CHAPTER III.
_THE PERIL._
Things, bad begun, make strong themselves by ill. MACBETH.
Sixteen days had elapsed, since the conspirators were again frustrated atthe Consular Comitia.
Yet not for that had the arch-traitor withdrawn his foot one hair’sbreadth from his purpose, or paused one moment in his career of crime andruin.
There is, beyond doubt, a necessity—not as the ancients deemed,supernatural, and the work of fate, but a natural moral necessity—arisingfrom the very quality of crime itself, which spurs the criminal on to newguilt, fresh atrocity.
In the dark path of wickedness there is no halting place; the wretchedclimber must turn his face for ever upward, for ever onward; if he lookbackward his fall is inevitable, his doom fixed.
So was it proved with Catiline. To gain impunity for his first deed ofcruelty and blood, another and another were forced on him, until at last,harassed and maddened by the consciousness of untold guilt, his franticspirit could find no respite, save in the fierce intoxication ofexcitement, the strange delight of new atrocity.
Add to this, that, knowing himself anticipated and discovered, he knewalso that if spared for a time by his opponent, it was no lack of will,but lack of opportunity alone to crush him, that held the hands of Ciceroinactive.
Thus, although for a time the energies of his weaker comrades sankparalysed by the frustration of their schemes, and by the certainty thatthey were noted and observed even in their most secret hours, his strongerand more vehement spirit found only in the greater danger the greaterstimulus to action.
Sixteen days had elapsed, and gradually, as the conspirators found that nosteps were taken by the government for their apprehension or punishment,they too waxed bolder, and began to fancy, in their insolent presumption,that the republic was too weak or too timid to enforce its own laws uponundoubted traitors.
All the causes, moreover, which had urged them at first to councils sodesperate, existed undiminished, nay, exaggerated by delay.
Their debts, their inability to raise those funds which their boundlessprofusion rendered necessary, still maddened them; and to these theconsciousness of detected guilt, and that "necessity which," in the wordsof their chief, "makes even the timid brave," were superadded.
The people and the Senate, who had all, for a time, been vehementlyagitated by a thousand various emotions of anger, fear, anxiety, revenge,forgetting, as all popular bodies are wont to do, the past danger in thepresent security, were beginning to doubt whether they had not beenalarmed at a shadow; and were half inclined to question the existence ofany conspiracy, save in the fears of their Consul.
It was well for Rome at that hour, that there was still in thecommonwealth, a counterpoise to the Democratic Spirit; which, vehement andenergetical beyond all others in sudden and great emergencies, is everrestless and impatient of protracted watchfulness and preparation, andlacks that persistency and resolute endurance which seems peculiar toaristocratic constitutions.
And now especially were demonstrated these opposite characteristics; forwhile the lower orders, and the popular portion of the Senate, who hadbeen in the first instance most strenuous in their alarm, and most urgentfor strong measures, were now hesitating, doubting, and almostcompassionating the culprits, who had fallen under such a load of obloquy,the firmer and more moderate minds, were guarding the safety of thecommonwealth in secret, and watching, through their unknown emissaries,every movement of the traitors.
It was about twelve o’clock at night, on the eighth day before the Ides,corresponding to our seventh of November, when the Consul was seated alonein the small but sumptuous library, which has been described above,meditating with an anxious and care-worn expression, over some paperswhich lay before him on the table.
No sound had been heard in the house for several hours; all itsinhabitants except the Consul only, with the slave who had charge of theouter door, and one faithful freedman, having long since retired to rest.
But from without, the wailing of the stormy night-wind rose and fell inmelancholy alternations of wild sobbing sound, and breathless silence; andthe pattering of heavy rain was distinctly audible on the flat roofs, andin the flooded tank, or _impluvium_, which occupied the centre of thehall.
It was in one of the lulls of the autumnal storm, that a heavy knock washeard on the pannel of the exterior door, reverberating in long echoes,through the silent vestibule, and the vast colonnades of the Atrium andperistyle.
At that dead hour of night, such a summons would have seemed strange inany season: it was now almost alarming.
Nor, though he was endowed pre-eminently with that moral strength of mindwhich is the highest quality of courage, and was by no means deficient inmere physical bravery, did Cicero raise his head from the perusal of hispapers, and listen to that unwonted sound, without some symptoms ofanxiety and perturbation.
So thoroughly acquainted as he was, with the desperate wickedness, theinfernal energy, and absolute fearlessness of Catiline, it could not butoccur to him instantly, when he heard that unusual summons, at a time whenall the innocent world was buried in calm sleep, how easy and obvious amode of liberation from all danger and restraint, his murder would affordto men so daring and unscrupulous, as those against whom he was playing,for no less a stake than life or death.
There was, he well knew, but a single slave, and he old and unarmed, inthe vestibule, nor was the aged and effeminate Greek freedman, one on whomreliance could be placed in a deadly struggle.
All these things flashed suddenly upon the mind of Cicero, as the heavyknocking fell upon his ear, followed by a murmur of many voices, and thetread of many feet without.
He arose quietly from the bronze arm-chair, on which he had been sitting,walked across the room, to a recess beside the book-shelves, and reacheddown from a hook, on which it hung, among a collection of armor andweapons, a stout, straight, Roman broad-sword, with a highly adorned hiltand scabbard.
Scarcely, however, had he taken the weapon in his hand, before the doorwas thrown open, and his freedman ushered in three men, attired in thefull costume of Roman Senators.
"All hail, at this untimely hour, most noble Cicero," exclaimed the firstwho entered.
"By all the Gods!" cried the second, "rejoiced I am, O Consul, to see thatyou are on your guard; for there is need of watchfulness, in truth, forwho love the republic."
"Which need it is, in short," added the third, "that has brought ushither."
"Most welcome at all times," answered Cicero, laying aside the broad-swordwith a smile, "though of a truth, I thought it might be less graciousvisitors. Noble Marcellus, have you good tidings of the commonwealth? andyou, Metellus Scipio, and you Marcus Crassus? Friends to the state, I knowyou; and would trust that no ill news hath held you watchful."
"Be not too confident of that, my Consul," replied Scipio. "Peril thereis, at hand to the commonwealth, in your person."
"We have strange tidings here, confirming all that you made known to theSenate, on the twelfth day before the Calends, in letters left by anunknown man with Crassus’ doorkeeper this evening," said Marcellus. "Wewere at supper with him, when they came, and straightway determined toaccompany him hither."
"In my person!" exclaimed Cicero—"Then is the peril threatened from LuciusSergius Catiline! were it for myself alone, this were a matter of smallmoment; but, seeing that I hold alone the clues of this dark plot, it weredisastrous to the state, should ought befall me, who have set my life onthis cast to save my country."
"Indeed disastrous!" exclaimed the wealthy Crassus; "for these mosthorrible and cursed traitors are sworn, as it would seem, to consume thismost glorious city of the earth, and all its stately wealth, with thesword and fire."
"To destroy all the noble houses," cried Scipio, "and place the vile andloathsome rabble at the helm of state."
"All this, I well knew, of old," said Cicero calmly. "But I pray you, myfriends, be seated; and let me see
these papers."
And taking the anonymous letters from the hands of Crassus, he read themaloud, pausing from time to time, to meditate on the intention of thewriter.
"Marcus Licinius Crassus," thus ran the first, "is spoken of by those, wholove not Rome, as their lover and trusty comrade! Doth Marcus LiciniusCrassus deem that the flames, which shall roar over universal Rome, willspare his houses only? Doth Marcus Crassus hope, that when the fettersshall be stricken from the limbs of every slave in Rome, his serfs alonewill hold their necks beneath a voluntary yoke?—Doth he imagine that, whenall the gold of the rich shall be distributed among the needy, his seventhousand talents shall escape the red hands of Catiline and hisassociates? Be wise! Take heed! The noble, who forsakes his order, earnsscorn alone from his new partisans! When Cicero shall fall, all nobleRomans shall perish lamentably, with him—when the great Capitol itselfshall melt in the conflagration, all private dwellings shall go down inthe common ruin. Take counsel of a friend, true, though unknown andhumble! Hold fast to the republic! rally the nobles and the rich, aroundthe Consul! Ere the third day hence, he shall be triumphant, or benothing!—Fare thee well!"
"This is mysterious, dark, incomprehensible," said Cicero, as he finishedreading it. "Had it been sent to me, I should have read it’s secret thus,as intended to awake suspicion, in my mind, of a brave and noble Roman! atrue friend of his country!" he added, taking the hand of Crassus in hisown. "Yet, even so, it would have failed. For as soon would I doubt thetruth of heaven itself, as question the patriotic faith of the conquerorof Spartacus! But left at thy house, my Crassus, it seems almost senselessand unmeaning. What have we more?
"The snake is scotched, not slain! The spark is concealed, not quenched!The knife is sharp yet, though it lie in the scabbard! When was conspiracybeat down by clemency, or treason conquered by timidity? Let those whowould survive the ides of November, keep their loins girded, and theireyes wakeful. What I am, you may not learn, but this much only—I was anoble, before I was a beggar! a Roman, before I was a—traitor!"
"Ha!" continued the consul, examining the paper closely, "This is somewhatmore pregnant—the Ides of November!—the Ides—is it so?—They shall be metwithal!—It is a different hand-writing also; and here is a third—Ha!"
"A third, plainer than the first," said Metellus Scipio—"pray mark it."
"Three men have sworn—who never swear in vain—a knight, a senator, and yeta senator again! Two of the three, Cornelii! Their knives are keen, theirhands sure, their hearts resolute, against the new man from Arpinum! Letthose who love Cicero, look to the seventh day, before November’s Ides."
"The seventh day—ha? so soon? Be it so," said the undaunted magistrate. "Iam prepared for any fortune."
"Consul," exclaimed the Freedman, again entering, "I watched with Geta, inthe vestibule, since these good fathers entered; and now there have cometwo ladies clad in the sacred garb of vestals. Two lictors wait on them.They ask to speak with the consul."
"Admit them, madman!" exclaimed Cicero; "admit them with all honor. Youhave not surely kept them in the vestibule?"
"Not so, my Consul. They are seated on the ivory chairs in the Tablinum."
"Pardon me, noble friends. I go to greet the holy virgins. This is astrange and most unusual honour. Lead the way, man."
And with the words, he left the room in evident anxiety and haste; whilehis three visitors stood gazing each on the other, in apprehension mingledwith wonder.
In a few moments, however, he returned alone, very pale, and wearing onhis fine features a singular expression of awe and dignifiedself-complacency, which seemed to be almost at variance with each other.
"The Gods," he said, as he entered, in a deep and solemn tone, "the Godsthemselves attest Rome’s peril by grand and awful portents. The College ofthe Vestals sends tidings, that ’The State totters to its fall’!"
"May the Great Gods avert!" cried his three auditors, simultaneously,growing as pale as death, and faltering out their words from ashy lips inweak or uncertain accents.
"It is so!" said Cicero; who, though a pure Deist, in truth, and nobeliever in Rome’s monstrous polytheism, was not sufficiently emancipatedfrom the superstition of the age to dispute the truth of prodigies andportents. "It is so. The priestess, who watched the sacred flame on theeternal hearth, beheld it leap thrice upward in a clear spire of vivid andunearthly light, and lick the vaulted roof-stones—thrice vanish into uttergloom! Once, she believed the fire extinct, and veiled her head in morethan mortal terror. But, after momentary gloom, it again revived, whilethree strange sighs, mightier than any human voice, came breathing fromthe inmost shrine, and waved the flame fitfully to and fro, with a dreadpallid lustre. The College bids the Consul to watch for himself and therepublic, these three days, or ill shall come of it."
Even as he spoke, a bustle was again heard in the vestibule, as of a fresharrival, and again the freedman entered.
"My Consul, a veiled patrician woman craves to confer with you, inprivate."
"Ha! all Rome is afoot, methinks, to-night. Do you know her, my Glaucias?"
"I saw her once before, my Consul. On the night of the fearful storm, whenthe falchion of flame shook over Rome, and the Senate was convenedsuddenly."
"Ha! She! it is well—it is very well! we shall know all anon." And hisface lighted up joyously, as he spoke. "Excuse me, Friends and Fathers.This is one privy to the plot, with tidings of weight doubtless. Thanksfor your news, and good night; for I must pray you leave me. Your warninghath come in good season, and I will not be taken unaware. The Gods haveRome in their keeping, and, to save her, they will not let _me_ perish.Fare ye well, nobles. I must be private with this woman."
After the ceremonial of the time, his visitors departed; but as theypassed through the atrium, they met the lady, conducted by the old Greekfreedman.
Little expecting to meet any one at that untimely hour, she had allowedher veil to fall down upon her shoulders; and, although she made amovement to recover it, as she saw the Senators approaching her by thefaint light of the single lamp which burned before the household gods onthe small altar by the _impluvium_, Marcus Marcellus caught a passing viewof a pair of large languishing blue eyes, and a face of rare beauty.
"By the great Gods!" he whispered in Crassus’ ear, "that was the lovelyFulvia."
"Ha! Curius’ paramour!" replied the other. "Can it be possible that thestern Consul amuses his light hours, with such high-born harlotry?"
"Not he! not he!" said Scipio. "I doubt not Curius is one of them! He isneedy, and bold, and bloody."
"But such a braggart!" answered Marcellus.
"I have known braggarts fight," said Crassus. "There was a fellow, whoserved in the fifth legion; he fought before the standard of the hastati;and I deemed him a coward ever, but in the last strife with Spartacus heslew six men with his own hand. I saw it."
"I have heard of such things," said Scipio. "But it grows late. Let usmove homeward." And then he added, as he was leaving the Consul’s door,"If he can trust his household, Cicero should arm it. My life on it! Theywill attempt to murder him."
"He has given orders even now to arm his slaves," said the Freedman, inreply; "and so soon as they have got their blades and bucklers, I go toinvite hither the surest of his clients."
"Thou shalt do well to do so—But see thou do it silently."
And with the words, they hurried homeward through the dark streets,leaving the wise and virtuous magistrate in conference with his abandoned,yet trustworthy informant, Fulvia.