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Napoleon during his stay of five days at Suez had been the guest of the consul’s father, and I was told that the divan in my apartment had been the bed of the great commander. There are two opinions as to the point at which the Israelites passed the Red Sea.
Doubtless, ere this time, the cutler had been summoned to the consul’s presence, and the chief magistrate of the Republic had learned that the murderer of his slave was the very person, whom he had bound himself by oaths, so strong that he shuddered at the very thought of them, to support and defend to the utmost. What was he then to do? how to proceed, since to recede appeared impossible?
"Let us follow the Consul, at a distance," he exclaimed, "my Bassus; for, as our Fulvius says, there is assuredly something afoot; and it may be that it shall be well for us to know it: Come, let us follow quickly." They hurried onward, as he proposed; and keeping some twenty or thirty paces in the rear of the Consul’s train, soon reached the foot of the street of Apollo.
The doors stood wide open; and on either hand the vestibule were arranged the lictors leaning upon their fasces, while the whole space of the great Corinthian hall within, lighted from above, and adorned with vast black pillars of Lucullean marble, was crowded with the white robes of the consul’s plebeian clients tendering their morning salutations; not unmixed with the crimson fringes and broad crimson facings of senatorial visitors.
At four o’clock the captain, two of my messmates and myself, left the ship, and in half an hour afterwards we reached the consul’s house, where we met an agreeable party, consisting of four English ladies and eight gentlemen. It was the month of June, and the weather was very warm, but it did not prevent us from seeing the town and visiting some of the nunneries.
His character is that of the high Spanish, and I may add Irish, school, for his grandfather was an Irishman, and died ennobled and a general officer in their service. His name is O’B.” This conversation brought us to the Consul’s residence. “Walk in,” said he, “and rest yourself.” After having conversed on the unprofitable service and risk of boating, he asked me if my purse wanted replenishing.
Consul’s secretary, if you do not immediately go to the Consul and acquaint him that I am waiting for him, I will go on board, and you will all be hanged by the sentence of a court-martial.” “Oh, sir, I shall be there in no time at all.
The consul’s dog weighed about a pound and a half and was known to the whole town as exhibited on the consular fore-arm in all places, at all hours, but mainly at the hour of the fashionable promenade on the Prado. But I felt my jest misplaced when Mills growled low in my ear: “They are all Yankees there.” I murmured a confused “Of course.”
Laying aside the roll, which he had still held open during that brief conversation, and laying aside with it his enthusiastic and passionate manner, the young man now stated, simply and briefly, the events of the past night, the discovery of the murdered slave, and the accident by which he had learned that he was the consul’s property; and in conclusion, laid the magnificently ornamented dagger which he had found, on the board before Cicero; observing, that the weapon might give a clue to poor Medon’s death.
After a little while, Arvina penetrated far enough through the crowd to command a view of the consul’s seat; and for a time he amused himself by watching his movements and manner toward each of his visitors, perhaps not altogether without reference to the conversation he had recently held with Catiline; and certainly not without a desire to observe if the tales he had heard of shameless bribery and corruption, as practiced by many of the great officers of the republic, had any confirmation in the conduct of Cicero.
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