"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 glass 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[pg 152] 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?"