The Roman Traitor Volume Ii Part 9

"Lucius Catiline to Quintus Catulus, sends health. Your most distinguished faith, known by experience, gives me in mighty perils a grateful confidence, thus to address you. Since I have resolved to prepare no defence in the new steps which I have taken, I am resolved to set forth my apology, conscious to myself of no crime, which-So may the G.o.d of Honor guard me!-you may rely upon as true. Goaded by injury and insult, robbed of the guerdon of my toils and industry, that state of dignity at which I aimed, I publicly have undertaken, according to my wont, the cause of the unhappy and oppressed; not because I am unable to pay all debts contracted on my own account, from my own property-from those incurred in behalf of others, the generosity of Orestilla and her daughter, by their treasures, would have released me-but because I saw men honored who deserve no honor, and felt myself disgraced, on false suspicion. On this plea, I now take measures, honorable in my circ.u.mstances, for preserving that dignity which yet remains to me. I would have written more, but I learn that violence is about to be offered me. Now I commend to you Orestilla, and trust her to your faith. As you love your own children, shield her from injury.

Farewell."

This strange letter, intended, as after events evidently proved, to bear a double sense, he had scarce sealed, when Aulus Fulvius was announced.

For a few moments after he entered, Catiline continued writing; then handing Chaerea, who at a sign had remained in waiting, a list of many names, "Let them," he said, "be here, prepared for a journey, and in arms at the fifth hour. Prepare a banquet of the richest, ample for all these, in the Atrium; in the garden Triclinium, a feast for ten-the rarest meats, the choicest wines, the delicatest perfumes, the fairest slave-girls in most voluptuous attire. At the third hour! See to it! Get thee hence!"

The freedman bowed low, and departed on his mission; then turning to the young patrician,

"I have sent for you," he said, "the first, n.o.ble Aulus, because I hold you the first in honor, bravery, and action; because I believe that you will serve me truly, and to the utmost. Am I deceived?"

"Catiline, you have judged aright."

"And that you cannot serve me, more gratefully to yourself, than in avenging me on that young pedant, Paullus Arvina."

The eyes of the youthful profligate flashed dark fire, and his whole face beamed with intense satisfaction.

"By all the Powers of Tartarus!" he cried, "Show me but how, and I will hunt him to the gates of Hades!"

Catiline nodded to him, with an approving smile, and after looking around him warily for a minute, as if fearful even of the walls' overhearing him, he stepped close up to him, and whispered in his ear, for several moments.

"Do you conceive me, ha?" he said aloud, when he had ended.

"Excellent well!" cried the other in rapturous triumph, "but how gain an opportunity?"

"Look you, here is his signature, some trivial note or other, I kept it, judging that one day it might serve a purpose. You can write, I know, very cleverly-I have not forgotten Old Alimentus' will-write to her in his name, requesting her to visit him, with Hortensia, otherwise she will doubt the letter. Then you can meet her, and do as I have told you. Will not that pa.s.s, my Fulvius?"

"It _shall_ pa.s.s," answered the young man confidently. "My life on it!

Rely on me!"

"I hold it done already," returned Catiline, "But you comprehend all-unstained, in all honor, until she reach me; else were the vengeance incomplete."

"It shall be so. But when?"

"When best you can accomplish it. This night, I leave the city."

"You leave the city!"

"This night! at the sixth hour!"

"But to return, Catiline?"

"To return with a victorious, an avenging army! To return as destroyer!

with a sword sharper than that of mighty Sylla, a torch hotter than that of the mad Ephesian! To return, Aulus, in such guise, that ashes and blood only show where Rome-_was_!"

"But, ere that, I must join you?"

"Aye! In the Appenines, at the camp of Caius Manlius"

"Fear me not. The deed is accomplished-hatred and vengeance, joined to resolve, never fail."

"Never! but lo, here come the rest. Not a word to one of these. The burly sword-smith is your man, and his fellows! Strike suddenly, and soon; and, till you strike, be silent. Ha! Lentulus, Cethegus, good friends all-welcome, welcome!" he cried, as they entered, eight in number, the ringleaders of the atrocious plot, grasping each by the hand. "I have called you to a council, a banquet, and, thence to action!"

"Good things all," answered Lentulus, "so that the first be brief and bold, the second long and loud, the last daring and decisive!"

"They shall be so, all three! Listen. This very night, I set forth to join Caius Manlius in his camp. Things work not here as I would have them; my presence keeps alive suspicion, terror, watchfulness. I absent, security will grow apace, and from that boldness, and from boldness, rashness! So will you find that opportunity, which dread of me, while present, delays fatally. Watch your time; choose your men; augment, by any means, the powers of our faction; gain over friends; get rid of enemies, secretly if you can; if not, audaciously. Destroy the Consul-you will soon find occasion, or, if not find, make it. Be ready with the blade and brand, to burn and to slaughter, so soon as my trumpets shall sound havoc from the hills of Fiesole. Metellus and his men, will be sent after me with speed; Marcius Rex will be ordered from the city, with his cohorts, to Capua, or Apulia, or the Picene district; for in all these, the slaves will rise, so soon as my Eagle soars above the Appenine. The heart of the city will then lie open to your daggers."

"And they shall pierce it to the core," cried Cethegus.

"Wisely you have resolved, my Catiline, as ever," said Longinus Ca.s.sius.

"Go, and success sit upon your banners!"

"Be not thou over slow, my Ca.s.sius, nor thou, Cethegus, over daring.

Temper each one, the metal of the other. Let your counsels be, as the gathering of the storm-clouds, certain and slow; your deeds, as the thunderbolt, rash, rapid, irresistible!"

"How will you go forth, Catiline? Alone? in secret?" asked Autronius.

"No! by the Father of Quirinus! with my casque on my head, and my broad-sword on my thigh, and with three hundred of my clients at my back!

They sup in my Atrium, at the fifth hour of the night, and at the sixth, we mount our horses. I _think_ Cicero will not bar our pa.s.sage."

"By Mars! he would beat the gates down rather, to let you forth the more easily."

"If he be wise he would."

"He _is_ wise," said Catiline. "Would G.o.d that he were less so."

"To be overwise, is worse, sometimes, than to be foolish," answered Cethegus.

"And to be over bold, worse than to be a coward!" said Catiline.

"Therefore, Cethegus, be thou neither. Now, my friends, I do not say leave me, but excuse me, until the third hour, when we will banquet. Nay! go not forth from the house, I pray you; it may arouse suspicion, which I would have you shun. There are books in the library, for who would read; foils in the garden, b.a.l.l.s in the fives-court, for who would breathe themselves before supper; and lastly, there are some fair slaves in the women's chamber, for who would listen to the lute, or kiss soft lips, and not unwilling. I have still many things to do, ere I depart."

"And those done, a farewell caress to Orestilla," said Cethegus, laughing.

"Aye! would I could take her with me."

"Do you doubt her, then, that you fear to leave her?"

"If I doubted, I would _not_ leave her-or I would leave her _so_, as not to doubt her. Alexion himself, cannot in general cure the people, whom I doubt."

"I hope you never will doubt me," said Curius, who was present, the Judas of the faction, endeavoring to jest; yet more than half feeling what he said.

"I hope not"-replied Catiline, with a strange fixed glance, and a singular smile; for he did in truth, at that very moment, half doubt the speaker.

"If I do, Curius, it will not be for long! But I must go," he added, "and make ready. Amuse yourselves as best you can, till I return to you. Come, Aulus Fulvius, I must speak with you farther."

And, with the words, he left them, not indeed to apply themselves to any sport or pleasure, but to converse anxiously, eagerly, almost fearfully, on the events which were pa.s.sing in succession, so rapid, and so unforeseen. Their souls were too much absorbed by one dominant idea, one devouring pa.s.sion, to find any interest in any small or casual excitement.

To spirits so absorbed, hours fly like minutes, and none of those guilty men were aware of the lapse of time, until Catiline returned, dressed in a suit of splendid armor, of blue Iberian steel, embossed with studs and chasings of pure silver, with a rich scarlet sagum over it, fringed with deep lace. His knees were bare, but his legs were defended by greaves of the same fabric and material with his corslet; and a slave bore behind him his bright helmet, triply crested with crimson horsehair, his oblong shield charged with a silver thunderbolt, and his short broad-sword of Bilboa steel, which was already in those days, as famous as in the middle ages. He looked, indeed, every inch a captain; and if undaunted valor, unbounded energy, commanding intellect, an eye of lightning, unequalled self-possession, endless resource, incomparable endurance of cold, heat, hunger, toil, watchfulness, and extremity of pain, be qualities which const.i.tute one, then was he a great Captain.

A captain well formed to lead a host of demons.