And, for the first time since he had entered the hall, the culprit looked up, and gazed with a wild and haggard eye on the familiar objects which met his glance on every side; and yet, familiar as they were, all seemed to be strange, altered, and unusual.
The statues of his dead ancestors, as they stood, grim and uncouth in their antique sculpture, between the pillars of the wall, seemed to dilate in size, and, become gigantic,[pg 132] to frown stern contempt on their degenerate descendant. The grotesque forms of the Etruscan household Gods appeared to gibber at him; the very flames upon the altar, before them, cast lurid gleams and ominous to his distempered fancy.
It was singular, that the last thing which he observed was that, which would have been the first to attract the notice of a stranger—the block, the axe, and the sullen headsman.
A quick shudder ran through every limb and artery of his body, and he turned white and livid. His spirit was utterly appalled and broken; his aspect was that of a sneaking culprit, a mean craven.
"Aulus, lift up your eyes!"
And he did lift them, with a strong effort, to meet the fixed and searching gaze of his father; but so cold, so penetrating was that gaze, that his glance fell abashed, and he trembled from head to foot, and came well nigh to falling on the earth in his great terror.
"Aulus, art thou afraid to die?—thou, who hast sworn so deeply to dye thine hands in my gore, in the gore of all who loved their country? Art thou afraid to die, stabber, adulterer, poisoner, ravisher, parricide, Catilinarian? Art thou afraid to die? I should have thought, when thou didst put on such resolves, thou wouldst have cast aside all that is human! Once more, I say, art thou afraid to die?"
"To die!" he exclaimed in husky tones, which seemed to stick in his parched throat—"to die! to be nothing!"
And again the convulsive shudder ran through his whole frame.
But ere the Senator could open his lips to reply, the blind old grandam asked, in a voice so clear and shrill that its accents seemed to pierce the very souls of all who heard it—