The Roman Traitor Volume Ii Part 25

Night was at hand.

The Triumvirs, whose duty it was to superintend all capital punishments-a thing almost unknown in Rome-had been instructed to prepare whatever should be needful.

Lentulus sat alone in an inner chamber of the house of Publius Lentulus Spintherus, an aedile at that time. There was, it is true, a guard at the door, and clients under arms in the atrium; but in his own apartment the proud conspirator was still master of himself indeed, soon to be master of Rome, in his own frantic fantasy.

Bright lights were burning in bronze candelabra; rich wines were before him; his own favorite freedman leaned on the back of his ivory arm chair, and jested lightly on the discomfiture of _n.o.ble_ Cicero, on the sure triumph of _democratic_ Caesar.

"Fill up the gla.s.s again, my Phormio," cried the exhilarated parricide; "this namesake of my own hath good wine, at the least-we may not taste it again shortly-fill up, I say; and do not spare to brim your own. What if our boys were beaten in the streets to-day. Brave Caesar was not beaten in the Senate."

"By Hercules! no!" cried the wily Greek, base inheritor of a superb name-"and if he had been checked, there are the tribunes."

"But he was _not_ checked, Phormio?" asked the conspirator in evident anxiety.

"By your head, no! You shall yet be the THIRD CORNELIUS!"-

"WHO SHALL RULE ROME!"-

The door of the small room was suddenly thrown open, and the tall form of Cicero stood in the shadow of the entrance. The gleam of the lamps fell full on his white robes, and glittered on his ivory sceptre; but behind him it showed the grim dark features of the Capital Triumvirs, and flickered on the axe-heads of the lictors.

The gla.s.s fell from the hand of Lentulus, the wine untasted; and so deep was the silence of that awful moment, that the gurgling of the liquor as it trickled from the shattered fragments of the crystal goblet, was distinctly audible.

There was a silent pause-no word, no motion followed the entrance of the Consul. Face to face, he stood with the deadliest of his foes, Catiline absent. Face to face, he stood with his overthrown and subdued enemy. And yet on his broad tranquil brow there was no frown of hatred; on his calm lip there there was no curl of gratified resentment, of high triumph.

Raising his hand, with a slow but very solemn gesture, he uttered in his deep harmonious accents, accents which at that moment spoke in almost an unnatural cadence, this one word-

"Come."

And calm, and proud, as the Consul, the degraded Senator, the fallen Consul replied, with a question,

"To death, Consul?"

"Come!"

"Give me my toga, Phormio."

And robing himself, with an air as quiet and an expression as unconcerned as if he had been setting forth to a banquet, the proud Epicurean gazed with a calmer eye upon the Consul, than that good man could fix upon his victim.

"This signet to Semp.r.o.nia-that sword to-no! no!-this purse to thyself, Phormio! Consul, precede. I follow."

And the step of the convicted Traitor, as he descended from the portico of that mansion, for the last time, was firmer, statelier, prouder, than that of his conductor.

The streets were thronged-the windows crowded-the housetops heaped-with glaring mute spectators.

Some twenty knights, no more, unarmed, with the exception of their swords, composed the Consul's escort. Lentulus knew them, man by man, had drunk with them, played with them, lent money to them, borrowed of them.

He looked upon them.

They were the handful leading him to death! What made them break the ties which bound them to their brother n.o.ble? What made them forget mutual pleasures enjoyed, mutual perils incurred, mutual benefits accepted?

They were the n.o.bles, true to their order.

He looked upon the thronged streets-upon the crowded windows-upon the heaped housetops, he saw myriads, myriads who had fed on his bounty, encouraged his infamy, hoped from his atrocity, urged him to his crime, myriads who now frowned upon him-cursed him-howled at him-or-more cowardly-were silent. Myriads, who might have saved him, and did not.

Wherefore?

They were the people, false to their leader.

He looked from the handful to the myriad-and shook himself, as a lion in his wrath; and stamped the dust from his sandals.

Cicero saw the movement, and read its meaning. He met the glance, not humiliated, but prouder for the mob's reprobation; and said, what he would not have said had the glance been conscious-

"Thou seest!-Hearest!"

"The voice of the People!" answered the traitor with a bitter sneer.

"The voice of G.o.d!" replied the Consul, looking upward.

"That voice of G.o.d shall shout for joy at thy head on the rostrum! Such is the fate of all who would serve the people!"

The eloquent tongue, stabbed with the harlot's bodkin, the head and the hand, nailed on the beaked column in after days, showed which best knew the people, their savior, or their parricide.

There is a place in Rome-there _is_ a place-reader, thou mayest have seen it-on the right hand as thou goest up the steps of the Asylum ascending from the forum to the capitol.

"There _is_ a place," wrote Sall.u.s.t, some nineteen hundred years ago-"There _is_ a place, within the prison, which is called Tullianum, after you have ascended a little way to the left, about twelve feet underground. It is built strongly with walls on every side, and arched above with a stone vaulting. But its aspect is foul and terrible from neglect, darkness, and stench."

It is there _now_-thou mayest have seen it, reader. Men call it the Mamertine Prison. It was then called Tullianum, because it was so antique at that time, that vague tradition only told of its origin long centuries before, built by the fabulous King Tullius.

The Tullianum-The Mamertine Prison.

The _bath_, which Jugurtha found very cold, when the earrings had been torn from his bleeding ears, and, stript of his last vestment, he was let down to die by the hangman's noose.

The prison, in which, scarce one century later, Saint Paul was held in durance, what time "Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, had he not appealed unto _Caesar_."

Unto _Caesar_?

Caesar the third Emperor, the third tyrant of the Roman people.

Lentulus _had_ appealed unto Caesar, and was cast likewise into the Tullianum.

The voice of the people, is the voice of G.o.d.

Whether of the twain slew Lentulus? whether of the twain set free Paul, from the Tullianum?

In those days, there was a tall and ma.s.sive structure above that sordid and tremendous vault, on the right hand as you go up towards the capitol.

The steps of the asylum were lined on either side by legionaries in full armor; and as the Consul walked up with his victim, side by side, each soldier faced about, and, by a simple movement, doubling their files, occupied the whole s.p.a.ce of the steep ascent with a solid column; while all the heights above, and the great capitol itself, bristled with spears, and flashed with tawny light from the dense ranks of brazen corslets.

The Capital Triumvirs received the Consul at the door; and with his prisoner he pa.s.sed inward.