Volume I Part 21 (1/2)
”What knows he?”
”Who slew Medon-Who slew Volero-What we propose to do, ere long, in the Campus!” answered Catiline, steadily.
”By all the G.o.ds?” cried Lentulus, turning very pale, and remaining silent for some moments. After which he said, with a thoughtful manner, ”it would be better to get rid of him quietly.”
”That has been tried too.”
”Well?”
”It failed! He is now on his guard. He is brave, strong, wary. It cannot be done, save thus.”
”He will denounce us. He will declare the whole, ere we can spring the mine beneath him.”
”No! he will not; he dares not. He is bound by oaths which-”
”Oaths!” interrupted Lentulus, with a sneer, and in tones of contemptuous ridicule. ”What are oaths? Did they ever bind you?”
”I do not recollect,” answered Catiline; ”perhaps they did, when I was a boy, and believed in Lemures and Lamia. But Paullus Arvina is not Lucius Catiline, nor yet Cornelius Lentulus; and I say that his oaths shall bind him, until-”
”And I say, they shall not!” A clear high voice interrupted him, coming, apparently, through the wall of the chamber.
Lentulus started-his very lips were white, and his frame shook with agitation, if it were not with fear.
Catiline grew pale likewise; but it was rage, not terror, that blanched his swarthy brow. He dashed his hand upon the table-
”Furies of h.e.l.l!”
While the words were yet trembling on his lips, the door was thrown violently open, the curtains which concealed it torn asunder, and, with her dark eyes gleaming a strange fire, and two hard crimson spots gleaming high up on her cheek bones-the hectic of fierce pa.s.sion-her bosom throbbing, and her whole frame dilated with anger and excitement, young Lucia stood before them.
”And I say,” she repeated, ”that they shall not bind him! By all the G.o.ds!
I swear it! By my own love! my own dishonor! I swear that they shall not!
Fool! fool! did you think to outwit me? To blind a woman, whose every fear and pa.s.sion is an undying eye? Go to! go to! you shall not do it.”
Audacious, as he was, the traitor was surprised, almost daunted; and while Lentulus, a little rea.s.sured, when he saw who was the interlocutor, gazed on him in unmitigated wonder, he faltered out, in tones strangely dissimilar to his accustomed accents of indomitable pride and decision-
”You mistake, girl; you have not heard aright, if you have heard at all; I would say, you are deceived, Lucia!”
”Then would you lie!” she answered, ”for I am not deceived, though you would fain deceive me! Not heard? not heard?” she continued. ”Think you the walls in the house of Catiline have no eyes nor ears?” using the very words which he had addressed to her lover; ”Lucius Catiline! I know all!”
”You know all?” exclaimed Lentulus, aghast.
”And will prevent all!” replied the girl, firmly, ”if you dare cross my purposes!”
”Dare! dare!” replied Catiline, who now, recovering from his momentary surprise, had regained all his natural haughtiness and vigor. ”Who are you, wanton, that dare talk to us of daring?”
”Wanton!” replied the girl, turning fiery red. ”Ay! But who made me the wanton that I am? Who fed my youthful pa.s.sions? Who sapped my youthful principles? Who reared me in an atmosphere, whose very breath was luxury, voluptuousness, pollution, till every drop of my wholesome blood was turned to liquid flame? till every pa.s.sion in my heart became a fettered earthquake? Fool! fool! you thought, in your impotence of crime, to make Lucia Orestilla your instrument, your slave! You have made her your mistress! You dreamed, in your insolence of fancied wisdom, that, like the hunter-cat of the Persian despots, so long as you fed the wanton's appet.i.te, and basely pandered to her pa.s.sions, she would leap hood-winked on the prey you pointed her. Thou fool! that hast not half read thy villain lesson! Thou shouldst have known that the very cat, thou thoughtest me, will turn and rend the huntsman if he dare rob her of her portion! I tell you, Lucius Catiline, you thought me a mere wanton! a mere sensual thing! a soulless animal voluptuary! Fool! I say, double fool!
Look into thine own heart; remember what blood runs in these female veins!
Man! Father! Vitiator! My spirit is not female! my blood, my pa.s.sions, my contempt of peril, my will indomitable and immutable, are, like my mortal body, your begetting! My crimes, and my corruption, are your teaching!
Beware then, as you know the heat of your own appet.i.tes, how you presume to hinder mine! Beware, as you know your own recklessness in doing and contempt in suffering, how you stir me, your child, to do and suffer likewise! Beware, as you know the extent of your own crimes, the depth of your own pollution, how you drive me, your pupil, to out-do her master!
Beware! I say! beware! This man is mine. Harm but one hair upon his head, and you shall die, like a dog, with the dogs who snarl at your bidding, and your name perish with you. I have spoken!”