"Mark, now, the faces of the men I shall address, and judge whether I then promised vainly; whether what I shall now disclose craves your severe attention—your immediate action."
He paused for a moment, as if to note the effect of his words; then turning round abruptly upon the spot, where [pg 243]Catiline sat, writhing with rage and impatience, and gnawing his nether lip, until the blood trickled down his chin, he flung forth his arm with an indignant gesture, and instantly addressed him by his name, in tones that rang beneath the vaulted roof, over the heads of the self-convicted traitors, like heaven's own thunder, and found a fearful echo in their dismayed and guilty souls.
"Where wert thou, Catiline?" he thundered forth the charge, amid the mute astonishment of all—"Where wert thou on the evening of the Ides? what wert thou doing? Speak! Unless guilt and despair hold thee silent, I say to thee, speak, Catiline!"
Again he stopped in mid-speech, as if for an answer, fixed his eye steadily on the face of the arch conspirator. But he, though he spoke not to reply, quailed not, nor shunned that steady gaze, but met it with a terrible and portentous glare, pregnant with more than mortal hatred.
"Thou wilt not—can'st not—darest not! Now hear and tremble! Hear, and know that no step of thine, or deed, or motion escapes my eye—no, traitor, not one movement!
"On the eve of the Ides, thou wert in the street of the Scythemakers! Ha! does thy cheek burn now? In the house of a senator—of Marcus Porcius Læca. But thou wert not there, till thou hadst added one more deed of murder to those which needed no addition. Thou wert, I say, in the house of Læca; and many whom I now see around me, with trim and well-curled beards, with long-sleeved tunics and air-woven togas, many whom I could name, and will, if needs be, were there with thee!
"What beverage didst thou send around? what oath didst thou administer, thou to thy foul associates? and on the altar of what God?
"Fathers, my mind shrinks, as I speak, with horror—that bowl mantled to the brim with the gore of a human victim; those lips reeked with that dread abomination! His lips, and those of others, fitter to sip voluptuous nectar from the soft mouths of their noble paramours than to quaff such pollution!
"That oath was to destroy Rome, utterly, with fire and the sword, till not one stone should stand upon another, to mark the site of empire!
"The silver eagle was the god to whom he swore! The silver eagle, whose wings were dyed so deep in massacre by Marius—to whom he had a shrine in his own house, consecrated by what crimes, adored by what sacrilege, I say not!