THE ARREST.
Rebellious subjects; Enemies of peace.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
It was already daylight, when the loud clang and clatter of a squadron
passing along the streets, at a sharp trot, aroused the citizens of Rome
from their beds, for though the morning had broke, it was still very
early.
Many a lattice was opened, and many a head thrust out, as the troopers
swept along with all their accoutrements jingling and clashing through the
early silence, a spectacle which in ordinary times, would have excited
much astonishment, perhaps aroused a tumult, since it was in direct
opposition to the laws, that armed soldiers should enter the city walls in
time of peace.
But so much had the public mind been disturbed of late, that the sight,
which a month before would have filled the streets with anxious or angry
multitudes, now hardly seemed to merit a second glance, and the spectators
hurried back to their couches, invoking the aid of the good Consul, who
watched so well over the liberties and lives of Rome, or muttering curses
on his head, according as they were well or ill-afflicted toward the
state.
One man there was, however, who was awakened by the clatter from the deep
sleep of drunkenness, with a flushed face and an aching head, in a house
on the Clivus Scauri, a steep street running down the southern slope of
the Palatine, into the Cerolian Place, and overlooking the mansion of
Cicero.
Starting up from his low couch, he called out sharply and with a querulous
accent to a freedman, who was watching his feverish slumbers, desiring him
to look out and see what made that clatter.
The man passed quickly into an adjoining room which commanded a view of
the street, and returned instantly, saying,
"It is a squadron of horse, Cæparius. Young Arvina’s, I think; and they
appear to be conducting a prisoner, for there is one man among them, in
his tunic and abolla only, while the troopers around him have their swords
drawn."
Sobered at once, the conspirator leaped from his couch, and almost
overthrew the attendant, in his eagerness to reach the window in time to
observe the troopers.
They were just halting in the Cerolian place, when he saw them, and
dismounting, chargers and men in a confused and dusty group before the
door of Cicero.
He gazed, as if his eyes would burst from their sockets, if possibly he
might distinguish the wearer of the rich blue riding cloak, of which he
could catch glimpses among the glittering corslets and scarlet cassocks of
the legionary horse. But for a while he gazed in vain.
At length two figures mounted the marble steps, leading to the Tuscan
colonnade, and were thus brought clearly into view, above the crested
casques of the soldiery.
One, a tall well-made figure, splendidly accoutred in the cavalry armor of
the day, he recognized at once for Arvina, and in the stouter person, clad
in the blue abolla, the color of which he had already connected with one
whom he knew—his worst fears all realized—he discovered the messenger of
treason, Titus Volturcius of Crotona.
"By the Gods! all is lost," he muttered, striking his hand violently on
his thigh. "Escape alone, is left to us. Ha!" he continued, addressing his
freedman, "I will arise, and go forth speedily. Give me my tunic. So—never
mind the feminalia; there, clasp my sandals! Death and furies! how slow
thou art, now my dagger, and my toga. Hark, now. I go to the house of
Lentulus. See thou, and have my chariot harnessed for a journey, with the
four Thracian steeds; put into it my armor, a sword, casque and buckler
for thyself; and all the gold which is locked in the great chest in the
Atrium. Here is the key. Tarry not for thy life, and bring the car thyself
to the arch of Fabius Allobrox; wait there until I come to thee. I will be
there within the hour."
"It shall be done, Cæparius."
"See that it _be_ done, if thou wouldst scape the scourge!" and with the
word he rushed out of the chamber, as if the avenger of blood were at his
heels.
But the freedman looked after him, with a bitter and scornful smile, and
muttered—
"The scourge!—the scourge! and I a freedman! This is another friend of the
people. His villanies, I fancy, are near upon detection, and he would fly
to join Catiline, but I will thwart him."
In the meantime, quitting his own house in great trepidation, the
conspirator walked very rapidly through the streets, until he reached the
house of Lentulus, which was not far distant from the forum.
He was admitted instantly, and without question, for all the slaves knew
him, as the intimate friend of their master; but at the bed room door, he
was stopped by the favorite freedman of Lentulus, who urged that his lord
had not retired till morning, and had desired that he should not be
disturbed earlier than noon.
Cæparius, on the other hand insisted, raising his voice so loudly that the
sleeper was awakened, and recognizing the accent of his friend, cried out
peevishly—
"Oh! let him in, Agathon; let him in quickly, or he will talk thee deaf,
and me frantic! What in the name of Proserpine and Pluto! is it now?"
"The plot is discovered! all is lost!" exclaimed the other, forgetting all
prudence in the haste and terror of the moment.
"To the abyss of Tartarus with the plot, and thee also!" replied the other
savagely. "I hope it _is_ discovered, for I shall get some sleep then. I
have had none these six months."
And turning on his other side, he drew the embroidered coverlid over his
head, and appeared to court the interrupted slumber.
"By all Gods! I tell thee, Lentulus, Volturcius is arrested. These eyes
beheld him dragged into the house of Cicero. My chariot waits me now, at
the arch of Fabius. I go to join Catiline."
"I prithee, then, go quickly—thou torturest me, man, I say. Get thee gone!
get thee gone! Better to die, than to live thus sleepless."
"Whom the Gods wish to ruin, they first dementate!" exclaimed
Cæparius—"thou wilt be seized, within the hour."
"I care not. So that till then I can sleep; once more, I say—Begone!"
Cæparius shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head as he left the room;
and then made the best of his way to the arch of Fabius; but he found not
his chariot there, not though he waited well nigh two hours, did it arrive
at all.
Hopeless at length, and desperate, he set forth alone and on foot, in the
vain hope of escaping the pursuit of Cicero’s unerring justice.
Meanwhile, disturbed more than he would admit by Cæparius’ tidings,
Lentulus did, in some sort, arouse himself to consideration.
"It may be so," he said to himself. "Cæparius declared he saw him. If it
be so, ’twere better perhaps, indeed, to leave the city. And yet," he
continued pondering deeply, "to fly is to admit guilt, and it is too late,
moreover. Tush! tush! I daresay, it is but Cæparius’ terror—he was a fool
always, and I believe a coward also. Beside, if it be true, there is no
proof; and what dare Cicero against me—against me, a Consular of Rome?—At
the worst, he will implore me to deliver the city of my presence, as he
did Catiline. Ha! Ha! I will to sleep again. Yet stay, I am athirst, after
Sempronia’s revel! Fool, that I was, not to drink more last night, and
quench this fiery craving. Ho! Agathon, my boy, fetch me the great goblet,
the double(9) sextarius, of spiced mulse with a snow-water."
This order was obeyed instantly, and after draining the huge beaker to the
bottom, the indolent and reckless traitor, rolled himself over, and was
asleep again as soundly in five minutes, as if he were not in truth
slumbering upon the brink of a volcano.
Not long however did he sleep in peace, for Cæparius had scarcely been
gone an hour, when he was again startled from his doze, by a knocking so
violent, at the outer door, that the whole house reëchoed with the din.
He heard the doors opened, and a short angry parle, broken short by the
raised voice of the new comers, and the clanging of armed footsteps, along
the marble corridor which led toward his chamber.
A moment afterward, pale as death, with his hair starting and a wild eye,
Agathon entered the room.
"How now?" exclaimed Lentulus, who fully aroused by this time, was sitting
on the edge of the low bedstead, with a purple gown cast carelessly around
him, "what is this new disturbance."
"The Atrium is full of armed soldiers, Lentulus," replied the man with a
faltering accent.
"Well! hast thou never seen a soldier before, that thou starest so
wildly?" asked his master with a sneer, which even the extremity of danger
could not restrain.
"Their leader insists on present speech with thee. I told him that thou
wert asleep; but he replied that, waking or asleep, he must have speech
with thee."
"Truly a valiant leader," answered the Prætor. "Hath he a name, this bold
centurion?"
"Paullus Cæcilius Arvina," replied the young man, who having followed the
freedman to the door had overheard all that was passing, "is my name—no
centurion, as thou mayest see, Lentulus. Loth am I to disturb thy
slumbers."
"Then wherefore do it, youth?" asked Lentulus, quickly. "Most broken
things may be repaired, but I know not how you shall mend a broken nap, or
recompense the loss of it, if irreparable."
"Not of my own will, but by the Consul’s order."
"The Consul’s? What? Antonius? He scarce need have sent a troop of horse,
to ask an old friend to breakfast!"
"Cicero sent me, Prætor, to crave your instant presence at his house,
touching affairs of state."
"Ha! Cicero!" said he, affecting to be much surprised. "Cicero scarcely is
on such terms with me, as to take such a liberty, waking me thus at the
dead of night."
"It is well nigh the fourth hour, Lentulus."
"What if it be, an I choose to call it midnight? and what, if I refuse to
obey such unceremonious bidding?"
"In that case, Lentulus, my orders are to compel your attendance. I have
two decuries of men in your Atrium. But I trust that you will drive me to
no such necessity."
"Two decuries!" replied Lentulus scornfully. "I have but to lift my little
finger, and my freedmen and slaves would kick your decuries, and yourself
after them into the velabrum."
The blood mounted to the brow of the young soldier. "I have endured," he
said, "something too much of this. Will you go with us peacefully,
Lentulus, or will you force us to take you through the street like a
felon?"
"Oh! peacefully, Arvina, peacefully. I did but jest with you, my hero. But
I knew not that the cavalry of the seventh legion—the legion of Mars I
think they call it—had become so degraded, as to do the work of
thieftakers."
"Nor I, Lentulus," answered Paul. "But you should know best in this
matter. If it be theft for which thou art summoned before Cicero, then are
we indeed thieftakers. But if so, not only I believe should we be the
first legionaries of Rome so employed, but thou the first Roman Consular
so guilty."
"So proud! ha!" exclaimed the haughty conspirator, gazing at him with a
curled lip and flashing eye. "Well, I could quell that pride in one
moment, with _one_ word."
"Even so proud, because honest" answered the young man, as haughtily as
the other. "For the rest, will you clothe yourself at once?—I can wait
babbling here no longer."
"I _will_ quell it. Look you, boy, you love Julia, the bright daughter of
Hortensia—she is worth loving, by the way, and Catiline hath noted it. You
fancy that she is safe now, at the Latin villa of her mother. She is not
safe—nor at the Latin villa! I have touched you, have I not?"
Arvina started, as if a serpent had bitten him; but in a moment he
recovered himself, saying calmly, "Tush! it is a poor deceit! you cannot
alarm me."
"In truth it was a deceit, but not so very poor after all, since it
succeeded. You were sorely wounded a few days since, Arvina, and wrote, I
think, to Julia, requesting her to set forth at once to Rome, with
Hortensia."
"Folly!" replied Arvina, "Drivelling folly! Come, hasten your dressing,
Lentulus! You need not perfume your hair, and curl your beard, as if you
were going to a banquet."
"I never hasten anything, my Paullus. Things done hastily, are rarely
things done well. What? thou dids’t not write such a letter?—I thought
thou hadst—of this at least I am sure, that she received such an one; and
set out for Rome, within an hour after."
"By the Gods!" exclaimed Paullus, a little eagerly, for Lentulus had
changed the slight bantering tone in which he had been speaking, for a
quick short decided accent seeming to denote that he was in earnest.
"Where is she now. Speak, Lentulus, I adjure thee. Tell me, if thou
wouldst have me serve thee!"
"I thought I could abate that pride somewhat," said Lentulus sneeringly.
"I thought so indeed. But, by all the Gods! Arvina, I know not where your
Julia may be _now_. I know whither they are conveying her—where she soon
will be—but I fancy that the knowing it, would give you but little
pleasure; unless, indeed, you could prevent it, my poor youth!"
"To know, is something at least toward preventing it. If, therefore, thou
art not, as I believe indeed thou art, merely mocking me, I pray thee tell
me, whither are they conveying her? Where will she soon be?"
"To the camp of Manlius, nigh Fiesolè! In the arms of one Lucius Sergius
Catiline—a great admirer of your auburn-haired, blue-eyed beauties, my
Arvina."
The young man, with his eyes gleaming and his face crimsoning with furious
rage, made two steps forward, and seizing the burly traitor by the throat,
compressed his gullet, as if in an iron vice, and shook him to and fro as
easily as if he had been a stripling.
"Shame on thee, filth and carrion that thou art, so to speak of a
betrothed bride to her promised husband! If it were true, wretched
villain! I would save the hangman his task, and break your traitor’s
throat with this hand—but thou liest! thou liest!" he shouted, pushing him
to the other end of the narrow sleeping chamber. "In poor revenge thou
liest! But if you wish to live, beware how you so lie any more!"
"I do not lie indeed, my dear Arvina," replied the other in a bland
fawning voice full of mock humility. "But, I prithee, boy, keep thy hands
from my throat in future, unless thou wouldst desire to know how a
crook-bladed sica some sixteen inches long feels in the region of thy
heart. Such an one as this, Arvina," he added, showing a long keen weapon
not unlike a Turkish yatagan in shape, which he drew from beneath his
pillow. Then casting it aside, with a contemptuous gesture, he
continued—"But this is mere child’s play. Now mark me. I did not lie, nor
do! Aulus Fulvius wrote the letter—Aulus Fulvius’ slave carried it,
yester-even—Aulus Fulvius beset the road by which they must come—Aulus
Fulvius is ere this time on his road many a league conveying her to
Catiline—and this," he said, putting a small slip of parchment into the
hands of the astonished Paullus, "is Aulus Fulvius’ handwriting. Yes!
certainly, that is his S in the word Salutem. He affects ever the Greek
sigma in his writing. He is a very pretty penman, Aulus Fulvius!"
The strip of parchment bore these words:
"Whom I am you will know by the matter. The camp in Etruria will receive
the dove from the Latin villa. All hath succeeded—health!"
"I found it on my desk, when I returned from supper this morning. Aulus’s
slave brought it hither. He is within, if thou wouldst speak him."
Arvina staggered back like a man who has received a mortal stab, as he
read those fatal words; and stared about him with a wild and wandering
eye.
It was a moment or two before he could find any speech, and when he did
speak at length, it was in tones so altered and broken that his nearest
friend would not have recognized his voice.
"Wherefore"—he gasped—"Wherefore have you done this to me."
"For vengeance!" thundered the proud conspirator, casting his
crimson-bordered toga over his laticlavian tunic. "For vengeance, boy.
Lead on—lead on to your consul."
"In what have I wronged you?" cried Arvina, in a paroxysm of almost
unspeakable despair. "In what, that you should take such infernal
vengeance?"
"For Julia’s love thou didst betray Catiline! betray _us_! In Julia’s
infamy thou shalt be punished!"
"Anything! anything! anything but this—strike here, strike here with that
sica, thou didst unsheath but now. Slay me, by inches if thou wilt—but
spare her, oh! by your mother’s memory! oh! by your sister’s honor! spare
her, and I will—"
"Lead on! To your consul!" exclaimed Lentulus waving his hand proudly to
the door. "I can but die—the Gods be thanked for it! Thy life is bitterer
than many deaths already! I say, coward and fool, lead on! Where is thy
boasted pride? In the dust! at my feet! I trample, I spit on it! once
again to your consul!"
"And thou couldst save her!"
"By a word! At a hint from me Fulvius will set her free."
"But that word? but that hint?—"
"My lips shall never utter—my hand indite; unless—"
"Unless? unless what?—speak! speak, Lentulus. By the Gods! By your head!
By your life! speak."
"Place me beyond the walls of Rome, with twenty of my freedmen, armed and
mounted—it can be done on the instant; they are here; they are ready!—and
Julia shall be in thy bosom ere to-morrow’s sun shall sink behind the
hills of Latium!"
"A Traitor to my country! Lentulus, never!"
"Tush! boy! think upon beautiful, soft, weeping, _innocent_ Julia rescued
by thee from Catiline—from pollution—think on her gratitude, her love, her
kiss! Think on a life, a whole long life, of rapture!—and then balance
against it one small foolish word—"
"Dishonor!" Arvina interrupted him fiercely.
"Aye! to which thou consignest Julia, whom thou _lovest_! Kind Venus guard
me from such lovers!"
"Dishonor never can come nigh her," replied Arvina, who had recovered his
senses completely, and who, though unutterably wretched, was now as firm
and as cold as marble. "Death it may be, but not dishonor!"
"Be it so," answered Lentulus. "We will leave her the option of the two,
but believe me, when dishonor is pleasant, women rarely choose death in
preference to it. You have had your option too, my Arvina. But I, it
seems, can have none, but must wait upon your consul."
"You have the same which you give Julia!" answered Paullus, sternly.
"There is your dagger, and your heart here!" he added, laying his hand on
the broad breast of the infamous Patrician.
"True! count its pulses—cooler, I think, and more regular than thine,
Paullus. Tush! man! I know a hundred wiser things and pleasanter than
dying. But once more, lead on! I will speak no word again till I speak to
the consul!"
And without farther words he strode to the door, followed closely by the
young soldier, resolute and determined to perform his duty, let what might
come of it! He passed through his marble peristyles, looked with a cool
eye on his flowery parterres and sparkling fountains, nodded a careless
adieu to his slaves and freedmen, and entered the Atrium where Arvina’s
troopers awaited him, wondering and impatient at the long delay.
With a proud gesture he waved his hand toward the door, and six of the
number marched forward, three and three, while the rest falling into
regular array behind him, escorted him with all respect, but with stern
watchfulness, along the Via Sacra to the Carinæ.
Quickly arriving at the Atrium of Cicero’s house, which was filled with
his friends and clients all in arms, and with many knights and patricians,
whom he knew, but no one of whom saluted or seemed to recognize him, he
was admitted into the Tablinum, or saloon, at the doors of which six
lictors were on guard with their fasces.
On entering this small but sumptuous chamber he found assembled there
already, Cethegus, Statilius, and Gabinius, silent, with white lips, in an
agony of terror worse than death.
"Ha! my friends!" he exclaimed, with an unaltered mien and voice, "We are
met once again. But we seem not, by all the Gods! to be well pleased with
the meeting. Why so downcast, Cethegus?"
"Because on earth it is our last meeting," he replied. And it was clear to
see that the boldest and fiercest, and most furious of the band, while
danger was afar, was the most utterly appalled now, when fate appeared
imminent and certain.
"Why, then!" answered Lentulus, "we shall meet in Hell, Cethegus."
"By the Gods! jest not so foully—"
"Wherefore not, I prithee? If that this be our last meeting, good faith!
let it be a merry one! I know not, for my part, what ails ye all."
"Are you mad? or know you not that Volturcius is a prisoner, and our
letters in the hands of the consul? They will kill us ere noon."
"Then they must make haste, Caius. It is noon already. But, cheer thee up,
be not so much afraid, my brave Cethegus—they dare not slay us."
"Dare not?"
"For their own lives, they dare not!" But as he spoke, raising his voice
to its highest pitch, the curtains which closed the other end of the
Tablinum were suddenly drawn back, and Cicero appeared, clad in his
consular robes, and with his ivory staff in his hand. Antonius his
colleague stood in the intercolumniation, with all the lictors at his
back, and many knights in their appropriate tunics, but with military
cloaks above them in place of the peaceful toga, and with their swords
girded by their sides.
"Prætor," said Cicero in a dignified but serene voice, with no show of
taunting or of triumph over his fallen enemy. "The Senate is assembled in
the temple of Concord. The Fathers wait but for your coming. Give me your
hand that I may conduct you thither."
"My hand, consul? Not as a friend’s, I trust," said the undaunted Traitor.
"As a magistrate’s, Cornelius Lentulus," replied Cicero severely, "whose
hand, even if guilty, may not be polluted by an inferior’s grasp."
"As a magistrate’s you have it, consul. We go?"
"To the shrine of Concord! Antonius, my noble colleague, let us begone.
Senators, follow us; escape you cannot, if you would; and I would spare
you the disgrace of chains."
"We follow, Cicero," answered Cethegus in a hollow voice, and casting his
eyes with a wild and haggard expression on Gabinius, he added in a
whisper, "to our death!"
"Be it so!" replied the other. "One can but die once; and if his time be
come, as well now as hereafter. I fear not death now, when I see it face
to face. I think, I have heard thee say the same."
"He spoke," answered Statilius, with a bitter and sarcastic laugh, "of the
death of others then. Would God, he _then_ had met his own! So should we
_now_ have been innocent and fearless!"
"I at least, if not innocent, _am_ fearless."
And watched on every side by the knights, and followed by the lictors, two
behind each, the ringleaders of the plot, all save Cæparius who had fled,
and Catiline—who was in open arms, an outlaw and proclaimed enemy of his
country—the ringleaders were led away to trial.
The fate of Rome hung on the firmness of their judges.