University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
THE CRISIS.

Macbeth.

The morning had scarcely dawned, after that dismal
and tempestuous night, when three men were observed by
some of the earlier citizens, passing up the Sacred Way,
toward the Cerolian Place.

It was not so much that the earliness of the hour attracted
the notice of these spectators—for the Romans were a
matutinal people, even in their most effeminate and luxurious
ages, and the sun found few loiterers in their chambers,
when he came forth from his oriental gates—as that
the manner and expression of these men themselves were
singular, and such as might well excite suspicion.

They all walked abreast, two clad in the full garb of
Senators, and one in the distinctive dress of Roman knighthood.
No one had heard them speak aloud, nor seen them
whisper, one to the other. They moved straight onward,
steadily indeed and rather slowly, but with something of
consciousness in their manner, glancing furtively around
them from beneath their bent brows, and sometimes even
casting their eyes over their shoulders, as if to see whether
they were followed.

At about a hundred paces after these three, not however
accompanying them, or attached to their party, so far at
least as appearances are considered, two large-framed fellows,
clothed in the dark gray frocks worn by slaves and
gladiators, came strolling in the same direction.

These men had the auburn hair, blue eyes, and massive,
if not stolid cast of features peculiar to northern races, at
that time the conquered slaves, though destined soon to be
the victors, of Rome's gigantic power.

When the first three reached the corner of the next
block of buildings, to the corner of that magnificent street
called the Carinœ, they paused for a few moments; and,
after looking carefully about them, to mark whether they
were observed or not, held a short whispered conversation,
which their stern faces, and impassioned gestures seemed
to denote momentous.

While they were thus engaged, the other two came sauntering
along, and passed them by, apparently unheeded, and
without speaking, or saluting them.

Those three men were the knight Caius Cornelius, a
friend and distant kinsman of Cethegus, who was the second
of the number, and Lucius Vargunteius, a Senator,
whose name has descended only to posterity, through the
black infamy of the deed, which he was even at that moment
meditating.

Spurred into action by the menaces and violence of Catiline,
who had now resolved to go forth and commence
open warfare from the entrenched camp prepared in the
Appenines, by Caius Manlius, these men had volunteered,
on the previous night, at a second meeting held in the house
of Læca, to murder Cicero, with their own hands, during
his morning levee.

To this end, they had now come forth thus early, hoping
so to anticipate the visit of his numerous clients, and take
him at advantage, unprepared and defenceless.

Three stout men were they, as ever went forth armed
and determined for premeditated crime; stout in frame,
stout of heart, invulnerable by any physical apprehension,
unassailable by any touch of conscience, pitiless, fearless,
utterly depraved.

Yet there was something in their present enterprise, that
half daunted them. Something in the character of the
man, whom they were preparing to assassinate—something
of undefined feeling, suggesting to them the certainty of
the whole world's reproach and scorn through everlasting
ages, however present success “might trammel up the consequence.”

Though they would not have confessed it to their own
hearts, they were reluctant toward their task; and this unadmitted
reluctance it was, which led them to pause and
parley, under the show of arranging their schemes, which
had in truth been fully organized on the preceding night.

They were too far committed, however, to recede; and
it is probable that no one of them, although their hearts
were full almost to suffocation, as they neared the good Consul's
door, had gone so far as to think of withdrawing his
hand from the deed of blood.

The outer door of the vestibule was open; and but one
slave was stationed in the porch; an old man quite unarmed,
not having so much even as a porter's staff, who was sitting
on a stone bench, in the morning sunshine.

As the conspirators ascended the marble steps, which
gave access to the vestibule, and entered the beautiful Tuscan
colonnade, the two Germans, who had stopped and
looked back for a moment, seeing them pass in, set off as
hard as they could run, through an adjoining street toward
the house of Catiline, which was not very far distant.

It was not long ere they reached it, and entered without
question or hindrance, as men familiar and permitted.

In a small room, adjoining the inner peristyle, the master
of the house was striding to and fro across the tesselated
floor, in a state of perturbation, extreme even for him;
whose historian has described him with bloodless face,
and evil eyes, irregular and restless motions, and the impress
of frantic guilt, ever plain to be seen in his agitated
features.

Aurelia Orestilla sat near him, on a low cushioned stool,
with her superb Italian face livid and sicklied by unusual
dread. Her hands lay tightly clasped upon her knee—her
lips were as white as ashes. Her large lustrous eyes, burning
and preternaturally distended, were fixed on the haggard
face of her husband, and followed him, as he strode
up and down the room in impotent anxiety and expectation.

Yet she, privy as she was to all his blackest councils, the
instigator and rewarder of his most hideous crime, knowing
the hell of impotent agony that was consuming his
heart, she dared not address him with any words of hope
or consolation.

At such a crisis all ordinary phrases of comfort or cheering

love, seem but a mockery to the spirit, which can find
no rest, until the doubts that harass it are ended; and this
she felt to be the case, and, had her own torturing expectation
allowed her to frame any speech to soothe him, she
would not have ventured on its utterance, certain that it
would call forth a torrent of imprecation on her head, perhaps
a burst of violence against her person.

The very affections of the wicked, are strangely mixed
at times, with more discordant elements; and it would have
been a hard question to solve, whether that horrible pair
most loved or hated one another.

The woman's passions, strange to relate, had been kindled
at times, by the very cruelty and fury, which at other
moments made her almost detest him. There was a species
of sublimity in the very atrocity of Catiline's wickedness,
which fascinated her morbid and polluted fancy; and
she almost admired the ferocity which tortured her, and
from which, alone of mortal ills, she shrank appalled and
unresisting.

And Catiline loved her, as well as he could love anything,
loved her the more because she too, in some sort, had elicited
his admiration; for she had crossed him many times,
and once braved him, and, alone of human beings, he had
not crushed her.

They were liker to mated tigers, which even in their raptures
of affection, rend with the fang, and clutch with the
unsheathed talon, until the blood and anguish testify the
fury of their passion, than to beings of human mould and
nature.

Suddenly the traitor stopped short in his wild and agitated
walk, and seemed to listen intently, although no sound
came to the ears of the woman, who was no less on the
alert than he, for any stir or rumor.

“It is”—he said at length, clasping his hands above his
head—“it is the step of Arminius, the trusty gladiator—
do you not hear it, Orestilla?”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head doubtfully. “There
is no sound at all. My ear is quicker of hearing, too, than
yours, Catiline, and if there were any step, I should be first
to mark it.”

“Tush! woman!” he made answer, glaring upon her
fiercely. “It is my hear that hears it.”

“You have a heart, then!” she replied bitterly, unable
even at that time to refain from taunting him.

“And a hand also, and a dagger! and, by Hell and all
its furies! I know not why I do not flesh it in you. I will
one day.”

“No, you will not,” she answered very quietly.

“And wherefore not? I have done many a worse deed
in my day. The Gods would scarce punish me for that
slaughter; and men might well call it justice.—Wherefore
not, I say? Do you think I so doat on your beauty, that I
cannot right gladly spare you?”

“Because,” answered the woman, meeting his fixed
glare, with a glance as meaning and as fiery, “because,
when I find that you meditate it, I will act quickest. I
know a drug or two, and an unguent of very sovereign virtue.”

“Ha! ha!” The reckless profligate burst into a wild
ringing laugh of triumphant approbation. “Ha! ha! thou
mightst have given me a better reason. Where else should
I find such a tigress? By all the Gods! it is your clutch
and claws that I prize, more than your softest and most
rapturous caress! But hist! hist! now—do you not hear
that step?”

“I do—I do,” she replied, clasping her hands again,
which she had unclinched in her anger—“and it is Arminius'
step! I was wrong to cross thee, Catiline; and thou
so anxious! we shall hear now—we shall hear all.”

Almost as she spoke, the German gladiator rushed into the
room, heated and panting from his swift race; and, without
any sign of reverence or any salutation, exclaimed abruptly,

“Catiline, it is over, ere this time! I saw them enter his
house!”

The woman uttered a low choking shriek, her face
flushed crimson, and then again turned paler than before,
and she fell back on her cushioned seat, swooning with joy
at the welcome tidings.

But Catiline flung both his arms abroad toward heaven,
and cried aloud—“Ye Gods, for once I thank ye! if there
be Gods indeed!” he added, with a sneer—“thou sawest
them enter, ha?—thou art not lying?—By all the furies!
If you deceive me, I will take care that you see nothing
more in this world.”

“Catiline, these eyes saw them!”

“At length! at length!” he exclaimed, his eye flashing,
and his whole countenance glowing with fiendish animation,
“and yet curses upon it!—that I could not slay him
—that I should owe to any other hand my vengeance on
my victim. Thou hast done well—ha! here is gold, Arminius!
the last gold I own—but what of that, to-morrow
—to-morrow, I will have millions! Away! away! bold
heart, arouse your friends and followers—to arms, to arms,
cry havoc through the streets, and liberty and vengeance!”

While he was speaking yet, the door was again opened,
and Cethegus entered with the others, dull, gloomy, and
crest-fallen; but Catiline was in a state of excitement so
tremendous, that he saw nothing but the men.

At one bound he reached Cethegus, and catching him by
both hands—“How!” he exclaimed—“How was it?—
quick, tell me, quick! Did he die hard? Did he die, conscious,
in despair, in anguish?—Tell me, tell me, you tortured
him in the slaying—tell me, he died a coward, howling
and cursing fate, and knowing that I, I slew him, and
—speak Cethegus?—speak, man! By the Gods! you
are pale! silent!—these are not faces fit for triumph!
speak, man, I say, how died he?—show me his blood, Cethegus!
you have not wiped it from your dagger, give me
the blade, that I may kiss away the precious death-drops.”

So rapidly and impetuously had he spoken, heaping query
on query, that Cethegus could not have answered, if he
would. But, to say the truth, he was in little haste to do
so. When Catiline ceased, however, which he did at
length, from actual want of breath to enquire farther, he
answered in a low smothered voice.

“He is not dead at all—he refused”—

“Not dead!” shrieked Catiline, for it was a shriek,
though articulate, and one so piercing that it roused Aurelia
from her swoon of joy—“Not dead! Yon villain swore
that he saw you enter—not dead!” he repeated, half incredulously—“By
heaven and hell! I believe you are
jesting with me! Tell me that you have lied, and I—I
—I will worship you, Cethegus.”

“His porter refused us entrance, and, as the door was
opened, we saw in the Atrium the slaves of his household,
and half a hundred of his clients, all armed from head to

foot, with casque and corslet, pilum, broad-sword, and
buckler. And, to complete the tale, as we returned into
the street baffled and desperate, a window was thrown open
in the banquet-hall above, and we might see the Consul,
with Cato, and Marcellus, and Scipio, and a score of Consulars
beside, gazing upon us in all the triumph of security,
in all the confidence of success. We are betrayed, that
is plain—our plans are all known as soon as they are taken,
all frustrated ere acted! All is lost, Catiline, for what remains
to do?”

“To dare!” answered the villain, all undaunted even by
this reverse—“and, if need be, to die—but to despair, never!”

“But who can be the traitor?—where shall we look to
find him?”

“Look there,” exclaimed Catiline, pointing to the German
gladiator, who stood all confounded and chap-fallen.
“Look there, and you shall see one; and see him punished
too! What ho! without there, ho! a dozen of you, if you
would shun the lash!”

And, at the summons, ten or twelve slaves and freedmen
rushed into the room in trepidation, almost in terror, so
savage was the temper of the lord whom they served, and
so merciless his wrath, at the most trivial fault or error.

“Drag that brute, hence!” he said, waving his hand toward
the unhappy gladiator, “put out his eyes, fetter him
foot and hand, and cast him to the congers in the fishpond.”

Without a moment's pause or hesitation, they cast themselves
upon their miserable comrade; and, though he struggled
furiously, and struck down two or three of the foremost,
and shouted himself hoarse, in fruitless efforts to explain,
he was secured, and bound and gagged, within a
shorter time than is required to describe it.

This done, one of the freedmen looked toward his
dreaded master, and asked, with pale lips, and a faltering
voice,

“Alive, Catiline?”

“Alive—and hark you, Sirrah, fasten his head above the
water, that he die not too speedily. Those biggest congers
will lug him manfully, Cethegus; we will go see the

sport, anon. It will serve to amuse us, after this disappointment.
There! away with him, begone!”

The miserable creature struggled desperately in his
bonds, but in vain; and strove so terribly to speak, in despite
his gag, that his face turned almost black, from the
blood which rushed to every pore; but no sound could he
utter, as he was dragged away, save a deep-mouthed groan,
which was drowned by the laughter of the remorseless
wretches, who gazed on his anguish with fiendish merriment;
among which, hideous to relate, the thrilling sounds
of Aurelia's silvery and contagious mirth were distinctly
audible.

“He will take care to see more truly in Hades!” said
Catiline, with his sardonic smile, as he was dragged out of
the room, by his appalled and trembling fellows. “But
now to business. Tell me, did you display any weapon?
or do aught, that can be proved, to show your intent on the
Consul?”

“Nothing, my Catiline,” replied Cethegus, firmly.

“Nothing, indeed, Cethegus? By all our hopes! deceive
me not!”

“By your head! nothing, Catiline.”

“Then I care nothing for the failure!” answered the
other. “Keep good hearts, and wear smiling faces! I
will kill him myself to-morrow, if, like the scorpion, I must
die in the deed.”

“Try it not, Catiline. You will but fail—and”—

“Fail! who ever knew me fail, in vengeance?”

“No one!” said Orestilla—“and no one can hinder you
of it. No! not the Gods!”

“There are no Gods!” exclaimed the Traitor, “and if
there be, it were all one—I defy them!”

“Cicero says there is ONE, they tell me,” said Cethegus,
half mocking, half in earnest—“and he is very wise.”

“Very!” replied the other, with his accustomed sneer—
“Therefore that ONE may save him—if he can!”

“The thing is settled,” cried Aurelia Orestilla, “I told
him yesterday he ought to do it, himself—I should not be
content, unless Catiline's hand dealt him the death blow,
Catiline's eye gloated upon him in the death-struggle, Catiline's
tongue jeered him in the death-pang!”

“You love him dearly, Orestilla,” said Cethegus.

“And dearly he has earned it,” she replied.

“By Venus! I would give half my hopes, to see him
kiss you.”

“And I, if my lips had the hydra's venom. But come,
she added, with a wreathed smile and a beaming eye,
“Let us go see the fishes eat yon varlet; else shall we be
too late for the sport.”

“Rare sport!” said Cethegus, “I have not seen a man
eaten, by a tiger even, these six months past; and by a fish,
I think, never!”

“The fish do it better,” replied Catiline—“Better, and
cleaner—they leave the prettiest skeleton you can imagine
—they are longer about it, you will say—True; but I do
not grudge the time.”

“No! no! the longer, the merrier!” said Aurelia,
laughing melodiously—“The last fellow I saw given to
the tigers, had his head crushed like a nut-shell, by a single
blow. He had not time to shriek even once. There was
no fun in that, you know.”

“None indeed,” said Cethegus—“but I warrant you this
German will howl gloriously, when the fish are at him.”

“Yes! yes!” exclaimed the lovely woman, clapping her
hands joyously. “We must have the gag removed, to give
free vent to his music. Come, come, I am dying to see
him.”

“Some one must die, since Cicero did not.”

“Happy fellow this, if he only knew it, to give his
friends so much pleasure!”

“One of them such a fair lady too!”

“Will there be more pleasure, think you, in seeing the
congers eat the gladiator, or in eating the congers afterward?”

“Oh! no comparison! one can eat fat congers always.”

“We have the advantage of them truly, for they cannot
always eat fat gladiators.”

And they walked away with as much glee and expectation,
to the scene of agony and fiendish torture, vitiated by
the frightful exhibitions of the circus and the arena, as men
in modern days would feel, in going to enjoy the fictitious
sorrows of some grand tragedian.

Can it be that the contemplation of human wo, in some
form or other, is in all ages grateful to poor corrupt humanity?