The Roman Traitor, Vol. 2
Page 19
CHAPTER XIX.
THE EVE OF BATTLE.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased. MACBETH.
Nearly a fortnight had elapsed since the rescue of Julia, and the saddeath of Catiline’s unhappy daughter, and yet the battle which was dailyand hourly expected, had not been fought.
With rare ability and generalship, Catiline had avoided an action with thetroops of Antonius, marching and countermarching among the rugged passesof the Appennines, now toward Rome, now toward Gaul, keeping the enemyconstantly on the alert, harassing the consul’s outposts, threatening thecity itself with an assault, and maintaining with studious skill thatappearance of mystery, which is so potent an instrument whether to terrifyor to fascinate the vulgar mind.
During this period the celerity of his movements had been such that hislittle host appeared to be almost ubiquitous, and men knew not where tolook for his descent, or how to anticipate the blow, which he evidentlyhad it in contemplation to deliver.
In the meantime, he had given such of his adherents as fled from Romeimmediately on the execution of the conspirators, an opportunity to joinhim, and many had in fact done so with their clients, and bands ofgladiators.
The disaffected of the open country had all united themselves to him; andhaving commenced operations with a force not exceeding two thousand men,he was now at the head of six times that number, whom he had formed intotwo complete legions, and disciplined them with equal assiduity andsuccess.
Now, however, the time had arrived when it was for his advantage no longerto avoid an encounter with the troops of the commonwealth; for havinggained all that he proposed to himself by his dilatory movements andFabian policy, time namely for the concentration of his adherents, andopportunity to discipline his men, he now began to suffer from theinconveniences of the system.
Unsupplied with magazines, or any regular supply of provisions, his armylike a flight of locusts had stripped the country bare at every haltingplace, and that wild hill country had few resources, even when shorn bythe licentious band of his desperadoes, upon which to support an army. Theconsequence, therefore, of his incessant hurrying to and fro, was that thevalleys of the mountain chain which he had made the theatre of hiscampaign, were now utterly exhausted; that his beasts of burden werebroken down and foundered; and that the line of his march might be tracedby the carcasses of mules and horses which had given out by the wayside,and by the flights of carrion birds which hovered in clouds about hisrear, prescient of the coming carnage.
His first attempt was to elude Metellus Celer, who had marched down fromthe Picene district on the Adriatic sea, with great rapidity, and takenpost at the foot of the mountains, on the head waters of the streams whichflow down into the great plain of the Po.
In this attempt he had been frustrated by the ability of the officer whowas opposed to him, who had raised no less than three legions fullyequipped for war.
By him every movement of the conspirator was anticipated, and met by somecorresponding measure, which rendered it abortive. Nor was it, any longer,difficult for him to penetrate the designs of Catiline, since thepeasantry and mountaineers, who had throughout that district beenfavorable to the conspiracy in the first instance, and who were preparedto favor any design which promised to deliver them from inexorabletaxation, had been by this time so unmercifully plundered and harassed bythat banditti, that they were now as willing to betray Catiline to theRomans, as they had been desirous before of giving the Romans into hishands at disadvantage.
Fully aware of all these facts, and knowing farther that Antonius had nowcome up so close to his rear, with a large army, that he was in imminentdanger of being surrounded and taken between two fires, the desperatetraitor suddenly took the boldest and perhaps the wisest measure.
Wheeling directly round he turned his back toward Gaul, whither he hadbeen marching, and set his face toward the city. Then making three greatforced marches he came upon the army of Antonius, as it was in column ofmarch, among the heights above Pistoria, and had there been daylight forthe attack when the heads of the consul’s cohorts were discovered, it ispossible that he might have forced him to fight at disadvantage, and evendefeated him.
In that case there would have been no force capable of opposing him onthat side Rome, and every probability would have been in favor of hismaking himself master of the city, a success which would have gone far toinsure his triumph.
It was late in the evening, however, when the hostile armies came intopresence, each of the other, and on that account, and, perhaps, foranother and stronger reason, Catiline determined on foregoing theadvantages of a surprise.
Caius Antonius, the consul in command, it must be remembered, had been oneof the original confederates in Catiline’s first scheme of massacre andconflagration, which had been defeated by the unexpected death of CuriusPiso.
Detached from the conspiracy only by Cicero’s rare skill, anddisinterested cession to him of the rich province of Macedonia, Antoniusmight therefore justly be supposed unlikely to urge matters to extremitiesagainst his quondam comrades; and it was probably in no small degree onthis account that Catiline had resolved on trying the chances of battlerather against an old friend, than against an enemy so fixed, and of soresolute patrician principles as Metellus Celer.
He thought, moreover, that it was just within the calculation of chancesthat Antonius might either purposely mismanœuvre, so as to allow him todescend upon Rome without a battle, or adopt such tactics as should givehim a victory.
He halted his army, therefore, in a little gorge of the hills opening outupon a level plain, flanked on the left by the steep acclivities of themountain, which towered in that direction, ridge above ridge,inaccessible, and on the right by a rugged and rocky spur, jutting outfrom the same ridge, by which his line of battle would be renderedentirely unassailable on the flanks and rear.
In this wild spot, amid huge gray rocks, and hanging woods of ancientchesnuts and wild olive, as gray and hoary as the stones among which theygrew, he had pitched his camp, and now lay awaiting in grim anticipationwhat the morrow should bring forth; while, opposite to his front, on alower plateau of the same eminence, the great army of the consul might bedescried, with its regular entrenchments and superb array of tents, itsforests of gleaming spears, and its innumerable ensigns, glancing andwaving in the cold wintry moonshine.
The mind of the traitor was darker and more gloomy than its wont. He hadsupped with his officers, Manlius and a nobleman of Fæsulæ, whose name thehistorian has not recorded, who held the third rank in the rebel army, buttheir fare had been meagre and insipid, their wines the thin vintage ofthat hill country; a little attempt at festivity had been made, but it hadfailed altogether; the spirits of the men, although undaunted and preparedto dare the utmost, lacked all that fiery and enthusiastic ardor, whichkindles patriot breasts with a flame so pure and pervading, on the eve ofthe most desperate encounters.
Enemies of their country, enemies almost of mankind, these desperadoeswere prepared to fight desperately, to fight unto the death, because towin was their only salvation, and, if defeated, death their only refuge.
But for them there was no grand heart-elevating spur to action, no fame tobe won, no deathless name to be purchased—their names deathless already,as they knew too well, through black infamy!—no grateful country’spraises, to be gained cheaply by a soldier’s death!—no! there were none ofthese things.
All their excitements were temporal, sensual, earthy. The hope to conquer,the lust to bask in the sunshine of power, the desire to revel at ease inboundless luxury and riot.
And against these, the rewards of victory, what were the penalties ofdefeat—death, infamy, the hatred and the scorn of ages.
The wicked have no friends. Never, perhaps, was this fact exemplified moreclearly than on that battle eve. Community of guilt, indeed, bound thosevicious souls together—community of interests, of fears, of perils, heldthem in league—yet, feeling as they did feel that the
ir sole chance ofsafety lay in the maintenance of that confederation, each looked with evileyes upon his neighbor, each almost hated the others, accusing theminternally of having drawn them into their present perilous peril, ofhaving failed at need, or of being swayed by selfish motives only.
So little truth there is in the principle, which Catiline had set forth inhis first address to his banded parricides, "that the community of desiresand dislikes constitutes, in one word, true friendship!"—
And now so darkly did their destiny lower on those depraved and ruinedspirits, that even their recklessness, that last light which emanates fromcrime in despair, had burned out, and the furies of conscience,—thatconscience which they had so often stifled, so often laughed to scorn, sooften drowned with riot and debauch, so often silenced by fiercesophistry—now hunted them, harpies of the soul, worse than the fabulousEumenides of parricide Orestes.
The gloomy meal was ended; the parties separated, all of them, as it wouldseem, relieved by the termination of those mock festivities which, whilethey brought no gayity to the heart, imposed a necessity of seemingmirthful and at ease, when they were in truth disturbed by dark thoughtsof the past, and terrible forebodings of the future.
As soon as his guests had departed and the traitor was left alone, hearose from his seat, according to his custom, and began to pace the roomwith vehement and rapid strides, gesticulating wildly, and mutteringsentences, the terrible oaths and blasphemies of which were alone audible.
Just at this time a prolonged flourish of trumpets from without, announcedthe changing of the watch. It was nine o’clock. "Ha! the third hour!"already, he exclaimed, starting as he heard the wild blast, "and Chæreanot yet returned from Antonius. Can it be that the dog freedman has playedme false, or can Antonius have seized him as a hostage?—I will go forth,"he added, after a short pause, "I will go forth, and observe the night."
And throwing a large cloak over his armor, and putting a broad-brimmedfelt hat upon his head, in lieu of the high crested helmet, he sallied outinto the camp, carrying in addition to his sword a short massive javelinin his right hand.
The night was extremely dark and murky. The moon had not yet risen, andbut for the camp-fires of the two armies, it would have been impossible towalk any distance without the aid of a torch or lantern. A faint luridlight was dispersed from these, however, over the whole sky, and thencewas reflected weakly on the rugged and broken ground which lay between theentrenched lines of the two hosts.
For a while, concealed entirely by his disguise, Catiline wandered throughthe long streets of tents, listening to the conversation of the soldiersabout the watch-fires, their strange superstitious legends, and oldtraditionary songs; and, to say truth, the heart of that desperate man wassomewhat lightened by his discovery that the spirits of the men were alertand eager for the battle, their temper keen and courageous, theirconfidence in the prowess and ability of their chief unbounded.
"He is the best soldier, since the days of Sylla," said one gray-headedveteran, whose face was scarred by the Pontic scymetars of Mithridates.
"He is a better soldier in the field, than ever Sylla was, by Hercules!"replied another.
"Aye! in the field! Sylla, I have heard say, rarely unsheathed his sword,and never led his men to hand and hand encounter," interposed a youngerman, than the old colonists to whom he spoke.
"It is the head to plan, not the hand to execute, that makes the greatcaptain. Caius, or Marcus, Titus or Tullus, can any one of them strikehome as far, perhaps farther, than your Syllas or your Catilines."
"By Mars! I much doubt it!" cried another. "I would back Catiline withsword and buckler against the stoutest and the deftest gladiator that everwielded blade. He is as active and as strong as a Libyan tiger."
"Aye! and as merciless."
"May the foe find him so to-morrow!"
"To-morrow, by the Gods! I wish it were to-morrow. It is cold work this,whereas, to-morrow night, I promise you, we shall be ransacking Antonius’camp, with store of choice wines, and rare viands."
"But who shall live to share them is another question."
"One which concerns not those who win."
"And by the God of Battles! we will do that to-morrow, let who may fallasleep, and who may keep awake to tell of it."
"A sound sleep to the slumberers, a merry rouse to the quick boys, whoshall keep waking!" shouted another, and the cups were brimmed, andquaffed amid a storm of loud tumultuous cheering.
Under cover of this tumult, Catiline withdrew from the neighborhood, intowhich he had intruded with the stealthy pace of the beast to which thesoldiers had compared him; and as he retired, he muttered to himself—"Theyare in the right frame of mind—of the right stuff to win—and yet—and yet—"he paused, and shook his head gloomily, as if he dared not trust his ownlips to complete the sentence he had thus begun.
A moment afterward he exclaimed—"But Chærea! but Chærea! how long thevillain tarries! By heaven! I will go forth and meet him."
And suiting the action to the word, he walked rapidly down the Quintana orcentral way to the Prætorian gate, there giving the word to thenight-watch in a whisper, and showing his grim face to the half-astonishedsentinel on duty, he passed out of the lines, alone and unguarded.
After advancing a few paces, he was challenged again by the pickets of thevelites, who were thrust out in advance of the gates, and again giving theword was suffered to pass on, and now stood beyond the farthest outpost ofhis army.
Cautiously and silently, but with a swift step and determined air, he nowadvanced directly toward the front of the Roman entrenchments, which layat a little more than a mile’s distance from his own lines, and ere longreached a knoll or hillock which would by daylight have commanded acomplete view of the whole area of the consul’s camp, not being much outof a sling’s cast from the ramparts.
The camp of the consul lay on the slope of a hill, so that the rear wasconsiderably higher than the front; Catiline’s eye, as he stood on thatlittle eminence, could therefore clearly discern all the different streetsand divisions of the camp, by the long lines of lamps and torches whichblazed along the several avenues, and he gazed anxiously and long, at thatstrange silent picture.
With the exception of a slight clash and clang heard at times on thewalls, where the skirmishers were going on their rounds, and the neigh ofsome restless charger, there was nothing that should have indicated to theear that nearly twenty thousand men were sleeping among those tented linesof 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 withhis enquiring glance of profound penetration, hoping to espy something,whereby he might learn the fate—not of his messenger, that was to him amatter 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 wereseen flitting to and fro, voices were heard calling and answering to oneanother, and then the din of hammers and sounds of busy preparation.
This might have lasted perchance half an hour, to the great amazement ofthe traitor, who could not conceive the meaning of that nocturnal hubbub,when the clang of harness succeeded by the heavy regular tramp of menmarching followed the turmoil, and, with many torches borne before them,the spears and eagle of a cohort were seen coming rapidly toward thePrætorian Gate.
"By Hecate!" cried Catiline—"what may this mean, I wonder. They are toofew for an assault, nay! even for a false alarm. They have halted at thegate! By the Gods! they are filing out! they march hitherward! and lo!Manlius is aware of them. I will risk something to tarry here and watchthem."
As he spoke, the cohort marched forward, straight on the hillock where hestood; and so far was it from seeking to conceal its whereabout, that itstrumpets were blown frequently and loudly, as if to attract observation.
As the cohorts approached the hill, Catiline fell back toward his own campa little, and soon found shelter in a small thicket of holleys and wildmyrtle which would effectually conceal him from the enemy, while he couldobserve their every motion from its safe covert.
On the hillock, the cohort halted—one manipule stood to its arms in front,while the rest formed a hollow square, all facing outward around itssummit. The torches were lowered, so that with all his endeavors, Catilinecould by no means discover what was in process within that guarded space.
Again the din of hammers rose on his ear, mixed now with groans andagonizing supplications, which waxed at length into a fearful howl, theutterance of one, past doubt, in more than mortal agony.
A strange and terrible suspicion broke upon Catiline, and the sweatstarted in beadlike drops from his sallow brow. It was not long ere thatsuspicion became certainty.
The clang of the hammers ceased; the wild howls sank into a continuousweak pitiful wailing. The creak of pullies and cordage, the shouts of menplying levers, and hauling ropes, succeeded, and slowly sullenly uprose,hardly seen in the black night air, a huge black cross. It reached itselevation, and was made fast in almost less time than it has taken torelate it, and instantly a pile of faggots which had been raised a shortdistance in front if it, and steeped in oil or some other unctuous matter,was set on fire.
A tall wavering snowwhite glare shot upward, and revealed, writhing inagony, and wailing wofully, the naked form of Chærea, bleeding at everypore from the effects of the merciless Roman scourging, nailed on thefatal cross.
So near was the little thicket in which Catiline lay, that he could markevery sinew of that gory frame working in agony, could read every twitchof those convulsed features.
Again the Roman trumpets were blown shrill and piercing, and a centurionstepping forward a little way in front of the advanced manipule, shoutedat the pitch of his voice,
"THUS PERISH ALL THE MESSENGERS OF PARRICIDES AND TRAITORS!"
Excited, almost beyond his powers of endurance, by what he beheld andheard, the fierce traitor writhed in his hiding place, not sixty pacesdistant from the speaker, and gnashed his teeth in impotent malignity. Hisfingers griped the tough shaft of his massive pilum, as if they would haveleft their prints in the close-grained ash.
While that ferocious spirit was yet strong within him, the wretchedfreedman, half frenzied doubtless by his tortures, lifted his voice in awild cry on his master—
"Catiline! Catiline!" he shrieked so thrillingly that every man in bothcamps heard every syllable distinct and clear. "Chærea calls on Catiline.Help! save! Avenge! Catiline! Catiline!"
A loud hoarse laugh burst from the Roman legionaries, and the centurionshouted in derision.
But at that instant the desperate spectator of that horrid scene sprang tohis feet reckless, and shouting, as he leaped into the circle of brightradiance,
"Catiline hears Chærea, and delivers,"—hurled his massive javelin withdeadly aim at his tortured servant.
It was the first blow Catiline ever dealt in mercy, and mercifully did itperform its errand.
The broad head was buried in the naked breast of the victim, and with onesob, one shudder, the spirit was released from the tortured clay.
Had a thunderbolt fallen among the cohort, the men could not have beenmore stunned—more astounded. Before they had sufficiently recovered fromtheir shock to cast a missile at him, much less to start forth in pursuit,he was half way toward his own camp in safety; and ere long a prolongedburst, again and again reiterated, of joyous acclamations, told to theconsular camp that the traitors knew and appreciated the strange anddauntless daring of their almost ubiquitous leader.
An hour afterward that leader was alone, in his tent, stretched on hiscouch, sleeping. But oh! that sleep—not gentle slumber, not nature’s softnurse—but nature’s horrible convulsion! The eyes wide open, glaring,dilated in their sockets as of a strangled man—the brow beaded with blacksweat drops—the teeth grinded together—the white lips muttering words toohorrible to be recorded—the talon-like fingers clutching at vacancy.
It was too horrible to last. With a wild cry, "Lucia! Ha! Lucia! Fury!Avenger! Fiend!" he started to his feet, and glared around him with abewildered eye, as if expecting to behold some ghastly supernaturalvisitant.
At length, he said, with a shudder—which he could not repress, "It was adream! A dream—but ye Gods! what a dream! I will sleep no more—’tillto-morrow. To-morrow," he repeated in a doubtful and enquiring tone,"to-morrow. If I should fall to-morrow, and such dreams come in that sleepwhich hath no waking, those dreams should be reality—that reality shouldbe—HELL! I know not—I begin to doubt some things, which of yore I heldcertain! What if there should be Gods! avenging, everlasting torturers! Ifthere should be a HELL! Ha! ha!" he laughed wildly and almost frantically."Ha! ha! what matters it? Methinks this is a hell already!" and with thewords he struck his hand heavily on his broad breast, and relapsed intogloomy and sullen meditation.
That night he slept no more, but strode backward and forward hour afterhour, gnawing his nether lip till the blood streamed from the woundsinflicted by his unconscious teeth.
What awful and mysterious retribution might await him in the land ofspirits, it is not for mortals to premise; but in this at least did hespeak truth that night—conscience and crime may kindle in the human hearta Hell, which nothing can extinguish, so long as the soul live identicalself-knowing, self-tormenting.