Next behind them, came Bassus, the veteran father of the dead eagle-bearer; he who had told so sad a tale of patrician cruelty to Fulvius Flaccus, in the forge.
"Why, Bassus, my brave veteran, give me your hand," cried the conspirator, making a forward step to meet him. "For whom vote you to-day, for Murœna and Silanus? Ha?"
"For Catiline and justice!" answered the old man, "justice on him who wronged the Eagle-bearer's child! who sits in the senate even yet, defiled with her pure blood!—the infamous Cornelius!"
Another man had paused to listen to these words, and he now interposed, speaking to Bassus,
"Verily Catiline is like to do thee justice, my poor Bassus, on a member of the Cornelian house! Is't Lentulus, I prithee, or Cethegus, on whom thou would'st have justice?"
But the old man replied angrily, "The people's friend shall give the people justice! who ever knew a noble pity or right a poor man?"
"Ask Aulus Fulvius"—replied the other, with a sarcas[pg 16]tic tone, and a strange smile lighting up his features. "Besides, is not Catiline a noble?"
At the word Aulus Fulvius leaped on him like a tiger, with his face crimsoning, and his heart almost bursting with fury.
He could not speak for rage, but he seized the man who had uttered those mysterious words by the throat, and brandished a long poniard, extricated in a second's space from the loose sleeve of his tunic, furiously in the air.
As the bright blade flashed in the sunlight, there was a forward rush among the conspirators, who, anxious to avert any casual affray, that might have created a disturbance, would have checked the blow.