University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
THE YOUNG PATRICIAN.

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 Baccanæ, 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 manœuvre 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 nead 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.