THE OATH.
Into what dangers
Would you lead me, Cassius?
JULIUS CÆSAR.
The evening had worn on to a late hour, and darkness had already fallen
over the earth, when Paullus issued stealthily, like a guilty thing, from
Lucia’s chamber. No step or sound had come near the door, no voice had
called on either, though they had lingered there for hours in endearments,
which, as he judged the spirit of his host, would have cost him his life,
if suspected; and though he never dreamed of connivance, he did think it
strange that a man so wary and suspicious as Catiline was held to be,
should have so fallen from his wonted prudence, as to betray his adopted
daughter’s honor by granting this most fatal opportunity.
He met no member of the family in the dim-lighted peristyle; the passages
were silent and deserted; no gay domestic circle was collected in the
tablinum, no slaves were waiting in the atrium; and, as he stole forth
cautiously with guarded footsteps, Arvina almost fancied that he had been
forgotten; and that the master of the house believed him to have retired
when he left the dining hall.
It was not long, however, before he was undeceived; for as he entered the
vestibule, and was about to lay his hand on the lock of the outer door, a
tall dark figure, which he recognized instantly to be that of his host,
stepped forward from a side-passage, and stretched out his arm in silence,
forbidding him, by that imperious gesture, to proceed.
"Ha! you have tarried long," he said in a deep guarded whisper, "our Lucia
truly is a most soft and fascinating creature; you found her so, is it not
true, my Paullus?"
There was something singular in the manner in which these words were
uttered, half mocking, and half serious; something between a taunting and
triumphant assertion of a fact, and a bitter question; but nothing that
betokened anger or hostility, or offended pride in the speaker.
Still Paullus was so much taken by surprise, and so doubtful of his
entertainer’s meaning, and the extent of his knowledge, that he remained
speechless in agitated and embarrassed silence.
"What, have the girl’s kisses clogged your lips, so that they can give out
no sound? By the gods! they were close enough to do so."
"Catiline!" he exclaimed, starting back in astonishment, and half
expecting to feel a dagger in his bosom.
"Tush! tush! young man—think you the walls in the house of Catiline have
no ears, nor eyes? Paullus Arvina, I know all!"
"All?" faltered the youth, now utterly aghast.
"Ay, all!" replied the conspirator, with a harsh triumphant laugh. "Lucia
has given herself to you; and you have sold yourself to Catiline! By all
the fiends of Hades, better it were for you, rash boy, that you had ne’er
been born, than now to fail me!"
Arvina, trembling with the deep consciousness of hospitality betrayed, and
feeling the first stings of remorse already, stood thunderstricken, and
unable to articulate.
"Speak!" thundered Catiline; "speak! art thou not mine—mine soul and
body—sworn to be mine forever?"
Alas! the fatal oath, sworn in the heat of passion, flashed on his soul,
and he answered humbly, and in a faint low voice, how different from his
wonted tones of high and manly confidence—
"I am sworn, Catiline!"
"See then that thou be not forsworn. Little thou dream’st yet, unto what
thou art sworn, or unto whom; but know this, that hell itself, with all
its furies, would fall short of the tortures that await the traitor!"
"I am, at least, no traitor!"
"No! traitor! Ha!" cried Catiline, "is it an honest deed to creep into the
bosom of a daughter of the house which entertained thee as a friend!—No!
Traitor—ha! ha! ha! thou shalt ere long learn better—ha! ha! ha!"
And he laughed with the fearful sneering mirth, which was never excited in
his breast, but by things perilous and terrible and hateful. In a moment,
however, he repressed his merriment, and added—
"Give me that poniard thou didst wear this morning. It is mine."
"Thine!" cried the unhappy youth, starting back, as if he had received a
blow; "thine, Catiline!"
"Aye!" he replied, in a hoarse voice, looking into the very eyes of Paul.
"I am the slayer of the slave, and regret only that I slew him without
torture. Know you whose slave he was, by any chance?"
"He was the Consul’s slave," answered Arvina, almost mechanically—for he
was utterly bewildered by all that had passed—"Medon, my freedman
Thrasea’s cousin."
"The Consul’s, ha!—which Consul’s? speak! fool! speak, ere I tear it from
your throat; Cicero’s, ha?"
"Cicero’s, Catiline!"
"Here is a coil; and knows he of this matter? I mean Cicero."
"He knows it."
"That is to say, you told him. Aye! this morning, after I spoke with you.
I comprehend; and you shewed him the poniard. So! so! so! Well, give it to
me; I will tell you what to do, hereafter."
"I have it not with me, Sergius," he replied, thoroughly daunted and
dismayed.
"See that you meet me then, bringing it with you, at Egeria’s cave, as
fools call it, in the valley of Muses, at the fourth hour of night
to-morrow. In the meantime, beware that you tell no man aught of this, nor
that the instrument was bought of Volero. Ha! dost thou hear me?"
"I hear, Catiline."
"And wilt obey?"
"And will obey."
"So shall it go well with thee, and we shall be fast friends forever. Good
repose to thee, good my Paullus."
"And Lucia?" he replied, but in a voice of inquiry; for all that he had
heard of the tremendous passions and vindictive fury of the conspirator,
flashed on his mind, and he fancied that he knew not what of vengeance
would fall on the head of the soft beauty.
"Hath played her part rarely!" answered the monster, as he dismissed him
from the door, which he opened with his own hand. "Be true, and you shall
see her when you will; betray us, and both you and she shall live in
agonies, that shall make you call upon death fifty times, ere he relieve
you."
And with a menacing gesture, he closed and barred the door behind him.
"Played her part rarely!" The words sank down into his soul with a
chilling weight, that seemed to crush every energy and hope. Played her
part! Then he was a dupe—the very dupe of the fiend’s arch mock, to lip a
wanton, and believe her chaste—the dupe of a designing harlot; the sworn
tool and slave of a murderer—a monster, who had literally sold his own
child’s honor. For all the world well knew, that, although Lucia passed
for his adopted daughter only, she was his natural offspring by Aurelia
Orestilla, before their impious marriage.
Well might he gnash his teeth, and beat his breast, and tear his dark hair
by handfulls from his head; well might he groan and curse.
But oh! the inconsistency of man! While he gave vent to all the anguish of
his rage in curses against her, the soft partner of his guilt, and at the
same time, its avenger; against the murderer and the traitor, now his
tyrant; he utterly forgot that his own dereliction, from the paths of
rectitude and honor, had led him into the dark toils, in which he now
seemed involved beyond any hope of extrication.
He forgot, that to satisfy an insane and unjustifiable love of adventure,
and a false curiosity, he had associated himself with a man whom he
believed, if he did not actually know, to be infamous and capable of any
crime.
He forgot, that, admitted into that man’s house in friendship, he had
attempted to undermine his daughter’s honor; and had felt no remorse, till
he learned that his success was owing to connivance—that his own treason
had been met and repaid by deeper treason.
He forgot, that for a wanton’s love, he had betrayed the brightest, and
the purest being that drew the breath of life, from the far Alps, to the
blue waters of the far Tarentum—that he had broken his soul’s plighted
faith—that he was himself, first, a liar, perjurer, and villain.
Alas! it is the inevitable consequence, the first fruit, as it were, of
crime, that guilt is still prolific; that the commission of the first ill
deed, leads almost surely to the commission of a second, of a third, until
the soul is filed and the heart utterly corrupted, and the wretch given
wholly up to the dominion of foul sin, and plunged into thorough
degradation.
Arvina had thought lightly, if at all, of his first luxurious sin, but now
to the depth of his secret soul, he felt that he was emmeshed and
entangled in the deepest villainy.
All that he ever had yet heard hinted darkly or surmised of Catiline’s
gigantic schemes of wickedness, rushed on him, all at once! He doubted
nothing any longer; it was clear to him as noonday; distinct and definite
as if it had been told to him in so many words; the treason to the state
concealed by individual murder; and he, a sworn accomplice—nay, a sworn
slave to this murderer and traitor!
Nor was this all; his peril was no less than his guilt; equal on either
side—sure ruin if he should be true to his country, and scarce less sure,
if he should join its parricides. For, though he had not dared say so much
to Catiline, he had already sent the poniard to the house of Cicero, and a
brief letter indicating all that he had learned from Volero. This he had
done in the interval between the Campus and his unlucky visit to the house
of Catiline, whom he then little deemed to be the man of whom he was in
quest.
Doubtless, ere this time, the cutler had been summoned to the consul’s
presence, and the chief magistrate of the Republic had learned that the
murderer of his slave was the very person, whom he had bound himself by
oaths, so strong that he shuddered at the very thought of them, to support
and defend to the utmost.
What was he then to do? how to proceed, since to recede appeared
impossible?
How was he to account to the conspirator for his inability to produce the
poniard at their appointed meeting? how should he escape the pursuit of
his determined vengeance, if he should shun the meeting?
And then, Lucia! The recollection, guilty and degraded as he knew her to
be, of her soft blandishments, of her rare beauty, of her wild and
inexplicable manner, adding new charms to that forbidden bliss, yet
thrilled in every sense. And must he give her up? No! madness was in the
very thought! so strangely had she spread her fascinations round him. And
yet did he love her? no! perish the thought! Love is a high, a holy, a
pure feeling—the purest our poor fallen nature is capable of experiencing;
no! this fierce, desperate, guilty passion was no more like true love,
than the whirlwind that upheaves the tortured billows, and hurls the fated
vessel on the treacherous quicksands, is like to the beneficent and gentle
breeze that speeds it to the haven of its hopes, in peace and honor.
After a little while consumed in anxious and uneasy thoughts, he
determined—as cowards of the mind determine ever—to temporise, to await
events, to depend upon the tide of circumstance. He would, he thought,
keep the appointment with his master—for such he felt that Catiline now
was indeed—however he might strive to conceal the fact; endeavor to learn
what were his real objects; and then determine what should be his own
course of action. Doubtful, and weak of principle, and most infirm of
purpose, he shrunk alike from breaking the oath he had been entrapped into
taking, and from committing any crime against his country.
His country!—To the Roman, patriotism stood for religion!—Pride, habit,
education, honor, interest, all were combined in that word, country; and
could he be untrue to Rome? His better spirit cried out, no! from every
nerve and artery of his body. And then his evil genius whispered Lucia,
and he wavered.
Meantime, had no thought crossed him of his own pure and noble Julia,
deserted thus and overlooked for a mere wanton? Many times! many times,
that day, had his mind reverted to her. When first he went to Cataline’s
house, he went with the resolution of leaving it at an early hour, so soon
as the feast should be over, and seeking her, while there should yet be
time to ramble among the flower-beds on the hill of gardens, or perchance,
to drive out in his chariot, which he had ordered to be held in readiness,
toward the falls of the Anio, or on the proud Emilian way.
Afterward, in the whirl of his mad intoxication for the fascinating Lucia,
all memory of his true love was lost, as the chaste moon-light may be
dimmed and drowned for a while by the red glare of the torches, brandished
in some licentious orgy. Nor did he think of her again, till he found
himself saddened, and self-disgusted, plunged into peril—perhaps into
ruin, by his own guilty conduct; and then, when he did think, it was with
remorse, and self-reproach, and consciousness of disloyalty, so bitterly
and keenly painful—yet unaccompanied by that repentance, which steadily
envisages past wrong, and determines to amend in future—that he shook off
the recollection, whenever it returned, with wilful stubbornness; and
resolved on forgetting, for the present, the being whom a few short hours
before, he would have deemed it impossible that he should ever think of
but with joy and rapturous anticipation.
Occupied in these fast succeeding moods and fancies, Paullus had made his
way homeward from the house of Catiline, so far as to the Cerolian place,
at the junction of the Sacred Way and the Carinæ. He paused here a moment;
and grasping his fevered brow with his hand, recalled to mind the strange
occurrences, most unexpected and unfortunate, which had befallen him,
since he stood there that morning; each singly trivial; each, unconnected
as it seemed with the rest, and of little moment; yet all, when united,
forming a chain of circumstances by which he was now fettered hand and
foot—his casual interview with Catiline on the hill; his subsequent
encounter of Victor and Aristius Fuscus; the recognition of his dagger by
the stout cutler Volero; the death of Varus in the hippodrome; his own
victorious exercises on the plain; the invitation to the feast; the
sumptuous banquet; and last, alas! and most fatal, the too voluptuous and
seductive Lucia.
Just at this moment, the doors of Cicero’s stately mansion were thrown
open, and a long train came sweeping out in dark garments, with blazing
torches, and music doleful and piercing. And women chanting the shrill
funereal strain. And then, upon a bier covered with black, the rude wooden
coffin, peculiar to the slave, of the murdered Medon! Behind him followed
the whole household of the Consul; and last, to the extreme astonishment
of Paullus, preceded by his lictors, and leaning on the arm of his most
faithful freedman, came Cicero himself, doing unusual honor, for some
cause known to himself alone, to the manes of his slaughtered servant.
As they passed on toward the Capuan gate of the city, the Consul’s eyes
fell directly on the form of Arvina, where he stood revealed in the full
glare of the torch-light; and as he recognised him, he made a sign that he
should join him, which, under those peculiar circumstances, he felt that
he could not refuse to do.
Sadly and silently they swept through the splendid streets, and under the
arched gate, and filed along the celebrated Appian way, passing the tomb
of the proud Scipios on the left hand, with its superb sarcophagi—for that
great house had never, from time immemorial, been wont to burn their
dead—and on the right, a little farther on, the noble temple and the
sacred slope of Mars, and the old statue of the god which had once sweated
blood, prescient of Thrasymene. On they went, frightening the echoes of
the quiet night with their wild lamentations and the clapping of their
hands, sending the glare of their funereal torches far and wide through
the cultured fields and sacred groves and rich gardens, until they reached
at length the pile, hard by the columbarium, or slave-burying-place of
Cicero’s household.
Then, the rites performed duly, the dust thrice sprinkled on the body, and
the farewell pronounced, the corpse was laid upon the pile, and the tall
spire of blood-red flame went up, wavering and streaming through the
night, rich with perfumes, and gums, and precious ointment, so noble was
the liberality of the good Consul, even in the interment of his more
faithful slaves.
No words were uttered to disturb the sound of the ceremony, until the
flames died out, and, the smouldering embers quenched with wine, Thrasea,
as the nearest relative of the deceased, gathered the ashes and inurned
them, when they were duly labelled and consigned to their niche in the
columbarium; and then, the final _Ilicet_ pronounced, the sad solemnity
was ended.
Then, though not until then, did Cicero address the young man; but then,
as if to make up for his previous silence, he made him walk by his side
all the way back to the city, conversing with him eagerly about all that
had passed, thanking him for the note and information he had sent
concerning Volero, and anticipating the immediate discovery of the
perpetrators of that horrid crime.
"I have not had the leisure to summon Volero before me," he added. "I
wished also that you, Arvina, should be present when I examine him. I
judge that it will be best, when we shall have dismissed all these, except
the lictors, to visit him this very night. He is a thrifty and laborious
artisan, and works until late by lamp light; we will go thither, if you
have naught to hinder you, at once."
Arvina could do no otherwise than assent; but his heart beat violently,
and he could scarcely frame his words, so dreadful was his agitation. Yet,
by dint of immense exertion, he contrived to maintain the outward
appearance of composure, which he was very far from feeling, and even to
keep up a connected conversation as they walked along. Returning home at a
much quicker pace than they had gone out, it was comparatively but a short
time before they arrived at the house of Cicero, and there dismissed their
followers, many of the slaves and freedmen of Arvina having joined the
procession in honour of their fellow-servant Thrasea.
Thence, reserving two lictors only of the twelve, the consul with his
wonted activity hurried directly forward by the Sacred Way to the arch of
Fabius; and then, as the young men had gone in the morning, through the
Forum toward the cutler’s shop, taking the shortest way, and evidently
well acquainted with the spot beforehand.
"I caused the funeral to take place this night," he said to Arvina,
"instead of waiting the due term of eight days, on purpose that I might
create no suspicion in the minds of the slayers. They never will suspect
him, we have buried even now, to be the man they slew last night, and will
fancy, it may be, that the body is not discovered even."
"It will be well if it prove so," replied Paullus, feeling that he must
say something, and fearful of committing himself by many words.
"It will, and I think probably it may," answered Cicero. "But see, I was
right; there shines the light from Volero’s shop, though all the other
booths have been closed long ago, and the streets are already silent.
There are but few men, even in this great city, of whom I know not
something, beyond the mere names. Think upon that, young man, and learn to
do likewise; cultivate memory, above all things, except virtue."
"I should have thought such things too mean to occupy a place, even, in
the mind of Cicero," answered Arvina.
"Nothing, young man, that pertains to our fellow men, is too mean to
occupy the mind of the noblest. Why should it, since it doth occupy the
mind of the Gods, who are all great and omnipotent?"
"You lean not then to the creed of Epicurus, which teaches——"
"Who, I?" interrupted Cicero, almost indignantly. "No! by the immortal
Gods! nor I trust, my young friend, do you. Believe me—but ha!" he added
in a quick and altered tone, "what have we here? there is some villainy in
the wind—away! away! there! lictors apprehend that fellow."
For as they came within about a bow-shot of the booth of Volero, the sound
of a slight scuffle was heard from within, and the light of the lamp
became very dim and wavering, as if it had been overset; and in a moment
went out altogether. But its last glimmering ray shewed a tall sinewy
figure making out of the door and bounding at a great pace up the street
toward the Carmental gate.
Arvina caught but a momentary glance of the figure; yet was that glance
enough. He recognized the spare but muscular form, all brawn and bone and
sinew; he recognized the long and pardlike bounds!—It was his tyrant, and,
as he thought, his Fate!
The lictors rushed away upon his track, but there seemed little chance
that, encumbered with their heavy fasces, they would overtake so swift a
runner, as, by the momentary sight they had of him, the fugitive appeared
to be.
Arvina and the Consul speedily reached the booth.
"Volero! Volero!"
But there came forth no answer.
"Volero! what ho! Volero!"
They listened eagerly, painfully, with ears sharpened by excitement. There
came a sound—a plash, as of a heavy drop of water falling on the stone
floor; another, and another—the trickling of a continuous stream.
All was dark as a moonless midnight. Yet Cicero took one step forward, and
laid his hand upon the counter. It splashed into a pool of some warm
liquid.
"Now may the Gods avert!" he cried, "It is blood! there has been murder
here! Run, my Arvina, run to Furbo’s cookshop, across the way there,
opposite; they sit up there all night—cry murder, ho! help! murder!"
A minute had scarcely passed before the heavy knocking of the young man
had aroused the house—the neighborhood. And at the cry of murder, many
men, some who had not retired for the night, and some half dressed as they
had sprung up from their couches, came rushing with their weapons,
snatched at random, and with torches in their hands.
It was but too true! the laborious artizan was dead; murdered, that
instant, at his own counter, at his very work. He had not moved or risen
from his seat, but had fallen forward with his head upon the board; and
from beneath the head was oozing in a continuous stream the dark red
blood, which had overflowed the counter, and trickled down, and made the
paved floor one great pool!
"Ye Gods! what blood! what blood!" exclaimed the first who came in.
"Poor Volero! alas!" cried Furbo, "it is not an hour since he supped on a
pound of sausages at my table, and now, all is over!"
They raised his head. His eyes were wide open; and the whole face bore an
expression neither of agony or terror, so much as of wild surprise.
The throat was cut from ear to ear, dividing the windpipe, the carotid
arteries and jugular veins on both sides; and so strong had been the hand
of the assassin, and so keen the weapon, that the neck was severed quite
to the back bone.
Among the spectators was a gladiator; he whose especial task it was to cut
the throats of the conquered victims on the arena; he looked eagerly and
curiously at the wound for a moment, and then said—
"A back stroke from behind—a strong hand, and a broadbacked knife—the man
has been slain by a gladiator, or one who knows the gladiator’s trick!"
"The man," said the Consul calmly, "has been killed by an acquaintance, a
friend, or a familiar customer; he had not even risen from his seat to
speak with him; and see, the burnisher is yet grasped in his hand, with
which he was at work. Ha!" he exclaimed, as his lictors entered, panting
and tired by their fruitless chase, "could you not overtake him?"
"We never saw him any more, my consul," replied both men in one breath.
"Let his head down, my friend," said Cicero, turning, much disappointed as
it seemed, to Furbo, "let it lie, as it was when we found it; clear the
shop, lictors; take the names of the witnesses; one of you keep watch at
the door, until you are relieved; lock it and give the key to the prætor,
when he shall arrive; the other, go straightway, and summon Cornelius
Lentulus; he is the prætor for this ward. Go to your homes, my friends,
and make no tumult in the streets, I pray you. This shall be looked to and
avenged; your Consul watches over you!"
"Live! live the Consul! the good Consul, the man of the people!" shouted
the crowd, as they dispersed quietly to their homes.
"Arvina, come with me. To whom told you, that you had found, and Volero
sold, this dagger?" he asked very sternly.
"To no one, Cicero. Marcus Aurelius Victor, and Aristius Fuscus were with
me, when he recognized it for his work?"
"No one else?"
"No one, save our slaves, and they," he added in a breath, "could not have
heard what passed."
"Hath no one else seen it?"
"As I was stripping for the contests on the Campus, Catiline saw it in my
girdle, and admired its fabric."
"Catiline!"
"Ay! Consul?"
"And you told _him_ that Volero had made it?"
"Consul, no!" But, with the word, he turned as white as marble. Had it
been daylight, his face had betrayed him; as it was, Cicero observed that
his voice trembled.
"Catiline is the man!" he said solemnly, "the man who slew Medon
yesternight, who has slain Volero now. Catiline is the man; but this
craves wary walking. Young man, young man, beware! methinks you are on the
verge of great danger. Get thee home to thy bed; and again I say, Beware!"