Had she fallen at his feet, trembling, and tearful, and[pg 186] implored his mercy, he would have gloated on her terrors, laughed tears and prayers to scorn, yea! torn her from an altar's foot, to pour out upon her the vials of agony and foul pollution.
Had she defied, or braved his violence, his fury would have trampled her to the earth in an instant, and murder would have followed in the footsteps of worse violence.
But as she stood there, firm, cold, erect, and motionless as a statue of rare marble, with scarcely a pulse throbbing in her veins, and her clear azure eyes fixed on him with a cold and steady gaze, as if she would have fascinated him by their serene chaste influence, he likewise stood and gazed upon her with a strange mixture of impressions, wherein something akin to love and admiration were blent with what, in minds of better mould, should have been reverence and awe.
He felt, in short, that he lacked 'a spur to prick the sides of his intent,' a provocation to insult and aggression yet stronger than the passion and hot thirst of vengeance, which had been well nigh chilled by her severe and icy fortitude.
'Tis said that a lion will turn and flee,
From a maid in the pride of her purity;
and here a fiercer and more dangerous savage stood powerless and daunted for the moment, by the same holy influence of virtue, which, it is said, has potency to tame the pinched king of the desert.
It was not, however, in the nature of that man to yield himself up long to any influence, save that of his own passions, and after standing mute for perhaps a minute, during which the flush on his sallow cheek, and the glare of his fiery eye, were blanched and dimmed somewhat, he advanced a step or two toward her, repeating the words,
"I have thee; thou art mine, Julia."
"Thy prisoner, Catiline," she replied quietly—"if you make women prisoners."