University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
THE ARREST.

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, Cæparius. 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, Cæparius.”

“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.

Cæparius, 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 Cæparius—“thou wilt be seized, within the
hour”

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

Cæparius 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 Cæ
parius' tidings, Lentulus did, in some sort, arouse himself
to consideration.

“It may be so,” he said to himself. “Cæparius 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 Cæparius'
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[1] 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 Cæparius
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 reechoed 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 Prætor. “Hath
he a name, this bold centurion?”

“Paullus Cæcilius 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, Prætor, 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 didst
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 Fiesolè! 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 gul
let, 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! It

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 con
sul.”

“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 Carinæ.

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.

“Prætor,” 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 Cæparius 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.