They were watching their comrade, who had just stolen away, with one arm twined about the fair Sempronia's waist, and her hand clasped in his, through the inner peristyle, into the women's chambers.

"Feargus, I doubt him," said the old man in a low guarded whisper. "I doubt him very sorely. These Roman harlots are made to bewitch any man, much more us Gael, whose souls kindle at a spark!"

"It is true, Phadraig," answered the other, still speaking in their own tongue. "Saw ever any man such infamy?—And these—these dogs, and goats, call us barbarians! Us, by the Spirit of Thunder! who would die fifty deaths every hour, ere we would see our matrons, nay! but our matrons' basest slaves, demean themselves as these patricians! Base, carnal, bloody-minded beasts are they—and yet forsooth they boast themselves the masters of the world."

"Alas! that it should be so, Feargus," answered the other. "But so it is, that they are masters, and shall be masters yet awhile, but not long. I have heard, I have seen among the mist of our water-falls, the avalanches of our hills, the voices and the signs of Rome's coming ruin, but not yet. Therefore it is that I counselled peace."

"I know that thou art Taishatr, the great seer of our people," replied the other with an expression of deep awe on his features—"Shall Rome indeed so perish!"

"She shall, Feargus. Her sons shall forget the use of the blade, her daughters of the distaff—for heroes and warriors she shall bring forth pipers and fiddlers, pandars and posturers; for heroines and matrons, songstresses, dancing girls, and harlots. The beginning thou seest now, the end cometh not in ages."

"And our people, Phadraig, our northern races"—

"Shall govern and despise them! our arms shall carry devastation into regions of which their Consuls never heard, and under Gaelic eagles; our men shall wield thunder louder and deadlier, than the bolts of Roman GODS. I have said, Feargus. It shall be, but not yet; nor shall our eyes behold it; but it shall soothe us yet, in these days of our country's desolation, to know how great she shall be hereafter, and these how less than little—the very name of Roman synonimous with slavery and degradation!"

There was a long pause, during which neither of the chieftains spoke, the one musing over the strange visions, which are phenomena by no means unusual to mountaineers, in all ages; the other dreaming of future glory to his race, and aroused by the predictions of the seer, to an ecstacy, as it were, of expectant triumph.

"Enough of this"—said the old man, at length. "As I said but now, I doubt Eachin sorely."

"If he prove false, I will stab him to the heart, with my own hand, though he be my father's brother's grandson, and the best warrior of our tribe; but no, no, Phadraig, the boy is young, and his blood is hot and fiery; and the charms of that witch might well move a colder spirit—but he is true as steel, and wise and wary for one so young. He may sun himself in her smiles, or revel on her lips, but trust me, Eachin of the iron hand, will never betray council."

"Keep your eye on him, nevertheless, Feargus," said the other, "and, as you said but now, kill him at once, if you perceive him false."

"Ha! what! noble Patricius?" cried Lentulus, coming up to them suddenly, and addressing the old chief by his latinized name—"what is this that thou arguest so sagely, in thy sonorous and male tongue."

"The might and majesty of Rome," answered the old man quietly, "and our people's misery and degradation."

"Nay! nay! chief, be not downhearted. Look upward now, after dark night comes brilliant morning," said the Roman. "Your people shall rise ere long, to power and glory and dominion."

"So I told Feargus."

"Ha! the brave Ferragus! and doth he not credit your wisdom's prophecy."

"I put all faith in Rome's gratitude, in Catiline's valor and justice."

"Aye! when we once have put down this faction, we will do justice to our friends."

"And we are of the number!"

"Surely, the twenty thousand horse, which you have promised us, are twenty thousand pledges of your friendship, as many claims on our favor."

"See, here comes Eachin," said the old man; "and time wears onward, it is nigh midnight. We must away to our lodgings. Our train awaits us, and we but tarry for your envoy and the letters."

"Titus Volturcius! I will go fetch him hither. He hath our letters sealed and ready. He is but draining a last cup, with our brave Cethegus. I will go fetch him." And, with the words, he turned away, gathering his toga in superb draperies about his stately person, and traversing the corridor with proud and measured strides, and as he went, muttered through his teeth—"The fool barbarians! As if we would give them anything but chains and scourges! The poor benighted idiots!"

"Ho, Eachin, where left you our fair hostess?" asked Feargus in Latin—"methinks you are smitten somewhat with her beauty!"

"She is very beautiful!" said the old chieftain gravely.

"Beautiful! Feargus! Phadraig! beautiful, did ye say?" and the youth gazed at them in wonder, "That vile sensual, soulless harlot! she beautiful! Then virtue must be base indeed, and honor shameful!" he cried, with noble indignation, in his own Galic tongue, his eyes flashing, and his cheek burning crimson.

"Why, if you held her then so cheaply, have you so much affected her society?"

"Oh! you suspect me, Feargus. But it needs not. The barbarian hath some shrewdness, and some honesty. Sempronia too, suspected us, and would have won my secret from me, had I indeed a secret, by sweet words and sweeter kisses."

"And thou"—

"Gave kiss for kiss, with interest; and soft word for soft word. I have sighed as if I were any Roman—but no secret, Feargus; Phadraig, no secret. Do you doubt me?"

"Not I, boy," answered the warrior. "Your father was my cousin, and I think you are not a bastard."

"I think not either. But see, here come these noble Romans!"

"It is their envoy with the letters for their leader. We shall be dismissed now, from this haunt of thieves and harlots!"

"And laughed at, when dismissed, for fools and barbarians!"

"One never knows who is the fool, till the game is lost."

"Nor who is laughed at 'till it is won!"

"Here is our Titus, my good friends," said Lentulus, coming forward, leading along with him a slightly-made but well-formed and active-looking man, with a downcast yet roving eye, and a sneering lip, as if he were one who believing nothing, deserved not to be believed in anything himself. "He hath the letters, and credentials secured on his person. On his introduction, our Catiline shall know you as true friends, and as such receive and reward you!"

"Titus Volturcius, is welcome. We tarried but for him, we will now take our leaves, with thanks for your gracious courtesies."

"A trifle, a mere trifle," said Sempronia, who had that moment returned—"We only desired to teach you how we Romans live in our homes daily."

"A very pleasant lesson, ha! my young friend"—said Lentulus to Eachin; and then he said out to Cethegus, in Greek, "I am compelled to call the Highland bull my friend, for his accursed name would break the jaws of any Roman—there is no twisting it into Latin!"

"Hush! he will hear you, Lentulus," said the other. "I believe the brutes hear with their eyes, and understand through their finger-ends," and he too used the same language; yet, strange to say, it would have seemed as if the young man did in some sort comprehend his words, for his cheek turned fiery red, and he bit his lip, and played nervously with the hilt of the claymore.

"Thou will not forget the lesson!" whispered Sempronia.

"Never!" replied the Highlander. "Never while one red drop runs in these veins. And the last drop in them will I shed gladly, to teach these noble Romans how grateful a barbarian can be, poor though he be and half savage, for being thus instructed in Roman hospitality and Roman virtue! Farewell, ye noble Senators, farewell most beautiful and noble matron!"

And with deep salutations, half dignified, half awkward, the Gauls strode away, into the quiet and moon-lighted streets, strange contrast to the glare and riot of those patrician halls and polluted chambers.

"A singular speech that!" said Cethegus musing. "It sounded much as if it might bear a double meaning! could it be irony and cover treason?"

"Irony in a stupid Gaul! thou art mad, Cethegus, to think of it!" said Autronius with a sneer.

"I should as soon look for wit in an elephant," said Longinus Cassius.

"Or I for love in a cold lizard!" cried Sempronia, laughing.

"You found some love in the barbarian, I think, my Sempronia?" exclaimed Cethegus.

"More warmth than wit, I assure you," she replied still laughing. "I acted my part with him rarely. If he were inclined once to play us false, he is bound to us now by chains"—

"Of roses, fair one?"

"Never mind. If he break them, call me"—

"Chaste? Sempronia"—enquired Cparius, interrupting her.

"Audacious!" she answered with an affected frown, amid the laugh which followed the retort.

"What do you think of it, my Lentulus?" asked Cethegus, who although he had jested with the others, did not by any means appear satisfied in his mind, or convinced of the good faith of the Highlanders.

"That it is two hours now past midnight," answered Lentulus yawning, "and that I am amazing sleepy. I was not in bed till the third watch last night, writing those letters, ill luck to them. That is what I think, Cethegus. And that I am going to bed now, to trouble myself about the matter no more, until the Saturnalia."

And so that company broke up, never to meet again, on this side Hades.

Not long thereafter the Gauls, having reached their lodgings at the house of their patron Fabius Sanga, where everything had been prepared already for their departure, mounted their horses, and set forth on their way homeward, accompanied by a long train of armed followers; Titus Volturcius riding in the first rank, between the principal chiefs of the party.

The moon had risen; and the night was almost as clear as day, for a slight touch of frost had banished all the vapors from the sky, and the stars sparkled with unusual brilliancy.

Although it was clear and keen, however, the night was by no means cold, as it would have been under the like circumstances in our more northern climes; and the gardens in the suburbs of the city with their numerous clumps of stone-pine, and thickets of arbutus and laurestinus, looked rich and gay with their polished green foliage, long after the deciduous trees had dropped their sere leaves on the steamy earth.

No sounds came to the ears of the travellers, as they rode at that dead hour of night through the deserted streets; the whole of the vast city appeared to be hushed in deep slumber, soon, Caius Volturcius boasted as they rode along, to burst like a volcano into the din and glare of mighty conflagration.

They met not a single individual, as they threaded the broad suburra with their long train of slaves and led-horses; not one as they passed through the gorge between the Viminal and Quirinal hills, nor as they scaled the summit of the latter eminence, and reached the city walls, where they overlooked Sallust's gardens in the valley, and on the opposite slope, the perfumed hill of flowers.

A sleepy sentinel unbarred the gate for the ambassadors, while four or five of his comrades sat dozing in their armor around a stove, in the centre of the little guard-house, or replenishing their horn cups, at short intervals, from an urn of hot wine, which hissed and simmered on the hearth.

"Excellent guard they keep!" said Volturcius sneeringly, "right trusty discipline! of much avail would such watchers be, were Catiline without the walls, with ten thousand men, of Sylla's veterans."

"And is your Catiline so great a captain?" asked the Highlander.

"The best in Rome, since Sylla is no more! He learned the art of war under that grand, that consummate soldier! He was scarce second to him in his life time!"

"Why, then, hath Rome found no service for him?" asked the Gaul. "If he, as you say, is so valiant and so skillful, why hath he not commanded in the east, in place of Pompey, or Lucullus?"

"Jealousy is the bane of Rome! jealousy and corruption! Catiline will not pander to the pride of the insolent patricians, nor buy of them employments or honors with his gold."

"And is he free from this corruption?"

"No man on earth of more tried integrity! While all of Rome beside is venal, his hand alone is conscious of no bribe, his heart alone incorruptible!"

"Thou must be a true friend of his; all men speak not so highly of this Catiline."

"Some men lie! touching him specially, they lie!"

"By the Gods! I believe so!" answered the old Gaul, with calm irony.

"By Mars! and Apollo! they lie foully!"

"I think I have heard one, at least, do so."

"Thou shalt hear hundreds, if thou listen to them."

"So many?"

"Aye! by the Gods!—most of the—by your head! Patricius, that was a man, I think; armed too; who looked forth from behind yon buttress of the bridge."

"No! no! Volturcius, 'twas but the shadow of yon pine tree, waving athwart the moonlight. I marked it long since," answered the wily Gaul. "Proceed, I pray you—most of the what, wert thou about to say?"

But, by this time, the speakers had advanced to the centre of the long Mulvian bridge, a magnificent stone structure crossing the broad and sluggish Tiber, two miles below the city; and giving access to the far-famed Flaminian way.

Their train, following closely after them, had all entered into the defile, the last of them having already passed the abutment nearest to Rome, when a loud shout arose from either side the bridge; and from the thickets and gardens at each extremity forth rushed a band of stout youths armed with casques and cuirasses of bronze, with the oblong shields and Spanish stabbing swords of the legionaries.

Each band was led by a Prtor, Lucius Valerius Flaccus commanding at the end next Rome, and Caius Pomptinus, on the Emilian way, and each fell into accurate and beautiful array, barring the outlets of the bridge with a triple file of bright blades and sturdy bucklers.

Nor was this all; for a little party was pushed forward on each flank, with bows and javelins, ready to enfilade the narrow pass with cross shot of their missiles, in case any attempt should be made to force a passage. And at the end, moreover, of the bridge toward Etruria and the camp of Catiline, at which such an attempt was most likely to occur, the glittering helmets and crimson horsehair crests of a troop of cavalry were seen glancing in the moonbeams, as they wheeled into line behind the footmen, ready to charge at once should the infantry be broken.

"Stand! stand!" cried the soldiery at each end. "Stand and surrender!"

But the younger men of the Gauls, unsheathing their claymores, set up their terrible slogan, or Celtic battle cry; and, plunging their spurs into the sides of their fiery horses came thundering across the bridge with a charge that would probably have trodden the Prtor's infantry under foot, had not the old chief, whom the Romans called Patricius, and Ferragus reined their steeds suddenly across the way, calling upon their men to halt and be steady.

But Volturcius, knowing too well the consequence of being taken, dashed forward with his sword drawn; and made a desperate attempt to cut his way through the infantry, striking down two or three, slashing and stabbing to the right and left, displaying singular skill in the use of his weapon, and extreme personal intrepidity.

"Treason! treason, my friends!" he shouted. "Ho, Ferragus, Patricius, ho! Charge, charge, men, gallantly. They are but a handful!" and still he plied his blade, which was now crimson to the hilt, with fearful energy.

"No! no! not so!" cried the ambassadors—"lay down your arms! it is the prtor's train. Lay down your arms! all shall be well, if you resist not."

And at the same time, "Yield thee! yield thee! Volturcius," cried Pomptinus. "We are friends all; and would not hurt thee—but have thee we must, and thy letters.—Dost thou not know me, Titus?"

"Very well, Caius," cried the other, still fighting desperately against a host; for the men were commanded not to kill, but to take him alive at all hazards. "I know thee very well; but I will not yield to thee! So take that, Prtor!" and, with the word, he dealt him a blow on his crest that brought him to his knee in a moment.

"He is a mad man!" cried a veteran legionary. "We must kill him!"

"Not for your lives," shouted Pomptinus, and springing to his feet he plunged his sword home into his horse's chest, up to the very hilt; and then leaping on one side nimbly, as the animal fell headlong, being slain outright, he seized Volturcius by the shoulder, and pulled him down from the saddle.

But even at this disadvantage, the conspirator renewed the single combat with the prtor; until at length, assured by his repeated promises that his life should be spared, he yielded his sword to that officer, and adjuring him in the name of all the Gods! to protect him, gave himself up a prisoner, as if to avowed enemies.

Those of the Gauls, who had been ignorant, at first, what was in progress, perceiving now that the whole matter had been arranged with the concurrence of their chiefs, submitted quietly; and two or three of the prtor's people who had been wounded being accommodated with temporary litters made of bucklers and javelins with watch cloaks thrown over them, the whole party turned their horses' heads, and directed their march toward Rome.

And silence, amid which the gentle murmur of the river, and the sigh of the breeze were distinctly audible, succeeded to the clang of arms, and the shouts of the combatants, unheard for many a year, so near to the walls of the world's metropolis.



CHAPTER X.

THE ARREST.

Rebellious subjects; Enemies of peace. ROMEO AND JULIET.

It was already daylight, when the loud clang and clatter of a squadron passing along the streets, at a sharp trot, aroused the citizens of Rome from their beds, for though the morning had broke, it was still very early.

Many a lattice was opened, and many a head thrust out, as the troopers swept along with all their accoutrements jingling and clashing through the early silence, a spectacle which in ordinary times, would have excited much astonishment, perhaps aroused a tumult, since it was in direct opposition to the laws, that armed soldiers should enter the city walls in time of peace.

But so much had the public mind been disturbed of late, that the sight, which a month before would have filled the streets with anxious or angry multitudes, now hardly seemed to merit a second glance, and the spectators hurried back to their couches, invoking the aid of the good Consul, who watched so well over the liberties and lives of Rome, or muttering curses on his head, according as they were well or ill-afflicted toward the state.

One man there was, however, who was awakened by the clatter from the deep sleep of drunkenness, with a flushed face and an aching head, in a house on the Clivus Scauri, a steep street running down the southern slope of the Palatine, into the Cerolian Place, and overlooking the mansion of Cicero.

Starting up from his low couch, he called out sharply and with a querulous accent to a freedman, who was watching his feverish slumbers, desiring him to look out and see what made that clatter.

The man passed quickly into an adjoining room which commanded a view of the street, and returned instantly, saying,

"It is a squadron of horse, Cparius. Young Arvina's, I think; and they appear to be conducting a prisoner, for there is one man among them, in his tunic and abolla only, while the troopers around him have their swords drawn."

Sobered at once, the conspirator leaped from his couch, and almost overthrew the attendant, in his eagerness to reach the window in time to observe the troopers.

They were just halting in the Cerolian place, when he saw them, and dismounting, chargers and men in a confused and dusty group before the door of Cicero.

He gazed, as if his eyes would burst from their sockets, if possibly he might distinguish the wearer of the rich blue riding cloak, of which he could catch glimpses among the glittering corslets and scarlet cassocks of the legionary horse. But for a while he gazed in vain.

At length two figures mounted the marble steps, leading to the Tuscan colonnade, and were thus brought clearly into view, above the crested casques of the soldiery.

One, a tall well-made figure, splendidly accoutred in the cavalry armor of the day, he recognized at once for Arvina, and in the stouter person, clad in the blue abolla, the color of which he had already connected with one whom he knew—his worst fears all realized—he discovered the messenger of treason, Titus Volturcius of Crotona.

"By the Gods! all is lost," he muttered, striking his hand violently on his thigh. "Escape alone, is left to us. Ha!" he continued, addressing his freedman, "I will arise, and go forth speedily. Give me my tunic. So—never mind the feminalia; there, clasp my sandals! Death and furies! how slow thou art, now my dagger, and my toga. Hark, now. I go to the house of Lentulus. See thou, and have my chariot harnessed for a journey, with the four Thracian steeds; put into it my armor, a sword, casque and buckler for thyself; and all the gold which is locked in the great chest in the Atrium. Here is the key. Tarry not for thy life, and bring the car thyself to the arch of Fabius Allobrox; wait there until I come to thee. I will be there within the hour."

"It shall be done, Cparius."

"See that it be done, if thou wouldst scape the scourge!" and with the word he rushed out of the chamber, as if the avenger of blood were at his heels.

But the freedman looked after him, with a bitter and scornful smile, and muttered—

"The scourge!—the scourge! and I a freedman! This is another friend of the people. His villanies, I fancy, are near upon detection, and he would fly to join Catiline, but I will thwart him."

In the meantime, quitting his own house in great trepidation, the conspirator walked very rapidly through the streets, until he reached the house of Lentulus, which was not far distant from the forum.

He was admitted instantly, and without question, for all the slaves knew him, as the intimate friend of their master; but at the bed room door, he was stopped by the favorite freedman of Lentulus, who urged that his lord had not retired till morning, and had desired that he should not be disturbed earlier than noon.

Cparius, on the other hand insisted, raising his voice so loudly that the sleeper was awakened, and recognizing the accent of his friend, cried out peevishly—

"Oh! let him in, Agathon; let him in quickly, or he will talk thee deaf, and me frantic! What in the name of Proserpine and Pluto! is it now?"

"The plot is discovered! all is lost!" exclaimed the other, forgetting all prudence in the haste and terror of the moment.

"To the abyss of Tartarus with the plot, and thee also!" replied the other savagely. "I hope it is discovered, for I shall get some sleep then. I have had none these six months."

And turning on his other side, he drew the embroidered coverlid over his head, and appeared to court the interrupted slumber.

"By all Gods! I tell thee, Lentulus, Volturcius is arrested. These eyes beheld him dragged into the house of Cicero. My chariot waits me now, at the arch of Fabius. I go to join Catiline."

"I prithee, then, go quickly—thou torturest me, man, I say. Get thee gone! get thee gone! Better to die, than to live thus sleepless."

"Whom the Gods wish to ruin, they first dementate!" exclaimed Cparius—"thou wilt be seized, within the hour."

"I care not. So that till then I can sleep; once more, I say—Begone!"

Cparius shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head as he left the room; and then made the best of his way to the arch of Fabius; but he found not his chariot there, not though he waited well nigh two hours, did it arrive at all.

Hopeless at length, and desperate, he set forth alone and on foot, in the vain hope of escaping the pursuit of Cicero's unerring justice.

Meanwhile, disturbed more than he would admit by Cparius' tidings, Lentulus did, in some sort, arouse himself to consideration.

"It may be so," he said to himself. "Cparius declared he saw him. If it be so, 'twere better perhaps, indeed, to leave the city. And yet," he continued pondering deeply, "to fly is to admit guilt, and it is too late, moreover. Tush! tush! I daresay, it is but Cparius' terror—he was a fool always, and I believe a coward also. Beside, if it be true, there is no proof; and what dare Cicero against me—against me, a Consular of Rome?—At the worst, he will implore me to deliver the city of my presence, as he did Catiline. Ha! Ha! I will to sleep again. Yet stay, I am athirst, after Sempronia's revel! Fool, that I was, not to drink more last night, and quench this fiery craving. Ho! Agathon, my boy, fetch me the great goblet, the double(9) sextarius, of spiced mulse with a snow-water."

This order was obeyed instantly, and after draining the huge beaker to the bottom, the indolent and reckless traitor, rolled himself over, and was asleep again as soundly in five minutes, as if he were not in truth slumbering upon the brink of a volcano.

Not long however did he sleep in peace, for Cparius had scarcely been gone an hour, when he was again startled from his doze, by a knocking so violent, at the outer door, that the whole house rechoed with the din.

He heard the doors opened, and a short angry parle, broken short by the raised voice of the new comers, and the clanging of armed footsteps, along the marble corridor which led toward his chamber.

A moment afterward, pale as death, with his hair starting and a wild eye, Agathon entered the room.

"How now?" exclaimed Lentulus, who fully aroused by this time, was sitting on the edge of the low bedstead, with a purple gown cast carelessly around him, "what is this new disturbance."

"The Atrium is full of armed soldiers, Lentulus," replied the man with a faltering accent.

"Well! hast thou never seen a soldier before, that thou starest so wildly?" asked his master with a sneer, which even the extremity of danger could not restrain.

"Their leader insists on present speech with thee. I told him that thou wert asleep; but he replied that, waking or asleep, he must have speech with thee."

"Truly a valiant leader," answered the Prtor. "Hath he a name, this bold centurion?"

"Paullus Ccilius Arvina," replied the young man, who having followed the freedman to the door had overheard all that was passing, "is my name—no centurion, as thou mayest see, Lentulus. Loth am I to disturb thy slumbers."

"Then wherefore do it, youth?" asked Lentulus, quickly. "Most broken things may be repaired, but I know not how you shall mend a broken nap, or recompense the loss of it, if irreparable."

"Not of my own will, but by the Consul's order."

"The Consul's? What? Antonius? He scarce need have sent a troop of horse, to ask an old friend to breakfast!"

"Cicero sent me, Prtor, to crave your instant presence at his house, touching affairs of state."

"Ha! Cicero!" said he, affecting to be much surprised. "Cicero scarcely is on such terms with me, as to take such a liberty, waking me thus at the dead of night."

"It is well nigh the fourth hour, Lentulus."

"What if it be, an I choose to call it midnight? and what, if I refuse to obey such unceremonious bidding?"

"In that case, Lentulus, my orders are to compel your attendance. I have two decuries of men in your Atrium. But I trust that you will drive me to no such necessity."

"Two decuries!" replied Lentulus scornfully. "I have but to lift my little finger, and my freedmen and slaves would kick your decuries, and yourself after them into the velabrum."

The blood mounted to the brow of the young soldier. "I have endured," he said, "something too much of this. Will you go with us peacefully, Lentulus, or will you force us to take you through the street like a felon?"

"Oh! peacefully, Arvina, peacefully. I did but jest with you, my hero. But I knew not that the cavalry of the seventh legion—the legion of Mars I think they call it—had become so degraded, as to do the work of thieftakers."

"Nor I, Lentulus," answered Paul. "But you should know best in this matter. If it be theft for which thou art summoned before Cicero, then are we indeed thieftakers. But if so, not only I believe should we be the first legionaries of Rome so employed, but thou the first Roman Consular so guilty."

"So proud! ha!" exclaimed the haughty conspirator, gazing at him with a curled lip and flashing eye. "Well, I could quell that pride in one moment, with one word."

"Even so proud, because honest" answered the young man, as haughtily as the other. "For the rest, will you clothe yourself at once?—I can wait babbling here no longer."

"I will quell it. Look you, boy, you love Julia, the bright daughter of Hortensia—she is worth loving, by the way, and Catiline hath noted it. You fancy that she is safe now, at the Latin villa of her mother. She is not safe—nor at the Latin villa! I have touched you, have I not?"

Arvina started, as if a serpent had bitten him; but in a moment he recovered himself, saying calmly, "Tush! it is a poor deceit! you cannot alarm me."

"In truth it was a deceit, but not so very poor after all, since it succeeded. You were sorely wounded a few days since, Arvina, and wrote, I think, to Julia, requesting her to set forth at once to Rome, with Hortensia."

"Folly!" replied Arvina, "Drivelling folly! Come, hasten your dressing, Lentulus! You need not perfume your hair, and curl your beard, as if you were going to a banquet."

"I never hasten anything, my Paullus. Things done hastily, are rarely things done well. What? thou dids't not write such a letter?—I thought thou hadst—of this at least I am sure, that she received such an one; and set out for Rome, within an hour after."

"By the Gods!" exclaimed Paullus, a little eagerly, for Lentulus had changed the slight bantering tone in which he had been speaking, for a quick short decided accent seeming to denote that he was in earnest. "Where is she now. Speak, Lentulus, I adjure thee. Tell me, if thou wouldst have me serve thee!"

"I thought I could abate that pride somewhat," said Lentulus sneeringly. "I thought so indeed. But, by all the Gods! Arvina, I know not where your Julia may be now. I know whither they are conveying her—where she soon will be—but I fancy that the knowing it, would give you but little pleasure; unless, indeed, you could prevent it, my poor youth!"

"To know, is something at least toward preventing it. If, therefore, thou art not, as I believe indeed thou art, merely mocking me, I pray thee tell me, whither are they conveying her? Where will she soon be?"

"To the camp of Manlius, nigh Fiesol! In the arms of one Lucius Sergius Catiline—a great admirer of your auburn-haired, blue-eyed beauties, my Arvina."

The young man, with his eyes gleaming and his face crimsoning with furious rage, made two steps forward, and seizing the burly traitor by the throat, compressed his gullet, as if in an iron vice, and shook him to and fro as easily as if he had been a stripling.

"Shame on thee, filth and carrion that thou art, so to speak of a betrothed bride to her promised husband! If it were true, wretched villain! I would save the hangman his task, and break your traitor's throat with this hand—but thou liest! thou liest!" he shouted, pushing him to the other end of the narrow sleeping chamber. "In poor revenge thou liest! But if you wish to live, beware how you so lie any more!"

"I do not lie indeed, my dear Arvina," replied the other in a bland fawning voice full of mock humility. "But, I prithee, boy, keep thy hands from my throat in future, unless thou wouldst desire to know how a crook-bladed sica some sixteen inches long feels in the region of thy heart. Such an one as this, Arvina," he added, showing a long keen weapon not unlike a Turkish yatagan in shape, which he drew from beneath his pillow. Then casting it aside, with a contemptuous gesture, he continued—"But this is mere child's play. Now mark me. I did not lie, nor do! Aulus Fulvius wrote the letter—Aulus Fulvius' slave carried it, yester-even—Aulus Fulvius beset the road by which they must come—Aulus Fulvius is ere this time on his road many a league conveying her to Catiline—and this," he said, putting a small slip of parchment into the hands of the astonished Paullus, "is Aulus Fulvius' handwriting. Yes! certainly, that is his S in the word Salutem. He affects ever the Greek sigma in his writing. He is a very pretty penman, Aulus Fulvius!"

The strip of parchment bore these words:

"Whom I am you will know by the matter. The camp in Etruria will receive the dove from the Latin villa. All hath succeeded—health!"

"I found it on my desk, when I returned from supper this morning. Aulus's slave brought it hither. He is within, if thou wouldst speak him."

Arvina staggered back like a man who has received a mortal stab, as he read those fatal words; and stared about him with a wild and wandering eye.

It was a moment or two before he could find any speech, and when he did speak at length, it was in tones so altered and broken that his nearest friend would not have recognized his voice.

"Wherefore"—he gasped—"Wherefore have you done this to me."

"For vengeance!" thundered the proud conspirator, casting his crimson-bordered toga over his laticlavian tunic. "For vengeance, boy. Lead on—lead on to your consul."

"In what have I wronged you?" cried Arvina, in a paroxysm of almost unspeakable despair. "In what, that you should take such infernal vengeance?"

"For Julia's love thou didst betray Catiline! betray us! In Julia's infamy thou shalt be punished!"

"Anything! anything! anything but this—strike here, strike here with that sica, thou didst unsheath but now. Slay me, by inches if thou wilt—but spare her, oh! by your mother's memory! oh! by your sister's honor! spare her, and I will—"

"Lead on! To your consul!" exclaimed Lentulus waving his hand proudly to the door. "I can but die—the Gods be thanked for it! Thy life is bitterer than many deaths already! I say, coward and fool, lead on! Where is thy boasted pride? In the dust! at my feet! I trample, I spit on it! once again to your consul!"

"And thou couldst save her!"

"By a word! At a hint from me Fulvius will set her free."

"But that word? but that hint?—"

"My lips shall never utter—my hand indite; unless—"

"Unless? unless what?—speak! speak, Lentulus. By the Gods! By your head! By your life! speak."

"Place me beyond the walls of Rome, with twenty of my freedmen, armed and mounted—it can be done on the instant; they are here; they are ready!—and Julia shall be in thy bosom ere to-morrow's sun shall sink behind the hills of Latium!"

"A Traitor to my country! Lentulus, never!"

"Tush! boy! think upon beautiful, soft, weeping, innocent Julia rescued by thee from Catiline—from pollution—think on her gratitude, her love, her kiss! Think on a life, a whole long life, of rapture!—and then balance against it one small foolish word—"

"Dishonor!" Arvina interrupted him fiercely.

"Aye! to which thou consignest Julia, whom thou lovest! Kind Venus guard me from such lovers!"

"Dishonor never can come nigh her," replied Arvina, who had recovered his senses completely, and who, though unutterably wretched, was now as firm and as cold as marble. "Death it may be, but not dishonor!"

"Be it so," answered Lentulus. "We will leave her the option of the two, but believe me, when dishonor is pleasant, women rarely choose death in preference to it. You have had your option too, my Arvina. But I, it seems, can have none, but must wait upon your consul."

"You have the same which you give Julia!" answered Paullus, sternly. "There is your dagger, and your heart here!" he added, laying his hand on the broad breast of the infamous Patrician.

"True! count its pulses—cooler, I think, and more regular than thine, Paullus. Tush! man! I know a hundred wiser things and pleasanter than dying. But once more, lead on! I will speak no word again till I speak to the consul!"

And without farther words he strode to the door, followed closely by the young soldier, resolute and determined to perform his duty, let what might come of it! He passed through his marble peristyles, looked with a cool eye on his flowery parterres and sparkling fountains, nodded a careless adieu to his slaves and freedmen, and entered the Atrium where Arvina's troopers awaited him, wondering and impatient at the long delay.

With a proud gesture he waved his hand toward the door, and six of the number marched forward, three and three, while the rest falling into regular array behind him, escorted him with all respect, but with stern watchfulness, along the Via Sacra to the Carin.

Quickly arriving at the Atrium of Cicero's house, which was filled with his friends and clients all in arms, and with many knights and patricians, whom he knew, but no one of whom saluted or seemed to recognize him, he was admitted into the Tablinum, or saloon, at the doors of which six lictors were on guard with their fasces.

On entering this small but sumptuous chamber he found assembled there already, Cethegus, Statilius, and Gabinius, silent, with white lips, in an agony of terror worse than death.

"Ha! my friends!" he exclaimed, with an unaltered mien and voice, "We are met once again. But we seem not, by all the Gods! to be well pleased with the meeting. Why so downcast, Cethegus?"

"Because on earth it is our last meeting," he replied. And it was clear to see that the boldest and fiercest, and most furious of the band, while danger was afar, was the most utterly appalled now, when fate appeared imminent and certain.

"Why, then!" answered Lentulus, "we shall meet in Hell, Cethegus."

"By the Gods! jest not so foully—"

"Wherefore not, I prithee? If that this be our last meeting, good faith! let it be a merry one! I know not, for my part, what ails ye all."

"Are you mad? or know you not that Volturcius is a prisoner, and our letters in the hands of the consul? They will kill us ere noon."

"Then they must make haste, Caius. It is noon already. But, cheer thee up, be not so much afraid, my brave Cethegus—they dare not slay us."

"Dare not?"

"For their own lives, they dare not!" But as he spoke, raising his voice to its highest pitch, the curtains which closed the other end of the Tablinum were suddenly drawn back, and Cicero appeared, clad in his consular robes, and with his ivory staff in his hand. Antonius his colleague stood in the intercolumniation, with all the lictors at his back, and many knights in their appropriate tunics, but with military cloaks above them in place of the peaceful toga, and with their swords girded by their sides.

"Prtor," said Cicero in a dignified but serene voice, with no show of taunting or of triumph over his fallen enemy. "The Senate is assembled in the temple of Concord. The Fathers wait but for your coming. Give me your hand that I may conduct you thither."

"My hand, consul? Not as a friend's, I trust," said the undaunted Traitor.

"As a magistrate's, Cornelius Lentulus," replied Cicero severely, "whose hand, even if guilty, may not be polluted by an inferior's grasp."

"As a magistrate's you have it, consul. We go?"

"To the shrine of Concord! Antonius, my noble colleague, let us begone. Senators, follow us; escape you cannot, if you would; and I would spare you the disgrace of chains."

"We follow, Cicero," answered Cethegus in a hollow voice, and casting his eyes with a wild and haggard expression on Gabinius, he added in a whisper, "to our death!"

"Be it so!" replied the other. "One can but die once; and if his time be come, as well now as hereafter. I fear not death now, when I see it face to face. I think, I have heard thee say the same."

"He spoke," answered Statilius, with a bitter and sarcastic laugh, "of the death of others then. Would God, he then had met his own! So should we now have been innocent and fearless!"

"I at least, if not innocent, am fearless."

And watched on every side by the knights, and followed by the lictors, two behind each, the ringleaders of the plot, all save Cparius who had fled, and Catiline—who was in open arms, an outlaw and proclaimed enemy of his country—the ringleaders were led away to trial.

The fate of Rome hung on the firmness of their judges.



CHAPTER XI.

THE YOUNG PATRICIAN.

Not always robes of state are worn, Most nobly by the nobly born. H. W. H.

The light of that eventful morning, which broke, pregnant with ruin to the conspiracy, found Aulus Fulvius and his band, still struggling among the rugged defiles which it was necessary to traverse, in order to gain the Via Cassia or western branch of the Great North Road.

It had been necessary to make a wide circuit, in order to effect this, inasmuch as the Latin road, of which the Labican way was a branch, left the city to the South-eastward, nearly opposite to the Flaminian, or north road, so that the two if prolonged would have met in the forum, and made almost a right line.

Nor had this been their only difficulty, for they had been compelled to avoid all the villages and scattered farm houses, which lay on their route, in the fear that Julia's outcries and resistance—for she frequently succeeded in removing the bandage from her mouth—would awaken suspicion and cause their arrest, while in the immediate vicinity of Rome.

At one time, the party had been within a very few miles of the city, passing over the Tiber, scarce five miles above the Mulvian bridge, about an hour before the arrest of the ambassadors; and it was from this point, that Aulus sent off his messenger to Lentulus, announcing his success, thereby directly disobeying the commands of Catiline, who had enjoined it on him almost with his last words, to communicate this enterprise to none of his colleagues in guilt.

Crossing the Flaminian, or great northern road, they had found a relay of fresh horses, stationed in a little grove, of which by this time they stood greatly in need, and striking across the country, at length reached the Cassian road, near the little river Galera, just as the sun rose above the eastern hills.

At this moment they had not actually effected above ten miles of their journey, as reckoned from the gates of Rome to the camp of Catiline, which was nearly two hundred miles distant, though they had traversed nearly forty during the night, in their wearisome but unavoidable circuit.

They were, however, admirably mounted on fresh horses, and had procured a cisium, or light carriage for two persons, not much unlike in form to a light gig, in which they had placed the unhappy Julia, with a slight boy, the son of Caius Crispus, as the driver.

By threats of the most atrocious nature, they had at length succeeded in compelling her to temporary silence. Death she had not only despised, but implored, even when the point of their daggers were razing the skin of her soft neck; and so terribly were they embarrassed and exasperated by her persistence, that it is probable they would have taken her life, had it not been for fear of Catiline, whose orders were express to bring her to his camp alive and in honor.

At length Aulus Fulvius had threatened in the plainest language outrages so enormous, that the poor girl's spirit sank, and that she took an oath, in order to avoid immediate indignities, and those the most atrocious, to remain silent during the next six hours.

Had she been able to possess herself of any weapon, she would undoubtedly have destroyed herself, as the only means she could imagine of escaping what to her was worse than loss of life, the loss of honor; and it was chiefly in the hope of effecting this ere nightfall, that she took the oath prescribed to her, in terms of such tremendous sanctity, that no Roman would dream of breaking it, on any pretext of compulsion.

Liberated by their success in this atrocious scheme, from that apprehension, they now pushed forward rapidly, and reached the station at Baccan, in a wooded gorge between a range of low hills, and a clear lake, at about nine in the morning, of our time, or the third hour by Roman computation.

Here they obtained a fresh horse for the vehicle which carried Julia, and tarrying so long only as to swallow a draught of wine, they pressed onward through a steep defile along which the road wound among wooded crags toward Sutrium.

At this place, which was a city of some note, they were joined by forty or fifty partisans, well armed and mounted on good horses, all veteran soldiers who had been settled on the confiscated estates of his enemies by the great usurper Sylla, and thenceforth feeling themselves strong enough to overawe any opposition they might meet on the way, they journeyed at a slower rate in perfect confidence of success, numbering now not less than sixty well-equipped Cavaliers.

Before noon, they were thirty miles distant from Rome, and had reached the bottom of a long and almost precipitous ascent where the road, scorning any divergence to the right or left, scaled the abrupt heights of a craggy hill, known at the present day as the Monte Soriano, the ancient name of which has not descended to these times.

Scarcely however had they reached the first pitch of the hill, in loose and straggling order, when the rearmost rider, came spurring furiously to the head of the column, and announced to Aulus Fulvius, that they were pursued by a body of men, nearly equal to themselves in number, who were coming up at a rate so rapid, as made it certain that they would be overtaken, encumbered as they were with the wheeled carriage conveying the hapless Julia.

A brief council was held, in which, firmly resisting the proposal of the new-comers to murder their captive, and disperse in small bodies among the hills, Aulus Fulvius and Caius Crispus determined on dividing their men into two parties. The first of these, commanded by the smith, and consisting of two-thirds of their whole force, was destined to press forward as rapidly as possible; while Fulvius, with the second, should make a charge down hill upon the pursuers, by which it was hoped that they might be so effectually checked and alarmed as to give up the pursuit.

No time was lost in the execution, a second horse was attached to the cisium, for they had many sumpter animals along with them, and several spare chargers; and so much speed did they make, that Crispus had reached the summit of the ridge and commenced the descent before the pursuers had come up with Fulvius and the rear.

There is a little hollow midway the ascent, which is thickly set with evergreen oaks, and hollies, and in the centre of this hollow, the road makes a turn almost at right angles.

Behind the corner of the wood, which entirely concealed them from any persons coming up the hill, Aulus drew up his men in double lines, and as the band, whom he suspected to be in pursuit of him, came into the open space, in loose array, and with their horses blown and weary, he charged upon them with a fierce shout, and threw them into disorder in a moment.

Nothing could indicate more clearly, the utter recklessness of the Catilinarian party, and the cheap estimate at which they held human life, than the perfect unconcern with which they set upon a party of men, whose identity with those whom they feared was so entirely unproved.

Nothing, at the same time, could indicate more clearly, the fury and uncalculating valor which had grown up among them, nurtured by the strange policy of Catiline, during a peace of eighteen years' duration.

Eighteen men, for, Aulus Fulvius included, they numbered no more, set fiercely upon a force of nearly three times their number, with no advantage of arms or accoutrement, or even of discipline, for although all old soldiers, these men had not, for years, been accustomed to act together, nor were any of them personally acquainted with the young leader, who for the first time commanded them.

The one link which held them together, was welded out of crime and desperation. Each man knew that his neighbor, as well as himself, must win or die—there was no compromise, no half-way measure that could by any possibility preserve them.

And therefore as one man they charged, as one man they struck, and death followed every blow.

At their first onset, with horses comparatively fresh, against the blown chargers and disordered mass of their pursuers, they were entirely successful. Above a dozen of their opponents went down horse and man, and the remainder were driven scattering along the slope, nearly to the foot of the declivity.

Uncertain as he had been at the first who were the men, whom he thus recklessly attacked, Aulus Fulvius had not well turned the angle of the wood, before he recognized the faces of almost all the leading men of the opposite party.

They were the oldest and most trusty of the clients of his house; and half a dozen, at the least, of his own name and kindred led them.

It needed not a moment therefore, to satisfy him that they were in quest of himself, and of himself alone—that they were no organized troop and invested with no state authority, but merely a band suddenly collected from his father's household, to bring him back in person from the fatal road on which he had entered so fatally.

Well did he know the rigor of the old Roman law, as regarded the paternal power, and well did he know, the severity with which his father would execute it.

The terrors inspired by the thought of an avenging country, would have been nothing—the bare idea of being surrendered a fettered captive to his dread father's indignation, maddened him.

Fiercely therefore, as he rushed out leading his ambushed followers, the fury of his first charge was mere boy's play when compared to the virulent and concentrated rage with which he fought, after he had discovered fairly against whom he was pitted.

Had his men shared his feeling, the pursuers must have been utterly defeated and cut to pieces, without the possibility of escape.

But while he recognized his personal enemies in the persons he attacked, the men who followed him as quickly perceived that those, whom they were cutting down, were not regular soldiers, nor led by any Roman magistrate.

They almost doubted, therefore, as they charged, whether they were not in error; and when the horsemen of the other faction were discomfitted and driven down the hill on the instant, they felt no inclination to pursue or harass them farther.

Not so, however, Aulus. He had observed in the first onset, the features of a cousin, whom he hated; and now, added to other motives, the fierce thirst for his kinsman's blood, stirred his blood almost into frenzy. Knowing, moreover, that he was himself the object of their pursuit, he knew likewise that the pursuit would not be given up for any casual check, but that to conquer, he must crush them.

Precipitately, madly therefore he drove down the hill, oversetting horseman after horseman, the greater part of them unwounded—for the short Roman sword, however efficient at close quarters and on foot, was a most ineffective weapon for a cavalier—until he reached the bottom of the hill.

There he reined up his charger for a moment, and looked back, waving his hand and shouting loudly to bring on his comrades to a second charge.

To his astonishment, however, he saw them collected in a body at nearly a mile's distance, on the brow of the first hill, beckoning him to come back, and evidently possessed by no thought, less than that of risking their lives or liberty by any fresh act of hostility.

In the mean time, the fugitives, who had now reached the level ground and found themselves unpressed, began to halt; and before Aulus Fulvius had well made up his mind what to do, they had been rallied and reformed, and were advancing slowly, with a firm and unbroken front, well calculated to deter his handful, which had already been diminished in strength, by one man killed, and four or five more or less severely wounded, from rashly making any fresh attack.

Alone and unsupported, nothing remained for him but to retreat if possible, and make his way back to his people, who, he felt well assured would again charge, if again menaced with pursuit. To do this, however, had now ceased to be an easy, perhaps to be a feasible matter.

Between himself and his own men, there were at least ten of his father's clients; several of them indeed were wounded, and all had been overthrown in the shock either by himself or his troopers; but they had all regained their horses, and—apparently in consequence of some agreement or tacit understanding with his comrades, were coming down the hill at a gentle trot to rejoin their own party.

Now it was that Aulus began to regret having sent forward the smith, and those of the conspirators to whom he was individually known, with Julia in the van. Since of the fellows who had followed him thus far, merely because inferior will always follow superior daring, and who now appeared mightily inclined to desert him, not three were so much as acquainted with his name, and not one had any intimacy with him, or indeed any community of feeling unless it were the community of crime.

These things flashed upon Aulus in an instant; the rather that he saw the hated cousin, whom he had passed unnoticed in his headlong charge, quietly bringing the clients into line between himself and his wavering associates.

He was in fact hemmed in on every side; he was alone, and his horse, which he had taxed to the uttermost, was wounded and failing fast.

His case was indeed desperate, for he could now see that his own faction were drawing off already with the evident intention of rejoining the bulk of the party, careless of his fate, and glad to escape at so small a sacrifice.

Still, even in this extremity he had no thought of surrender—indeed to him death and surrender were but two names for one thing.

He looked to the right and to the left, if there were any possibility of scaling the wooded slopes and so rejoining the sturdy swordsmith without coming to blows again with his father's household; but one glance told him that such hopes were vain indeed. On either hand the crags rose inaccessible even to the foot of man, unless he were a practised mountaineer.

Then rose the untamed spirit of his race, the firm Roman hardihood, deeming naught done while anything remains to do, and holding all things feasible to the bold heart and ready hand—the spirit which saved Rome when Hannibal was thundering at her gates, which made her from a petty town the queen and mistress of the universe.

He gathered his reins firmly in his hand, and turning his horse's head down the declivity put the beast to a slow trot, as if he had resolved to force his way toward Rome; but in a moment, when his manoeuvre had, as he expected caused the men in his rear to put their horses to their speed, and thus to break their line, he again wheeled, and giving his charger the spur with pitiless severity drove up the steep declivity like a thunderbolt, and meeting his enemies straggling along in succession, actually succeeded in cutting down two, before he was envelopped, unhorsed and disarmed, which, as his cousin's men came charging up and down the road at once, it was inevitable that he must be from the beginning.

"Curses upon thee! it is thou!" he said, grinding his teeth and shaking his weaponless hand at his kinsman in impotent malignity—"it is thou! Caius. Curses upon thee! from my birth thou hast crossed me."

"It were better thou hadst died, Aulus," replied the other solemnly, but in sorrow more than anger, "better that thou hadst died, than been so led back to Rome."

"Why didst thou not kill me then?" asked Aulus with a sneer of sarcastic spite—"Why dost thou not kill me now."

"Thou art sacro sanctus!" answered the other, with an expression of horror in his eyes—"doomed, set apart, sanctified unto destruction—words, alas! henceforth avail nothing. Bind him"—he continued, turning toward his men—"Bind him, I say, hard, with his hands behind his back, and his legs under his horse's belly! Go your way," he added, "Go to your bloody camp, and accursed leader"—waving his hand as he spoke, to the veterans above, who seemed half inclined to make an effort to rescue the prisoner. "Go your way. We have no quarrel with you now; we came for him, and having got him we return."

"What?" cried the dark-eyed boy who had come up too late to the Latin villa on the preceding night, and who, strange to state, was riding with the clients of the Fulvian house, unwearied—"What, will you not save her? will you not do that for which alone I led ye hither? will you be falsifiers of your word and dishonored?"

"Alas!" answered Caius Fulvius, "it is impossible.—We are outnumbered, my poor boy, and may not aid you, as we would; but be of good cheer, this villain taken, they will not dare to harm her."

The youth shook his head mournfully; but made no reply.

Aulus, however, who had heard all that was said, glared savagely upon the boy, and after examining his features minutely for a moment exclaimed—"I know thy face! who art thou! quick thy name?"

"I have no name!" replied the other gloomily.

"That voice! I know thee!" he shouted, an expression of infernal joy animating his features. "Thou miserable fool, and driveller! and is it for this—for this, that thou hast brought the bloodhounds on my track, to restore her to him? Mark me, then, mark me, and see if I am not avenged—her dishonor, her agony, her infamy are no less certain than my death. Catiline, Catiline shall avenge me upon her—upon him—upon thee—thou weaker, more variable thing than—woman! Catiline! think'st thou he will fail?"

"He hath failed ere now!" replied the boy proudly.

"Failed! when?" exclaimed Aulus, forgetting his own situation in the excitement of the wordy contest.

"When he crossed me"—then turning once more to the leader of the Fulvian clients, the dark-eyed boy said in a calm determined voice, "You will not, therefore, aid me?"

"We cannot."

"Enough! Look to him, then, that he escape you not."

"Fear us not. But whither goest thou?"

"To rescue Julia. Tell thou to Arvina how these things have fallen out, and whither they have led her; and, above all, that one is on her traces who will die or save her."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Aulus savagely in the glee of his vengeful triumph, "Thou wilt die, but not save her. I am avenged, already—avenged in Julia's ruin!"

"Wretch!" exclaimed his kinsman, indignant and disgusted—"almost it shames me that my name is Fulvius! Fearful, however, is the punishment that overhangs thee! think on that, Aulus! and if shame fetter not thy tongue, at least let terror freeze it."

"Terror? of whom? perhaps of thee, accursed?"

"Aulus. Thou hast—a father!"

At that word father, his eyes dropped instantly, their haughty insolence abashed; his face turned deadly pale; his tongue was frozen; he spoke no word again until at an early hour of morning, they reached the house he had so fatally dishonored.

Meanwhile, as the party, who had captured him, returned slowly with their prisoner down the mountain side, the last of the rebels having gallopped off long before to join the swordsmith and his gang, the boy, who took so deep an interest in Julia, dismounted from the white horse, which had borne him for so many hours with unabated fire and spirit, and leaving the high road, turned into a glade among the holm oaks, watered by a small streamlet, leading his courser by the rein.

Having reached a secluded spot, quite removed from sight of the highway, he drew from a small wallet, which was attached to the croupe, some pieces of coarse bread and a skin of generous wine, of which he partook sparingly himself, giving by far the larger portion to his four-footed friend, who greedily devoured the cake saturated with the rich grape-juice.

This done he fastened the beast to a tree so that he could both graze and drink from the stream; and then throwing himself down at length on the grass, he soon fell into a heavy and quiet sleep.

It was already sunset, when he awoke, and the gray hues of night were gathering fast over the landscape; but he seemed to care nothing for the approaching darkness as he arose reinvigorated and full of spirit, and walked up to his horse which whinnied his joyful recognition, and tossed his long thin mane with a spirited and fiery air, as he felt the well-known hand clapping his high arched crest.

"Courage! brave horse," he cried—"Courage, White Ister. We will yet save her, for—Arvina!"

And, with the words he mounted, and cantered away through the gloom of the woodland night, on the road toward Bolsena, well assured of the route taken by Caius Crispus and his infernal crew.



CHAPTER XII

THE ROMAN FATHER.

Daughter, He fled. * * * * * That Flight was parricide. MASON'S CARACTACUS.

The streets of Rome were in fierce and terrible confusion all that day long, on which the conspirators were arrested, and all the night that followed it.

Late on the evening of that day, when it was already dark, the Consul had addressed the people by torch-light in the forum, delivering that superb speech, known as the third oration against Catiline.

In it, he had informed them clearly of all the events which had occurred in the last twenty-four days, since the delivery of his second speech, more especially treating of those which had taken place in the preceding day and night.

The conspiracy made manifest by overwhelming evidence—the arrest of the ambassadors, the seizure of the letters, the acknowledgment of those letters for their own by the terrified and bewildered traitors, and lastly the committal of the ringleaders of the plot to close custody, previous to the discussion of their fate—such were the wondrous and exciting facts, which he had announced to the assembled multitudes, inviting them to join him in a solemn thanksgiving to the Gods, and public celebration, decreed by the Senate to his honor; congratulating them on their escape from a danger so imminent and so general; and calling on them, in conclusion, to watch over the safety of the city by nocturnal guards and patroles, as they had done so diligently during all that emergency.

The thundering acclamations, which greeted the close of that luculent and powerful exposition, the zeal with which the concourse hailed him unanimously Savior of Rome and Father of his country, the eagerness of affection with which all ranks and ages thronged around him, expressing their gratitude and their devotion, by all means imaginable, proved satisfactorily that, whatever might have been the result had massacre, plunder, and conflagration fallen upon them unawares, the vast mass of the people were now loyal, and true to their country.

The seven hills never had resounded with louder din of civic triumph, than they did on that glorious night; not when the noble Scipio triumphed for Carthage overthrown; not when the mighty Marius,(10) begirt with a host of captives and all the pomp of war, dismounted, happiest of men, from his Teutonic Car.

The streets were as light as day with the glare of lamps, and torches, and bonfires blazing on all the circumjacent heights, as with tremendous shouts, and unpremeditated triumph, the mighty multitude escorted the great Consul home, not to his own house, where the rites of the Good Goddess were in celebration, and whither no male could be admitted, but to his next-door neighbor's mansion, in which he and his friends were entertained with more than regal splendor.

What could have been more glorious, what more unmixed with any touch of bitterness, or self reproach, than Cicero's position on that evening?

His country saved from miseries unparalleled—saved by himself alone—no aid of rival generals, no force of marshalled hosts to detract from the greatness of his own achievement—all the strife borne, all the success won, all the glory conquered by the force of his own genius, of his own moral resolution. No blood of friends had been spilt to buy that conquest, and wring its tribute of anguished sorrow from eyes bright with the mixed excitement of regret and triumph—no widow's tears, no orphan's sighs, had mounted heavenward amid those joyous conclamations.

With no sword drawn, with no army arrayed, alone in his peaceful toga, he had conquered the world's peace; and, for that night at least, he enjoyed, as his great merit's meed, a world's gratitude.

All night long had the streets been crowded with fond and ardent throngs of all ages, sexes, ranks, conditions, questioning, cheering, carolling, carousing—all, in appearance at least, unanimous in joy; for none dared in such an ebullition of patriotic feeling to display any disaffection.

And the morrow dawned upon Rome, still noisy, still alive with tumultuous joy, still filled, through the whole area within its walls, by thousands, and tens of thousands, hoarse with shouting, weary almost of revelling, haggard and pale from the excess of excitement.

Such was the scene, which the metropolis of the world presented, when at the second hour of the morning, on the day following the arrest of Lentulus, a small party consisting of about fifty horsemen, conducting a prisoner, with his arms bound behind his back, gagged, and with the lappet of his cloak so disposed as to conceal his face, entered the Quirinal gate, from the direction of the Flaminian way.

They were the clients of the Fulvian House, leading the miserable Aulus homeward, under the command of his cousin. The horses were jaded, and bleeding from many a spur gall; the men were covered with dust and sweat; and several of their number were wounded; but, what at once struck the minds of all who beheld them, was that their faces, although stern and resolute, were grave, dejected and sad, while still it would seem that they were returning in triumph from some successful expedition.

At any other time, the entrance of such a party would have awakened much astonishment and surprise, perhaps might have created a tumult among the excitable and easily agitated Romans; but now so strangely had the popular mind been stimulated during the last days, that they either paid no attention to the train at all, or observed, pointing to the prisoner, that there went another of the parricides.

Just, however, as the new-comers entered the gate, another armed band met them, moving outward; the latter being a full troop, thirty in number, of cavalry of the seventh legion, with a banner, and clarion, and Paullus Arvina at their head, in complete armor, above which he wore a rich scarlet cloak, or paludamentum, floating over his left shoulder.

The face of the young man was as pale as that of a corpse, his eyes were sunken, and surrounded by dark circles, his cheeks were hollow, and among the short black curls, which were visible beneath the brazen peak of his sculptured casque, there was one as white as snow.

Since the dread news had reached him of Julia's abduction, he had not closed his eyes for a moment; and, although scarcely eight and forty hours had elapsed, since he received the fatal intelligence, he had grown older by many years.

No one, who looked upon him, would have judged him to be younger than thirty-five or forty years, when he was in truth little more than half way on life's journey toward the second period.

There was a cold firm determination too written on all his features, such as is rarely seen in young men; and the wild vacillating light which used to flicker so changefully over his fine face, was lost in an expression of mournful and despairing resolution.

Still his attitude on his charger's back was fine and spirited; his head was proudly erect; and his voice, as from time to time, he uttered some command to his troopers, was clear, steady, and sonorous.

So much indeed was he altered, that Caius Fulvius, who knew him well, gazed at him doubtfully for half a minute ere he addressed him, as the two troops came almost into contact, the mounted clients of the Fulvian House, withdrawing to the wayside to allow the legionaries to pass.

Assured at last that it was indeed Arvina, he called out as he passed—

"Tell me, I pray thee, Paullus, what means this concourse in the streets? hath aught of ill befallen?"

"Ha! is it thou, Caius Fulvius?" replied Arvina. "I will speak with thee anon. Lead the men forward," he added, turning round in his saddle to the second Decurion of his troop, "my good Drusus. I will overtake you, ere you shall reach the Mulvian bridge." Here wheeling his horse to the side of the young nobleman, "Where hast thou been, Caius, that thou hast not heard? All the conspirators have been arrested. Lentulus, and Cethegus, Gabinius, Statilius, and Cparius! They have confessed their letters—the Gaulish ambassadors, and Titus Volturcius have given evidence against them. The senate is debating even now on their doom."

"Indeed! indeed! when did all this fall out?" enquired the other evidently in great astonishment.

"Yesterday morning they were taken. The previous night, in the third watch, the ambassadors were stopped on the Mulvian bridge, and the treasonable papers found on Volturcius."

"Ha! this is indeed news!" cried Caius. "What will befall Lentulus and the rest? Do men know anything!"

"Death!" answered Arvina gravely.

"Death! art thou certain? A Prtor, a consular of Rome! and all the others Senators! Death! Paullus?"

"Death!" replied the other still more solemnly, than before. "Yet methinks! that rather should be a boon, than the fit penalty of such guilt! But where have you been, that you are ignorant of all this, and whom have you there?"

Caius Fulvius shook his head sorrowfully, and a deep groan burst from the lips of the muffled man, a groan of rage mingled with hate and terror.

"I will tell thee, Arvina," said the young man, after a moment's pause, during which Paullus had been gazing with a singular, and even to himself incomprehensible, emotion at the captive horseman. "We have been sent to fetch him back," and he pointed to his wretched cousin, "as he fled to join Catiline. We overtook him nigh to Volsinii."

"Who—who—" exclaimed Arvina in a terrible hoarse voice—"By all the Gods! who is he?—"

"Aulus—"

"Ha! villain! villain! He shall die by my hand!" burst from Arvina's lips with a stifled cry, and drawing his sword as he spoke, he made toward him.

But Caius Fulvius, and several others of the clients threw themselves into the way, and the former said quietly but very firmly, "No—no, my Paullus, that must not be. His life is devoted to a baser doom; nor must his blood be shed by a hand so noble! But wherefore—Ha!" he exclaimed, interrupting himself in mid speech. "Ha! Julia, I remember—I remember—would to the Gods I could have rescued her."

For one second's space Paullus Arvina glared upon the speaker, as if he would have stabbed him where he sat on his horse motionless and unresisting; then, shaking his head with an abrupt impatient motion as if to rid himself of some fixed image or impression, he said,

"You are right, Caius. But tell me! by the Gods! was she with him? saw you aught of her, as you took him?"

"She was in his power, my poor Paullus, as we were told at Sutrium; but when we overtook him, he had sent forward all his band but a small party, who fought so hard and handled us so roughly, that, he once taken, we dared not set on them again. But, be of good cheer, my Paullus. There is a gallant youth on the track of them; the same youth who went to save her at the Latin villa but arrived too late; the same who brought us the tidings of yon villain's flight, who led us in pursuit of them. He follows still, and swears that he will save her! The Gods grant it?"

"A youth, ha! who is he?"

"I know not. He refused to tell us, still saying that he was nameless. A slight slender black-eyed youth. Exceeding dark-complexioned, but handsome withal. You would have said, to look on him, he would lack strength to ride an hour; yet, by the God of Faith! he was in the saddle incessantly for nearly forty hours, and shewed less weariness than our sturdiest men. Never saw I such fiery will, and resolute endurance, in one so young and feeble."

"Strange!" muttered Paullus—"strange! why came he not to me?"

"He did go to your mansion, but found you not. You were absent on state business—then came he to the father of this demon, who sent us in pursuit, and we have, as I tell you, succeeded. May you do so likewise! He charged me to say to you 'there was one on her track who would die to save her.'"

"'Tis passing strange! I may not even guess who it should be," he added musing, "the Gods give him strength. But tell me, Caius, can I, by any speed, overtake them?"

"I fear me not, Paullus, ere they have reached the camp. They were nigh to Volsinii at noon yesterday; of course they will not loiter on the way."

"Alas!" replied the unhappy youth, "Curses! curses! ten thousand curses on his head!" and he glanced savagely upon Aulus as he spoke—"to what doom do ye lead him?"

"To an indignant father's pitiless revenge!"

"May he perish ill!—may his unburied spirit wander and wail forever upon the banks of Acheron, unpardoned and despairing!"

And turning suddenly away, as if afraid to trust himself longer in sight of his mortal enemy, he plunged his spurs deep into his charger's flank, and gallopped away in order to overtake his troop, with which he was proceeding to join the army which Antonius the consul and Petreius his lieutenant were collecting on the sea-coast of Etruria in order to act against Catiline.

Meanwhile the others rode forward on their gloomy errand toward the Fulvian House.

They reached its doors, and at the trampling of their horses' feet, before any summons had been given, with a brow dark as night and a cold determined eye, the aged Senator came forth to meet his faithful clients.

At the first glance he cast upon the party, the old man saw that they had succeeded; and a strange expression of satisfaction mixed with agony crossed his stern face.

"It is well!" he said gravely. "Ye have preserved the honor of my house. I give ye thanks, my friends. Well have ye done your duty! It remains only that I do my own. Bring in your prisoner, Caius, and ye, my friends, leave us, I pray you, to our destiny."

The young man to whom he addressed himself, leaped down from his horse with one or two of the clients, and, unbuckling the thong which fastened his cousin's legs under the belly of the beast he rode, lifted him to the ground; for in a sort of sullen spite, although unable to resist, he moved neither hand nor foot, more than a marble statue would have done; and when he stood on the pavement, he made no step toward the door, and it was necessary to carry him bodily up the steps of the colonnade, and through the vestibule into the atrium.

In that vast hall a fearful group was assembled. On a large arm chair at the upper end sat an aged matron, perfectly blind, with hair as white as snow, and a face furrowed with wrinkles, the work of above a century. She was the mother of the Senator, the grandmother of the young culprit. At her right hand stood another large chair vacant, the seat of the master of the house; and at her left sat another lady, already far advanced in years, yet stately, firm, and unflinching—the wretched, but proud mother. Behind her stood three girls of various ages, the youngest not counting above sixteen years, all beautiful, and finely made, but pale as death, with their superb dark eyes dilated and their white lips mute with strange horror.

Lower down the hall toward the door, and not far removed from the altar of the household gods, near the impluvium, stood a black wooden block, with a huge broad axe lying on it, and a grim-visaged slave leaning against the wall with folded arms in a sort of stoical indifference—the butcher of the family. By his trade, he little cared whether he practised it on beasts or men; and perhaps he looked forward with some pleasurable feelings to the dealing of a blow against one of the proud lords of Empire.

No one could look upon that mute and sad assemblage without perceiving that some dread domestic tragedy was in process; but how dreadful no one could conceive, who was not thoroughly acquainted with the strange and tremendous rigor of the old Roman Law.

The face of the mother was terribly convulsed, as she heard the clanging hoof tramps at the door; and in an agony of unendurable suspense she laid her hand upon her heart, as if to still its wild throbbing.

Roman although she was, and trained from her childhood upward in the strictest school of Stoicism, he, on whom they were gathered there to sit in judgment, was still her first-born, her only son; and she could not but remember in this hour of wo the unutterable pleasure with which she had listened to the first small cry of him, then so innocent and weak and gentle, who now so strong in manhood and so fierce in sin, stood living on the verge of death.

But now as the clanging of the horse hoofs ceased, different sounds succeeded; and in a moment the anxious ears of the wife and mother could discern the footsteps of the proud husband, and the fallen child.

They entered the hall, old Aulus Fulvius striding with martial steps and a resolute yet solemn brow toward the chair of judgment, like to some warlike Flamen about to execute the wrath of the Gods upon his fated victim; the son shuffling along, with downcast eyes and an irregular pace, supported on one hand by his detested cousin, and on the other by an aged freedman of the house.

The head of the younger Aulus was yet veiled with the lappet of his gown; so that he had seen none of those who were then assembled, none of the fatal apparatus of his fore-ordered doom.

But now, as the old man took his seat, he made a movement with his hand, and Caius, obedient to the gesture, lifted the woollen covering from the son's brow, and released his hold of his arm. At a second wafture, the nephew and the freedman both departed, glad to be spared the witnessing a scene so awful as that which was about to ensue.

The sound of their departing footsteps fell with an icy chill on the stout heart of the young conspirator; and although he hated the man, who had just left the room, more than any living being, he would yet willingly have detained him at that crisis.

He felt that even hatred was less to be apprehended than the cold hard decision of the impassive unrelenting father, in whose heart every sentiment was dead but those of justice and of rigorous honor.

"Aulus, lift up your eyes!"

And, for the first time since he had entered the hall, the culprit looked up, and gazed with a wild and haggard eye on the familiar objects which met his glance on every side; and yet, familiar as they were, all seemed to be strange, altered, and unusual.

The statues of his dead ancestors, as they stood, grim and uncouth in their antique sculpture, between the pillars of the wall, seemed to dilate in size, and, become gigantic, to frown stern contempt on their degenerate descendant. The grotesque forms of the Etruscan household Gods appeared to gibber at him; the very flames upon the altar, before them, cast lurid gleams and ominous to his distempered fancy.

It was singular, that the last thing which he observed was that, which would have been the first to attract the notice of a stranger—the block, the axe, and the sullen headsman.

A quick shudder ran through every limb and artery of his body, and he turned white and livid. His spirit was utterly appalled and broken; his aspect was that of a sneaking culprit, a mean craven.

"Aulus, lift up your eyes!"

And he did lift them, with a strong effort, to meet the fixed and searching gaze of his father; but so cold, so penetrating was that gaze, that his glance fell abashed, and he trembled from head to foot, and came well nigh to falling on the earth in his great terror.

"Aulus, art thou afraid to die?—thou, who hast sworn so deeply to dye thine hands in my gore, in the gore of all who loved their country? Art thou afraid to die, stabber, adulterer, poisoner, ravisher, parricide, Catilinarian? Art thou afraid to die? I should have thought, when thou didst put on such resolves, thou wouldst have cast aside all that is human! Once more, I say, art thou afraid to die?"

"To die!" he exclaimed in husky tones, which seemed to stick in his parched throat—"to die! to be nothing!"

And again the convulsive shudder ran through his whole frame.

But ere the Senator could open his lips to reply, the blind old grandam asked, in a voice so clear and shrill that its accents seemed to pierce the very souls of all who heard it—

"Is he a coward, Aulus Fulvius? Is he a coward, too, as well as a villain? The first of our race, is he a coward?"

"I fear it," answered the old man gloomily. "But, cowardly or brave, he must disgrace our house no farther. His time is come! his fate cries out for him! Aulus must die! happy to die without the taint of public and detected infamy—happy to die unseen in his father's house, not in the base and sordid Tullianum."

"Mother! mother!" exclaimed the wretched youth in a paroxysm of agony. "Sisters, speak for me—plead for me! I am young, oh, too young to die!"

"The mother, whom thou hast sworn to murder—the sisters, whose virgin youth thou hast agreed to yield to the licentious arms of thy foul confederates!" answered the old man sternly; while the women, with blanched visages, convulsed with agony, were silent, even to that appeal.

"Speak, speak! will you not speak for me, for your first-born son, my mother?"

"Farewell!"—the cold word came forth from her pallid lips, with a mighty effort—"Farewell, unhappy!" And, unable to endure the dreadful scene any longer, she arose from her seat, and laid her hand on the blind woman's arm. "Come," she said, "mother of my lord! our task is ended! his doom spoken! Let us go hence!"

But the youngest sister, overcoming her fear of the stern father, her modesty of youth, and her sense of high-strained honor, cast herself at the old man's feet, and clung about his knees, crying with a shrill painful cry—

"Oh, father! by your right hand! by your gray head! by all the Gods! I implore you, pardon, spare him!"

"Up! up! base girl!" cried the old man; "wouldst have the infamy of our house made public? and thou, most miserable boy, spare her, thou, this disgrace, and me this anguish—veil thy head! bow thee to the block! bid the slave do his office! At least, Aulus, if thou hast not lived, at least die, a Roman!"

The second of the girls, while her sister had made that fruitless appeal to the father's mercy, walked steadily to her brother, kissed his brow with a tearless eye, and in a low voice bade him "Farewell for ever!" then turned away, impassive as her father, and followed her mother and the blind grandam from the fatal hall.

But the third daughter stepped up to the faltering youth with a hectic flush on her cheek, and a fitful fire in her eye, and whispered in his ear,

"Aulus, my brother! unhappy one, it is vain! Thou must die, for our house's honor! Die, then, my brother, as it becomes a Fulvius, bravely, and by a free hand! Which of our house perished ever by a base weapon, or a slavish blow? Thou wert brave ever,—be brave now, oh! my brother!"

And at her words, his courage, his pride, rallied to his aid; and he met her eye with a flashing glance, and answered in a firm tone, "I will, sister, I will die as becomes a Roman, as becomes a Fulvius! But how shall I die by a free hand, bound as I am, and weaponless?"

"Thus, brother," she replied, drawing a short keen knife from the bosom of her linen stola; and severing the bonds which confined his elbows, she placed it in his hands. "It is keen! it will not fail you! it is the last gift of the last who loves you, Aulus!"

"The best gift! Farewell, sister!"

"Farewell, Aulus, for ever!" And she too kissed him on the brow; and as she kissed him, a hot tear fell upon his cheek. Then, turning toward her sister who was still clinging to the old man's knees, embarrassing him with useless prayers, so that he had observed none of that by-play, she said to her firmly,