University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
THE WATCHTOWER OF USELLA.

Macbeth.

The watchtower in which Caius Crispus and his gang
had taken refuge from the legionaries, was one of those
small isolated structures, many of which had been perched
in the olden time on the summits of the jutting crags, or in
the passes of the Appennines, but most of which had fallen
long before into utter ruin.

Some had been destroyed in the border wars of the innumerable
petty tribes, which, ere the Romans became
masters of the peninsula, divided among themselves that
portion of Italy, and held it in continual turmoil with their
incessant wars and forays.

Some had mouldered away, by the slow hand of ruthless
time; and yet more had been pulled down for the sake of
their materials, which now filled a more useful if less glorious
station, in the enclosures of tilled fields, and the walls
of rustic dwellings.

From such a fate the watchtower of Usella had been
saved by several accidents. Its natural and artificial
strength had prevented its sack or storm during the earlier
period of its existence—the difficulty of approaching it had
saved its solid masonry from the cupidity of the rural proprietors—and,
yet more, its formidable situation, commanding
one of the great hill passes into Cisalpine Gaul,
had induced the Roman government to retain it in use, as

a fortified post, so long as their Gallic neighbors were half
subdued only, and capable of giving them trouble by their
tumultuous incursions.

Although it had consisted, therefore, in the first instance,
of little more than a rude circular tower of that architecture
called Cyclopean, additions had been made to it by
the Romans of a strong brick wall with a parapet, enclosing
a space of about a hundred feet in diameter, accessible
only by a single gateway, with a steep and narrow path
leading to it, and thoroughly commanded by the tower itself.

In front, this wall was founded on a rough craggy bank
of some thirty feet in height, rising from the main road
traversing the defile, by which alone it could be approached;
for, on the right and left, the rocks had been scarped
artificially; and, in the rear, there was a natural gorge
through which a narrow but impetuous torrent raved, between
precipices a hundred feet in depth, although an
arch of twenty foot span would have crossed the ravine with
ease.

Against the wall at this point, on the inner side, the Romans
had constructed a small barrack with three apartments,
each of which had a narrow window overlooking
the bed of the torrent, no danger being apprehended from
that quarter.

Such was the place into which Crispus had retreated,
under the guidance of one of the Etruscan conspirators,
after the attack of the Roman infantry; and, having succeeded
in reaching it by aid of their horses half an hour
before their pursuers came up, they had contrived to barricade
the gateway solidly with some felled pine trees;
and had even managed to bring in with them a yoke of
oxen and a mule laden with wine, which they had seized
from the peasants in the street of the little village of Usella,
as they gallopped through it, goading their blown and
weary animals to the top of their speed.

It was singularly characteristic of the brutal pertinacity,
and perhaps of the sagacity also, of Caius Crispus, that
nothing could induce him to release the miserable Julia,
who was but an incumbrance to their flight, and a hindrance
to their defence.

To all her entreaties, and promises of safety from his

captors, and reward from her friends, if he would release
her, he had replied only with a sneer; saying that he would
ensure his own safety at an obolus' fee, and that, for his
reward, he would trust noble Catiline.

“For the rest,” he added, “imagine not that you shall
escape, to rejoice the heart of that slave Arvina. No! minion,
no! We will fight 'till our flesh be hacked from our
bones, ere they shall make their way in hither; and if they
do so, they shall find thee—dead and dishonored! Pray,
therefore, if thou be wise, for our success.”

Such might in part indeed have been his reasoning; for
he was cruel and licentious, as well as reckless and audacious;
but it is probable that, knowing himself to be in
the vicinity of Catiline's army, he calculated on finding
some method of conveying to him information of the prize
that lay within his grasp, and so of securing both rescue
and reward.

If he had not, however, in the first instance thought of
this, it was not long ere it occurred to him; when he at
once proceeded to put it into execution.

Within half an hour of the entrance of the little party
into this semi-ruinous strong-hold, the legionary foot came
up, about a hundred and fifty men in number, but without
scaling ladders, artillery, or engines.

Elated by their success, however, they immediately
formed what was called the tortoise, by raising their shields
and overlapping the edges of them above their heads, in
such a manner as to make a complete penthouse, which
might defend them from the missiles of the besieged; and,
under cover of this, they rushed forward dauntlessly, to
cut down the palisade with their hooks and axes.

In this they would have probably succeeded, for the arrows
and ordinary missiles of the defenders rebounded and
rolled down innocuous from the tough brass-bound bull-hides;
and the rebels were already well nigh in despair,
when Caius Crispus, who had been playing his part gallantly
at the barricade, and had stabbed two or three of
the legionaries with his pilum, in hand to hand encounter,
through the apertures of the grating, rushed up to the battlements,
covered with blood and dust, and shouting—

“Ho! by Hercules! this will never do, friends. Give
me yon crow-bar—So! take levers, all of you, and axes!

We must roll down the coping on their heads,”—applied
his own skill and vast personal strength to the task. In an
instant the levers were fixed, and grasping his crow-bar
with gigantic energy, he set up his favorite chaunt, as
cheerily as he had done of old in his smithy on the Sacred
Way—
But his words were cut short by a thundering crash; for,
animated by his untamed spirit, his fellows had heaved
with such a will at the long line of freestone coping, that,
after tottering for a few seconds, and reeling to and fro, it
all rushed down with the speed and havoc of an avalanche,
drowning all human sounds with the exception of one
piercing yell of anguish, which rose clear above the confused
roar and clatter.

“Ho! by the Thunderer! we have smashed them beneath
their tortoise, like an egg in its shell! Now ply
your bows, brave boys! now hurl your javelins! Well
shot! well shot indeed, my Niger! You hit that high-crested
centurion full in the mouth, as he called on them
to rally, and nailed his tongue to his jaws. Give me another
pilum, Rufus! This,” he continued, as he poised and
launched it hurtling through the air, “This to the ensign-bearer!”
And, scarce was the word said, ere the ponderous
missile alighted on his extended shield, pierced its
tough fourfold bull-hide, as if it had been a sheet of parchment;
drove through his bronze cuirass, and hurled him
to the ground, slain outright in an instant. “Ha! they
have got enough of it! Shout, boys! Victoria! Victoria!”

And the wild cheering of the rebels pealed high above
the roar of the torrent, striking dismay into the soul of the
wretched Julia.

But, although the rebels had thus far succeeded, and
the legionaries had fallen back, bearing their dead and
wounded with them, the success was by no means absolute
or final; and this no man knew better than the sword-smith.

He watched the soldiers eagerly, as they drew off in orderly

array into the hollow way, and after a short consultation,
posting themselves directly in front of the gate with
sentinels thrown out in all directions, lighted a large watch
fire in the road, with the intention, evidently, of converting
the storm into a blockade.

A few moments afterward, he saw a soldier mount the
horse of the slain centurion, and gallop down the hill in
the direction of Antonius' army, which was well known to
be lying to the south-eastward. Still a few minutes later
a small party was sent down into the village, and returned
bringing provisions, which the men almost immediately
began to cook, after having posted a chain of videttes from
one bank to the other of the precipitous ravine, so as to
assure themselves that no possibility of escape was left to
the besieged in any direction, by which they conceived
escape to be practicable.

“Ha!” exclaimed Crispus, as he watched their movements,
“they will give us no more trouble to-night, but we
will make sure of them by posting one sentinel above the
gate, and another on the head of the watch-tower. Then
we will light us a good fire in the yard below, and feast
there on the beef and wine of those brute peasants. The
legionaries fancy that they can starve us out; but they know
not how well we are provided. Hark you, my Niger. Go
down and butcher those two beeves, and when they are
flayed and decapitated, blow me a good loud trumpet blast
and roll down the heads over the battlements. Long ere
we have consumed our provender, Catiline will be down
on them in force! I go to look around the place, and make
all certain.”

And, with the words, he ascended to the summit of the
old watch-tower and stood there for many minutes, surveying
the whole conformation of the country, and all the
defences of the place, with a calm and skilful eye.

The man was by no means destitute of certain natural
talents, and an aptitude for war, which, had it been cultivated
or improved, might possibly have made him a captain.
He speedily perceived, therefore, that the defences were
tenable so long only as no ladders or engines should be
brought against them; which he was well assured would
be done, within twenty-four hours at the latest. He knew
also that want of provisions must compel him to surrender

at discretion before many days; and he felt it to be very
doubtful whether, without some strong effort on their part
Catiline would hear at all of their situation, until it should
be entirely too late.

He began, therefore, at once, to look about him for
means of despatching an envoy, nothing doubting that succor
would be sent to him instantly, could the arch traitor
be informed, that the lovely Julia was a prisoner awaiting
his licentious pleasure.

Descending from the battlements, he proceeded at once
to the barrack rooms in the rear, hoping to find some possibility
of lowering a messenger into the bed of the stream,
or transporting him across the ravine, unseen by the sentinels
of the enemy.

Then, casting open a door of fast decaying wood-work,
he entered the first of the low mouldering unfurnished
rooms; and, stepping across the paved floor with a noiseless
foot, thrust his head out of the window and gazed
anxiously up and down the course of the ravine.

He became satisfied at once that his idea was feasible;
for the old wall was built, at this place, in salient angles,
following the natural line of the cliffs; and the window
of the central room was situated in the bottom of the recess,
between two jutting curtains, in each of which was
another embrasure. It was evident, therefore, that a person
lowered by the middle window, into the gorge beneath,
would be screened from the view of any watchers, by the
projection of the walls; and Crispus nothing doubted but
that, once in the bottom of the ravine, a path might be
found more or less difficult by which to reach the upper
country.

Beyond the ravine rose many broken knolls covered
with a thick undergrowth of young chesnut hollies, wild
laurels, and the like; and through these, a winding road
might be discovered, penetrating the passes of the hills,
and crossing the glen at a half mile's distance below on a
single-arched brick bridge, by which it joined the causeway
occupied by the legionaries.

Having observed so much, Caius Crispus was on the
point of withdrawing his head, forgetting all about his
prisoner, who, on their entrance into this dismantled hold,
had been thrust in hither, as into the place where she

would be most out of harm's way, and least likely to escape.

But just as he was satisfied with gazing, the lovely face
of Julia, pale as an image of statuary marble, with all her
splendid auburn hair unbound, was advanced out of the
middle window; evidently looking out like himself for
means of escape. But to her the prospect was not, as to
him, satisfactory; and uttering a deep sigh she shook her
head sadly, and wrung her hands with an expression of utter
despair.

“Ha! ha! my pretty one, it is too deep, I trow!” cried
Crispus, whom she had not yet observed, with a cruel
laugh, “Nothing, I swear, without wings can descend that
abyss; unless like Sappho, whom the poets tell us of, it
would put an end to both love and life together. No! no!
you cannot escape thus, my pretty one; and, on the outside,
I will make sure of you. For the rest I will send you some
watch cloaks for a bed, some supper, and some wine. We
will not starve you, my fair Julia, and no one shall harm
you here, for I will sleep across your door, myself, this
night, and ere to-morrow's sunset we shall be in the camp
with Catiline.”

He was as good as his word, for he returned almost immediately,
bringing a pile of watch-cloaks, which he arranged
into a rude semblance of a bed, with a pack saddle for
the pillow, in the innermost recess of the inner room, with
some bread, and beef broiled hastily on the embers, and
some wine mixed with water, which last she drank eagerly;
for fear and anxiety had parched her, and she was faint
with thirst.

Before he went out, again he looked earnestly from the
unlatticed window, in order to assure himself that she had
no means of escape. Scarce was he gone, before she
heard the shrill blast of the Roman trumpets blown clearly
and scientifically, for the watch-setting; and, soon afterward,
all the din and bustle, which had been rife through
the livelong day, sank into silence, and she could hear the
brawling of the brook below chafing and raving against the
rocks which barred its bed, and the wind murmuring
against the leafless treetops.

Shortly after this, it became quite dark; and after sitting
musing awhile with a sad and despairing heart, and putting

up a wild prayer to the Gods for mercy and protection,
she went once more and leaned out of the window, gazing
wistfully on the black stones and foamy water.

“Nothing,” she said to herself sadly, repeating Caius
Crispus' words, “could descend hence, without wings,
and live. It is too true! alas! too true!—” she paused for
a moment, and then, while a flash of singular enthusiastic
joy irradiated all her pallid lineaments, she exclaimed, “but
the Great Gods be praised? one can leap down, and die!
Let life go! what is life? since I can thus preserve my
honor!” She paused again and considered; then clasped
her hands together, and seemed to be on the point of casting
herself into that awful gulf; but she resisted the temptation,
and said, “Not yet! not yet! There is hope yet, on
earth! and I will live awhile, for hope and for Paullus.
I can do this at any time—of this refuge, at least, they cannot
rob me. I will live yet awhile!” And with the words
she turned away quietly, went to the pile of watch-cloaks,
and lying down forgot ere long her sorrows and her dread,
in calm and innocent slumber.

She had not been very long asleep, however, when a
sound from without the door aroused her; and, as she
started to her feet, Caius Crispus looked into the cell with
a flambeau of pine-wood blazing in his right hand, to ascertain
if she was still within, and safe under his keeping.

“You have been sleeping, ha!” he exclaimed. “That
is well, you must be weary. Will you have more wine?”

“Some water, if you will, but no wine. I am athirst
and feverish.”

“You shall have water.”

And thrusting the flambeau into the earth, between the
crevices in the pavement, he left the room abruptly.

Scarce was he gone, leaving the whole apartment blazing
with a bright light which rendered every object within
clearly visible to any spectator from the farther side of the
ravine, before a shrill voice with something of a feminine
tone, was heard on the other brink, exclaiming in suppressed
tones—

“Hist! hist! Julia?”

“Great Gods! who calls on Julia?”

“Julia Serena, is it thou?”

“Most miserable I!” she made answer. “But who
calls me?”

“A friend—be wary, and silent, and you shall not lack
aid.”

But Julia heard the heavy step of the swordsmith approaching,
and laying her finger on her lips, she sprang
back hastily from the window, and when her gaoler entered,
was busy, apparently, in arranging her miserable
bed.

It was not long that he tarried; for after casting one keen
glance around him, to see that all was right; he freed her
of his hated presence, taking the torch along with him, and
leaving her in utter darkness.

As soon as his footstep had died away into silence, she
hurried back to the embrasure, and gazed forth earnestly;
but the moon had not yet risen, and all the gulf of the ravine
and the banks on both sides were black as night, and
she could discern nothing.

She coughed gently, hoping to attract the attention of
her unknown friend, and to learn more of her chances of
escape; but no farther sound or signal was made to her;
and, after watching long in hope deferred, and anxiety unspeakable,
she returned to her sad pallet and bathed her
pillow with hot tears, until she wept herself at length into
unconsciousness of suffering, the last refuge of the wretched,
when they have not the christian's hope to sustain them.

She was almost worn out with anxiety and toil, and she
slept soundly, until the blowing of the Roman trumpets in
the pass again aroused her; and before she had well collected
her thoughts so as to satisfy herself where she was
and wherefore, the shouts and groans of a sudden conflict,
the rattling of stones and javelins on the tiled roof, the clang
of arms, and all the dread accompaniments of a mortal
conflict, awoke her to a full sense of her situation.

The day lagged tediously and slow. No one came near
her, and, although she watched the farther side of the
gorge, with all the frantic hope which is so near akin to
despair, she saw nothing, heard nothing, but a few wood-pigeous
among the leafless tree-tops, but the sob of the
torrent and the sigh of the wintry wind.

At times indeed the long stern swell of the legionary
trumpets would again sound for the assault, and the din of

warfare would follow it; but the skirmishes were of shorter
and shorter duration, and the tumultuous cheering of the
rebels at the close of every onslaught, proved that their
defence had been maintained at least, and that the besiegers
had gained no advantage.

It was, perhaps, four o'clock in the afternoon; and the
sun was beginning to verge to the westward, when, just
after the cessation of one of the brief attacks—by which it
would appear that the besiegers intended rather to harass
the garrison and keep them constantly on the alert, than to
effect anything decided—the sound of armed footsteps
again reached the ears of Julia.

A moment afterward, Caius Crispus entered the room
hastily, accompanied by Niger and Rufus, the latter bearing
in his hand a coil of twisted rope, manufactured from
the raw hide of the slaughtered cattle, cut into narrow
stripes, and ingeniously interwoven.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, starting for a moment, as he saw
Julia. “I had forgotten you. We have been hardly pressed
all day, and I have had no time to think of you; but we
shall have more leisure now. Are you hungry, Julia?”

For her only reply she pointed to the food yet untouched,
which he had brought to her on the previous evening, and
shook her head sadly; but uttered not a word.

“Well! well!” he exclaimed, “we have no time to talk
about such matters now; but eat you shall, or I will have
you crammed, as they stuff fat-livered geese! Come, Niger,
we must lose no minute. If they attack again, and
miss me from the battlements, they will be suspecting
something, and will perhaps come prying to the rear.—
Have you seen any soldiers, girl, on this side? I trow you
have been gazing from the window all day long in the
hope of escaping, but I suppose you will not tell me
truly.”

“If I tell you not truly, I shall hold my peace. But I
will tell you, that I have seen no human being, no living
thing, indeed; unless it be a thrush, and three wood pigeons,
fluttering in the treetops yonder.”

“That is a lie, I dare be sworn!” cried Niger. “If it
had been the truth she would not have breathed a word of
it to us. Beside which, it is too cool altogether!”

“By Mulciber my patron! if I believed so, it should go

hardly with her; but it matters not. Come, we must lose
no time.”

And passing into the central room of the three, they made
one end of the rope fast about the waist of Niger, and the
other to an upright mullion in the embrasure, which, although
broken half way up, afforded ample purchase
whereby to lower him into the chasm.

This done, the man clambered out of the window very
cooly, going backward, as if he were about to descend a
ladder; but, when his face was on the point of disappearing
below the sill, as he hung by his hands alone, having
no foothold whatever, he said quietly, “If I shout, Caius
Crispus, haul me up instantly. I shall not do so, if there
be any path below. But if I whistle, be sure that all is
right. Lower away. Farewell.”

“Hold on! hold on, man!” replied Crispus quickly,
“turn yourself round so as to bring your back to the crag's
face, else shall the angles of the rock maim, and the dust
blind you. That's it; most bravely done! you are a right
good cragsman.”

“I was born among the crags, at all events,” answered
the other, “and I think now that I am going to die among
them. But what of that? One must die some day! Fewer
words! lower away, I say, I am tired of hanging here between
Heaven and Tartarus!”

No words were spoken farther, by any of the party; but
the smith with the aid of Rufus paid out the line rapidly
although steadily, hand under hand, until the whole length
was run out with the exception of some three or four feet.

Just at this moment, when Crispus was beginning to
despair of success, and was half afraid that he had miscalculated
the length of the rope, the strain on it was slackened
for a moment, and then ceased altogether.

The next instant a low and guarded whistle rose from
the gorge, above the gurgling of the waters, but not so
loud as to reach any ears save those for which it was intended.

A grim smile curled the swordsmith's lip, and his fierce
eye glittered with cruel triumph. “We are safe now.—
Catiline will be here long before daybreak. Your prayers
have availed us, Julia; for I doubt not,” he added, with
malicious irony, “that you have prayed for us.”

Before she had time to reply to his cruel sarcasm, a fresh
swell of the besiegers' trumpets, and a loud burst of shouts
and warcries from the battlement announced a fresh attack.
The smith rushed from the room instantly with Rufus at
his heels, and Julia had already made one step toward the
window, intending to attempt the perilous descent, alone
and unaided, when Crispus turned back suddenly, crying,

“The Rope! the Rope! By the Gods! do not leave the
rope! She hath enough of the Amazon's blood in her to
atttempt it—”

“Of the Roman's blood, say rather!” she exclaimed,
springing toward the casement, half maddened in perceiving
her last hope frustrated.

Had she reached it, she surely would have perished;
for no female head and hands, how strong and resolute so
ever, could have descended that frail rope, and even if
they could, the ruffian, rather than see her so escape, would
have cut it asunder, and so precipitated her to the bottom
of the rocky chasm.

But she did not attain her object; for Caius Crispus
caught her with both arms around the waist and threw
her so violently to the after end of the room, that, her head
striking the angle of the wall, she was stunned for the
moment, and lay almost senseless on the floor, while the
savage, with a rude brutal laugh at her disappointment,
rushed out of the room, bearing the rope along with him.

Scarce had he gone, however, when, audible distinctly
amid the dissonant danger of the fray, the same feminine
voice, which she had heard on the previous night, again
aroused her, crying “Hist! hist! hist! Julia.”

She sprang to her feet, and gained the window in a
moment, and there, on the other verge of the chasm, near
twenty feet distant from the window at which she stood,
she discovered the figure of a slender dark-eyed and dark-complexioned
boy, clad in a hunter's tunic, and bearing a
bow in his hand, and a quiver full of arrows on his shoulder.

She had never seen that boy before; yet was there
something in his features and expression that seemed familiar
to her; that sort of vague resemblance to something
well known and accustomed, which leads men to suppose
that they must have dreamed of things which mysteriously

enough they seem to remember on their first occurrence.

The boy raised his hand joyously, and cried aloud,
without any fear of being heard, well knowing that all
eyes and ears of the defenders of the place were turned
to the side when the fight was raging, “Be of good cheer;
you are saved, Julia. Paullus is nigh at hand, but ere he
come, I will save you! Be of good courage, watch well
these windows, but seem to be observing nothing.”

And with the words, he turned away, and was lost to
her sight in an instant, among the thickly-set underwood.
Ere long, however, she caught a glimpse of him again,
mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and gallopping like
the wind down the sandy road, which wound through the
wooded knolls toward the bridge below.

Again she lost him; and again he glanced upon her
sight, for a single second, as he spurred his fleet horse
across the single arch of brick, and dashed into the woods
on the hither side of the torrent.

Two weary hours passed; and the sun was nigh to his
setting, and she had seen, heard nothing more. Her heart,
sickening with hope deferred, and all her frame trembling
with terrible excitement, she had almost begun to doubt,
whether the whole appearance of the boy might not have
been a mere illusion of her feverish senses, a vain creation
of her distempered fancy.

Still, fiercer than before, the battle raged without, and
now there was no intermission of the uproar; to which
was added the crashing of the roofs beneath heavy stones,
betokening that engines of some kind had been brought
up from the host, or constructed on the spot.

At length, however, her close watch was rewarded. A
slight stir among the evergreen bushes on the brink of the
opposite cliff caught her quick eye, and in another moment
the head of a man, not of the boy whom she had seen
before, nor yet, as her hope suggested, of her own Paullus,
but of an aquiline-nosed clean-shorn Roman soldier, with
an intelligent expression and quick eye, was thrust forward.

Perceiving Julia at the window, he drew back for a
second; and the boy appeared in his place, and then both

showed themselves together, the soldier holding in his hand
the bow and arrows of the hunter youth.

“He is a friend,” said the boy, “do all that he commands
you.”

But so fiercely was the battle raging now, that it was
his signs, rather than his words, which she comprehended.

The next moment, a gesture of his hand warned her to
withdraw from the embrasure; and scarcely had she done
so before an arrow whistled from the bow and dropped
into the room, having a piece of very slender twine attached
to the end of it.

Perceiving the intention at a glance, the quick witted
girl detached the string from the shaft without delay, and,
throwing the latter out of the window lest it should betray
the plan, drew in the twine, until she had some forty
yards within the room, when it was checked from the
other side, neither the soldier nor the youth showing
themselves at all during the operation.

This done, however, the boy again stood forth, and
pitched a leaden bullet, such as was used by the slingers
of the day, into the window.

Perceiving that the ball was perforated, she secured it
in an instant to the end of the clue, which she held in her
hand, and, judging that the object of her friends was to
establish a communication from their side, cast it back to
them with a great effort, having first passed the twine
around the mullion, by aid of which Crispus had lowered
down his messenger.

The soldier caught the bullet, and nodded his approbation
with a smile, but again receded into the bushes, suffering
the slack of the twine to fall down in an easy curve
into the ravine; so that the double communication would
scarce have been perceived, even by one looking for it, in
the gathering twilight.

The boy's voice once more reached her ears, though his
form was concealed among the shrubbery. “Fear nothing,
you are safe,” he said. “But we can do no more until
after midnight, when the moon shall give us light to
rescue you. Be tranquil, and farewell.”—

Be tranquil!—tranquil, when life or death—honor or
infamy—bliss or despair, hung on that feeble twine, scarce
thicker than the spider's web! hung on the chance of

every flying second, each one of which was bringing nigher
and more nigh, the hoofs of Catiline's atrocious band.

When voice of man can bid the waves be tranquil, while
the north-wester is tossing their ruffian tops, and when the
billows slumber at his bidding, then may the comforter
assay, with some chance of success, to still the throbbings
of the human heart, convulsed by such hopes, such terrors,
as then were all but maddening the innocent and tranquil
heart of Julia.

Tranquil she could not be; but she was calm and self-possessed,
and patient.

Hour after hour lagged away; and the night fell black
as the pit of Acheron, and still by the glare of pale fires and
torches, the lurid light of which she could perceive from
her windows, reflected on the heavens, the savage combatants
fought on, unwearied, and unsparing.

Once only she went again to that window, wherefrom
hung all her hopes; so fearful was she, that Crispus might
find her there, and suspect what was in process.

With trembling fingers she felt for the twine, fatal as
the thread of destiny should any fell chance sever it; and
in its place she found a stout cord, which had been quietly
drawn around the mullion, still hanging in a deep double
bight, invisible amid the gloom, from side to side of the
chasm.

And now, for the first time, she comprehended clearly
the means by which her unknown friends proposed to reach
her. By hauling on one end of the rope, any light plank
or ladder might be drawn over to the hither from the farther
bank, and the gorge might so be securely bridged, and
safely traversed.

Perceiving this, and fancying that she could distinguish
the faint clink of a hammer among the trees beyond the
forest knoll, she did indeed become almost tranquil.

She even lay down on her couch, and closed her eyes,
and exerted all the power of her mind to be composed
and self-possessed, when the moment of her destiny should
arrive.

But oh! how day-long did the minutes seem; how
more than year-long the hours.

She opened her curtained lids, and lo! what was that
faint pale lustre, glimmering through the tree-tops on the

far mountain's brow?—all glory to Diana, chaste guardian
of the chaste and pure! it was the signal of her safety! it
was! it was the ever-blessed moon!—

Breathless with joy, she darted to the opening, and
slowly, warily creeping athwart the gloomy void, she saw
the cords drawn taught, and running stiffly, it is true, and
reluctantly, but surely, around the mouldering stone mullion;
while from the other side, ghost-like and pale, the
skeleton of a light ladder, was advancing to meet her hand
as if by magic.

Ten minutes more and she would be free! oh! the
strange bliss, the inconceivable rapture of that thought!
free from pollution, infamy! free to live happy and unblemished!
free to be the beloved, the honored bride of
her own Arvina.

Why did she shudder suddenly? why grew she rigid
with dilated eyes, and lips apart, like a carved effigy of
agonized surprise?—

Hark to that rising sound, more rapid than the rush of
the stream, and louder than the wailing of the wind! thick
pattering down the rocky gorge! nearer and nearer, 'till
it thunders high above all the tumult of the battle! the
furious gallop of approaching horse, the sharp and angry
clang of harness!—

Lo! the hot glare, outfacing the pale moonbeam, the
fierce crimson blaze of torches gleaming far down the
mountain side, a torrent of rushing fire!

Hark! the wild cheer, “Catiline! Catiline!” to the
skies! mixed with the wailing blast of the Roman trumpets,
unwillingly retreating from the half-won watchtower!—

“Pull for your lives!” she cried, in accents full of horror
and appalling anguish—“Pull! pull! if ye would not see
me perish!”—

But it was all too late. Amid a storm of tumultuous
acclamation, Catiline drew his panting charger up before
the barricaded gateway, which had so long resisted the
dread onset of the legionaries, and which now instantly
flew open to admit him. Waving his hand to his men to
pursue the retreating infantry, he sprang down from his
horse, uttering but one word in the deep voice of smothered
passion—“Julia!”—

His armed foot clanged on the pavement, ere the bridge
was entirely withdrawn; for they, who manned the ropes,
now dragged it back, as vehemently as they had urged
forward a moment since.

“Back from the window, Julia!”—cried the voice—“If
he perceive the ropes, all is lost! Trust me, we never
will forsake you! Meet him! be bold! be daring! but
defy him not!”—

Scarce had she time to catch the friendly admonition
and act on it, as she did instantly, before the door of the
outer room was thrown violently open; and, with his sallow
face inflamed and fiery, and his black eye blazing with
hellish light, Catiline exclaimed, as he strode in hot haste
across the threshold,

“At last! at last, I have thee, Julia!”