"I hope you never will doubt me," said Curius, who was present, the Judas of the faction, endeavoring to jest; yet more than half feeling what he said.
"I hope not"—replied Catiline, with a strange fixed glance, and a singular smile; for he did in truth, at that very moment, half doubt the speaker. "If I do, Curius, it will not be for long! But I must go," he added, "and make ready. Amuse yourselves as best you can, till I return to you. Come, Aulus Fulvius, I must speak with you farther."
And, with the words, he left them, not indeed to apply themselves to any sport or pleasure, but to converse anxiously, eagerly, almost fearfully, on the events which were passing in succession, so rapid, and so unforeseen. Their souls were too much absorbed by one dominant idea, one devouring passion, to find any interest in any small or casual excitement.
To spirits so absorbed, hours fly like minutes, and none of those guilty men were aware of the lapse of time, until Catiline returned, dressed in a suit of splendid armor, of blue Iberian steel, embossed with studs and chasings of pure silver, with a rich scarlet sagum over it, fringed with deep lace. His knees were bare, but his legs were defended by greaves of the same fabric and material with his corslet; and a slave bore behind him his bright helmet, triply crested with crimson horsehair, his oblong shield charged with a silver thunderbolt, and his short broad-sword[pg 62] of Bilboa steel, which was already in those days, as famous as in the middle ages. He looked, indeed, every inch a captain; and if undaunted valor, unbounded energy, commanding intellect, an eye of lightning, unequalled self-possession, endless resource, incomparable endurance of cold, heat, hunger, toil, watchfulness, and extremity of pain, be qualities which constitute one, then was he a great Captain.
A captain well formed to lead a host of demons.
The banquet followed, with all that could gratify the eye, the ear, the nostril, or the palate. The board blazed with lights, redoubled by the glare of gold and crystal. Flowers, perfumes, incense, streamed over all, till the whole atmosphere was charged with voluptuous sweetness. The softest music breathed from the instruments of concealed performers. The rarest wines flowed like water. And flashing eyes, and wreathed smiles, and bare arms, and bare bosoms, and most voluptuous forms, decked to inflame the senses of the coldest, were prodigal of charms and soft abandonment.
No modest pen may describe the orgies that ensued,—the drunkenness, the lust, the frantic mirth, the unnatural mad revelry. There was but one at that banquet, who, although he drank more deeply, rioted more sensually, laughed more loudly, sang more wildly, than any of the guests, was yet as cool amid that terrible scene of excitement, as in the council chamber, as on the battle field.
His sallow face flushed not; his hard clear eye swam not languidly, nor danced with intoxication; his voice quivered not; his pulse was as slow, as even as its wont. That man's frame, like his soul, was of trebly tempered steel.
Had Catiline not been the worst, he had been the greatest of Romans.
But his race in Rome was now nearly ended. The water-clocks announced the fifth hour; and leaving the more private triclinium, in which the ringleaders alone had feasted, followed by his guests,—who were flushed, reeling, and half frenzied,—with a steady step, a cold eye, and a presence like that of Mars himself, the Arch Traitor entered the great open hall, wherein three hundred of his[pg 63] clients, armed sumptuously in the style of legionary horsemen, had banqueted magnificently, though they had stopped short of the verge of excess.