The Roman Traitor Volume I Part 25

"Will you swear?" she inquired, with a faint melancholy smile. "Nay! it concerns no one but myself. You may swear safely."

"I do, by the G.o.d of faith!"

"Never seek, then, by word or deed, to learn whither I have gone, or where I dwell. Look! I am armed," and she drew out a dagger as she spoke. "If I am tracked or followed, whether by friend or foe, this will free me from persecution; and it shall do so, by the living lights of heaven! This, after all, is the one true, the last friend of the wretched. All hail to thee, healer of all intolerable anguish!" and she kissed the bright blade, before she consigned it to the sheath; and then, stretching out both hands to Paullus, she cried, "You have sworn-Remember!"

"And you promise me," he replied, "that, if at any time you need a friend, a defender, one who would lay down life itself to aid you, you will call on me, wheresoever I may be, fearless and undoubting. For, from the festive board, or the nuptial bed, from the most sacred altar of the G.o.ds, or from the solemn funeral pyre, I will come instant to thy bidding.

'Lucia needs Paullus,' shall be words shriller than the war-trumpet's summons to my conscious soul."

"I promise you," she said, "willingly, most willingly. And now kiss me, Paullus. Julia herself would not forbid this last, sad, pious kiss! Not my lips! not my lips! Part my hair on my brows, and kiss me on the forehead, where your lips, years ago, shed freshness, and hope that has not yet died all away. Sweet, sweet! it is pure and sweet, it allays the fierce burning of my brain. Fare you well, Paul, and remember-remember Lucia Orestilla."

She withdrew herself from his arm modestly, as she spoke, lowered her veil, turned, and was gone. Many a day and week elapsed, and weeks were merged in months, ere any one, who knew her, again saw Catiline's unhappy, guilty daughter.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FORGE.

I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus, The whilst his iron did on anvil cool.

KING JOHN.

It was the evening of the sixteenth day before the calends of November, or, according to modern numeration, the eighteenth of October, the eve of the consular elections, when a considerable number of rough hardy-looking men were a.s.sembled beneath the wide low-browed arch of a blacksmith's forge, situated near the intersection of the Cyprian Lane with the Sacred Way, and commanding a full view of the latter n.o.ble thoroughfare.

It was already fast growing dark, and the natural obscurity of the hour was increased by the thickness of the lowering clouds, which overspread the whole firmament of heaven, and seemed to portend a tempest. But from the jaws of the semicircular arch of Roman brick, within which the group was collected, a broad and wavering sheet of light was projected far into the street, and over the fronts of the buildings opposite, rising and falling in obedience to the blast of the huge bellows, which might be heard groaning and laboring within. The whole interior of the roomy vault was filled with a lurid crimson light, diversified at times by a brighter and more vivid glare as a column of living flame would shoot up from the embers, or long trains of radiant sparks leap from the bounding anvil.

Against this clear back ground the moving figures of the strong limbed grimy giants, who plied their mighty sledges with incessant zeal on the red hot metal, were defined sharply and picturesquely; while alternately red lights and heavy shadows flickered across the forms and features of many other men, who stood around watching the progress of the work, and occasionally speaking rapidly, and with a good deal of gesticulation, at intervals when the preponderant din of hammers ceased, and permitted conversation to be carried on audibly.

At this moment, however, there was no such pause; for the embers in the furnace were at a white heat, and flashes of lambent flame were leaping out of the chimney top, and vanishing in the dark clouds overhead. A dozen bars of glowing steel had been drawn simultaneously from the charcoal, and thrice as many ma.s.sive hammers were forging them into the rude shapes of weapons on the anvils, which, notwithstanding their vast weight, appeared to leap and reel, under the blows that were rained upon them faster than hail in winter.

But high above the roar of the blazing chimney, above the din of the groaning st.i.thy, high pealed the notes of a wild Alcaic ode, to which, chaunted by the stentorian voices of the powerful mechanics, the clanging sledges made a stormy but appropriate music. "Strike, strike the iron,"

thus echoed the stirring strain,

Strike, strike the iron, children o' Mulciber, Hot from the charcoal cheerily glimmering!

Swing, swing, my boys, high swing the sledges!

Heave at it, heave at it, all! Together!

Great Mars, the war G.o.d, watches ye laboring Joyously. Joyous watches the gleam o' the Bright sparkles, upsoaring the faster, Faster as our merry blows revive them.

Well knoweth He that clang. It arouses him, Heard far aloof! He laughs on us hammering The sword, the clear harness of iron, Armipotent paramour o' Venus.-- Red glows the charcoal. Bend to the task, my boys, Time flies apace, and speedily night cometh, When we no more may ply the anvil; Fate cometh eke, i' the murky midnight.

Mark ye the pines, which rooted i' rocky ground,(17) Brave Euroclydon's onset at evening.

Day dawns. The tree, which stood the tallest, Preeminent i' the leafy greenwood, Now lies the lowest. Safely the arbutus, Which bent before him, flourishes, and the sun Wakens the thrush, which slept securely Nestled in its emerald asylum.

So, when the war-shout peals i' the noon o' night, Rousing the sleepers fearful, in ecstacy When slaves avenge their wrongs, arising Strong i' the name o' liberty new born, When fury spares not beauty nor innocence, First flame the grandest domes. I' the ma.s.sacre, First fall the n.o.blest. Lowly virtue Haply the shade o' poverty defends.

Forge then the broad sword. Quickly the night cometh, When red the streets with gore o' the mightiest Shall fiercely flow, like Tiber in flood.

Rise then, avenger, the time it hath come!

Wake b.l.o.o.d.y tyrants from merry banquetting, From downy couches, snowy-bosomed women And ruby wine-cups, wake-The avenger Springs to his arms, for the time it hath come!

The wild strain ceased, and with it the clang of the hammers, the bars of steel being already beaten into the form of those short ma.s.sive two-edged blades, which were the Roman's national and all victorious weapon. But, as it ceased, a deep stern hum of approbation followed, elicited probably by some real or fancied similitude between the imagery of the song, and the circ.u.mstances of the auditors, who were to a man of the lowest order of plebeians, taught from their cradles to regard the n.o.bles, and perhaps with too much cause, as their natural enemies and oppressors. When the brief applause was at an end, one of the elder bystanders addressed the princ.i.p.al workman, at the forge, in a low voice.

"You are incautious, Caius Crispus, to sing such songs as this, and at such a time, too."

"Tush, Ba.s.sus," answered the other, "it is you who are too timid. What harm is there, I should like to know, in singing an old Greek song done into Latin words? I like the rumbling measure, for my part; it suits well with the clash and clang of our rude trade. For the song, there is no offence in it; and, for the time, it is a very good time; and, to poor men like us, a better time is coming!"

"Oh! well said. May it be so!" exclaimed several voices in reply to the stout smith's sharp words.

But the old man was not so easily satisfied, for he answered at once. "If any of the n.o.bles heard it, they would soon find offence in it, my Caius!"

"Oh! the n.o.bles-the n.o.bles, and the Fathers! I am tired of hearing of the n.o.bles. For my part, I do not see what makes them n.o.ble. Are they a whit stronger, or braver, or better man than I, or Marcus here, or any of us? I trow not."

"Wiser-they are at least wiser, Caius," said the old man once more, "in this, if in nothing else, that they keep their own councils, and stand by their own order."

"Aye! in oppressing the poor!" replied a new speaker.

"Right, Marcus," said a second; "let them wrangle as much as they may with one another, for their dice, their women, or their wine; in this at least they all agree, in trampling down the poor."

"There is a good time coming," replied the smith; "and it is very near at hand. Now, Niger," he continued, addressing one of his workmen, "carry these blades down to the lower workshop; let Rufus fit them instantly with horn handles; and then, see you to their grinding! Never heed polishing them very much, but give them right keen edges, and good stabbing points."

"I do not know," answered the other man to the first part of the smith's speech. "I am not so sure of that."

"You don't know what I mean," said Crispus, scornfully.

"Yes. I do-right well. But I am not so confident, as you are, in these new leaders."

The smith looked at him keenly for a moment, and then said significantly, "_do_ you know?"

"Aye! do I," said the other; and, a moment afterward, when the eyes of the bystanders were not directly fixed on him, he drew his hand edgewise across his throat, with the action of one severing the windpipe.

Caius Crispus nodded a.s.sent, but made a gesture of caution, glancing his eye toward one or two of the company, and whispering a moment afterward, "I am not sure of those fellows."

"I see, I see; but they shall learn nothing from what I say." Then raising his voice, he added, "what I mean, Caius, is simply this, that I have no so very great faith in the promises of this Sergius Catiline, even if he should be elected. He was a sworn friend to Sylla, the people's worst enemy; and never had one a.s.sociate of the old Marian party. Believe me, he only wants our aid to set himself up on the horse of state authority; and when he is firm in the saddle, he will ride us down under the hoofs of patrician tyranny, as hard as any Cato, or Pompey, of them all."

Six or seven of the foremost group, immediately about the anvil when this discourse was going on, interchanged quick glances, as the man used the word elected, on which he laid a strong and singular emphasis, and nodded slightly, as indicating that they understood his more secret meaning. All, however, except Crispus, the owner of the forge, seemed to be moved by what he advanced; and the foreman of the anvil, after musing for a moment, as he leaned on his heavy sledge, said, "I believe you are right; no one but a Plebeian can truly mean well, or be truly fitted for a leader to Plebeians."

"You are no wiser than Crispus," interposed the old man, who had spoken first, in a low angry whisper. "Do you want to discourage these fellows from rising to the cry, when it shall be set up? If this be all that you can do, it were as well to close the forge at once."

"Which I shall do forthwith," said Caius Crispus; "for I have got through my work and my lads are weary; but do not you go away, my gossips; nor you either," he added, speaking to the man whom he had at first suspected, "tarry you, under one pretext or other; we will have a cup of wine, as soon as I have got rid of these fellows. Here, Aulus," turning to his foreman, "take some coin out of my purse, there it hangs by my clean tunic in the corner, and go round to the wine shop, and bring thence a skinful of the best Sabine vintage; and some of you bar up the door, all but the little wicket. And now, my friends, good night; it is very late, and I am going to shut up the shop. Good night; and remember that the only hope of us working men lies in the election of Catiline tomorrow. Be in the Campus early, with all your friends; and hark ye, you were best take your knives under your tunics, lest the proud n.o.bles should attempt to drive us from the ballot."

"We will, we will!" exclaimed several voices. "We will not be cozened out of our votes, or bullied out of them either. But how is this? do not you vote in your cla.s.s?"

"I vote _with_ my cla.s.s! with my fellow Plebeians and mechanics, I would say! What if I be one of the armorers of the first cla.s.s, think you that I will vote with the proud senators and insolent knights? No, brethren, not one of us, nor of the carpenters either, nor of the trumpeters, or horn-blowers! Plebeians we are, and Plebeians we will vote! and let me tell you to look sharp to me, on the Campus; and whatever I do, so do ye.

Be sure that good will come of it to the people!"

"We will, we will!" responded all his hearers, now unanimous. "Brave heart! stout Caius Crispus! We will have you a tribune one of these days!

but good night, good night!"

And, with the words, all left the forge, except the smith and his peculiar workmen, and two or three others, all clients of the Praetor Lentulus, and all in some degree a.s.sociates in the conspiracy. None of them, however, were initiated fully, except Caius himself, his foreman, Aulus, the aged Ba.s.sus, and the stranger; who, though unknown to any one present, had given satisfactory evidence that he was privy to the most atrocious portions of the plot. The wine was introduced immediately, and after a deep draught, circulated more than once, the conversation was resumed by the initiated, who were now left alone.

"And do you believe," said the stranger, addressing Caius Crispus, "that Catiline and his companions have any real view to the redress of grievances, the regeneration of the state, or the equalization of conditions?"