Never had he known such tremours of cowardliness as on this ride over the hills.  He strained his eyes in every direction, and constantly imagined an enemy where there was none.  The brigands, as he found by inquiry of labouring peasants, had not even passed this way.  He would not halt, though the heat of the sun grew terrible.  At length, when exhaustion threatened men and beasts, they surmounted a ridge, issued from a forest of chestnut-trees, and all at once, but a little way below them, saw the gleam of the river Liris.

CHAPTER XX

THE ISLAND IN THE LIRIS

Not yet the ‘taciturnus amnis,’ which it becomes in the broad, seaward valley far below, the Liris at this point parts into two streams, enclosing a spacious island, and on either side of the island leaps with sound and foam, a river kindred to the mountains which feed its flood.  Between the two cataracts, linked to the river banks with great arched bridges, stood Marcian’s villa.  Never more than a modest country house, during the last fifty years an almost total neglect had made of the greater part an uninhabitable ruin.  A score of slaves and peasants looked after what remained of the dwelling and cultivated the land attached to it, garden, oliveyard, vineyard, partly on the island, partly beyond the river in the direction of Arpinum, which historic city, now but sparsely peopled, showed on the hillside a few miles away.  Excepting his house in Rome, this was all the property that Marcian possessed.  It was dear to him because of the memories of his childhood, and for another reason which sprang out of the depths of his being:  on the night after his mother’s death (he was then a boy much given to seeing visions) her spirit appeared to him, and foretold that he too should die in this house ‘at peace with God.’  This phrase, on which he had often brooded, Marcian understood to mean that he should reach old age; and it had long been his settled intention to found in the ruinous villa a little monastery, to which, when his work was over, he could retire to pass the close of life.  And now, as he rode down behind the carriage, he was striving to keep his thought fixed on this pious purpose.  He resolved that he would not long delay.  As soon as Veranilda was safe, he would go on foot, as a pilgrim, to the monastery at Casinum, which were but two or three days’ journey, and speak of his intention to the aged and most holy Benedict.  Thus fortified, he rode with bright visage down into the valley, and over the bridge, and so to his own gate.

The steward and the housekeeper, who were man and wife, speedily stood before him, and he bade them make ready with all expedition certain chambers long unoccupied, merely saying that a lady would for some days be his guest.  Whilst Sagaris guided the horsemen to the stables, and received them hospitably in the servants’ quarter, Marcian, using a more formal courtesy than hitherto, conducted his charge into the great hall, and begged her to be seated for a few minutes, until her room was prepared.  Seeing that fatigue scarce suffered her to reply, he at once withdrew, leaving her alone with her handmaiden.  And yet he had not beheld Veranilda’s face.