THE ROBE (76 page)

When the rumour had drifted back to Capri that Marcellus had been
drowned, Demetrius knew it wasn't true, and comforted Diana with his reasons.
Marcellus had no cause to commit suicide. He had become aware of a new and
serious obligation. The story that Marcellus had drowned himself as the
Augusta
was rounding the promontory off Capua only a mile off shore, amused Demetrius,
so confident was he that his master had taken that favourable occasion to
disappear. Diana believed this too, but Demetrius had to reassure her again and
again when her loneliness was oppressive.

Their conversation became less formal as the days passed. Demetrius
would sit on the side steps of the pergola answering Diana's persistent questions
about their life in Athens, the House of Eupolis, Theodosia, and the escape
after the affair with Quintus, for whom she had a bitter contempt.

'Why don't you go back to Theodosia when you are free?' she asked one
day. 'Maybe she is waiting for you. Have you ever heard from her?'

Yes, Demetrius had written and he had heard from her, though not for a
long time. One could never tell what might happen. Yes, if he were free, and
Marcellus had no need of him, yes, he would go back to Athens.

The afternoons would pass quickly, Diana insatiable with her queries,
Demetrius telling his interminable stories of old Benyosef's shop, and
Stephanos, and the Galileans who came to talk in low voices about the
mysterious carpenter who had come alive to live evermore.

Diana would listen attentively as she bent over her small tapestries and
lace medallions. Demetrius's hands would be busy too, twisting and braiding
short lengths of hemp that he had picked up on the wharves, and splicing them
expertly into long, thick cords. Under the sea side of the pergola floor he had
secreted his supplies, much to Diana's amusement.

'You are like a squirrel, Demetrius,' she had remarked, teasingly. 'Why
do you hide your things, if they're worth nothing, as you say?' One day she
bent over his shoulder and watched him deftly working the twisted hempen cords
with his wooden awl. 'Why, you're making a rope!' she exclaimed. 'Whatever are
you doing that for?' Following it round to the corner of the pergola, she was
amazed to find a huge coil secreted. 'I think this is more than play!' she
declared, soberly.

'It keeps my hands employed,' replied Demetrius. 'You have your
tapestry. I have my rope.'

After his daily duties had been discharged, and he had seen Diana safely
to her suite, it was his custom to take long walks in the night. The sentries
on the grounds became acquainted with his strange nocturnal habits, and
attached no significance to them. Striding along the winding paths, pausing for
a leisurely chat with lonely guards, he would descend the long stairways to the
wharves where the boatmen and dock employees came to know him. Sometimes he
lent a hand for an hour of two, darning rents in a sailcloth, splicing ropes,
and caulking leaks with pitch and tow. Not infrequently, having urged Diana to
order more than she wanted for dinner, he would appear at the docks with
confections and other delicacies.

'You seem immensely fond of those men down there,' Diana had remarked;
and Demetrius had explained that they did not have many good things to eat; and,
besides, he enjoyed their friendship.

Every night when he left the docks he would carry off as large a bundle
of hemp as could be stowed under his tunic. Nobody cared. He was well liked and
could do as he pleased. Sometimes he would take one of the idle dories and row
up along the rocky rim of the island for an hour, explaining that he needed
exercise. The lazy boatmen thought him peculiar, but were willing to humour
him.

Early every morning, a freight barge went across to Puteoli to meet the
farmers and fruit-growers and butchers who came with their products for the
island. One night when Demetrius appeared at the wharf he found the dock hands
especially interested in his arrival. A large consignment of Arpino melons had
come over in the forenoon, and one of the melons--if he would believe it--had
been sent expressly to Demetrius. They gave it to him, and stood about,
wide-eyed with curiosity, as he opened the small, slatted box.

'Know somebody at Arpino?' they inquired.

'He's got a girl in Arpino!' guffawed a boatman.

Demetrius couldn't think of anyone who would be sending him a melon from
Arpino--or anywhere else. He turned it over slowly in his hand. On one side
there had been lightly scratched with a knife-point a small, crude drawing.

'Somebody's name, is it?' one asked. They all crowded in close to
contribute the flavour of garlic to this mystery.

'Probably just a joke,' muttered an old boatman, turning away. 'That
silly Umbrian that skippers the barge has been playing a little trick on you.'

Demetrius chuckled and said he'd get even; but he could hardly conceal
his excitement. It wasn't a bargeman's hoax. The scrawl on the melon was an
irregular, almost unrecognizable outline of a fish! So Marcellus was in the
melon business!

Next morning, as they sat chatting in the pergola, Demetrius asked Diana
if she had ever heard of Arpino melons, and she promptly remembered how much
they had liked them at home.

'Yesterday,' said Demetrius, 'when the freight barge came over from the
mainland with melons, there was one sent specially to me.' He rose and handed
it to her. Diana inspected it with interest.

'How odd! Do you know anyone there? What is this device? It looks like a
fish. Does it mean anything?'

'When the Christians in Judea and Galilee,' explained Demetrius,
sauntering back to his seat on the steps, 'wanted to inform one another of
their whereabouts, or the road they had taken, they drew a rough picture of a
fish, in the sand by the roadside, on a rock at a crossing, or over a doorway.
If two strangers met at a tavern table, and one of them wanted to know whether
the other was a Christian, he idly traced the figure of a fish with his
finger.'

'Why a fish?' inquired Diana.

'The Greek word for fish is made up of initials for the words which
mean, "Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour."'

'How interesting!' exclaimed Diana. 'But do you suppose there are any
Christians at Arpino?'

Demetrius looked into her eyes and smiled mysteriously.

'There is at least one Christian in Arpino,' he said, 'and I think we
both know who he is.'

'Marcellus!' whispered Diana, breathlessly.

This afternoon, all Capri had been excited over the arrival of young
Caligula. Demetrius had caught sight of him, kicking himself along at the side
of the Empress as they entered the Villa Jovis. An hour later, the island had
fairly rocked with the news that this repulsive youth would presently wear the
crown. Coupled with this shocking rumour came the report that the Emperor had
sunk into a deep coma from which his emergence was most unlikely.

Now that Tiberius was no longer to be reckoned with, and Julia's
insufferable grandson was all but on the throne, the Empress would be capable
of any atrocity that her caprice might suggest. She could even be vile enough,
thought Demetrius, to insist on Diana's showing favours to Caligula.

By the time twilight fell, that evening, there was a confirmation of
these forebodings. Diana had been invited to a quiet dinner with the Empress
and her now eminent grandson. Despite the fact that the Emperor was snoring the
end of his life away, young Caligula must have some pleasant diversion.

Reluctantly, Diana accepted the invitation, realizing that it was
nothing less than a command, Demetrius accompanying her to the Villa Dionysius,
where, for two anxious hours, he paced to and fro on the frescoed pavement,
waiting for her to reappear. When, at length, she came out through the
peristyle into the bright moonlight, it was evident from her manner that
something had happened. In an agitated voice she confided that the loathsome
Caligula had paid her such impudent attentions that even Julia had muttered a
stern word of caution.

'That settles it!' declared Demetrius, firmly. 'You can't stay here! I
am going to try to take you off the island--tonight!'

'But it's impossible, Demetrius!' she protested.

'We shall see. It will be dangerous. But it is worth trying.' Briefly he
instructed her what to do. Diana shuddered. 'You won't be afraid, will you?' he
demanded, searching her eyes.

'Yes!' she confessed. 'Of course I'll be afraid! I don't see how I can
do it! But--I'll try! I'd rather drown than have that slimy idiot put his hands
on me again.'

'Slip out of the Jovis, then, and go alone to your pergola, an hour
before midnight!'

Leaving Diana at her door, Demetrius set out on his usual nightly
excursion, going first to the pergola, where he dragged the long rope from its
hiding-place, secured one end to a small pine tree, and tossed the length of it
down the almost perpendicular precipice. For a moment he stood there looking
down over the face of the slightly slanting rock to the dashing surf far below,
and winced as he pictured Diana's sensations when she confronted this hazardous
adventure. Surely it would demand a great deal of courage. He wouldn't have
cared to do it himself.

Returning swiftly to his own quarters, he picked up the compact bundle
of clothing he had assembled for Diana--a stonemason's coarse smock and heavy
leggings, and a knitted cap such as the wharfmen wore.

Everywhere the inquisitive sentries detained him to chatter about the
amazing events of the day, and he was obliged to tarry. Time was precious, but
he must not arouse suspicion by an appearance of haste or stress. At the wharf
he unchained the best dory available, shipped the oars, waved a hand to the
boatmen, and made off slowly in the moonlight. As soon as it was discreet, he
began to lengthen his strokes. It was a long, hard pull around the eastern
point of the massive island. The waves grew suddenly rougher as he came out
into the wind of the open sea.

Demetrius's heart pounded fiercely. It was not only the gruelling
exertion, but his fear that Diana might be overtaken. On an ordinary occasion
it would have been next to impossible for her to go to her pergola so late at
night without being questioned. But nothing was quite normal on Capri tonight.
The Emperor was dying. Nobody's behaviour would be scrutinized. People would be
scurrying about on unfamiliar errands. Maybe Diana would have no trouble in
keeping her engagement; but, even if she were lucky enough to do that, it was a
perilous risk she still had to face.

At length he recognized, in the moonlight, the tall cliff and the
overhanging eaves of the pergola. Manoeuvring the heavy dory as close as he
dared to the foot of the towering rock, Demetrius strained his eyes toward the
summit. The boat was almost unmanageable in the insistent swells of a high
tide. The agonizing minutes dragged along, as he scanned the ledge a full
hundred and fifty feet above the waves.

Now his heart gave a great bound! A little way from the top, a grey-clad
figure began slipping down. Diana seemed very small and insecure. Demetrius
wished she would take it more slowly. He had cautioned her about that. She
would burn her hands; perhaps lose her grip. When a little more than halfway
down, she slipped several feet before checking herself by twining her legs more
tightly about the rope.

Demetrius's eyes widened at the amazing thing that was happening.
Diana's descent had slowed to a stop. Now she was actually moving up! He lifted
his eyes to the top of the cliff. Two figures on the ledge above were toiling
at the rope. Demetrius dropped the oars and funnelled his hands about his
mouth.

'Let go!' he shouted.

There was a tense moment of indecision in which Diana was tugged up another
foot.

'Jump, Diana!' called Demetrius.

The uncontrolled dory was carried broadside on a wave that almost dashed
it against the rock. Suddenly Diana leaped free of the rope and came hurtling
down into a huge comber. Its retreat swept her far out. For a long moment she
was not to be seen. Bending to his oars, Demetrius tugged the dory away from
the cliff, desperately searching the water. Now her head appeared on the curve
of a great swell. Diana was swimming. Demetrius pulled alongside and drew an arm
about her. She was badly frightened and her breath was coming in gasps and
sobs. He bent far over the side of the boat. Diana put her arms around his
neck, and he tugged her in over the rail. She crumpled up in a heap at his
feet, drenched and exhausted.

Demetrius dragged the cumbersome dory about, and began the laborious
trip around the curve of the island, keeping close in the shadow of the rock.
It was hard going. Sometimes they seemed to be making no progress at all.
Neither spoke until they were in the quiet water on the bay side. Thoroughly
spent, Demetrius pulled the dory into the dark mouth of a grotto, and sank down
with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

'You are a brave girl, Diana!' he said, huskily.

'I don't feel very brave,' she said, in a weak voice, 'but I am terribly
cold.'

'There is some dry clothing for you in the locker at the bow.' He took
her hand and steadied her as she climbed over his seat. 'Lift up the trap,' he
said, 'and you will find it.'

'Is this supposed to be a disguise?' she inquired, presently.

'No, it's intended to keep you warm.'

'Why didn't Acteus and that other guard shoot at me?' asked Diana.

'Because they might have hit you,' said Demetrius. 'You need not be
afraid of an arrow. Acteus was told to keep you on the island, not to harm you.
Did you know he was following you?'

'Not until I was almost at the pergola. I heard them behind me, and
recognized the voice of Acteus when he called. It was an awful feeling when I
found myself being drawn up.' Diana shuddered. 'It was hard to let go of that
rope.'