to a gentle murmur, and then into a silence so
oppressive that each man seemed to be holding his breath. Once the
magistrate's lips moved, but no words came from them, and strange
noises, as of the clenching of teeth and sharp, quick breathing, rose
all about. Then a voice came from his mouth, the very calmness of
which seemed terrible:--

"Quirites, we have been beaten in a great battle. Our army is
destroyed, and Caius Flaminius, the consul, is killed."

For a moment there was stillness deeper almost than before, as if the
leadlike words were sinking slowly but steadily along passage and nerve
down to the central seats of consciousness; then burst forth a sound as
of a single groan--the groan of Jupiter himself in mortal anguish; and
then the noise of women weeping, the shrieking treble of age, and the
rumbling murmur of curses and execrations,--against senate and nobles,
against the rabble and their dead leader, but, above all, against
Carthage and her terrible captain.

"Who are these men that slay consuls and destroy armies?" piped the
shrill voice of an aged cripple who had struggled up from where he sat
upon the steps of Castor, and was shaking the stump of a wrist toward
the north.

"Are they not the men who surrendered Sicily that we might let them
escape from us at Eryx? Did they not give up their ships, and pay us
tribute, and scurry out of Sardinia that Rome might spare them? I--I
who am talking to you have seen their armies: naked barbarians from the
deserts, naked barbarians from the woods--not one well-armed man in
five--a rabble with a score of languages, to whom no general can talk.
_They_ to destroy the army of Rome--in her own land!--what crime have
we committed that the gods should deal with us thus?"

"But the great beasts that tear up the ranks?" put in a young butcher,
one of the circle that had been drawn together about the veteran.

"How did his elephants save Pyrrhus--and then we saw them for the first
time?" retorted the cripple.

"You forget, that was before Rome had become the prey of demagogues;
before she had Flaminii for consuls."

All turned toward the new speaker--the young patrician whom his
companion had called Lucius. He was a man perhaps twenty-five years of
age, of middle height, sparely built but as if of tempered steel, with
strong, commanding features and dark hawklike eyes that were now
glittering with passion. It was not a handsome face except so far as
streng