, and a slight colour beginning to appear in the visitor's pallid cheeks as he stood gazing at Marcus' father, waiting for him to speak, while Cracis after catching his son's wrist and snatching him back, and without taking his eyes from their visitor, found words at last to speak. "Are you mad, boy?" he exclaimed, hoarsely. "Do you know who this is?" "No, father," cried the boy, passionately, "only that he is a man who has dared to speak ill of you." "Ah!" said Cracis, slowly, and with his face softening, as he pressed the boy's arm; and then, in a voice full of dignity and pride: "May I ask why Caius Julius has condescended to visit my humble home?" "I have come as a friend, Cracis," was the reply. "To continue your old enmity, and in mine absence revile me to my son?" "Revile? Nonsense!" cried his visitor. "It was by accident. I came, and found you away, and reviled you?--no! I was but speaking to try your brave and spirited boy. I never for a moment thought that he would fire up as he did with all his father's spirit and readiness to resent a wrong." "Indeed?" said Cracis, coldly. "Indeed," replied the visitor. "Only a few minutes ago I was telling your boy how that once we were the greatest of friends. Did I not?" he said quickly, turning to Marcus. "Yes, father, that is right," cried Marcus. "He praised you very highly at first, and said he was your friend." "My friend!" said Cracis, bitterly. "My greatest enemy, he meant." "I was, Cracis, in the past. In my ignorance and pride it was only after we had parted that I learned all that I had lost in my separation from my bravest colleague, my truest and wisest counsellor." "And now," said Cracis, coldly, "you have found out the truth and have tracked me to my home to accuse me with some base invention to my son." "Believe me, no!" cried Julius, warmly, and he held out his hand. "Cracis, after much thought and battling with my pride, the pride that has come with the position to which I have climbed, I have mastered self so as to come humbly to my oldest and best friend." "Why?" said Cracis. "Because you are the only man I know whose counsel I can respect, and in whom I could fully trust." "My greatest enemy comes to me to utter words like these, in the presence of my son?" "Yes, and I am proud that he should hear them, so that he may fully understand that, when I spoke to him lightly as I did, it was but to test him, to try his spirit, to see whether he was fully worthy to bear his great father's name." Cracis was silent for a few moments, gazing searchingly into his visitor's eyes, which met his frankly and without blenching. "Is this the truth?" said Cracis, sternly. "The simple truth. Cracis, we were great friends once, and later the greatest enemies; but in all those troubles of the past did we ever doubt each other's words?" "Never," said Cracis, proudly. "But there is a reason for all this-- something more than a late repentance for the injuries you have done me in the years that have gone. I ask you again--why have you come?" "For our country's sake. I have climbed high since we parted, but only to stand more and more alone, till now, perhaps at the most critical period of my life, I have been forced to look around me for help, for a man in whom I can place implicit trust, who will give me his counsel in the State, and stand beside me in the perils that lie ahead. Cracis, there is only one man in whom I could trust like that, one only who would bare his sword and fight bravely by my side, and you are he." Cracis was silent as he shook his head slowly and turned his eyes away from his visitor, to let them rest upon his son's upturned face, as the boy gazed at him in wonder and astonishment at what he heard. "You do not believe me," cried Julius. "You think that something is underlying all this," and he spoke with deep earnestness, his voice broken and changed. "Yes," said Cracis; "I cannot do otherwise. I do believe you--every word." "Then why do you speak so coldly and calmly, when I come to you penitent, to humble myself to you and ask your help?" "I speak coldly like this," said Cracis, "because I am fighting hard to beat down the feelings of pride and triumph that the time has come when he who drove me from my high position in Rome has sought me out to make so brave and manly an appeal, for, knowing you as I do to the very core, I can feel the battle that you must have had with self before you stooped--you, great general as you are--to come and tell me that you need my help." "Stooped!" cried the other. "No, Cracis, that is an ill-chosen word. It is that I have mastered self and cast away all pride and weakness so that I might come to you and say: 'For the sake of the old times, help me in this bitter pass, so fraught with peril as it is'; and say, 'I forgive the bygones, and be to me as my brother once again.'" Cracis was silent, and stood drawing his son closer to him so that he could rest his arm upon the boy's shoulder, while his visitor stood before him with his white robe gathered up so as to leave free his extended arm. For a few minutes neither spoke, and from the garden there came loud and clear the joyous trilling of the birds. "You do not take my hand," said Caius Julius, passionately. "No, not yet," said Cracis; "but do not mistake me. There is no bitterness or pride left in my breast. That died out years ago. I am only thinking." "Ha!" cried his visitor, with a sigh of relief, "and forgetting the courtesy due to a long-estranged friend." "Caius Julius, sit down. You are welcome to my simple, humble home. Marcus, my boy, you can believe that all our visitor said was to try his old friend's son to see of what metal he was made. He is a man who, for years past, has found the necessity of testing those he would have to trust, of placing them in the balance to try their worthiness and weight. Boy, we are honoured to-day by the presence of Rome's greatest son, your father's oldest friend, then his greatest enemy, and now, in the fulness of time, his brother once again." As he spoke he took a step forward with extended hands, which the future conqueror of the world clasped at once in his own, and once more there was silence in the room. A minute later Cracis drew back and motioned to his son, who, earnest and alert, stepped forward, to find himself clasped to their visitor's breast, before he was released, to draw back wondering whether he liked or hated this man of whose prowess he had heard so much, and stood gazing at him wonderingly, as Julius, the Caesar yet to be, sank back, quivering with emotion, in the nearest seat. A few minutes later Marcus stood trying to catch his father's eye, for he too had sunk into a chair and sat back gazing away through the open window at the sunlit hills. At last he turned his eye upon his son and read the question in his speaking face. "Yes, boy," he said, "you may leave us now. My old friend has much to say, and I too have much to think. Go and see that proper preparations are made for our guest. You will honour us--No," he continued, with a pleasant smile, as he turned to his guest, "we are very simple here, but you will be welcome and stay here to-night." "Gladly," cried Julius, eagerly. "Believe me, I shall be proud, for I have gained my ends." "Not yet," said Cracis, gravely. "It means so much, and I must have the night to think. There, Marcus, boy, you know what should be done. Leave us for a while." The boy hurried away, to seek the servants, and then to make for Serge, but checked himself before he was half way to his old companion's room. "Not yet," he said. "How do I know that I ought to speak?" And he drew back with a feeling of relief on seeing that the old soldier was right away crossing one of the fields. "It would not have been right without speaking to my father first," thought Marcus. "I wonder what they are saying now?" _ |
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