Upon his head he wore a casque of bronze, covered with studs of silver, and crested by two vast polished horns, the spoil of the fiercest animal of Europe's forests—the gigantic and indomitable Urus. A coat of mail, composed of bright steel rings interwoven in the Gaulish fashion, covered his body from the throat downward to the hips, leaving his strong arms bare to the shoulder, though they were decorated with so many chains, bracelets, and armlets, and broad rings of gold and silver, as would have gone far to protect them from a sword cut.

His legs were clothed, unlike those of any southern people, in tightly-sitting pantaloons—braccae, as they were called—of gaily variegated tartans, precisely similar to the trews of the Scottish Highlander—a much more ancient part of the costume, by the way, than the kilt, or short petticoat, now generally worn—and these trews, as well as the streaming plaid, which he wore belted gracefully about his shoulders, shone resplendent with checkers of the brightest scarlet, azure, and emerald, and white, interspersed here and there with lines and squares of darker colors, giving relief and harmony to the general effect.

A belt of leather, studded with bosses and knobs of coral and polished mountain pebbles, girded his waist, and supported a large purse of some rich fur, with a formidable dirk at the right side, and, at the left, suspended by gilt chains from the girdle, a long, straight, cutting broadsword, with a basket hilt—the genuine claymore, or great sword—to resist the sweep of which Marcellus had been fain, nearly five hundred years before, to double the strength of the Roman casque, and to add a fresh layer of wrought iron to the tough fabric of the Roman buckler.

This ponderous blade constituted, with the dagger, the whole of his offensive armature; but there was slung on his left shoulder a small round targe, of the hide of the mountain bull, bound at the rim, and studded massively with bronze, and having a steel pike projecting from the centre—in all respects the same instrument as that with which the clans received the British bayonet at Preston Pans and Falkirk.

The charger of this gallantly-attired chief was bedecked, like his rider, with all the martial trappings of the day; his bridle, mounted with bits of ponderous Spanish fabric, was covered with bosses gemmed with amber and unwrought coral; his housings, of variegated plaid, were elaborately fringed with embroideries of gold; and his rich scarlet poitrel was decked, in the true taste of the western savage, with tufts of human hair, every tuft indicating a warrior slain, and a hostile head embalmed in the coffers of the valiant rider.

"See, Julia, see," whispered Arvina, as he passed slowly by their chariot, "that must be one of their great chiefs, and a man of extraordinary prowess. Look at the horns of the mighty Urus on his helmet, a brute fiercer, and well nigh as large as a Numidian elephant. He must have slain it, single-handed in the forest, else had he not presumed to wear its trophies, which belong only to the greatest of their champions. For every stud of silver on his casque of bronze he must have fought in a pitched battle; and for each tuft of hair upon his charger's poitrel he must have slain a foe in hand-to-hand encounter. There are eighteen tufts on this side, and, I warrant me, as many on the other. Doubtless, he has already stricken down thirty-six foemen."

"And he numbers not himself as yet so many years! Ye Gods! what monsters," exclaimed Julia, shuddering at the idea of human hair used as a decoration. "Are they not anthropophagi, the Gauls, my Paullus?"

"No, by the Gods! Julia," answered Arvina, laughing; "but very valiant warriors, and hospitable beyond measure to those who visit their native mountains; admirers, too, of women, whom they regard as almost divine, beyond all things. I see that stout fellow looking wild admiration at you now, from his clear blue eyes, though he would fain be thought above the reach of wonder."

"Are they believers in the Gods, or Atheists, as well as barbarous?"

"By Jupiter! neither barbarous, to speak the truth, nor Atheists; they worship Mercury and Jove, Mars and Apollo, and Diana, as we do; and though their tongues be something wild, and their usages seem strange to us, it cannot be denied that they are a brave and noble race, and at this time good friends to the Roman people. Mark that old chieftain; he is the headman of the tribe, and leader of the embassy, I doubt not."

While he was speaking, a dozen other chiefs had ridden by, accompanied by the chiefs of the Roman escort, some men in the prime of life, some grizzled and weather-beaten, and having the trace of many a hard-fought field in the scars that defaced their sunburnt visages. But the last was an old man, with long silver hair, and eyebrows and mustachios white as the snow on his native Jura; the principal personage evidently of the band, for his casque was plated with gold, and his shirt of mail richly gilded, and the very plaid which he wore, alternately checked with scarlet, black, and gold.

He also, as he passed, turned his deep grey eye toward the little group on the green, and his face lightened up, as he surveyed the athletic form and vigorous proportions of the young patrician, and he leaned toward the officer, who rode beside him, a high crested tribune of the tenth legion, and enquired his name audibly.

The soldier, who had been nodding drowsily over his charger's neck, tired by the long and dusty ride, looked up half bewildered, for he had taken no note of the spectators, but as his eyes met those of Arvina, he smiled and waved his hand, for they were old companions, and he laughed as he gave the required information to the ancient warrior.

The gaze of the old man fell next on the lovely lineaments of Julia, and dwelt there so long that the girl lowered her eyes abashed; but, when she again raised them, supposing that he had passed by, she still met the firm, penetrating, quiet gaze, rivetted on her face, for he had turned half round in the saddle as he rode along.

A milder light came into his keen, hawk-like eye, and a benignant smile illuminated his gray weather-beaten features, as he surveyed and marked the ingenuous and artless beauty of her whole form and face; and he whispered into the tribune's ear something that made him too turn back, and wave his hand to Paul, and laugh merrily.

"Now, drive us homeward, Paullus," said Hortensia, as the cohort of infantry which closed the procession, marched steadily along, dusty and dark with sweat, yet proud in their magnificent array, and solid in their iron discipline. "Drive us homeward as quickly as you may. You will dine with us, and if you must need go early to your meeting, we will not hinder you."

"Gladly will I dine with you; but I must say farewell soon after the third hour!"

They soon arrived at the hospitable villa, and shortly afterward the pleasant and social meal was served. But Paul was not himself, though the lips he loved best poured forth their fluent music in his ear, and the eyes which he deemed the brightest, laughed on him in their speaking fondness.

Still he was sad, silent, and abstracted, and Julia marked it all; and when he rose to say farewell, just as the earliest shades of night were falling, she arose too; and as she accompanied him to the door, leaning familiarly on his arm, she said—

"You have not told me all, Paullus. I thought so while you were yet speaking; but now I am sure of it. I will not vex you at this time with questions, but will devour my anxiety and grief. But to-morrow, to-morrow, Paullus, if you love me indeed, you will tell me all that disturbs you. True love has no concealment from true love. Do not, I pray you, answer me; but fare you well, and good fortunes follow you."



CHAPTER IX.

THE AMBUSH.

My friends, That is not so. Sir, we are your enemies. TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

It was already near the fourth hour of the Roman night, or about a quarter past eight of our time, when Paullus issued from the Capuan gate, in order to keep his appointment with the conspirator; and bold as he was, and fearless under ordinary circumstances, it would be useless to deny that his heart beat fast and anxiously under his steel cuirass, as he strode rapidly along the Appian way to the place of meeting.

The sun had long since set, and the moon, which was in her last quarter, had not as yet risen; so that, although the skies were perfectly clear and cloudless, there was but little light by which to direct his foot-steps toward the valley of the Muses, had he not been already familiar with the way.

Stepping out rapidly, for he was fearful now of being too late at the place appointed, he soon passed the two branches of the beautiful and sparkling Almo, wherein the priests of Cybele were wont to lave the statue of their goddess, amid the din of brazen instruments and sacred song; and a little further on, arrived at the cross-road where the way to Ardea, in the Latin country, branched off to the right hand from the great Appian turnpike.

At this point there was a small temple sacred to Bacchus, and a little grove of elms and plane trees overrun with vines, on which the ripe clusters consecrated to the God were hanging yet, though the season of the vintage had elapsed, safe from the hand of passenger or truant school-boy.

Turning around the angle of this building, Arvina entered a dim lane, overshadowed by the tall trees of the grove, which wound over two or three little hillocks, and then sweeping downward to the three kindred streamlets, which form the sources of the Almo, followed their right bank up the valley of the Muses.

Had the mind of Arvina been less agitated than it was by dark and ominous forebodings, that walk had been a pleasant one, in the calm and breezeless evening. The stars were shining by thousands in the deep azure sky; the constant chirrup of the shrill-voiced cicala, not mute as yet, although his days of tuneful life were well nigh ended, rose cheerfully above the rippling murmurs of the waters, and the mysterious rustling of the herbage rejoicing to drink up the copious dew; and heard by fits and starts from the thick clumps of arbutus on the hills, or the thorn bushes on the water's brink, the liquid notes of the nightingale gushed out, charming the ear of darkness.

For the first half mile of his walk, the young patrician met several persons on the way—two or three pairs of lovers, as they seemed, of the lower orders, strolling affectionately homeward; a party of rural slaves returning from their labours on some suburban farm, to their master's house; and more than one loaded chariot; but beyond this all was lonely and silent, with the exception of the stream, the insects, and the vocal night-bird.

There was no sound or sight that would seem to indicate the vicinity of any human being, as Arvina, passing the mouth of a small gorge or hollow scooped out of the bosom of a soft green hill, paused at the arch of a low but richly ornamented grotto, hollowed out of the face of the rock, and supported by a vault of reticulated brick-work, decorated elegantly with reliefs of marble and rich stucco. The soft green mosses and dark tendrils of the waving ivy, which drooped down from the rock and curtained well nigh half the opening, rendered the grotto very dark within. And it was a moment or two before Paullus discovered that he was alone in that secluded place, or in the company only of the old marble god, who, reclining on a couch of the same material at the farther end of the cave, poured forth his bright waters from an inverted jar, into the clear cool basin which filled the centre of the place.

He was surprised not a little at finding himself the first at the place of meeting, for he was conscious that he was behind his time; and had, indeed, come somewhat late on purpose, with a view of taking his stand as if naturally during the interview, between the conspirator and the cave mouth.

It was not, however, altogether a matter of regret to him, that he had gained a little time, for the folds of his toga required some adjustment, in order to enable him to get readily at the hilt of his sword, and the mouth-piece of his hunting-horn, which he carried beneath his gown. And he applied himself to that purpose immediately, congratulating himself, as he did so, on the failure of his first project, and thinking how much better it would be for him to stand as far as possible from the entrance, so as to avoid even the few rays of dim star-light, which crept in through the tangled ivy.

This was soon done; and in accordance with his afterthought, he sat down on a projecting angle of the statue's marble couch, in the inmost corner of the vault, facing the door, and having the pool of the fountain interposed between that and himself.

For a few moments he sat thinking anxiously about the interview, which he believed, not without cause, was likely to prove embarrassing, at least, if not perilous. But, when he confessed to himself, which he was very soon compelled to do, that he could shape nothing of his own course, until he should hear what were the plans in which Catiline desired his cooperation; and when time fled and the man came not, his mind began to wander, and to think about twenty gay and pleasant subjects entirely disconnected with the purpose for which he had come thither. Then he fell gradually into a sort of waking dream, or vision, as it were, of wandering fancies, made up partly of the sounds which he actually heard with his outward ears, though his mind took but little note of them, and partly of the occurrences in which he had been mixed up, and the persons with whom he had been brought into contact within the last two or three days. The gory visage of the murdered slave, the sweet and calm expression of his own Julia, the truculent eyes and sneering lip of Catiline, and the veiled glance and voluptuous smile of his too seductive daughter, whirled still before him in a strange sort of human phantasmagoria, with the deep searching look of the consul orator, the wild glare of the slaughtered Volero, and the stern face, grand and proud in his last agony, of the dying Varus.

In this mood he had forgotten altogether where he was, and on what purpose, when a deep voice aroused him with a start, and though he had neither heard his footstep, nor seen him enter, Catiline stood beside his elbow.

"What ho!" he exclaimed, "Paullus, have I detained you long in this dark solitude."

"Nay, I know not how long," replied the other, "for I had fallen into strange thoughts, and forgotten altogether the lapse of time; but here have I been since the fourth hour."

"And it is now already past the fifth," said Cataline, "but come, we must make up for the loss of time. Some friends of mine are waiting for us, to whom I wish to introduce you, that you may become altogether one of us, and take the oaths of fidelity. Give me the dagger now, and let us be going on our way."

"I have it not with me, Catiline."

"Have it not with you! Wherefore not? wherefore not, I say, boy?" cried the conspirator, very savagely. "By all the furies in deep hell, you were better not dally with me."

"Because it is no longer in my possession; and therefore I could not bring it with me," he replied firmly, for the threats of the other only inflamed his pride, and so increased his natural courage.

"By the Gods, you brave me, then!" exclaimed Catiline; "fool! fool! beware how you tamper with your fate. Speak instantly, speak out: to whom have you dared give it?"

"There was no daring in the matter, Catiline," he answered steadily, keeping an eye on the arch-traitor's movements; "before I knew that it was yours, I sent it, as I had promised, to Cicero, with word that Volero could tell him who was the owner of it."

"Ha, didst thou so?" said the other, mastering instantly his fury, in his desire to make himself fully acquainted with all that had passed. "When was all this? has he seen Volero, and learned the secret of him, then?"

"I sent it, Catiline, within an hour of the time I left the Campus yesterday."

"Before coming to my house to dinner?"

"Before going to thy house to dinner, Sergius."

"Before seducing Lucia Orestilla?" again sneered the desperate villain.

"Before yielding," answered the young man, who was now growing angry, for his temper was not of the meekest, "to her irresistible seduction."

"Ha! yielding—well! we will speak of that hereafter. Hath the consul seen Volero?"

"He hath seen him dead; and how dead, Catiline best knoweth."

"It was, then, thou, whom I saw in the feeble lamplight with the accursed wretch that crosses my path everywhere, the dastard, drivelling dotard of Arpinum; thou that despite thine oath, didst lead him to detect the man, thou hadst sworn to obey, and follow! Thou! it is thou, then, that houndest mine enemies upon my track! By the great Gods, I know not whether most to marvel at the sublime, unrivalled folly, which could lead thee to fancy, that thou, a mere boy and tyro, couldst hoodwink eyes like mine; or at the daring which could prompt thee to rush headlong on thine own ruin in betraying me! Boy, thou hast but one course left; to join us heart and hand; to go and renew thine oath in such fashion as even thou, premeditated perjurer, wilt not presume to break, and then to seal thy faith by the blood"—

"Of whom?"

"Of this new man; this pendant consul of Arpinum."

"Aye!" exclaimed Paullus, as if half tempted to accede to his proposal; "and if I do so, what shall I gain thereby?"

"Lucia, I might say," answered Catiline, "but—seeing that possession damps something at all times the fierceness of pursuit—what if I should reply, the second place in Rome?"

"In Rome?"

"When we have beaten down the proud patricians to our feet, and raised the conquering ensign of democratic sway upon the ramparts of the capitol; when Rome and all that she contains of bright and beautiful, shall be our heritage and spoil; the second place, I say, in regenerated Rome, linked, too, to everlasting glory."

"And the first place?"

"By Mars the great avenger! dost soar so high a pitch already? ho! boy, the first is mine, by right, as by daring. How say you? are you mine?"

"If I say no!"

"Thou diest on the instant."

"I think not," replied Arvina quietly, "and I do answer No."

"Then perish, fool, in thy folly."

And leaping forward he dealt him a blow with a long two-edged dagger, which he had held in his hand naked, during the whole discussion, in readiness for the moment he anticipated; and at the same instant uttered a loud clear whistle.

To his astonishment the blade glanced off the breast of the young man, and his arm was stunned nearly to the shoulder by the unexpected resistance of the stout corslet. The whistle was answered, however, the very moment it was uttered; and just as he saw Paullus spring to the farther side of the cavern, and set his back against the wall, unsheathing a heavy broadsword of the short Roman fashion, three stout men entered the mouth of the cave, heavily armed with weapons of offence, although they wore no defensive armor.

"Give me a sword," shouted the fierce conspirator, furious at being foiled, and perceiving that his whole enterprise depended on the young man's destruction. "He is armed under his gown with a breast-plate! Give me a sword, and then set on him all at once. So that will do, now, on."

"Hold, Sergius Catiline," exclaimed Arvina, "hold, or by all the Gods you will repent it. If you have three men at your back I have full five times three within call."

"Call them, then!" answered the other, making at him, "call them! think you again to fool me? Ho, Geta and Arminius, get round the fountain and set on him! make haste I say—kill—kill."

And with the word he rushed at him, aiming a fierce blow at his head, while the others a moment afterward charged on him from the other side.

But during the brief parley Arvina had disengaged the folds of his gown from his light shoulder, and wrapped it closely about his left arm, and when Catiline rushed in he parried the blow with his sword, and raising the little horn he carried, to his lips, blew a long piercing call, which was answered by a loud shout close at hand, and by the rush of many feet without the grotto.

Catiline was himself astonished at the unexpected aid, for he had taken the words of the young patrician for a mere boast. But his men were alarmed and fell back in confusion, while Paul, profiting by their hesitation, sprang with a quick active bound across the basin of the fountain, and gained the cavern's mouth just as his stout freedman Thrasea showed himself in the entrance with a close casque and cuirass of bronze, and a boar spear in his hand, the heads and weapons of several other able-bodied men appearing close behind.

At the head of these Arvina placed himself instantly, having his late assailants hemmed in by a force, against which they now could not reasonably hope to struggle.

But Paullus showed no disposition to take undue advantage of his superiority, for he said in a calm steady voice, "I leave you now, my friend; and it will not be my fault, if aught that has passed here, is remembered any farther. None here have seen you, or know who you are; and you may rest assured that for her sake and mine own honor, if I join not your plans, I will not betray you, or reveal your counsels. To that I am sworn, and come what may, my oath shall not be broken."

"Tush," cried the other, maddened by disappointment, and filled with desperate apprehensions, "men trust not avowed traitors. Upon them, I say, you dogs. Let there be forty of them, but four can stand abreast in the entrance, and we can front them, four as good as they."

And he again dashed at Arvina, without waiting to see if his gladiators meant to second his attack; but they hung back, reluctant to fight against such odds; for, though brave men, and accustomed to risk their lives, without quarrel or excitement, for the gratification of the brute populace of Rome, they had come to the cave of Egeria, prepared for assassination, not for battle; and their antagonists were superior to them as much in accoutrement and arms—for their bronze head-pieces were seen distinctly glimmering in the rays of the rising moon—as in numbers.

The blades of the leaders clashed together, and several quick blows and parries had been interchanged, during which Thrasea, had he not been restrained by his young master's orders, might easily have stabbed the conspirator with his boar-spear. But he held back at first, waiting a fresh command, until seeing that none came, and that the unknown opponent was pressing his lord hard; while the gladiators, apparently encouraged by his apathy, were beginning to handle their weapons, he shifted his spear in his hands, and stepping back a pace, so as to give full scope to a sweeping blow, he flourished the butt, which was garnished with a heavy ball of metal, round his head in a figure of eight, and brought it down so heavily on the felt skull-cap of the conspirator, that his teeth jarred audibly together, a quick flash sprang across his eyes, and he fell, stunned and senseless, at the feet of his intended victim.

"Hold, Thrasea, hold," cried Paullus, "by the Gods! you have slain him."

"No, I have not. No! no! his head is too hard for that," answered the freedman; "I felt my staff rebound from the bone, which it would not have done, had the skull been fractured. No! he is not dead, though he deserved to die very richly."

"I am glad of it," replied Paullus. "I would not have him killed, for many reasons. Now, hark ye, ye scoundrels and gallows-birds! most justly are your lives forfeit, whether it seem good to me, to take them here this moment, or to drag you away, and hand you over to the lictors of the city-praetor, as common robbers and assassins."

"That you cannot do, whilst we live, most noble," answered the boldest of the gladiators, sullenly; "and you cannot, I think, take our lives, without leaving some of your own on our swords' points."

"Brave me not," cried the young man, sternly, "lest you drive me to do that I would not. Your lives, I say, are forfeit; but, seeing that I love not bloodshed, I leave you, for this time, unpunished. Take up the master whom you serve, and bear him home; and, when he shall be able to receive it, tell him Paullus Arvina pardons his madness, pities his fears, and betrays no man's trust—least of all his. For the rest, let him choose between enmity and friendship. I care not which it be. I can defend my own life, and assail none. Beware how you follow us. If you do, by all the Gods! you die. See, he begins to stir. Come, Thrasea, call off your men; we will go, ere he come to his senses, lest worse shall befal."

And with the words he turned his back contemptuously on the crest-fallen gladiators, and strode haughtily across the threshold, leaving the fierce conspirator, as he was beginning to recover his scattered senses, to the keen agony of conscious villainy frustrated, and the stings of defeated pride and disappointed malice.

The night was well advanced, when he reached his own house, having met no interruption on the way, proud of his well-planned stratagem, elated by success, and flattered by the hope that he had extricated himself by his own energy from all the perils which had of late appeared so dark and difficult to shun.



CHAPTER X.

THE WANTON.

Duri magno sed amore dolores Pollute, notumque furens quid femina possit. AEN. V. 6. VIRGIL.

It was not till a late hour on the following day, that Catiline awoke from the heavy and half lethargic slumber, which had fallen upon him after the severe and stunning blow he received in the grotto of Egeria.

His head ached fearfully, his tongue clove to his palate parched with fever, and all his muscular frame was disjointed and unstrung, so violently had his nerves been shattered.

For some time after he awoke, he lay tossing to and fro, on his painful couch, scarce conscious of his own identity, and utterly forgetful of the occurrences of the past evening.

By slow degrees, however, the truth began to dawn upon him, misty at first and confused, until he brought to his mind fairly the attack on Arvina, and the affray which ensued; with something of an indistinct consciousness that he had been stricken down, and frustrated in his murderous attempt.

As soon as the certainty of this was impressed on him, he sprang up from his bed, with his wonted impetuosity, and inquired vehemently of a freedman, who sat in his chamber motionless as a statue in expectation of his waking—

"How came I home, Chaerea? and at what hour of night?"

"Grievously wounded, Catiline; and supported in the arms of the sturdy Germans, Geta and Arminius; and, for the time, it was past the eighth hour."

"The eighth hour! impossible!" cried the conspirator; "why it was but the fifth, when that occurred. What said I, my good Chaerea? What said the Germans? Be they here now? Answer me quick, I pray you."

"There was but one word on your lips, Catiline; a constant cry for water, water, so long as you were awake; and after we had given you of it, as much as you would take, and you had fallen into a disturbed and feverish sleep, you still muttered in your dreams, 'water!' The Germans answered nothing, though all the household questioned them; and, in good truth, Catiline, it was not very long that they were capable of answering, for as soon as you were in bed, they called for wine, and in less than an hour were thoroughly besotted and asleep. They are here yet, I think, sleeping away the fumes of their potent flagons."

"Call me Arminius, hither. Hold! What is the time of day?"

"The sun is high already; it must be now near the fourth hour!"

"So late! you did ill, Chaerea, to let me lie so long. Call me Arminius hither; and send me one of the boys; or rather go yourself, Chaerea, and pray Cornelius Lentulus the Praetor, to visit me before he take his seat on the Puteal Libonis. It is his day, I think, to take cognizance of criminal matters. Begone, and do my bidding!"

Within a moment the Athenian freedman, for he was of that proud though fallen city, returned conducting the huge German gladiator, whose bewildered air and bloodshot eyes seemed to betoken that he had not as yet recovered fully from the effect of his last night's potations.

No finer contrast could be imagined by poet or painter, than was presented by those three men, each eminently striking in his own style, and characteristic of his nation. The tall spare military-looking Roman, with his hawk nose and eagle eye, and close shaved face and short black hair, his every attitude and look and gesture full of pride and dominion; the versatile and polished Greek, beautiful both in form and face, as a marble of Praxiteles, beaming with intellect, and having every feature eloquent of poetry and imagination, and something of contempt for the sterner and harder type of mind, to which he and his countryman were subjugated; and last, the wild strong-limbed yet stolid-looking German, glaring out with his bright blue eyes, full of a sort of stupid fierceness, from the long curls of his auburn hair, a type of man in his most primitive state, the hunter and the warrior of the forest, enslaved by Rome's insatiate ambition.

Catiline looked at him fiercely for a moment, and then nodded his head, as if in assent to some of his own meditations; then muttering to himself, "the boar! the mast-fed German boar!" he turned to the Greek, saying sharply—

"Art thou not gone to Lentulus? methought thou hadst been thither, and returned ere this time! Yet tarry, since thou art here still. Are any of my clients in the atrium—any, I mean, of the trustiest!"

"Rufinus, surnamed Lupus, is without, and several others. Stolo, whom you preserved from infamy, when accused of dolus malus, in the matter of assault with arms on Publius Natro, is waiting to solicit you, I fancy, for some favor."

"The very man—the Wolf is the very man! and your suitor for favors cannot refuse to confer what he requests. Stay my Chaerea. Send Glycon to summon Lentulus, and go yourself and find out what is Stolo's suit. Assure him of my friendship and support; and, hark you, have him and Rufinus into an inner chamber, and set bread before them and strong wine, and return to me presently. Now, then, Arminius," he continued, as the Greek left the room, "what did we do last night, and what befel us?—for I can remember nothing clearly."

The giant shook his tawny locks away from his brow, and gazed into his employer's face with a look of stolid inquiry, and then answered—

"Do! we did nothing, that I know! We followed thee as in duty bound to that cave by the Almo; and when we had stayed there awhile, we brought thee back again, seeing thou couldst not go alone. What can I tell? you know yourself why you took us thither."

"Thou stupid brute!" retorted Catiline, "or worse than brute, rather—for brutes augment not their brutishness by gluttony and wine-bibbing—thou art asleep yet! see if this will awaken thee!"

And with the word he snatched up a large brazen ewer full of cold water, which stood on a slab near him, and hurled it at his head. The gladiator stood quite still, and merely bent his neck a little to avoid the heavy vessel, which almost grazed his temples, and then shook himself like a water spaniel, as the contents flashed full into his face and eyes.

"Do not do that again," he grunted, "unless you want to have your throat squeezed."

"By Pollux the pugilist! he threatens!" exclaimed Catiline, laughing at his dogged anger. "Do you not know, cut-throat, that one word of mine can have your tough hide slashed with whips in the common gaol, till your very bones are bare?"

"And do you know what difference it makes, whether my hide be slashed with dog-whips in the gaol, or with broadswords in the amphitheatre? A man can only die! and it were as well, in my mind, to die having killed a Roman in his own house, as a countryman on the arena."

"By all the Gods!" cried Catiline, "he is a philosopher! but, look you here, my German Solon, you were better regard me, and attend to what I tell you; so may you escape both gaol and amphitheatre. Tell me, briefly, distinctly, and without delay, what fell out last evening."

"You led us to assault that younker, whom you know; and when we would have set upon him, and finished his business easily, he blew a hunting horn, and fifteen or sixteen stout fellows in full armor came down the bank from behind and shut up the cave's mouth—you know as well as I do."

"So far I do, most certainly," replied the conspirator, "but what then?"

"Why, then, thou wouldest not hear reason; but, though the youth swore he would not betray thee, must needs lay on, one man against sixteen; and so, as was like, gottest thine head broken by a blow of a boar-spear from a great double-handed Thracian. For my part, I wondered he did not put the spear-head through and through you. It was a great pity that he did not; it would have saved us all, and you especially, a world of trouble."

"And you, cowardly dogs, forsook me; and held back, when by a bold rush we might easily have slain him, and cut our way through the dastard slaves."

"No! no! we could not; they were all Thracians, Dacians, and Pannonians; and were completely armed, too. We might have killed him, very likely, but we could never have escaped ourselves."

"And he, he? what became of him when I had fallen?"

"He bade us take you up," replied the German, "and carry you home, and tell you 'to fear nothing, he would betray no man, least of all you.' He is a fine young fellow, in my judgment; for he might just as well have killed us all, as not, if he had been so minded; and I can't say but that it would have served us rightly, for taking odds of four to one upon a single man. That is, I know, what you Romans call fighting; beyond the Rhine we style it cowardly and murder! Then, after that he went off with his men, leaving us scratching our heads, and looking as dastardly and crest-fallen as could be. And then we brought you home hither, after it had got late enough to carry you through the streets, without making an uproar; and then Lydon and Chaerea put you to bed; and I, and Geta, and Ardaric, as for us, we got drunk, seeing there was no more work to do last night, and not knowing what might be to do, to-day. And so it is all well, very well, as I see it."

"Well, call you it, when he has got off unscathed, and lives to avenge himself, and betray me?"

"But he swore he would do neither, Catiline," answered the simple-minded son of the forest.

"Swore!" replied the conspirator, with a fell sneer.

"Ay did he, master! swore by all that was sacred he would never betray any man, and you least of all; and I believe he will keep his promise."

"So do I," answered Catiline, bitterly, "I swear he shall; not for the lack of will, but of means to do otherwise! You are a stupid brute, Arminius; but useful in your way. I have no need of you to-day, so go and tell the butler to give you wine enough to make all three of you drunk again; but mind that ye are sound, clear-headed, and alert at day-break to-morrow."

"But will he give it to me at my bidding?"

"If not, send him to me for orders; now, begone."

"I ask for nothing better," replied the gladiator, and withdrew, without any word or gesture of salutation, in truth, despising the Roman in his heart as deeply for what he deemed his over-craftiness and over-civilization, as the more polished Greek did, for what on his side he considered the utter absence of both.

Scarce had the German left the room, before the Greek returned, smiling, and seemingly well satisfied with the result of his mission.

Catiline looked at him steadily, and nodding his head, asked him quietly—

"Are they prepared, Chaerea?"

"To do anything you would have them, Catiline. Stolo, it seems, is again emperilled—another charge of attempt to murder—and he wants you to screen him."

"And so I will; and will do more. I will make him rich and great, if he do my bidding. Now go, and make them understand this. They must swear that they came hither this morning to claim my aid in bringing them to speech with Lentulus, the Praetor, and then thou must be prepared to swear, Chaerea, that I have had no speech or communication with them at all—which is quite true."

"That is a pity," answered the Greek, coolly; "for any one can swear steadily to the truth, but it requires genius to carry out a lie bravely."

"Oh! never fear, thou shalt have lies enough to swear to! Now mark me, when Lentulus comes hither, they must accuse to him Paullus Caecilius Arvina, whose person, if they know him not, you must describe to them—him who dined with me, you know, the day before yesterday—of subornation to commit murder. The place where he did so, the top of the Caelian hill. The time, sunrise on that same day. The person whom he desired them to slay, Volero the cutler, who dwelt in the Sacred Way. They must make up the tale their own way, but to these facts they must swear roundly. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly; they shall do it well, and both be in one tale. I will help them to concoct it, and dress it up with little truthful incidents that will tell. But are you sure that he cannot prove he was not there?"

"Quite sure, Chaerea. For he was there."

"And no witnesses who can prove to whom he spoke?"

"Only one witness, and he will say nothing, unless called upon by Paullus."

"And if so called upon?"

"Will most reluctantly corroborate the tale of Stolo and Rufinus!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed the freedman, "thou shouldst have been a Greek, Catiline, thou art too shrewd to be a mere Roman."

"A mere Roman, hang-dog!" answered Catiline, "but thou knowest thine opportunity, and profitest by it! so let it pass! Now as for thee, seeing thou dost love lying, thou shalt have thy part. Thou shalt swear that the night before that same morning, at a short time past midnight, thou wert returning by the Wicked street, from the house of Autronius upon the Quirinal, whither I sent thee to bid him to dinner the next day—he shall confirm the tale—when thou didst hear a cry of murder from the Plebeian graveyard on the Esquiline; and hurrying to the spot, didst see Arvina, with his freedman Thrasea bearing a torch, conceal a fresh bleeding body in a broken grave; and, hidden by the stem of a great tree thyself, didst hear him say, as he left the ground, 'That dog will tell no tales!' Thou must swear, likewise, that thou didst tell me the whole affair the next morning, and that I bade thee wait for farther proof ere speaking of the matter. And again, that we visited the spot where thou saw'st the deed, and found the grass trampled and bloody, but could not find the body. Canst thou do this, thinkest thou?"

"Surely I can," said the Athenian, rubbing his hands as if well pleased, "so that no one shalt doubt the truth of it! And thou wilt confirm the truth?"

"By chiding thee for speaking out of place. See that thou blurt it out abruptly, as if unable to keep silence any longer, as soon as the others have finished their tale. Begone and be speedy. Lentulus will be here anon!"

The freedman withdrew silently, and Catiline was left alone in communion with his own bad and bitter thoughts; and painful, as it seemed, and terrible, even to himself, was that communion, for he rose up from his seat and paced the room impetuously, to and fro, gnashing and grinding his teeth, and biting his lips till the blood sprang out.

After a while, however, he mastered his passions, and began to dress himself, which he did by fits and starts in a manner perfectly characteristic of the man, uttering hideous imprecations if the least thing ran counter to his wishes, and flinging the various articles of his attire about the chamber with almost frantic violence.

By the time he had finished dressing himself, Lentulus was announced, and entered with his dignified and haughty manner, not all unmixed with an air of indolence.

"All hail, my Sergius," he exclaimed, as he crossed the threshold. "What hast thou of so grave importance, that thou must intercept me on my way to the judgment seat? Nothing has gone wrong in our councils—ha?"

"Nothing that I know," answered Catiline, "but here are two of my trustiest clients, Stolo and Rufinus, have been these three hours waiting for my awakening, that I might gain your ear for them. They sent me word they had a very heavy charge to make to you; but for my part, I have not seen them, and know not what it is."

"Tush! tush! man; never tell me that," replied Lentulus, with a grim smile. "Do you think I will believe you have sent for me all the way hither this morning, without some object of your own to serve? No! no! my friend; with whomsoever that may pass, it will not go current with Cornelius Lentulus!"

"Just as you please," said the traitor; "you may believe me or not exactly as you choose; but it is true, nevertheless, that I have neither seen the men, nor spoken with them. Nor do I know at all what they want."

"I would, then, you had not sent for me," answered the other. "Come, let us have the knaves in. I suppose they have been robbing some one's hen-roost, and want to lay the blame on some one else!"

"What ho! Chaerea."

And as he spoke the word, the curtain which covered the door-way was withdrawn, and the keen-witted freedman made his appearance.

"Admit those fellows, Stolo and Rufinus. The praetor is prepared to give them a hearing."

It would have been difficult, perhaps, to have selected from the whole population of Rome at that day, a more murderous looking pair of scoundrels.

"Well, sirrahs, what secrets of the state have you that weigh so ponderously on your wise thoughts?" asked Lentulus, with a contemptuous sneer.

"Murder, most noble Lentulus—or at least subornation thereof," answered one of the ruffians.

"Most natural indeed! I should have thought as much. Well, tell us in a word—for it is clear that nobody has murdered either of you—whom have you murdered?"

"If we have murdered no one, it was not for the lack of prompting, or of bribes either."

"Indeed! I should have thought a moderate bribe would have arranged the matter easily. But come! come! to the point! whom were ye bribed or instigated to get rid of? speak! I am in haste!"

"The cutler, Caius Volero!"

"Volero! Ha!" cried Lentulus, starting. "Indeed! indeed! that may well be. By whom, then, were you urged to the deed, and when?"

"Paullus Caecilius Arvina tempted us to the deed, by the offer of ten thousand sesterces! We met him by appointment upon the Caelian hill, at the head of the Minervium, a little before sunrise, the day before yesterday."

"Ha!" and for a moment or two Lentulus fixed his eyes upon the ground, and pondered deeply on what he had just heard. "Have ye seen Volero since?"

"No, Praetor."

"Nor heard anything concerning him?"

"Nothing!" said Stolo. But he spoke with a confused air and in an undecided tone, which satisfied the judge that he was speaking falsely. Rufinus interposed, however, saying—

"But I have, noble Lentulus. I heard say that he was murdered in his own booth, that same night!"

"And having heard this, you told it not to Stolo?"

"I never thought about it any more," answered Rufinus doggedly, seeing that he had got into a scrape.

"That was unfortunate, and somewhat strange, too, seeing that you came hither together to speak about the very man. Now mark me. Volero was that night murdered, and it appears to me, that you are bringing this accusation against a young patrician, in order to conceal your own base handiwork in the deed. Fellows, I grievously suspect you."

"Wrongfully, then, you do so," answered Stolo, who was the bolder and more ready witted of the two. "Rufinus ever was a forgetful fool; and I trow I am not to be brought into blame for his folly."

"Well for you, if you be not brought into more than blame! Now, mark me well! can you prove where you were that night of the murder, excellent Stolo?"

"Ay! can I," answered the man boldly. "I was with stout Balatro, the fisherman, helping to mend his nets until the fourth hour, and all his boys were present, helping us. And then we went to a cookshop to get some supper in the ox forum, and thence at the sixth hour we passed across to Lydia's house in the Cyprian lane, and spent a merry hour or two carousing with her jolly girls. Will that satisfy you, Lentulus?"

"Ay, if it can be proved," returned the Praetor. "And you, Rufinus; can you also show your whereabout that evening?"

"I can," replied the fellow, "for I was sick abed; and that my wife can show, and Themison the druggist, who lives in the Sacred Way. For she went to get me an emetic at the third hour; and I was vomiting all night. A poor hand should I have made that night at murder."

"So far, then," replied Lentulus, "you have cleared yourselves from suspicion; but your charge on Arvina needs something more of confirmation, ere I dare cite a Patrician to plead to such a crime! Have you got witnesses? was any one in sight, when he spoke with you on the Minervium?"

"There was one; but I know not if he will choose to speak of it?"

"Who was it?" exclaimed Lentulus, growing a little anxious on the subject, for though he cared little enough about Arvina, he was yet unwilling to see a Patrician arraigned for so small a matter, as was in his eyes the murder of a mechanic.

"Why should he not speak? I warrant you I will find means to make him."

"It was my patron, Lentulus."

"Your patron! man!" he cried, much astonished. "What, Catiline, here?"

"Catiline it was! my Praetor."

"And have you consulted with him, ere you spoke with me?"

"Not so! most noble, for he would not admit us!"

"Speak, Sergius. Is this so? did you behold these fellows in deep converse with Caecilius Arvina, in the Minervium? But no! it must be folly! for what should you have been doing there at sunrise?"

"I prithee do not ask me, Lentulus," answered Catiline, with an air of well feigned reluctance. "I hate law suits and judicial inquiries, and I love young Arvina."

"Then you did see them? Nay! nay! you must speak out. I do adjure you, Catiline, by all the Gods! were you, at sunrise, on the Caelian, and did you see Arvina and these two?"

"I was, at sunrise, on the Caelian; and I did see them."

"And heard you what they said?"

"No! but their faces were grave and earnest; and they seemed angry as they separated."

"Ha! In itself only, this were a little thing; but when it turns out that the man was slain that same night, the thing grows serious. You, therefore, I shall detain here as witnesses, and partially suspected. Some of your slaves must guard them, Catiline, and I will send a lictor to cite Paullus, that he appear before me after the session at the Puteal Libonis. I am in haste. Farewell!"

"Me! me! hear me! good Lentulus—hear me!" exclaimed Chaerea, springing forward, all vehemence and eagerness to speak, as it would seem, ere he should be interrupted.

"Chaerea?" cried Catiline, looking sternly at him, and shaking his finger, "Remember!"

"No! no!" replied Chaerea—"no! no! I will not hold my peace! No! Catiline, you may kill me, if you choose, but I will speak; to keep this secret any longer would kill me, I tell you."

"If it do not, I will," answered his master, angrily.

"This must not be, my Sergius," interposed Lentulus, "let the man speak if he have any light to throw on this mysterious business. Say on, my good fellow, and I will be your mediator with your master."

The freedman needed no more exhortation, but poured out a flood of eager, anxious narrative, as had been preconcerted between himself and Catiline, speaking with so much vehemence, and displaying so much agitation in all his air and gestures, that he entirely imposed his story upon Lentulus; and that Catiline had much difficulty in restraining a smile at the skill of the Greek.

"Ha! it is very clear," said Lentulus, "he first slew the slave with his own hand, and then would have compassed—nay! I should rather say, has compassed—Volero's slaughter, who must some how or other have become privy to the deed. I must have these detained, and him arrested! There can be no doubt of his guilt, and the people will be, I think, disposed to make an example; there have of late been many cases of assassination!"

As soon as they were left alone, Lentulus looked steadily into the face of his fellow-conspirator for a moment, and then burst into a hoarse laugh.

"Why all this mummery, my Sergius?" he added, as soon as he had ceased from laughing, "Or wherefore would you have mystified me too?"

"I might have wished to see whether the evidence was like to seem valid to the Judices, from its effect upon the Praetor!" answered the other.

"And are you satisfied?"

"I am."

"You may be so, my Sergius, for, of a truth, until Chaerea swore as he did touching Medon, I was myself deceived."

"You believe, then, that this will be sufficient to secure his condemnation?"

"Beyond doubt. He will be interdicted fire and water, if these men stick to their oaths only. It would be well, perhaps, to convict one of Arvina's slaves of the actual death of Volero. That might be done easily enough, but there must be care taken, that you select one who shall not be able to prove any alibi. But wherefore are you so bent on destroying this youth, and by the law, too, which is ever both perilous and uncertain?"

"He knows too much, to live without endangering others."

"What knows he?"

"Who slew Medon—Who slew Volero—What we propose to do, ere long, in the Campus!" answered Catiline, steadily.

"By all the Gods?" cried Lentulus, turning very pale, and remaining silent for some moments. After which he said, with a thoughtful manner, "it would be better to get rid of him quietly."

"That has been tried too."

"Well?"

"It failed! He is now on his guard. He is brave, strong, wary. It cannot be done, save thus."

"He will denounce us. He will declare the whole, ere we can spring the mine beneath him."

"No! he will not; he dares not. He is bound by oaths which—"

"Oaths!" interrupted Lentulus, with a sneer, and in tones of contemptuous ridicule. "What are oaths? Did they ever bind you?"

"I do not recollect," answered Catiline; "perhaps they did, when I was a boy, and believed in Lemures and Lamia. But Paullus Arvina is not Lucius Catiline, nor yet Cornelius Lentulus; and I say that his oaths shall bind him, until—"

"And I say, they shall not!" A clear high voice interrupted him, coming, apparently, through the wall of the chamber.

Lentulus started—his very lips were white, and his frame shook with agitation, if it were not with fear.

Catiline grew pale likewise; but it was rage, not terror, that blanched his swarthy brow. He dashed his hand upon the table—

"Furies of Hell!"

While the words were yet trembling on his lips, the door was thrown violently open, the curtains which concealed it torn asunder, and, with her dark eyes gleaming a strange fire, and two hard crimson spots gleaming high up on her cheek bones—the hectic of fierce passion—her bosom throbbing, and her whole frame dilated with anger and excitement, young Lucia stood before them.

"And I say," she repeated, "that they shall not bind him! By all the Gods! I swear it! By my own love! my own dishonor! I swear that they shall not! Fool! fool! did you think to outwit me? To blind a woman, whose every fear and passion is an undying eye? Go to! go to! you shall not do it."

Audacious, as he was, the traitor was surprised, almost daunted; and while Lentulus, a little reassured, when he saw who was the interlocutor, gazed on him in unmitigated wonder, he faltered out, in tones strangely dissimilar to his accustomed accents of indomitable pride and decision—

"You mistake, girl; you have not heard aright, if you have heard at all; I would say, you are deceived, Lucia!"

"Then would you lie!" she answered, "for I am not deceived, though you would fain deceive me! Not heard? not heard?" she continued. "Think you the walls in the house of Catiline have no eyes nor ears?" using the very words which he had addressed to her lover; "Lucius Catiline! I know all!"

"You know all?" exclaimed Lentulus, aghast.

"And will prevent all!" replied the girl, firmly, "if you dare cross my purposes!"

"Dare! dare!" replied Catiline, who now, recovering from his momentary surprise, had regained all his natural haughtiness and vigor. "Who are you, wanton, that dare talk to us of daring?"

"Wanton!" replied the girl, turning fiery red. "Ay! But who made me the wanton that I am? Who fed my youthful passions? Who sapped my youthful principles? Who reared me in an atmosphere, whose very breath was luxury, voluptuousness, pollution, till every drop of my wholesome blood was turned to liquid flame? till every passion in my heart became a fettered earthquake? Fool! fool! you thought, in your impotence of crime, to make Lucia Orestilla your instrument, your slave! You have made her your mistress! You dreamed, in your insolence of fancied wisdom, that, like the hunter-cat of the Persian despots, so long as you fed the wanton's appetite, and basely pandered to her passions, she would leap hood-winked on the prey you pointed her. Thou fool! that hast not half read thy villain lesson! Thou shouldst have known that the very cat, thou thoughtest me, will turn and rend the huntsman if he dare rob her of her portion! I tell you, Lucius Catiline, you thought me a mere wanton! a mere sensual thing! a soulless animal voluptuary! Fool! I say, double fool! Look into thine own heart; remember what blood runs in these female veins! Man! Father! Vitiator! My spirit is not female! my blood, my passions, my contempt of peril, my will indomitable and immutable, are, like my mortal body, your begetting! My crimes, and my corruption, are your teaching! Beware then, as you know the heat of your own appetites, how you presume to hinder mine! Beware, as you know your own recklessness in doing and contempt in suffering, how you stir me, your child, to do and suffer likewise! Beware, as you know the extent of your own crimes, the depth of your own pollution, how you drive me, your pupil, to out-do her master! Beware! I say! beware! This man is mine. Harm but one hair upon his head, and you shall die, like a dog, with the dogs who snarl at your bidding, and your name perish with you. I have spoken!"

There needed not one tenth part of the wisdom, which the arch-traitor really possessed, to shew him how much he had miscalculated the range of his daughter's intellect; the fierce energies of her powerful but misdirected mind.

He felt, for a moment, as the daring archimage whose spells, too potent for their master's safety, have evoked and unchained a spirit that defies their guidance. But, like that archimage, conscious that all depends on the exertion of his wonted empire, he struggled hard to regain his lost authority.

"Girl," he replied, in those firm deep tones of grave authority, which he deemed the best calculated to control her excitement, "You are mad! Mad, and ungrateful; and like a frantic dog would turn and rend the hand that feeds you, for a shadow. I never thought of making you an instrument; fool indeed had I been, to think I could hoodwink such an intellect as yours! If I have striven to clear away the mists of prejudice from before your eyes, which, in your senseless anger, you now call corrupting you, it was because I saw in you a kindred spirit to mine own, capable to soar fearless and undazzled into the very noon of reason. If I have taught you to indulge your passions, opened a universe of pleasures to your ken, it was that I saw in you a woman of mind so manly, that all the weaknesses, which fools call affections, would be but powerless to warp it from its purpose. I would have made you"—

"The world's scorn!" she interrupted him, bitterly; but he went on, without noticing the interruption—

"The equal of myself in intellect, in energy, and wisdom; else how had you dared to brave me thus, whom never man yet braved and lived to boast of it! And now for a mere girlish fancy, a weak feminine caprice for a man, who cares not for you; who has betrayed you; who, idiot and inconsistent that he is, fresh from your fiery kisses, was whimpering within an hour at the feet of his cold Julia; who has, I doubt not, boasted of your favors, while he deplored his own infatuation, to her, his promised wife!—For a fond frivolous liking of a moment, you would forego gratification, rank, greatness, power, and vengeance! Is this just toward me, wise toward yourself? Is this like Lucia Orestilla? You would preserve a traitor who deserts you, nay, scorns you in his easy triumph! You would destroy all those who love you; you would destroy yourself, to make the traitor and his minion happy! Awake! awake, my Lucia, from this soft foolish fancy! Awake, and be yourself once more! Awake to wisdom, to ambition, to revenge!"

His words were spirited and fiery; but they struck on no kindred chord in the bosom of his daughter. On the contrary, the spark had faded from her eye and the flush from her cheek, and her looks were dispirited and downcast. But as he ceased, she raised her eye and met his piercing gaze firmly, and replied in a sorrowful yet resolute tone.

"Eloquent! aye! you are eloquent! Catiline, would I had never learned it to my cost; but it is too late now! it is all too late! for the rest, I am awake; and so far, at least, am wise, that I perceive the folly of the past, and decipher clearly the sophistry of your false teaching. As for the future, hope is dead, and ambition. Revenge, I seek not; if I did so, thou art there, on whom to wreak it; for saving thou, and myself only, none have wronged me. More words are needless. See that thou lay aside thy plans, and dare not to harm him, or her. He shall not betray thee or thine; for that will I be his surety and hostage! Injure them, by deed or by word, and, one and all, you perish! I ask no promise of you—promises bind you not!—but let fear bind you, for I promise you, and be sure that my plight will be kept!"

"Can this be Lucia Orestilla?" exclaimed Catiline, "this puling love-sick girl, this timorous, repentant—I had nearly called thee—maiden! Why, thou fool, what would'st thou with the man farther? Dost think to be his wife?"

"Wife!" cried the wretched girl, clasping her hands together, and looking piteously in her destroyer's face. "Wife! wife! and me!—alas! alas! that holy, that dear, honored name!—Never! never for me the sweet sacred rites! Never for me the pure chaste kiss, the seat by the happy hearth, the loving children at the knee, the proud approving smile of—Oh! ye gods! ye just gods!—a loved and loving husband!—Wife! wife!" she continued, lashing herself, as she proceeded, into fresh anger; "there is not in the gaols of Rome the slave so base as to call Lucia Orestilla wife! And wherefore, wherefore not?—Man! man! if that thou be a man, and not a demon, but for thee, and thy cursed teachings, I might have known all this—pure bliss, and conscious rectitude, and the respect and love of men. I might have been the happy bride of an honorable suitor, the cherished matron of a respected lord, the proud glad mother of children, that should not have blushed to be sprung from the wanton Lucia! Thou! it is thou, thou only that hast done all this!—And why, I say, why should I not revenge? Beware! tempt me no farther! Do my bidding! Thou slave, that thought'st but now to be the master, obey my bidding to the letter!" And she stamped her foot on the ground, with the imperious air of a despotic queen. And in truth, crest-fallen and heavy in spirit, were the proud men whom she so superbly threatened.

She gazed at them contemptuously for a moment, and then, shaking her fore finger menacingly, "I leave ye," she said, "I leave ye, but imagine not, that I read not your councils. Me, you cannot deceive. With yourselves only it remains to succeed or to perish. For if ye dare to disobey me, the gods themselves shall not preserve you from my vengeance!"

"I fear you not, my girl," cried Catiline, "for all that you are now mad with disappointment, and with anger. So you may go, and listen if you will," he added, pointing to the secret aperture concealed in the mouldings of the wall. "We shall not speak the less freely for your hearing us."

"There is no need to listen now," she answered, "for I know everything already."

"Every thing that we have said, Lucia."

"Everything that you will do, Sergius Catiline!"

"Aye?"

"Aye! and everything that I shall do, likewise!" and with the word she left the room.

"A perilous girl, by all the Gods!" said Lentulus, in Greek, as she disappeared. "Will she do as she threatens?"

"Tush!" replied Catiline in Latin, "she speaks Greek like an Athenian. I am not sure, however, that she could understand such jargon as that is. No! she will do none of that. She is the cleverest and best girl living, only a little passionate, for which I love her all the more dearly. No! she will do none of that. Because she will not be alive, to do it, this time to-morrow," he added, putting his mouth within half an inch of the ear of Lentulus, and speaking in the lowest whisper.

Lentulus, bold as he was and unscrupulous, started in horror at his words, and his lips were white as he faltered—"Your own daughter, Lucius!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed the fierce conspirator, aloud; "ha! ha! yes, she is my own daughter, in everything but beauty. She is the loveliest creature in all Rome! But we must yield, I suppose, to her wishes; the women rule us, after all is said, and I suppose I was alarmed needlessly. Doubtless Arvina will be silent. Come, I will walk with you so far on your way to the Forum. What ho! Chaerea, see that Rufinus and Stolo lack nothing. I will speak with them, when I return home; and hark you in your ear. Suffer not Lucia Orestilla to leave the house a moment; use force if it be needed; but it will not. Tell her it is my orders, and watch her very closely. Come, Lentulus, it is drawing toward noon."

They left the house without more words, and walked side by side in silence for some distance, when Catiline said in a low voice, "This is unpleasant, and may be dangerous. We must, however, trust to fortune till to-morrow, when my house shall be void of this pest. Then will we proceed, as we had proposed."

Lentulus looked at him doubtfully, and asked, with a quick shudder running through his limbs, as he spoke: "And will you really?—" and there he paused, unable to complete the question.

"Remove her?" added Catiline, completing the sentence which he had left unfinished, "Ay! will I. Just as I would a serpent from my path!"

"And that done, what is to follow?" Lentulus inquired, with an assumption of coolness, which in truth he did not feel.

"We will get rid of Arvina. And then, as it wants but four days of the elections, we may keep all things quiet till the time."

"Be it so!" answered the other. "When do we meet again to settle these things finally?"

"To-morrow, at the house of Laeca, at the sixth hour of night."

"Will all be there?"

"All the most faithful; until then, farewell!"

"Farewell."

And they parted; Lentulus hurrying to the Forum, to take his seat on the praetor's chair, and there preside in judgment—fit magistrate!—on men, the guiltiest of whom were pure as the spotless snow, when compared with his own conscious guilt; and Catiline to glide through dark streets, visiting discontented artizans, debauched mechanics, desperate gamblers, scattering dark and ambiguous promises, and stirring up that worthless rabble—who, with all to gain and nothing to lose by civil strife and tumult, abound in all great cities—to violence and thirst of blood.

Three or four hours at least he spent thus; and well satisfied with his progress, delighted by the increasing turbulence of the fierce and irresponsible democracy, and rejoicing in having gained many new and fitting converts to his creed, he returned homeward, ripe for fresh villainy. Chaerea met him on the threshold, with his face pale and haggard from excitement.

"Catiline," he exclaimed, "she had gone forth already, before you bade me watch her!"

"She!—Who, slave? who?" and knowing perfectly who was meant, yet hoping, in his desperation, that he heard not aright, he caught the freedman by the throat, and shook him furiously.

"Lucia Orestilla," faltered the trembling menial.

"And has not returned?" thundered the traitor.

"Catiline, no!"

"Liar! and fool!" cried the other, gnashing his teeth with rage, as he gave way to his ungovernable fury, and hurling him with all his might against the marble door-post.

The freedman fell, like a dead man, with the blood gushing from his nose and mouth; and Catiline, striding across the prostrate body, retired sullenly and slowly to muse on the disappointment of this his most atrocious project, in the darkness and solitude of his own private chamber whither none dared intrude unsummoned.



CHAPTER XI.

THE RELEASE.

And, for that right is right, to follow right Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence. TENNYSON. OENONE.

Paullus Arvina sat alone in a small chamber of his own house. Books were before him, his favorites; the authors, whose words struck chords the most kindred in his soul; but though his eye rested on the fair manuscripts, it was evident that his mind was absent. The slender preparations for the first Roman meal were displayed temptingly on a board, not far from his elbow; but they were all untouched. His hair was dishevelled; his face pale, either from watching or excitement; and his eye wild and haggard. He wore a loose morning gown of colored linen, and his bare feet were thrust carelessly into unmatched slippers.

It was past noon already; nor, though his favorite freedman Thrasea had warned him several times of the lateness of the hour, had he shewn the least willingness to exert himself, so far even as to dress his hair, or put on attire befitting the business of the day.

It could not but be seen, at a glance, that he was ill at ease; and in truth he was much perturbed by what had passed on the preceding night, and very anxious with regard to the future.

Nor was it without ample cause that he was restless and disturbed; within the last three days he had by his own instability of purpose, and vacillating tastes and temper brought himself down from as enviable a position as well can be imagined, to one as insecure, unfortunate, and perilous.

That he had made to himself in Catiline an enemy, as deadly, as persevering, as relentless as any man could have upon his track; an enemy against whom force and fraud would most likely be proved equally unavailing, he entertained no doubt. But brave as he was, and fearless, both by principle and practice, he cared less for this, even while he confessed to himself, that he must be on his guard now alway against both open violence and secret murder, than he did for the bitter feeling, that he was distrusted; that he had brought himself into suspicion and ill-odor with the great man, in whose eyes he would have given so much to stand fairly, and whose good-will, and good opinion, but two little days before, he flattered himself that he had conciliated by his manly conduct.

Again, when he thought of Julia, there was no balm to his heart, no unction to his wounded conscience! What if she knew not, nor suspected anything of his disloyalty, did not he know it, feel it in every nerve? Did he not read tacit reproaches in every beam of her deep tranquil eye? Did he not fancy some allusion to it, in every tone of her low sweet voice? Did he not tremble at every air of heaven, lest it should waft the rumor of his infidelity to the chaste ears of her, whom alone he loved and honored? Did he not know that one whisper of that disgraceful truth would break off, and forever, the dear hopes, on which all his future happiness depended? And was it not most possible, most probable, that any moment might reveal to her the fatal tidings?—The rage of Catiline, frustrated in his foul designs, the revengeful jealousy of Lucia, the vigilance of the distrustful consul, might each or all at any moment bring to light that which he would have given all but life to bury in oblivion.

For a long time he had sat musing deeply on the perils of his false position, but though he had taxed every energy, and strained every faculty to devise some means by which to extricate himself from the toils, into which he had so blindly rushed, he could think of no scheme, resolve upon no course of action, which should set him at liberty, as he had been before his unlucky interview with the conspirator.

At times he dreamed of casting himself at the feet of Cicero, and confessing to that great and generous statesman all his temptations, all his trials, all his errors; of linking himself heart and soul with the determined patriots, who were prepared to live or die with the constitution, and the liberties of the republic; but the oath!—the awful imprecation, by which he had bound himself, by which he had devoted all that he loved to the Infernal Gods, recurred to his mind, and shook it with an earth-quake's power. And he, the bold free thinker, the daring and unflinching soldier, bound hand and foot by a silly superstition, trembled—aye, trembled, and confessed to his secret soul that there was one thing which he ought to do, yet dared not!

Anon, maddened by the apparent hopelessness of ever being able to recur to the straight road; of ever more regaining his own self-esteem, or the respect of virtuous citizens—forced, as he seemed to be, to play a neutral part—the meanest of all parts—in the impending struggle—of ever gaining eminence or fame under the banners of the commonwealth; he dreamed of giving himself up, as fate appeared to have given him already up, to the designs of Catiline! He pictured to himself rank, station, power, wealth, to be won under the ensigns of revolt; and asked himself, as many a self-deluded slave of passion has asked himself before, if eminence, however won, be not glory; if success in the world's eyes be not fame, and rectitude and excellence.

But patriotism, the old Roman virtue, clear and undying in the hardest and most corrupt hearts, roused itself in him to do battle with the juggling fiends tempting him to his ruin; and whenever patriotism half-defeated appeared to yield the ground, the image of his Julia—his Julia, never to be won by any indirection, never to be deceived by any sophistry, never to be deluded into smiling for one moment on a traitor—rose clear and palpable before him and the mists were dispersed instantly, and the foes of his better judgment scattered to the winds and routed.

Thus wavering, he sat, infirm of purpose, ungoverned—whence indeed all his errors—by any principle or unity of action; when suddenly the sound of a faint and hesitating knock of the bronze ring on the outer door reached his ear. The chamber, which he occupied, was far removed from the vestibule, divided from it by the whole length of the atrium, and fauces; yet so still was the interior of the house, and so inordinately sharpened was his sense of hearing by anxiety and apprehension, that he recognized the sound instantly, and started to his feet, fearing he knew not what.

The footsteps of the slave, though he hurried to undo the door, seemed to the eager listener as slow as the pace of the dull tortoise; and the short pause, which followed after the door had been opened, he fancied to be an hour in duration. Long as he thought it, however, it was too short to enable him to conquer his agitation, or to control the tumultuous beating of his heart, which increased to such a degree, as he heard the freedman ushering the new comer toward the room in which he was sitting, that he grew very faint, and turned as pale as ashes.

Had he been asked what it was that he apprehended, he could assuredly have assigned no reasonable cause to his tremors. Yet this man was as brave, as elastic in temperament, as tried steel. Oppose him to any definite and real peril, not a nerve in his frame would quiver; yet here he was, by imaginary terrors, and the disquietude of an uneasy conscience, reduced to more than woman's weakness.

The door was opened, and Thrasea appeared alone upon the threshold, with a mysterious expression on his blunt features.

"How now?" asked Paullus, "what is this?—Did I not tell you, that I would not be disturbed this morning?"

"Yes! master," answered the sturdy freedman; "but she said that it was a matter of great moment, and that she would—"

"She!—Who?" exclaimed Arvina, starting up from the chair, which he had resumed as his servant entered. "Whom do you mean by She?"

"The girl who waits in the tablinum, to know if you will receive her."

"The girl!—what girl? do you know her?"

"No, master, she is very tall, and slender, yet round withal and beautifully formed. Her steps are as light as the doe's upon the Haemus, and as graceful. She has the finest foot and ancle mine eyes ever looked upon. I am sure too that her face is beautiful, though she is closely wrapped in a long white veil. Her voice, though exquisitely sweet and gentle, is full of a strange command, half proud and half persuasive. I could not, for my life, resist her bidding."

"Well! well! admit her, though I would fain be spared the trouble. I doubt not it is some soft votary of Flora; and I am not in the vein for such dalliance now."

"No! Paullus, no! it is a Patrician lady. I will wager my freedom on it, although she is dressed plainly, and, as I told you, closely veiled."

"Not Julia? by the Gods! it is not Julia Serena?" exclaimed the young man, in tones of inquiry, blent with wonder.

But, as he spoke, the door was opened once more; and the veiled figure entered, realizing by her appearance all the good freedman's eulogies. It seemed that she had overheard the last words of Arvina; for, without raising her veil, she said in a soft low voice, full of melancholy pathos,

"Alas! no, Paullus, it is not your Julia. But it is one, who has perhaps some claim to your attention; and who, at all events, will not detain you long, on matters most important to yourself. I have intruded thus, fearing you were about to deny me; because that which I have to say will brook no denial."

The freedman had withdrawn abruptly the very moment that the lady entered; and, closing the door firmly behind him, stood on guard out of earshot, lest any one should break upon his young lord's privacy. But Paullus knew not this; scarce knew, indeed, that they were alone; when, as she ceased, he made two steps forward, exclaiming in a piercing voice—

"Ye Gods! ye Gods! Lucia Orestilla!"

"Aye! Paul," replied the girl, raising her veil, and showing her beautiful face, no longer burning with bright amorous blushes, her large soft eyes, no longer beaming unchaste invitation, but pale, and quiet, and suffused with tender sadness, "it is indeed Lucia. But wherefore this surprise, I might say this terror? You were not, I remember, so averse, the last time we were alone together."

Her voice was steady, and her whole manner perfectly composed, as she addressed him. There was neither reproach nor irony in her tones, nor anything that betokened even the sense of injury endured. Yet was Arvina more unmanned by her serene and tranquil bearing, than he would have been by the most violent reproaches.

"Alas! alas! what shall I say to you," he faltered, "Lucia; Lucia, whom I dare not call mine."

"Say nothing, Paullus Arvina," she replied, "thou art a noble and generous soul?—Say nothing, for I know what thou would'st say. I have said it to myself many times already. Oh! wo is me! too late! too late! But I have come hither, now, upon a brief and a pleasant errand. For it is pleasant, let them scoff who will! I say, it is pleasant to do right, let what may come of it. Would God, that I had always thought so!"

"Would God, indeed!" answered the young man, "then had we not both been wretched."

"Wretched! aye! most, most wretched!" cried the girl, a large bright tear standing in either eye. "And art thou wretched, Paullus."

"Utterly wretched!" he said, with a deep groan, and buried his face for a moment in his hands. "Even before I looked upon you, thought of you, I was miserable! and now, now—words cannot paint my anguish, my self-degradation!"

"Aye! is it so?" she said, a faint sad smile flitting across her pallid lips. "Why I should feel abased and self-degraded, I can well comprehend. I, who have fallen from the high estate, the purity, the wealth, the consciousness of chaste and virtuous maidenhood! I, the despised, the castaway, the fallen! But thou, thou!—from thee I looked but for reproaches—the just reproaches I have earned by my faithless folly! I thought, indeed, to have found you wretched, writhing in the dark bonds which I, most miserable, cast around you; and cursing her who fettered you!"

"Cursing myself," he answered, "rather. Cursing my own insane and selfish passion, which alone trammelled me, which alone ruined one, better and brighter fifty fold than I!—alas! alas! Lucia."

And forgetful of all that he had heard to her disparagement from her bad father's lips, or, if he half remembered discrediting all in that moment of excitement, he flung himself at her feet, and grovelled like a crushed worm on the floor, in the degrading consciousness of guilt.

"Arise, arise for shame, young Arvina!" she said. "The ground, at a woman's feet, is no place for a man ever; least of all such a woman's. Arise, and mark me, when I tell you that, which to tell you, only, I came hither. Arise, I say, and make me not scorn the man, whom I admire, whom—wo is me! I love."

Paullus regained his feet slowly, and abashed; it seemed that all the pride and haughtiness of his character had given way at once. Mute and humiliated, he sank into a chair, while she continued standing erect and self-sustained before him by conscious, though new, rectitude of purpose.

"Mark me, I say, Arvina, when I tell you, that you are as free as air from the oath, with which I bound you. That wicked vow compels you only so long as I hold you pledged to its performance. Lo! it is nothing any more—for I, to whom alone of mortals you are bound, now and forever release you. The Gods, above and below, whom you called to witness it, are witnesses no more against you. For I annul it here; I give you back your plight. It is as though it never had been spoken!"

"Indeed? indeed? am I free?—Good, noble, generous, dear, Lucia, is it true? can it be? I am free, and at thy bidding?"

"Free as the winds of heaven, Paullus, that come whence no man knoweth, and go whither they will soever, and no mortal hindereth them! As free as the winds, Paullus," she repeated, "and I trust soon to be as happy."

"But wherefore," added the young man, "have you done this? You said you would release me never, and now all unsolicited you come and say 'you are free, Paullus,' almost before the breath is cold upon my lips that swore obedience. This is most singular, and inconsistent."

"What in the wide world is consistent, Paullus, except virtue? That indeed is immutable, eternal, one, the same on earth as in heaven, present, and past, and forever. But what else, I beseech you, is consistent, or here or anywhere, that you should dream of finding me, a weak wild wanton girl, of firmer stuff than heroes? Are you, even in your own imagination, are you, I say, consistent?"

She spoke eagerly, perhaps wildly; for the very part of self-denial, which she was playing, stirred her mind to its lowest depths; and the great change, which had been going on within for many hours, and was still in powerful progress, excited her fancy, and kindled all her strongest feelings; and, as is not unfrequently the case, all the profound vague thoughts, which had so long lain mute and dormant, found light at once, and eloquent expression.

Paullus gazed at her, in astonishment, almost in awe. Could this be the sensual, passionate voluptuary he had known two days since?—the strange, unprincipled, impulsive being, who yielded like the reed, to every gust of passion—this deep, clear, vigorous thinker! It was indeed a change to puzzle sager heads than that of Arvina! a transformation, sudden and beautiful as that from the torpid earthy grub, to the swift-winged etherial butterfly! He gazed at her, until she smiled in reply to his look of bewilderment; and then he met her smile with a sad heavy sigh, and answered—

"Most inconsistent, I! alas! that I should say it, far worse than inconsistent, most false to truth and virtue, most recreant to honor! Have not I, whose most ardent aspirations were set on glory virtuously won, whose soul, as I fancied, was athirst for knowledge and for truth, have not I bound myself by the most dire and dreadful oaths, to find my good in evil, my truth in a lie, my glory in black infamy?—Have not I, loving another better than my own life, won thee to love, poor Lucia, and won thee by base falsehood to thy ruin?"

"No! no!" she interrupted him, "this last thing you have not done, Arvina. Awake! you shall deceive yourself no longer! Of this last wrong you are as innocent as the unspotted snow; and I, I only, own the guilt, as I shall bear the punishment! Hear first, why I release you from your oath; and then, if you care to listen to a sad tale, you shall know by what infamy of others, one, who might else have been both innocent and happy, has been made infamous and foul and vile, and wretched; a thing hateful to herself, and loathsome to the world; a being with but one hope left, to expiate her many crimes by one act of virtue, and then to die! to die young, very young, unwept, unhonored, friendless, and an orphan—aye! from her very birth, more than an orphan!"

"Say on," replied the young man, "say on, Lucia; and would to heaven you could convince me that I have not wronged you. Say on, then; first, if you will, why you have released me; but above all, speak of yourself—speak freely, and oh! if I can aid, or protect, or comfort you, believe me I will do it at my life's utmost peril."

"I do believe you, Paullus. I did believe that, ere you spoke it. First, then, I set you free—and free you are henceforth, forever."

"But wherefore?"

"Because you are betrayed. Because I know all that fell out last night. Because I know darker villainy plotted against you, yet to come; villainy from which, tramelled by this oath, no earthly power can save you. Because, I know not altogether why or how, my mind has been changed of late completely, and I will lend myself no more to projects, which I loathe, and infamy which I abhor. Because—because—because, in a word, I love you Paullus! Better than all I have, or hope to have on earth."

"But you must not," he replied, gravely yet tenderly, "because"——

"You love another," she interrupted him, very quickly, "You love Julia Serena, Hortensia's lovely daughter; and she loves you, and you are to be wedded soon. You see," she added, with a faint painful smile, "that I know everything about you. I knew it long since; long, long before I gave myself to you; even before I loved you, Paul—for I have loved you, also, long!"

"Loved me long!" he exclaimed, in astonishment, "how can that be, when you never saw me until the day before yesterday?"

"Oh! yes I have," she answered sadly. "I have seen you and known you many years; though you have forgotten me, if even, which I doubt, you ever noticed me at all. But I can bring it to your mind. Have you forgotten how, six summers since, as you were riding down the Collis Hortulorum, you passed a little girl weeping by the wayside?—"

"Over a wounded kid? No, I remember very well. A great country boor had hurt it with a stone."

"And you," exclaimed the girl, with her eyes flashing fire, "you sprang down from your horse, and chastised him, till he whined like a beaten hound, though he was twice as big as you were; and then you bound up the kid's wound, and wiped away the tears—innocent tears they were—of the little girl, and parted her hair, and kissed her on the forehead. That little girl was I, and I have kept that kiss upon my brow, aye, and in my heart too! until now. No lips of man or woman have ever touched that spot which your lips hallowed. From that day forth I have loved you, I have adored you, Paullus. From that day forth I have watched all your ways, unseen and unsuspected. I have seen you do fifty kind, and generous, and gallant actions; but never saw you do one base, or tyrannous, or cowardly, or cruel—"

"Until that fatal night!" he said, with a deep groan. "May the Gods pardon me! I never shall forgive my self."

"No! no! I tell you, no!" cried the girl, impetuously. "I tell you, that I was not deceived, if I fell; but I did not fall then! I knew that you loved Julia, years ago. I knew that I never could be yours in honor; and that put fire and madness in my brain, and despair in my heart. And my home was a hell, and those who should have been my guides and saviours were my destroyers; and I am—what I am; but in that you had no share. On that night, I but obeyed the accursed bidding of the blackest and most atrocious monster that pollutes Jove's pure air by his breath!"

"Bidding," he exclaimed, starting back in horror, "Catiline's bidding?"

"My father's," answered the miserable girl. "My own father's bidding!"

"Ye gods! ye gods! His own daughter's purity!"

"Purity!" she replied, with a smile of sad bitter irony. "Do you think purity could long exist in the same house with Catiline and Orestilla? Paullus Arvina, the scenes I have beheld, the orgies I have shared, the atmosphere of voluptuous sin I have breathed, almost from my cradle, had changed the cold heart of the virgin huntress into the fiery pulses of the wanton Venus! Since I was ten years old, I have been, wo is me! familiar with all luxury, all infamy, all degradation!"

"Great Nemesis!" he cried, turning up his indignant eyes toward heaven. "But, in the name of all the Gods! wherefore, wherefore? Even to the worst, the most debased of wretches, their children's honor is still dear."

"Nothing is dear to Catiline but riot, and debauchery, and murder! Sin, for its own sake, even more than for the rewards its offers to its votaries! Paullus, men called me beautiful! But what cared I for beauty, that charmed all but him, whom alone I desired to fascinate? Men called me beautiful, I say! and in my father's sight that beauty became precious, when he foresaw that it might prove a means of winning followers to his accursed cause! Then was I educated in all arts, all graces, all accomplishments that might enhance my charms; and, as those fatal charms could avail him nothing, so long as purity remained or virtue, I was taught, ah! too easily! to esteem pleasure the sole good, passion the only guide! Taught thus, by my own parents! Curses, curses, and shame upon them! Pity me, pity me, Paullus. Oh! you are bound to pity me! for had I not loved you, fatally, desperately loved, and known that I could not win you, perchance—perchance I had not fallen. Oh! pity me, and pardon——"

"Pardon you, Lucia," he interrupted her. "What have you done to me, or who am I, that you should crave my pardon?"

"What have I done? Do you ask in mockery? Have not I made you the partaker of my sin? Have not I lured you into falsehood, momentary falsehood it is true, yet still falsehood, to your Julia? Have I not tangled you in the nets of this most foul conspiracy? Betrayed you, a bound slave, to the monster—the soul-destroyer?"

Arvina groaned aloud, but made no answer, so deeply did his own thoughts afflict, so terribly did her strong words oppress him.

"But it is over—it is over now!" She exclaimed exultingly. "His reign of wickedness is over! The tool, which he moulded for his own purposes, shall be the instrument to quell him. The pitfall which he would have digged in the way of others, shall be to them a door whereby they shall escape his treason, and his ruin. You are saved, my Arvina! By all the Gods! you are saved! And, if it lost me once, it has preserved me now—my wild, unchangeable, and undying love for you, alone of men! For it has made me think! Has quenched the insane flames that burned within me! Has given me new views, new principles, new hopes! Evil no more shall be my good, nor infamy my pride! If, myself, I am most unhappy, I will live henceforth, while I do live, to make others happy! I will live henceforth for two things—revenge and retribution! By all the Gods! Julia and you, my Paullus, shall be happy! By all the Gods! he who destroyed me for his pleasure, shall be destroyed in turn, for mine!"

"Lucia! think! think! he is your father!"

"Perish the monster! I have not—never had father, or home, or——Speak not to me; speak not of him, or I shall lose what poor remains of reason his vile plots have left me. Perish!—by all the powers of hell, he shall perish, miserably!—miserably! And you, you, Paullus, must be the weapon that shall strike him!"

"Never the weapon in a daughter's hand to strike a father," answered Paullus, "no! though he were himself a parricide!"

"He is!—he is a parricide!—the parricide of Rome itself!—the murderer of our common mother!—the sacrilegious stabber of his holy country! Hear me, and tremble! It lacks now two days of the Consular election. If Catiline go not down ere that day cometh, then Rome goes down, on that day, and forever?"

"You are mad, girl, to say so."

"You are mad, youth, if you discredit me. Do not I know? am not I the sharer? the tempter to the guilt myself? and am not I the mistress of its secrets? Was it not for this, that I gave myself to you? was it not unto this that I bound you by the oath, which now I restore to you? was it not by this, that I would have held you my minion and my paramour? And is it not to reveal this, that I now have come? I tell you, I discovered, how he would yesternight have slain you by the gladiator's sword; discovered how he now would slay you, by the perverted sword of Justice, as Medon's, as Volero's murderer; convicting you of his own crimes, as he hath many men before, by his suborned and perjured clients—his comrades on the Praetor's chair! I tell you, I discovered but just now, that me too he will cut off in the flower of my youth; in the heat of the passions, he fomented; in the rankness of the soft sins, he taught me—cut me off—me, his own ruined and polluted child—by the same poisoned chalice, which made his house clear for my wretched mother's nuptials!"

"Can these things be," cried Paullus, "and the Gods yet withhold their thunder?"

"Sometimes I think," the girl answered wildly, "that there are no Gods, Paullus. Do you believe in Mars and Venus?"