University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
THE MEN.

Marino Faliero.

Midnight was over Rome. The skies were dark and
lowering, and ominous of tempest; for it was a sirocco,
and the welkin was overcast with sheets of vapory cloud,
not very dense, indeed, or solid, but still sufficient to intercept
the feeble twinkling of the stars, which alone held
dominion in the firmament; since the young crescent of
the moon had sunk long ago beneath the veiled horizon.

The air was thick and sultry, and so unspeakably oppressive,
that for above three hours the streets had been
entirely deserted. In a few houses of the higher class,
lights might be seen dimly shining through the casements
of the small chambers, hard beside the doorway, appropriated
to the use of the Atriensis, or slave whose charge it
was to guard the entrance of the court. But, for the most
part, not a single ray cheered the dull murky streets, except
that here and there, before the holy shrine, or vaster
and more elaborate temple, of some one of Rome's hun

dred gods, the votive lanthorns, though shorn of half their
beams by the dense fog-wreaths, burnt perennial.

The period was the latter time of the republic, a few
years after the fell democratic persecutions of the plebeian
Marius had drowned the mighty city oceans-deep in patrician
gore; after the awful retribution of the avenger
Sylla had rioted in the destruction of that guilty faction.

He who was destined one day to support the laurelled
diadem of universal empire on his bald brows, stood even
now among the noblest, the most ambitious, and the most
famous of the state; though not as yet had he unfurled
the eagle wings of conquest over the fierce barbarian
hordes of Gaul and Germany, or launched his galleys on
the untried waters of the great Western sea. A dissipated,
spendthrift, and luxurious youth, devoted solely as it would
seem to the pleasures of the table, or to intrigues with the
most fair and noble of Rome's ladies, he had yet, amid
those unworthy occupations, displayed such gleams of
overmastering talent, such wondrous energy, such deep
sagacity, and above all such uncurbed though ill-directed
ambition, that the perpetual Dictator had already, years
before, exclaimed with prescient wisdom,—“In you unzoned
youth I perceive the germ of many a Marius.”

At the same time, the magnificent and princely leader,
who was to be thereafter his great rival, was reaping that
rich crop of glory, the seeds of which had been sown already
by the wronged Lucullus, in the broad kingdoms of
the effeminate East.

Meanwhile, as Rome had gradually rendered herself, by
the exertion of indomitable valor, the supreme mistress of
every foreign power that bordered on the Mediterranean,
wealth, avarice, and luxury, like some contagious pestilence,
had crept into the inmost vitals of the common-wealth,
until the very features, which had once made her
famous, no less for her virtues than her valor, were utterly
obliterated and for ever.

Instead of a paternal, poor, brave, patriotic aristocracy,
she had now a nobility, valiant indeed and capable, but
dissolute beyond the reach of man's imagination, boundless
in their expenditures, reckless as to the mode of gaining
wherewithal to support them, oppressive and despotical
to their inferiors, smooth-tongued and hypocritical toward

each other, destitute equally of justice and compassion toward
men, and of respect and piety toward the Gods!
Wealth had become the idol, the god of the whole people!
Wealth—and no longer service, eloquence, daring,
or integrity,—was held the requisite for office. Wealth
now conferred upon its owner, all magistracies all guerdons—rank,
power, command,—consulships, provinces,
and armies.

The senate—once the most grave and stern and just assembly
that the world had seen—was now, with but
a few superb exceptions, a timid, faithless, and licentious
oligarchy; while—name whilome so majestical and
mighty!—the people, the great Roman people, was but
a mob! a vile colluvion of the offscourings of all climes
and regions—Greeks, Syrians, Africans, Barbarians from
the chilly north, and eunuchs from the vanquished Orient,
enfranchised slaves, and liberated gladiators—a factious,
turbulent, fierce rabble!

Such was the state of Rome, when it would seem that
the Gods, wearied with the guilt of her aggrandisement,
sick of the slaughter by which she had won her way to
empire almost universal, had judged her to destruction—
had given her up to perish, not by the hands of any foreign
foe, but by her own; not by the wisdom, conduct,
bravery of others, but by her own insanity and crime.

But at this darkest season of the state one hope was
left to Rome—one safeguard. The united worth of
Cicero and Cato! The statesmanship, the eloquence, the
splendid and unequalled parts of the former; the stern
self-denying virtue, the unchanged constancy, the resolute
and hard integrity of the latter; these, singular and severally,
might have availed to prop a falling dynasty—united,
might have preserved a world!

The night was such as has already been described:
gloomy and lowering in its character, as was the aspect
of the political horizon, and most congenial to the fearful
plots, which were even now in progress against the lives
of Rome's best citizens, against the sanctity of her most
solemn temples, the safety of her domestic hearths, the
majesty of her inviolable laws, the very existence of her
institutions, of her empire, of herself as one among the
nations of the earth.

Most suitable, indeed, was that dim murky night, most
favorable the solitude of the deserted streets, to the measures
of those parricides of the Republic, who lurked within
her bosom, thirsty for blood, and panting to destroy.
Nor had they overlooked the opportunity. But a few days
remained before that on which the Consular elections,
fixed for the eighteenth of October, were to take place in
the Campus Martius—whereat, it was already understood
that Sergius Cataline, frustrated the preceding year, by
the election of the great orator of Arpinum to his discomfiture,
was about once more to try the fortunes of himself
and of the popular faction.

It was at this untimely hour, that a man might have been
seen lurking beneath the shadows of an antique archway,
decorated with half-obliterated sculptures of the old Etruscan
school, in one of the narrow and winding streets
which, lying parallel to the Suburra, ran up the hollow
between the Viminal and Quirinal hills.

He was a tall and well-framed figure, though so lean as
to seem almost emaciated. His forehead was unusually
high and narrow, and channelled with deep horizontal
lines of thought and passion, across which cut at right angles
the sharp furrows of a continual scowl, drawing the
corners of his heavy coal-black eyebrows into strange
contiguity. Beneath these, situated far back in their cavernous
recesses, a pair of keen restless eyes glared out with
an expression fearful to behold—a jealous, and unquiet,
ever-wandering glance—so sinister, and ominous, and
above all so indicative of a perturbed and anguished spirit,
that it could not be looked upon without suggesting
those wild tales, which speak of fiends dwelling in the
revivified and untombed carcasses of those who die in unrepented
sin. His nose was keenly Roman; with a deep
wrinkle seared, as it would seem, into the sallow flesh
from either nostril downward. His mouth, grimly compressed,
and his jaws, for the most part, firmly clinched
together, spoke volumes of immutable and iron resolution;
while all his under lip was scarred, in many places, with
the trace of wounds, inflicted beyond doubt, in some dread
paroxysm, by the very teeth it covered.

The dress which this remarkable looking individual
at that time wore, was the penula, as it was called; a

short, loose straight-cut overcoat, reaching a lttle way be-low
the knees, not fitted to the shape, but looped by woollen
frogs all down the front, with broad flaps to protect the
arms, and a square cape or collar, which at the pleasure
of the wearer could be drawn up so as to conceal all the
lower part of the countenance, or suffered to fall down upon
the shoulders.

This uncouth vestment, which was used only by men
of the lowest order, or by others solely when engaged in
long and toilsome journeys, or in cold wintry weather, was
composed of a thick loose-napped frieze or serge, of a dark
purplish brown, with loops and fibulæ, or frogs, of a dull
dingy red.

The wearer's legs were bare down to the very feet,
which were protected by coarse shoes of heavy leather,
fastened about the ancles by a thong, with a clasp of mar-vellously
ill-cleaned brass. Upon his head he had a petasus,
or broad-brimmed hat of gray felt, fitting close to the
skull, with a long fall behind, not very unlike in form to
the south-wester of a modern seaman. This article of
dress was, like the penula, although peculiar to the inferior
classes, oftentimes worn by men of superior rank,
when journeying abroad. From these, therefore, little or
no aid was given to conjecture, as to the station of the
person, who now shrunk back into the deepest gloom of
the old archway, now peered out stealthily into the night,
grinding his teeth and muttering smothered imprecations
against some one, who had failed to meet him.

The shoes, however, of rude, ill-tanned leather, of a form
and manufacture which was peculiar to the lowest artizans
or even slaves, were such as no man of ordinary
standing would under any circumstances have adopted.
Yet if these would have implied that the wearer was of
low plebeian origin, this surmise was contradicted by several
rings decked with gems of great price and splendor
—one a large deeply-engraved signet—which were distinctly
visible by their lustre on the fingers of both his
hands.

His air and carriage too were evidently in accordance
with the nobility of birth implied by these magnificent
adornments, rather than with the humble station betokened
by the rest of his attire.

His motions were quick, irritable, and incessant! His
pace, as he stalked to and fro in the narrow area of the arch-way,
was agitated, and uneven. Now he would stride
off ten or twelve steps with strange velocity, then pause,
and stand quite motionless for perhaps a minute's space,
and then again resume his walk with slow and faltering
gestures, to burst forth once again, as at the instigation of
some goading spirit, to the same short-lived energy and
speed.

Meantime, his color went and came; he bit his lip, till
the blood trickled down his clean shorn chin; he clinched
his hands, and smote them heavily together, and uttered
in a harsh hissing whisper the most appalling imprecations
---on his own head---on him who had deceived him---on
Rome, and all her myriads of inhabitants---on earth, and
sea, and heaven—on everything divine or human!

“The black plague 'light on the fat sleepy glutton!—
nay, rather all the fiends and furies of deep Erebus pursue
me!—me!—me, who was fool enough to fancy that
aught of bold design or manly daring could rouse up the
dull, adipose, luxurious loiterer from his wines—his concubines---his
slumbers!—And now—the dire ones hunt
him to perdition! Now, the seventh hour of night hath
passed, and all await us at the house of Læca; and this
foul sluggard sottishly snores at home!”

While he was cursing yet, and smiting his broad chest,
and gnashing his teeth in impotent malignity, suddenly a
quick step became audible at a distance. The sound fell
on his ear sharpened by the stimulus of fiery passions and
of conscious fear, long ere it could have been perceived
by any ordinary listener.

“'Tis he,” he said, “'tis he at last—but no?” he
continued, after a pause of a second, during which he had
stooped, and laid his ear close to the ground, “no! 'tis
too quick and light for the gross Cassius. By all the
gods! there are two! Can he, then, have betrayed me?
No! no! By heavens! he dare not!”

At the same time he started back into the darkest corner
of the arch, pulled up the cape of his cassock, and
slouched the wide-brimmed hat over his anxious lineaments;
then pressing his body flat against the dusky
wall, to which the color of his garments was in some sort

thrown open, and the high-crested helmets of a cohort
were seen approaching, in a serried line, above the bare
heads of the multitude.

Order was restored very rapidly; for a pacific party
had been rallying around Fulvius Flaccus, and their
efforts, added to the advance of the levelled pila of the
cohort, were almost instantly successful.

Nor did the sight, which was presented by the opening
door of the Fulvian mansion, lack its peculiar influence
on the people.

An old man issued forth, alone, from the unfolded
portals.

He was indeed extremely old; with hair as white as
snow, and a long venerable beard falling in waves of
silver far down upon his chest. Yet his eyebrows were
black as night, and these, with the proud arch of his
Roman nose, and the glance of his eagle eyes, untamed
by time or hardship, almost denied the inference drawn
from the white head and reverend chin.

His frame, which must once have been unusually
powerful and athletic, was now lean and emaciated;
yet he held himself erect as a centennial pine on Mount
Algidus, and stood as firmly on his threshold, looking
down on the tumultuous concourse, which waved and
fluctuated, like the smaller trees of the mountain side,
beneath him.

His dress was of the plain and narrow cut, peculiar to
the good olden time; yet it had the distinctive marks of
the senatorial rank.

It was the virtuous, severe, old senator—the noblest,
alas! soon to be the last, of his noble race.

“What means this tumult?” he said in a deep firm
sonorous voice, “Wherefore is it, that ye shout thus,
and hurl stones about a friendly door! For shame! for
shame! What is it that ye lack? Bread? Ye have
had it ever at my hands, without seeking it thus rudely.”

“It is not bread, most noble Aulus, that we would
have,” cried the old man, who had made himself somewhat
conspicuous before, “but vengeance!”

“Vengeance, on whom, and for what?” exclaimed the
noble Roman.

But ere his question could be answered, the crowd

of the finest Spanish wool of snowy whiteness, with the
broad crimson facings indicative of his senatorial rank,
known as the laticlave—fell in loose folds half way between
his knee and ancle.

It had sleeves, too, a thing esteemed unworthy of a man
—and was fringed at the cuffs, and round the hem, with
a deep passmenting of crimson to match the laticlave.
His toga of the thinnest and most gauzy texture, and
whiter even than his tunic, flowed in a series of classical
and studied draperies quite to his heels, where like the
tunic it was bordered by a broad crimson trimming. His
feet were ornamented, rather than protected, by delicate
buskins of black leather, decked with the silver sigma, in
its old crescent shape, the proud initial of the high term
senator. A golden bracelet, fashioned like a large serpent,
exquisitely carved with horrent scales and forked
tail, was twined about the wrist of his right arm, with a
huge carbuncle set in the head, and two rare diamonds
for eyes. A dozen rings gemmed with the clearest brilliants
sparkled upon his white and tapering fingers; in
which, to complete the picture, he bore a handkerchief of
fine Egyptian cambric, or Byssus as the Romans styled it,
embroidered at the edges in arabesques of golden thread.

His comrade was if possible more slovenly in his attire
than his friend was luxurious and expensive. He wore
no toga, and his tunic—which, without the upper robe,
was the accustomed dress of gladiators, slaves, and such
as were too poor to wear the full and characteristic attire
of the Roman citizen—was of dark brownish woollen,
threadbare, and soiled with spots of grease, and patched
in many places. His shoes were of coarse clouted leather,
and his legs were covered up to the knees by thongs
of ill-tanned cowhide rolled round them and tied at the
ancles with straps of the same material.

“A plague on both of you!” replied the person, who
had been so long awaiting them, in answer to their salutation.
“Two hours have ye detained me here; and now
that ye have come, in pretty guise ye do come! Oh! by
the gods! a well assorted pair. Cassius more filthy than
the vilest and most base tatterdemalion of the stews, and
with him rare Cethegus, a senator in all his bravery!
Wise judgment! excellent disguises! I know not whether

most to marvel at the insane and furious temerity of
this one, or at the idiotic foolery of that! Well fitted are
ye both for a great purpose. And now—may the dark
furies hunt you to perdition!—what hath delayed you?”

“Why, what a coil is here”, replied the gay Cethegus,
delighted evidently at the unsuppressed anger of his
confederate in crime, and bent on goading to yet more
fiery wrath his most ungovernable temper. “Methinks,
O pleasant Sergius, the moisture of this delectable night
should have quenched somewhat the quick flames of your
most amiable and placid humor! Keep thy hard words,
I prithee, Cataline, for those who either heed or dread
them. I, thou well knowest, do neither.”

“Peace, peace! Cethegus; plague him no farther,”
interrupted Cassius, just as the fierce conspirator, exclaiming
in a deep harsh whisper, the one word “Boy!”
strode forth as if to strike him. “And thou, good Cataline,
listen to reason—we have been dogged hitherward,
and so came by circuitous byeways!”

“Dogged, said ye—dogged? and by whom?—doth the
slave live, who dared it?”

“By a slave, as we reckon,” answered Cassius, “for
he wore no toga; and his tunic”—

“Was filthy—very filthy, by the gods!—most like thine
own, good Cassius,” interposed Cethegus. But, in good
sooth, he was a slave, my Sergius. He passed us twice,
before I thought much of it. Once as we crossed the sacred
way after descending from the Palatine—and once
again beside the shrine of Venus in the Cyprian street. The
second time he gazed into my very eyes, until he caught
my glance meeting his own, and then with a quick bounding
pace he hurried onward.”

“Tush!” answered Cataline, “tush! was that all?
the knave was a chance night-walker, and frightened ye!
Ha! ha! by Hercules! it makes me laugh—frightened
the rash and overbold Cethegus!”

“It was not all!” replied Cethegus very calmly, “it
was not all, Cataline. And, but that we are joined here
in a purpose so mighty that it overwhelms all private interests,
all mere considerations of the individual, you, my
good sir, should learn what it is to taunt a man with fear,
who fears not anything—least of all thee! But it was

not all. For as we turned from a side lane into the Wicked
[1] street that scales the summit of the Esquiline, my
eye caught something lurking in the dark shadow cast
over an angle of the wall by a large cypress. I seized
the arm of Cassius, to check his speech”—

“Ha! did the fat idiot speak?—what said he?” interrupted
Cataline.

“Nothing,” replied the other, “nothing, at least, of
any moment. Well, I caught Cassius by the arm, and
was in the act of pointing, when from the shadows of the
tree out sprang this self-same varlet, whereon I —”.

“Rushed on him! dragged him into the light! and
smote him, thus, and thus, and thus! didst thou not, excellent
Cethegus?” Cataline exclaimed fiercely in a hard
stern whisper, making three lounges, while he spoke, as
if with a stiletto.

“I did not any of these things,” answered the other.

“And why not, I say, why not? why not?” cried
Cataline with rude impetuosity.

“That shall I answer, when you give me time,” said
Cethegus, coolly. “Because when I rushed forth, he
fled with an exceeding rapid flight; leaped the low wall
into the graveyard of the base Plebeians, and there among
the cypresses and overthrown sepulchres escaped me for
a while. I beat about most warily, and at length started
him up again from the jaws of an obscene and broken
catacomb. I gained on him at every step; heard the
quick panting of his breath; stretched out my left to grasp
him, while my right held unsheathed and ready the good
stiletto that ne'er failed me. And now—now—by the
great Jove! his tunic's hem was fluttering in my clutch,
when my feet tripped over a prostrate column, that I was
hurled five paces at the least in advance of the fugitive;
and when I rose again, sore stunned, and bruised, and
breathless, the slave had vanished.”

“And where, I prithee, during this well-concerted
chase, was valiant Cassius?” enquired Cataline, with a
hoarse sneering laugh.

“During the chase, I know not,” answered Cethegus,
“but when it was over, and I did return, I found him

leaning on the wall, even in the angle whence the slave
fled on our approach.”

“Asleep! I warrant me—by the great gods! asleep!”
exclaimed the other; “but come!—come, let us onward,
—I trow we have been waited for—and as we go, tell
me, I do beseech thee, what was't that Cassius said, when
the slave lay beside ye?—”

“Nay, but I have forgotten—some trivial thing or other
—oh! now I do bethink me, he said it was a long walk
to Marcus Læca's.”

“Fool! fool! Double and treble fool! and dost thou
call this nothing? Nothing to tell the loitering informer
the very head and heart of our design? By Erebus! but
I am sick—sick of the fools, with whom I am thus wretchedly
assorted! Well! well! upon your own heads be
it!” and instantly recovering his temper he walked on
with his two confederates, now in deep silence, at a quick
pace through the deserted streets towards their perilous
rendezvous.

Noiseless, with stealthy steps, they hurried onward,
threading the narrow pass between the dusky hills, until
they reached a dark and filthy lane which turning at right
angles led to the broad thoroughfare of the more showy,
though by no means less ill-famed Suburra. Into this
they struck instantly, walking in single file, and keeping
as nearly as possible in the middle of the causeway. The
lane, which was composed of dwellings of the lowest order,
tenanted by the most abject profligates, was dark as
midnight; for the tall dingy buildings absolutely intercepted
every ray of light that proceeded from the murky
sky, and there was not a spark in any of the sordid casements,
nor any votive lamp in that foul alley. The only
glimpse of casual illumination, and that too barely serving
to render the darkness and the filth perceptible, was the
faint streak of lustre where the Suburra crossed the far
extremity of the bye-path.

Scarce had they made three paces down the alley, ere
the quick eye of Cataline, for ever roving in search of
aught suspicious, caught the dim outline of a human
figure, stealing across this pallid gleam.

“Hist! hist!” he whispered in stern low tones, which
though inaudible at three yards' distance completely filled
the ears of him to whom they were addressed—“hist!

hist! Cethegus; seest thou not—seest thou not there? If it
be he, he 'scapes us not again!—out with thy weapon,
man, and strike at once, if that thou have a chance; but if
not, do thou go on with Cassius to the appointed place.
Leave him to me! and say, I follow ye! See! he hath
slunk into the darkness. Separate ye, and occupy the
whole width of the street, while I dislodge him!”

And as he spoke, unsheathing his broad poignard, but
holding it concealed beneath his cassock, he strode on
boldly, affecting the most perfect indifference, and even
insolence of bearing.

Meanwhile the half-seen figure had entirely disappeared
amid the gloom; yet had the wary eye of the conspirator,
in the one momentary glance he had obtained, been able
to detect with something very near to certainty the spot
wherein the spy, if such he were, lay hidden. As he approached
the place—whereat a heap of rubbish, the relics
of a building not long ago as it would seem consumed by
fire, projected far into the street—seeing no sign whatever
of the man who, he was well assured, was not far distant,
he paused a little so as to suffer his companions to draw
near. Then as they came up with him, skilled in all deep
and desperate wiles, he instantly commenced a whispered
conversation, a tissue of mere nonsense, with here and
there a word of seeming import clearly and audibly pronounced.
Nor was his dark manœuvre unsuccessful; for
as he uttered the word “Cicero,” watching meanwhile the
heap of ruins as jealously as ever tiger glared on its destined
prey, he caught a tremulous outline; and in a second's
space, a small round object, like a man's head, was
protruded from the darkness, and brought into relief
against the brighter back ground.

Then—then—with all the fury—all the lythe agile vigor,
all the unrivalled speed, and concentrated fierceness of
that tremendous beast of prey, he dashed upon his victim!
But at the first slight movement of his sinewy form, the
dimly seen shape vanished; impetuously he rushed on
among the piles of scattered brick and rubbish, and, ere he
saw the nature of the place, plunged down a deep descent
into the cellar of the ruin.

Lucky was it for Cataline, and most unfortunate for
Rome, that when the building fell, its fragments had choked
three parts of the depth of that subterranean vault;

so that it was but from a height of three or four feet at
the utmost, that the fierce desperado was precipitated!

Still, to a man less active, the accident might have been
serious, but with instinctive promptitude, backed by a
wonderful exertion of muscular agility, he writhed his
body even in the act of falling so that he lighted on his
feet; and, ere a second had elapsed after his fall, was extricating
himself from the broken masses of cement and
brickwork, and soon stood unharmed, though somewhat
stunned and shaken, on the very spot which had been occupied
scarcely a minute past by the suspected spy.

At the same point of time in which the conspirator fell,
the person, whosoever he was, in pursuit of whom he had
plunged so heedlessly into the ruins, darted forth from his
concealment close to the body and within arm's length of
the fierce Cethegus, whose attention was for the moment
distracted from his watch by the catastrophe which had
befallen his companion. Dodging by a quick movement
—so quick that it seemed almost the result of instinct—so
to elude the swift attempt of his enemy to arrest his progress,
the spy was forced to rush almost into the arms of
Cassius.

Yet this appeared not to cause him any apprehension;
for he dashed boldly on, till they were almost front to
front; when, notwithstanding his unwieldy frame and inactivity
of habit, spurred into something near to energy
by the very imminence of peril, the worn-out debauchee
bestirred himself as if to seize him.

If such, however, were his intention, widely had he
miscalculated his own powers, and fatally underrated the
agility and strength of the stranger—a tall, thin, wiry man,
well nigh six feet in height, broad shouldered, and deep
chested, and thin flanked, and limbed like a Greek Athlete.

On he dashed!—on—right on! till they stood face to
face; and then with one quick blow, into which, as it seemed,
he put but little of his strength, he hurled the burly
Cassius to the earth, and fled with swift and noiseless
steps into the deepest gloom. Perceiving on the instant
the necessity of apprehending this now undoubted spy,
the fiery Cethegus paused not one instant to look after
his discomfited companions; but rushed away on the traces
of the fugitive, who had perhaps gained, at the very

utmost, a dozen paces' start of him, in that wild midnight
race—that race for life and death.

The slave, for such from his dark tunic he appeared to
be, was evidently both a swift and practised runner; and
well aware how great a stake was on his speed he now
strained every muscle to escape, while scarce less fleet,
and straining likewise every sinew to the utmost, Cethegus
panted at his very heels.

Before, however, they had run sixty yards, one swifter
than Cethegus took up the race; and bruised although
he was, and stunned, and almost breathless when he started,
ere he had overtaken his staunch friend, which he did
in a space wonderfully brief, he seemed to have shaken
off every ailment, and to be in the completest and most
firm possession of all his wonted energies. As he caught
up Cethegus, he relaxed somewhat of his speed, and ran
on by his side for some few yards at a sort of springy
trot, speaking the while in a deep whisper,

“Hist!” he said, “hist!—I am more swift of foot
than thou, and deeper winded. Leave me to deal with
this dog! Back thou, to him thou knowest of; sore is he
hurt, I warrant me. Comfort him as thou best mayest,
and hurry whither we were now going. 'Tis late even
now—too late, I fear me much, and doubtless we are
waited for. I have the heels of this same gallowsbird, that
can I see already! Leave me to deal with him, and an
he tells tales on us, then call me liar!”

Already well nigh out of breath himself, while the endurance
of the fugitive seemed in nowise affected, and
aware of the vast superiority of his brother conspirator's
powers to his own, Cethegus readily enough yielded to his
positive and reiterated orders, and turning hastily backward,
gathered up the bruised and groaning Cassius, and
led him with all speed toward the well-known rendezvous
in the house of Læca.

Meanwhile with desperate speed that headlong race
continued; the gloomy alley was passed through; the
wider street into which it debouched, vanished beneath
their quick beating footsteps; the dark and shadowy arch,
wherein the chief conspirator had lurked, was threaded
at full speed; and still, although he toiled, till the sweat
dripped from every pore like gouts of summer rain, although

he plied each limb, till every over-wrought sinew
seemed to crack, the hapless fugitive could gain no ground
on his inveterate pursuer; who, cool, collected and unwearied,
without one drop of perspiration on his dark
sallow brow, without one panting sob in his deep breath,
followed on at an equable and steady pace, gaining not
any thing, nor seeming to desire to gain any thing, while
yet within the precincts of the populous and thickly-settled
city.

But now they crossed the broad Virbian street. The
slave, distinctly visible for such, as he glanced by a brightly
decorated shrine girt by so many brilliant lamps as
shewed its tenant idol to have no lack of worshippers,
darted up a small street leading directly towards the Esquiline.

“Now! now!” lisped Cataline between his hard-set
teeth, “now he is mine, past rescue!”

Up the dark filthy avenue they sped, the fierce pursuer
now gaining on the fugitive at every bound; till, had
he stretched his arm out, he might have seized him; till
his breath, hot and strong, waved the disordered elf-locks
that fell down upon the bare neck of his flying victim. And
now the low wall of the Plebeian burying ground arose
before them, shaded by mighty cypresses and overgrown
with tangled ivy. At one wild bound the hunted slave
leaped over it, into the trackless gloom. At one wild
bound the fierce pursuer followed him. Scarcely a yard
asunder they alighted on the rank grass of that charnel
grove; and not three paces did they take more, ere Cataline
had hurled his victim to the earth, and cast himself
upon him; choking his cries for help by the compression
of his sinewy fingers, which grasped with a tenacity little
inferior to that of an iron vice the miserable wretch's
gullet.

He snatched his poniard from his sheath, reared it on
high with a well skilled and steady hand! Down it came,
noiseless and unseen. For there was not a ray of light to
flash along its polished blade. Down it came with almost
the speed and force of the electric fluid. A deep, dull,
heavy sound was heard, as it was plunged into the yielding
flesh, and the hot gushing blood spirted forth in a
quick jet into the very face and mouth of the fell murderer.

A terrible convulsion, a fierce writhing spasm
followed—so strong, so muscularly powerful, that the
stern gripe of Cataline was shaken from the throat of his
victim, and from his dagger's hilt!

In the last agony the murdered man cast off his slayer
from his breast; started erect upon his feet! tore out,
from the deep wound, the fatal weapon which had made
it; hurled it far—far as his remaining strength permitted
—into the rayless night; burst forth into a wild and
yelling cry, half laughter and half imprecation; fell
headlong to the earth—which was no more insensible than
he, what time he struck it, to any sense of mortal pain or
sorrow—and perished there alone, unpitied and unaided.

“Habet!—he hath it!” muttered Cataline, quoting the
well-known expression of the gladiatorial strife; “he
hath it!—but all the plagues of Erebus, light on it—my
good stiletto lies near to him in the swart darkness, to testify
against me; nor by great Hecate! is there one chance
to ten of finding it. Well! be it so!” he added, turning
upon his heel, “be it so, for most like it hath fallen in
the deep long grass, where none will ever find it; and if
they do, I care not!”

And with a reckless and unmoved demeanor, well
pleased with his success, and casting not one retrospective
thought toward his murdered victim, not one repentant
sigh upon his awful crime, he too hurried away to join
his dread associates at their appointed meeting.