The Roman Traitor Volume I Part 17

CHAPTER IX.

THE AMBUSH.

My friends, That is not so. Sir, we are your enemies.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

It was already near the fourth hour of the Roman night, or about a quarter past eight of our time, when Paullus issued from the Capuan gate, in order to keep his appointment with the conspirator; and bold as he was, and fearless under ordinary circ.u.mstances, it would be useless to deny that his heart beat fast and anxiously under his steel cuira.s.s, as he strode rapidly along the Appian way to the place of meeting.

The sun had long since set, and the moon, which was in her last quarter, had not as yet risen; so that, although the skies were perfectly clear and cloudless, there was but little light by which to direct his foot-steps toward the valley of the Muses, had he not been already familiar with the way.

Stepping out rapidly, for he was fearful now of being too late at the place appointed, he soon pa.s.sed the two branches of the beautiful and sparkling Almo, wherein the priests of Cybele were wont to lave the statue of their G.o.ddess, amid the din of brazen instruments and sacred song; and a little further on, arrived at the cross-road where the way to Ardea, in the Latin country, branched off to the right hand from the great Appian turnpike.

At this point there was a small temple sacred to Bacchus, and a little grove of elms and plane trees overrun with vines, on which the ripe cl.u.s.ters consecrated to the G.o.d were hanging yet, though the season of the vintage had elapsed, safe from the hand of pa.s.senger or truant school-boy.

Turning around the angle of this building, Arvina entered a dim lane, overshadowed by the tall trees of the grove, which wound over two or three little hillocks, and then sweeping downward to the three kindred streamlets, which form the sources of the Almo, followed their right bank up the valley of the Muses.

Had the mind of Arvina been less agitated than it was by dark and ominous forebodings, that walk had been a pleasant one, in the calm and breezeless evening. The stars were s.h.i.+ning by thousands in the deep azure sky; the constant chirrup of the shrill-voiced cicala, not mute as yet, although his days of tuneful life were well nigh ended, rose cheerfully above the rippling murmurs of the waters, and the mysterious rustling of the herbage rejoicing to drink up the copious dew; and heard by fits and starts from the thick clumps of arbutus on the hills, or the thorn bushes on the water's brink, the liquid notes of the nightingale gushed out, charming the ear of darkness.

For the first half mile of his walk, the young patrician met several persons on the way-two or three pairs of lovers, as they seemed, of the lower orders, strolling affectionately homeward; a party of rural slaves returning from their labours on some suburban farm, to their master's house; and more than one loaded chariot; but beyond this all was lonely and silent, with the exception of the stream, the insects, and the vocal night-bird.

There was no sound or sight that would seem to indicate the vicinity of any human being, as Arvina, pa.s.sing the mouth of a small gorge or hollow scooped out of the bosom of a soft green hill, paused at the arch of a low but richly ornamented grotto, hollowed out of the face of the rock, and supported by a vault of reticulated brick-work, decorated elegantly with reliefs of marble and rich stucco. The soft green mosses and dark tendrils of the waving ivy, which drooped down from the rock and curtained well nigh half the opening, rendered the grotto very dark within. And it was a moment or two before Paullus discovered that he was alone in that secluded place, or in the company only of the old marble G.o.d, who, reclining on a couch of the same material at the farther end of the cave, poured forth his bright waters from an inverted jar, into the clear cool basin which filled the centre of the place.

He was surprised not a little at finding himself the first at the place of meeting, for he was conscious that he was behind his time; and had, indeed, come somewhat late on purpose, with a view of taking his stand as if naturally during the interview, between the conspirator and the cave mouth.

It was not, however, altogether a matter of regret to him, that he had gained a little time, for the folds of his toga required some adjustment, in order to enable him to get readily at the hilt of his sword, and the mouth-piece of his hunting-horn, which he carried beneath his gown. And he applied himself to that purpose immediately, congratulating himself, as he did so, on the failure of his first project, and thinking how much better it would be for him to stand as far as possible from the entrance, so as to avoid even the few rays of dim star-light, which crept in through the tangled ivy.

This was soon done; and in accordance with his afterthought, he sat down on a projecting angle of the statue's marble couch, in the inmost corner of the vault, facing the door, and having the pool of the fountain interposed between that and himself.

For a few moments he sat thinking anxiously about the interview, which he believed, not without cause, was likely to prove embarra.s.sing, at least, if not perilous. But, when he confessed to himself, which he was very soon compelled to do, that he could shape nothing of his own course, until he should hear what were the plans in which Catiline desired his cooperation; and when time fled and the man came not, his mind began to wander, and to think about twenty gay and pleasant subjects entirely disconnected with the purpose for which he had come thither. Then he fell gradually into a sort of waking dream, or vision, as it were, of wandering fancies, made up partly of the sounds which he actually heard with his outward ears, though his mind took but little note of them, and partly of the occurrences in which he had been mixed up, and the persons with whom he had been brought into contact within the last two or three days. The gory visage of the murdered slave, the sweet and calm expression of his own Julia, the truculent eyes and sneering lip of Catiline, and the veiled glance and voluptuous smile of his too seductive daughter, whirled still before him in a strange sort of human phantasmagoria, with the deep searching look of the consul orator, the wild glare of the slaughtered Volero, and the stern face, grand and proud in his last agony, of the dying Varus.

In this mood he had forgotten altogether where he was, and on what purpose, when a deep voice aroused him with a start, and though he had neither heard his footstep, nor seen him enter, Catiline stood beside his elbow.

"What ho!" he exclaimed, "Paullus, have I detained you long in this dark solitude."

"Nay, I know not how long," replied the other, "for I had fallen into strange thoughts, and forgotten altogether the lapse of time; but here have I been since the fourth hour."

"And it is now already past the fifth," said Cataline, "but come, we must make up for the loss of time. Some friends of mine are waiting for us, to whom I wish to introduce you, that you may become altogether one of us, and take the oaths of fidelity. Give me the dagger now, and let us be going on our way."

"I have it not with me, Catiline."

"Have it not with you! Wherefore not? wherefore not, I say, boy?" cried the conspirator, very savagely. "By all the furies in deep h.e.l.l, you were better not dally with me."

"Because it is no longer in my possession; and therefore I could not bring it with me," he replied firmly, for the threats of the other only inflamed his pride, and so increased his natural courage.

"By the G.o.ds, you brave me, then!" exclaimed Catiline; "fool! fool! beware how you tamper with your fate. Speak instantly, speak out: to whom have you dared give it?"

"There was no daring in the matter, Catiline," he answered steadily, keeping an eye on the arch-traitor's movements; "before I knew that it was yours, I sent it, as I had promised, to Cicero, with word that Volero could tell him who was the owner of it."

"Ha, didst thou so?" said the other, mastering instantly his fury, in his desire to make himself fully acquainted with all that had pa.s.sed. "When was all this? has he seen Volero, and learned the secret of him, then?"

"I sent it, Catiline, within an hour of the time I left the Campus yesterday."

"Before coming to my house to dinner?"

"Before going to thy house to dinner, Sergius."

"Before seducing Lucia Orestilla?" again sneered the desperate villain.

"Before yielding," answered the young man, who was now growing angry, for his temper was not of the meekest, "to her irresistible seduction."

"Ha! yielding-well! we will speak of that hereafter. Hath the consul seen Volero?"

"He hath seen him dead; and how dead, Catiline best knoweth."

"It was, then, thou, whom I saw in the feeble lamplight with the accursed wretch that crosses my path everywhere, the dastard, drivelling dotard of Arpinum; thou that despite thine oath, didst lead him to detect the man, thou hadst sworn to obey, and follow! Thou! it is thou, then, that houndest mine enemies upon my track! By the great G.o.ds, I know not whether most to marvel at the sublime, unrivalled folly, which could lead thee to fancy, that thou, a mere boy and tyro, couldst hoodwink eyes like mine; or at the daring which could prompt thee to rush headlong on thine own ruin in betraying me! Boy, thou hast but one course left; to join us heart and hand; to go and renew thine oath in such fas.h.i.+on as even thou, premeditated perjurer, wilt not presume to break, and then to seal thy faith by the blood"-

"Of whom?"

"Of this new man; this pendant consul of Arpinum."

"Aye!" exclaimed Paullus, as if half tempted to accede to his proposal; "and if I do so, what shall I gain thereby?"

"Lucia, I might say," answered Catiline, "but-seeing that possession damps something at all times the fierceness of pursuit-what if I should reply, the second place in Rome?"

"In Rome?"

"When we have beaten down the proud patricians to our feet, and raised the conquering ensign of democratic sway upon the ramparts of the capitol; when Rome and all that she contains of bright and beautiful, shall be our heritage and spoil; the second place, I say, in regenerated Rome, linked, too, to everlasting glory."

"And the first place?"

"By Mars the great avenger! dost soar so high a pitch already? ho! boy, the first is mine, by right, as by daring. How say you? are you mine?"

"If I say no!"

"Thou diest on the instant."

"I think not," replied Arvina quietly, "and I do answer No."

"Then perish, fool, in thy folly."

And leaping forward he dealt him a blow with a long two-edged dagger, which he had held in his hand naked, during the whole discussion, in readiness for the moment he antic.i.p.ated; and at the same instant uttered a loud clear whistle.

To his astonishment the blade glanced off the breast of the young man, and his arm was stunned nearly to the shoulder by the unexpected resistance of the stout corslet. The whistle was answered, however, the very moment it was uttered; and just as he saw Paullus spring to the farther side of the cavern, and set his back against the wall, unsheathing a heavy broadsword of the short Roman fas.h.i.+on, three stout men entered the mouth of the cave, heavily armed with weapons of offence, although they wore no defensive armor.