"Ha! ha!" he cried with a loud ringing laugh, as he tossed the weapon high into the sunny air, that all around might see it-"Here is one of your _n.o.ble_ people's friends!-Do they wear daggers _all_, for the people's throats? Do they wave torches _all_, against the people's workshops?"

The matter seemed to be growing serious, and while two or three of the conspirators seized Aulus, and compelled him with gentle violence to desist from farther tumult, Caeparius whispered into the ear of Catiline, "This knave knows far too much. Were it not best three or four of our friend Crispus' men should knock him on the head?"

"No! no!" cried Catiline-"By Hades! no! It is too late, I tell you. The whole thing will be settled within half an hour. There goes the second trumpet."

And as he spoke, the shrill blast of the brazen instruments rose piercingly and almost painfully upon the ear; and the people might be seen collecting themselves rapidly into the centuries of their tribes, in order to give their votes in their places, as ascertained by lot.

"And the third"-exclaimed Ca.s.sius, joyfully-"Will give the signal for _election_!" Catiline interrupted him, as if fearful that he would say some thing that should commit the party. "But see," he added, pointing with his hand across the wide plain toward a little knoll, on which there stood a group of n.o.ble-looking men, surrounded by a mult.i.tude of knights and patricians, "See yonder, how thickly the laticlavian tunics muster, and the crimson-edged togas of the n.o.bles-all the knights are there too, methinks. And look! look the consuls of the year! and my compet.i.tors!

Come, my friends, come; we must toward the consul. He is about to open the comitia."

"Catiline! Catiline! the people's friend!" again shouted Caius Crispus; and Ba.s.sus took the word, and repeated it in the shrill quavering accents of old age-"All those who love the people vote for the people's friend-vote for the n.o.ble Catiline!"

And at once thousands of voices took the cry, "Catiline! Catiline! Hail, Catiline, that shall be Consul!"

And, in the midst of these triumphant cries, hardened and proud of heart, and confident of the success of his blood-thirsty schemes, he hurried forward, accompanied by Lentulus and his armed satellites, panting already with antic.i.p.ated joy, and athirst for slaughter.

But, as he swept along, followed by the faction, a great body of citizens of the lower orders, decent substantial men, came crowding toward the Campus, and paused to inquire the cause of the tumult, which had left its visible effects in the flushed visages and knotted brows of many present.

Two or three voices began to relate what had pa.s.sed; but the smith Crispus, who had lingered with one or two of his ruffians, intent to murder the man who had crossed his chief, so soon as the signal should be given, rudely broke in, and interrupted them with the old cry, "The people's friend! All ye who love the people, vote for the people's friend, vote for the n.o.ble Catiline!"

"Had mighty Marius been alive, Marius of Arpinum, or the great Gracchi, they had cried, 'Vote rather for the man of the people!-vote for Cicero of Arpinum!'"

"Tush, what knows he of Marius?" replied the smith.

"What knows he of the great Gracchi?" echoed one of his followers.

"Whether should best know Marius, they who fought by his side, or they who slew his friends? Who should best know the great Gracchi if not Fulvius, the grandson of that Fulvius Flaccus, who died with them, in the forum, by the hands of Saturninus?"

"Vote for Catiline! vote for Catiline! friends of the people!" shouted the smith again, reechoed by all his savage and vociferous gang, seeking to drown the voice of the true man of the people.

"Aye" exclaimed Fulvius, ironically, springing upon a stone horse-block, thence to address the people, who shouted "Flaccus! Flaccus!" on all sides. "Live Fulvius Flaccus! Speak to us, n.o.ble Fulvius!"

"Aye!" he exclaimed, "friends of the people, followers of Marius, vote, if ye be wise men, for the murderer of his kinsman-for Catiline, who slew Marius Gratidia.n.u.s!"

"No! no! we will none of them! no Catiline! no follower of Sylla? To your tribes, men of Rome-to your tribes!"

The mingled cries waxed wild and terrible; and it was clear that the popular party was broken, by the bold words of the speaker, into two bodies, if ever it had been united. But little cared the conspirators for that, since they had counted, not upon winning by a majority of tribes, but by a civic ma.s.sacre.

And now-even as that roar was the loudest, while Flaccus in vain strove to gain a hearing, for the third time the brazen trumpets of the centuries awoke their stirring symphonies, announcing that the hour had arrived for the tribes to commence their voting.

Those who were in the secret looked eagerly over the field. The hour had come-the leader was at their head-they waited but the signal!

That signal, named by Catiline, in the house of Laeca,-the blood of Cicero!

They saw a ma.s.s of men, pressing on like a mighty wedge through the dense mult.i.tude; parting the waves of the living ocean as a stout galley parts the billows; struggling on steadily toward the knoll, whereon, amid the magnates of the land, consulars, senators, and knights, covering it with the pomp of white and crimson gowns, gemmed only by the flashing axe-heads of the lictors, stood the great Consul.

They saw the gladiators forming themselves into a separate band, on the slopes of the Janiculum, with a senator's robe distinct among the dark gray tunics.

Catiline and his clients were not a hundred paces distant from Cicero, and the a.s.sembled n.o.bles. They had halted! Their hands were busy in the bosom of their gowns, griping the hilts of their a.s.sa.s.sin's tools!

Cethegus and his gladiators were not a hundred paces distant from the bridge-gate of the Janiculum, and the cohort's bannered eagle.

They, too, had halted! they, too, were forming in battle order-they too were mustering their breath for the dread onset-they too were handling their war weapons!

Almost had Caius Crispus, in his mad triumph, shouted victory.

One moment, and Rome had been the prize for the winner in the gladiators'

battle.

And the notes of the brazen trumpets had not yet died away, among the echoing hills.

They had not died away, before they were taken up and repeated, east, west, and north and south, by shriller, more pervading clangors.

It burst over the heads of the astonished people like heaven's thunder, the wild prolonged war-flourish of the legions. From the Tarpeian rock, and the guarded Capitol; from the rampired Janiculum; from the fortress, beyond the Island bridge; from the towered steeps of the Quirinal, broke simultaneously the well known Roman war note!

Upsprang, along the turreted wall of the Janiculum, with crested casques, and burnished brazen corslets, and the tremendous javelins of the cohorts, a long line of Metellus' legionaries.

Upsprang on the heights of the Capitol, and on each point of vantage, an answering band of warriors, full armed.

And, last not least, as that warlike din smote the sky, Cicero, on whom every eye was riveted of that vast concourse, flung back his toga, and stood forth conspicuous, armed with a mighty breastplate, and girded with the sword that won him, at an after day, among the mountains of Cilicia, the high style of Imperator.

A mighty shout burst from the faithful ranks of the knights; and, starting from their scabbards, five thousand sword-blades flashed in a trusty ring around the savior of his country.

"Catiline would have murdered Him!" shouted the voice of Fulvius Flaccus-"Catiline would have burned your workshops! Catiline would have made himself Dictator, King! Vote, men of Rome, vote, friends of the people I vote now, I say, for Catiline!"

Antic.i.p.ated, frustrated, outwitted,-the conspirators glared on each other hopeless.

Against forces so combined, what chance of success?

Still, although ruined in his hopes, Catiline bore up bravely, and with an insolence of hardihood that in a good cause had been heroism.

Affecting to laugh at the precautions, and sneer at the pusillanimous mind that had suggested them, he defied proof, defied suspicion.

There was no overt act-no proof! and Cicero, satisfied with his triumph-for alarmed beyond measure, and astonished, all ranks and cla.s.ses vied with each other in voting for Sila.n.u.s and Muraena-took no step to arrest or convict the ringleaders.

It was a moral, not a physical victory, at which he had aimed so n.o.bly.

And n.o.bly had he won it.

The views of the conspiracy frustrated; the hearts of its leaders chilled and thunder-stricken; the loyalty and virtue of all cla.s.ses aroused; the eyes of the Roman people opened to knowledge of their friends; two wise and n.o.ble consuls chosen, by who were on the point of casting their votes for a murderer and traitor; the city saved from conflagration; the commonwealth preserved, in all its majesty; these were the trophies of the Consular Comitia.

CHAPTER III.

_THE PERIL._