IN ECHO OF THE PURPLE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 304, 24 December 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

IN ECHO OF THE PURPLE.

By John J. A. Becket.

I All Rome has flocked to the Amphitheatre. The cordon oi: humauiij J which formed a d^trk border, like t. band of mourning, to the huge yellow ellipse, seethed with prickling I excitement. Gyonax, the Thracian, ! fine flower of the gladiatorial cohort and idol of the populace, was to meet ! death that clay on the hot sand, from which his prowess had hitherto plucked only victories. There was a flout in this to the countless pleleians for whom thi panes et Circeuses were the spice of life; It was rank injustice to pit a gladiator who had proved equal to great odds against a force that would overwhelm any one man. The rumour ran that he was to be slaughtered because he was a Christian! I'oor cause, forsooth. Eclepol! One Christian more counted little, but one such gladiator less was far too much. imperial policy should hare shut its eye, not in clemency to Gyonax, but in consideration for the Human people. Lusting for the blood-steeped thrills of the. Amphitheatre, they brooked it ill to feed their' arch-purveyor to a famished beast. Some in power liad insisted on the Thracian's death. .Not the emperor. It was the sixth week of Marcus Aurelius's absence in a distant province. His stately consort was lending" her splendid presence to the imperial box in perfunctory sanction of the empire's blotting-out of a gladiator who had dared antagonise the. state. Such was the leaven of crude resentment that fermented the Roman masses. Patricians of the court circle regarded one another askance, looking what, it behooved then not to utter. This stalwart Thracian was .one to (ire a woman's heart. Lowly born, a barbarian, whose single boast was marvellous skill at arms and superhuman strength, he was instinct with that refinement Katui'e gives her own. No statue of Hellas had more exquisite proportions, and the severe, clear beauty of a god shone in his visage. 'By jove! if 1 were Hercules I would rather hold Oraphale's distaff than be a meal for beasts,' murmured a senator in the ear of a poet dear to the. court. "Mehercle. yes,' sneered the other. 'And Hercules was no films terrae, while Omphale was not wife of an emp ' A quick, warning glance checked the daring speech. Even the soft air was traitorous.

An what was passing in the heart and brain of the imperial mistress of the world? She had never looked tht1 empress more than now. as she reclined in languid disdain on her "•olden couch. Her snow-white tunica, of wool diaphanously line, lay beneath voluminous folds of a palla of palesi amethystine hue, a.s if even the. imperial purple must not bear heavily on her cherished body. Around her throat was clasped a broad necklace, from which depended scows of perfect, pear-shaped pearls. Kyimi in

tlic blue shadow of tin 1 siparium stretched above the box tin* bandeaux of her huir gleamed like buniished metal. In The cold, contained Fact". which art had stained with the hues of lily and of rose, gleamed the velvety softness of her eyes, twin fires which nature fed. They were fixed on that marvel of manhood in the arena, awaiting—what ? Tin 1 empress knew —not he.

For in her husband's absence she had not only decreed the death of Gyonax; she had arranged its every detaill The gladiator knew he was there to die for the crime of Christianity, but the manner of his undoing had in nowise been made known to him. Nor did he care. It was enough that through allegiance to his real Captain he was about, to cast off the garment of his glorious flesh. His noble face hetraved no emotion. Mis one weapon of defence was a short two-edged sword. The spectacle opened well. The first animal sent forth wns an enormous wild boar. Despite the ferocity of the creature, its poieine suggestiveness made it seem a iiurlesque appetizer for worthier things to come. If the exit of Gyonax Avas not fitly marked, then 'twas a twofold flout j for the people. As it was, the upper tiers, packed with the lowest grades of the -Roman world .were stirred to derisive but complacent, merriment. The bristling boar was an artistically devised touch.

1-Snt the fierce marauder of the woods, charged with savage wrath, had no mean opinion of himself nor fear of the imposing man rooted there to be gored to death by his savage tusks. Gyonax stood like a stone, his eye steadily fixed on the piggish brute, in its shambling rush towards him. Then, one quick step aside, a flashing arc of light, and his sword foil like a thunderbolt on the boar's thick neck, just back of the ears. With head half-sundered from its sloping shoulders. Hie creature stumbled forward in a heap, gave one or two spasmodic twitches and died.

The people settled back in easy content. That Gyonax should kill the boar was of course, bur a superb touch in his manner of doing it was also to be looked for. Fitter things Than this must have been decreed for his mighty arm. With keen delight they saw the sword taken From him and its place supplied by a short dagger, the blade scarce six inches in length, while the polished haft hardly permitted his brawny hand to grasp it.

lOvory eye was riveted on the low, dark gates of iron through which the beasts were let into the arena. What would be pitted against a man, overpowering indeed, but with only a

|. lay thing of steel in his hand that a He man matron would have used without a thought upon a blundering slave?

The 1 thin, strident croak of the gate keyed the throng- to greater tension. As the impeding bars were lifted, a magnificent African lion slipped swiftly forth and stopped suddenly blinking in the dazzling" glare of sunlight. The multitude applauded this seemly contestant, lashing the sand with his twitching tail. his great head lifted as he waited till his yellow eye* should focus into vision. For ten days the brute had been deprived of food. Just, before tliey had thrust him forth from his dark, cramped cage into the wide stretch of the arena a calf had been slaughtered in front of him, that the reek of its blood might madden him by its smoking pungency.

Lashing", his gaunt sides with sullen airy, the lion suddenly raised his head and uttered a roar. He had descried Gyonax standing there with the bit or steel twinkling in his vice-like grasp. With another rendine- <■«<»' ne fcounded towards the gladittcr, his ribs defined against his tawny hide as be stretched his body in eagerness for his prey. Ah, this was sport for Romans!

He was within a few yards of the gladiator. The vast throng craned forward as one man. Even the empress sat half-erect, absorbing the spectacle with straining eyes.

Gyonax was bent like a runner awaiting the signal to start, his left leg advanced, his right hand clutching the dagger close to his thigh. A muffied 'Ah!' broke from the crowd. The lion had made his spring.

As the beast launched himself in the air, quick as thought the gigantic gladiator fell upon his right knee, the corded right arm arove upward am.1 was held firm as iron, as he crouched low. Jt was his one chance. Vet the dagger, even i!i not dasshed from his fingers, might glance fruitlessly from a bone.

;i.}-.3i the thrust was a goodly one. liy Its own tremendous impetus the lion was carried onward while the stiff point of steel ripped open its belly. Almost before the spectators realised it the Thracian had risen and stood erect beside the stricken beast at his side, whose life was going,- out in ever-shortening* gasps. .Rome howled its Euges of satisfaction. No matter what their hope, the odds had been in favour of the lion; yet Gyonax had won. There was a moment of eontente 1 relaxation. The victorious gladiator had drawn one long- .deep breath, as his face resumed its dignified, masterful repose. This was a gala day indeed. One excitement trod upon the heels of another. A low. strange murmur, d fferent in character from any which the throng had yet breathed, rose from the long rows. What was happening? What novel surprise had a subtle brain invented now. Was the Thracian to have something sprung upon him without an instant's warning—with not a moment of preparation? The thought may have occurred to the stalwart victim, for with instinctive alertness he swept the arena with a searching glance. A groan that seemed to rend his soul burst from the heroic warrior, who up to this had shown no more emotion than the oldest of the Vestals. Running with short, eager steps

over the sand was a smiling boy, some eight years old. His fair hair blew back from his smooth tpnples, while his one loose garment, girt, in at the waist, floated behind him as he sped fearlessly towards Gyo^ax. Jt was his only child, who, singularly delicate offspring of a. Herculean sire, had inherited his father's soul.

The gladiator ran towards the boy to snatch him to the safety of his sheltering arms. He had dropped his dagger at the feet of the dying lion. Unmindful of the myriad eyes that amusedly looked upon this droll phase of the man of iron, Gyonox pressed the child with a mother's tenderness to his swelling chest, kissing again and again the young check, lightly, reverently, his stern, da.kface against that childish fair one. What ..iellborn cruelty had sent this innocent into that baleful arena, with its marks of conflict, its stench of death? Could no lesser dcvilishnese placate even the goading pride of an outraged empress?

What could he do? To whom appeal? To the Vestals, capricious arbiters of life or death in the arena? No! To her, the empress to her, a mother: to her —who had not scorned to let: him know her love. Holding tho boy high on his left arm, Gyonax strode in front of the imperial box. With a melodious voice, his lustrous eyes raised to her with pathetic dignity and entreaty, he said: 'Will not the empress of the world grant to the lowest of her subjects, soon to die to give her pleasure, that this, my little boy. may be removed From here? He is weakly. He will never have my strength, yet will he be the one earthly .i°. v of his mother's heart when Gyonax is dead.'

His gaze, wiih all his great soul's force in the pleading eyes, was-bent unwaveringly upon the set face above him. Yet in hi« intense simplicity, his

last appeal was ill-advised. What cared she, wife of an emperor and sharer of his throne, for a gladiator's vulgar mate, or their puny offspring? A moment, with unbending- mien, she endured that tender, virile .pleadinoof his eyes while his mellow tones vibrated in her ears. Then she turned her superbly'poised head indolently, while the silvery -learn leaping from pearl to pearl of her i.ecklaee made it seem a white serpent pulsing in amorbus iridescence over the throbbing throat to which it clunr;. She spoke a few careless words to the official, bent low to catch them; then brought the quivering, leaping light in her eyes to bear once more on the strong suppliant.

The official saia: 'The divine empress deigns to grant you this choice. You shall keep the boy and meet what may be sent against you with a dagger for your defence. Or, the boyshall be removed, but you meet the beasts with nothing but your naked bands. Her divinity waits to hear what Gyonax will choose.'

'Remove the boy and 1 will meet in any fashion whatever may be sent against me,' replied the gladiator, eagerly, without an instant's hesitation. 'Then take him to the exit and I will | send word that they release him,' commanded the official. Gyonax bowed low before the empress, and as he raised his head a look of gratitude flashed from his soulful eyes to her half-veiled ones. With free, firm steps he traversed the arena, breathing into his son's ear last messages of love for him and his mothei\ The little fellow's arms were clasped about his father's massive neck; he could not take his wistful eyes from the compelling sweetness of his father's face. But he choked back his sobs manfully. With pitiful awe be pressed his young lips to Gyonax's mouth, softened now by an ineffably winning smile. The soldier at the gate took him brusquely, the barrier clanged, and the doomed gladiator was shut in once more, alone. Calmly the Christian walked b;rck to his post. With simple dignity iue surrendered his dagger, and waited. For the third time the discordant grille sounded on the sultry air. A. gaunt panther, jet black/ slouched forth. She, too. had been starved to emaciation, but her huge frame and quivering ferocity made her more terrible to look upon than the lion. .The ivoment she saw her victim she begun. to approach him, her belly almost rubbing the sand, so crouehhigly end she prepare, even from the start, for her spring. Ihe multitude excitedly glanced from beast to man. Quick conjectures wfeie uttered as to the issue. M;ould he rend her limbs- asunder? Thrust his arm down her hot gullet'? Or grapple with the supple-jointed Thing, force her upon her back, and c'riibli her ribs with the pressure, of his knees? To look at. Gyonax made any of these thing's seem possible. After one glance at the panther when she first appeared, the gladiator had

drawn himself to his full height, as if the instincts of a fighter were keying; him up to this desperate disparity 6t conflict. Then he raised, his eyes to the pure sky and. forgot her. But that other panther, white, superb and palpitant with fierce emotions, couched on her throne of gold? Had she slipped his mind?

To the bewilderment of the breathless thousands who had anticipated every move but this, with that same uplifted gaze of rapt intensity, he sank upon his knees, stretching' out his arms laterally.

The panther slipped swiftly on, like a short, thick snake, her supple form writhing with intensifying passion towards that motionless figure. She is near him now. A.stifling stillness falls on the quick-breathing spectators. She bunches herself. Her claws grip the yellow sand. For one tense moment she gathers her force. Ah! She has hurled herself upon him, her claws shooting from their sheaths, her white teeth flashing in her horrible bared gums. The gladiator went down like a child before that terrific onset, his arms still firmly outstretched. Gripping with teeth and claws, she settled on his rugged chest, glutting her furious thirst, like vampire, on the draught from a martyr's veins. 'Like flower made harvest to a maiden's thumb,' yawned the poet, quoting Ma.ro, satirically. That other panther, softly swathed in royal folds and fine linen, had not moved once her fascinated eyes from the spectacle. But a- hand-screen of bird's plumage was shattered under the pressure of her tapering fingers, and the dim violet of her veins-deep-ened into purple beneath her transparent skin: The people rose, stretched themselves and streamed out, well satisfied. The games were over. They had lost Gvona.x. But, unwitting they,

Christ had gained a saint and an empress, ier revenge. After the sun had set on the vast, empty Amphitheatre that evening small" groups of men, women and children stole as secretly as if they were thieves down into a dim, hushed crypt o f the catacombs. There they approached with humble exaltation the body of a stalwart man stretched in front of the altar. A clean linen sheet covered the great form, except the face. What a startling look of peace it, wore! At break of day the Christian mysteries would be offered over the relies of Lhis newest-born of the saints.

All who drew near the bier kneeled and humbly kissed the great hands at rest forever. Then, modestly laving- back the snowy sheet, they touched the red gashes scoring the broad chest with their kerchieves, that they might be stained with the hallowed Wood.

Only one or two beside a priest and deacon were in that sacred burrow in the earth when a woman, whose supple elegance was not concealed, by the black garment which swathed her entire form and was brought well forward over the head, slowly advanced. She drew back the linen covering and stood regarding the exquisite clay1. There was something quelling- ; n that majesty of death.

The whole frame of the woman rippled with sudden emotion. Impulsively ihe bent and pressed her mouth in one burning kiss on a deep furrow above the still heart. Then she raised herself with a tremulous inhalation, and drew her lips, the upper, then the nether, in upon her tongue and sucked them clean. It was the same blood that had slaked the panther's rabid thirst that afternoon in the arena. In that moment something befell the woman more momentous than the overthrow of an empire, more divine than the creation of a world. Quicker than the lightning's flash, and infinitely more illuminating, it swept her to a height of knowledge of which she had never dreamed. The virginal impulse of her regenerate being was to press her handker- " chief to that savage furrow above the heart. She withdrew it. a stripe of blood marking its dainty texture, glorious memento of one become kinsman of her soul. Drawing her cloak about her form and face, she tremblingly withdrew from the crypt. Sweet, scalding tears were streaming down her cheeks; tears such as never before had coursed over the painted face of the empress. Years after the panther had drained the life-blood of Gyonax the Thracian in the Roman Amphitheatre, the sun was sinking behind the rugged marge of a region of Cappadocia, near Mount Taurus. A spot of awful barrenness. with its chaos of gaunt rocks, sterile earth, and sparse, stunted growths. Tno sky was the only tench of pure, beautiful colour in the scene. A damp, gloomy cave, with floor of rook, opened above a spring which bubbied up in icily cool freshness, bedewing with its moisture the. cresses that greenly veneered its sides. A narrow ledge in the cave offered natural support for a rude wooden cross, a vellum roll of the New Testament in Greek, and a worn, white kerchief on which, like a Rubric, was a dim bar of red. On a scroll fastened to a crevice in the rock were printed in artlesscharacters names of dead Christians, men and women. .The first was that of Gyonax. ***••■■ On some dried boughs, thinly strewn on the floor of the cave, sat a gauntwoman, propped ' against the humid wall of rock, her glazing eyes turned towards the west. The heavens.were a vault of gold against which the savage earth was more pitilessly relieved. The woman's face was drawn and white. Only in her dim, expectant, patient eyes was there trace of beauty. She was clothed in ' a rough robe of brown woollen, bound at her slender waist with a. knotted rope. Her hair, a dull-bronze mass, fell unkempt about her thin shoulders. Every moment the fluttering breath seen.cd* to have ceased, as she lay there alone, neglected, hoping, her eyes fastened on the golden heaven. At last, •with supreme effort, the haggard Mps whispered faintly, word by word: 'Saint —Gyonax—pray —for—me!' It was the hour when, in kindlier spots of the earth, fragrant blossoms of garden and of forest are kissed 'good-night' by the twilight, breeze and sink gratefully into dewy slumber. In that same hour, after unmurmuring waiting, with the name of one who had died for Christ upon her lips, so long ago sanctified by the touch of his'blood, she who had been consort of a Caesar, 'slept in the Lord.' The burning- g-lory of the sky waned through tones of fading- gold into the purest blue. The chill, sad moon, soaring in lonely splendour, poised in brcodins- awe above the still form. Silence Embraced silence, and the silver light that touched the waste was as the finger of night pressed upon the lips of earth. Before the woman had j sunk into the slumber of those dear to God the stark solitude was a drain upon the heart. Now, from that outworn 'temple of the Holy Ghost' some | balmy enhalation chastened the inor-1 dant rancor of the bitter desert into a i mysterious solace of enfolding- peace. . A little, and round the jagged edge; of rocks loomed in jet-black silhouette athwart the milky azure of the sky a j velvet-footed thing, weird incarnation, as it were, of that brutal fastness. It stepd a moment, without the flicker of an eyelid then, with measured, plastic tread, stalked to where the woman , lay. Again it paused; the head sank, ! and the long, rough tongue slowly ; licked, twice or thrice, the upturned j palm of the wasted hand. i Then with the same grave, soundless tread, the panther passed into the night. Faustina was alone with bod. i