A moment afterward he exclaimed—"But Chærea! but Chærea! how long the villain tarries! By heaven! I will go forth and meet him."
And suiting the action to the word, he walked rapidly down the Quintana or central way to the Prætorian gate, there giving the word to the night-watch in a whisper, and showing his grim face to the half-astonished sentinel on duty, he passed out of the lines, alone and unguarded.
After advancing a few paces, he was challenged again by the pickets of the velites, who were thrust out in advance of the gates, and again giving the word was suffered to pass on, and now stood beyond the farthest outpost of his army.
Cautiously and silently, but with a swift step and determined air, he now advanced directly toward the front of the Roman entrenchments, which lay at a little more than[pg 212] a mile's distance from his own lines, and ere long reached a knoll or hillock which would by daylight have commanded a complete view of the whole area of the consul's camp, not being much out of a sling's cast from the ramparts.
The camp of the consul lay on the slope of a hill, so that the rear was considerably higher than the front; Catiline's eye, as he stood on that little eminence, could therefore clearly discern all the different streets and divisions of the camp, by the long lines of lamps and torches which blazed along the several avenues, and he gazed anxiously and long, at that strange silent picture.
With the exception of a slight clash and clang heard at times on the walls, where the skirmishers were going on their rounds, and the neigh of some restless charger, there was nothing that should have indicated to the ear that nearly twenty thousand men were sleeping among those tented lines of light—sleeping how many of them their last natural slumber.
No thoughts of that kind, however, intruded on the mind of the desperado.
Careless of human life, reckless of human suffering, he gazed only with his enquiring glance of profound penetration, hoping to espy something, whereby he might learn the fate—not of his messenger, that was to him a matter of supreme indifference—but of his message to Antonius.
Nor was he very long in doubt on this head; for while he was yet gazing, there was a bustle clearly perceptible about the prætorium, lights were seen flitting to and fro, voices were heard calling and answering to one another, and then the din of hammers and sounds of busy preparation.
This might have lasted perchance half an hour, to the great amazement of the traitor, who could not conceive the meaning of that nocturnal hubbub, when the clang of harness succeeded by the heavy regular tramp of men marching followed the turmoil, and, with many torches borne before them, the spears and eagle of a cohort were seen coming rapidly toward the Prætorian Gate.