week elapsed, and weeks were
merged in months, ere any one, who knew her, again saw Catiline's unhappy,
guilty daughter.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FORGE.

I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus,
The whilst his iron did on anvil cool.
KING JOHN.

It was the evening of the sixteenth day before the calends of November,
or, according to modern numeration, the eighteenth of October, the eve of
the consular elections, when a considerable number of rough hardy-looking
men were assembled beneath the wide low-browed arch of a blacksmith's
forge, situated near the intersection of the Cyprian Lane with the Sacred
Way, and commanding a full view of the latter noble thoroughfare.

It was already fast growing dark, and the natural obscurity of the hour
was increased by the thickness of the lowering clouds, which overspread
the whole firmament of heaven, and seemed to portend a tempest. But from
the jaws of the semicircular arch of Roman brick, within which the group
was collected, a broad and wavering sheet of light was projected far into
the street, and over the fronts of the buildings opposite, rising and
falling in obedience to the blast of the huge bellows, which might be
heard groaning and laboring within. The whole interior of the roomy vault
was filled with a lurid crimson light, diversified at times by a brighter
and more vivid glare as a column of living flame would shoot up from the
embers, or long trains of radiant sparks leap from the bounding anvil.
Against this clear back ground the moving figures of the strong limbed
grimy giants, who plied their mighty sledges with incessant zeal on the
red hot metal, were defined sharply and picturesquely; while alternately
red lights and heavy shadows flickered across the forms and features of
many other men, who stood around watching the progress of the work, and
occasionally speaking rapidly, and with a good deal of gesticulation, at
intervals when the preponderant din of hammers ceased, and permitted
conversation to be carried on audibly.

At this moment, however, there was no such pause; for the embers in the
furnace were at a white heat, and flashes of lambent flame were leaping
out of the chimney top, and vanishing in the dark clouds overhead. A dozen
bars of glowing steel had been drawn simultaneously from the charcoal, and
thrice as many massive hammers were forging them into the rude shapes of
weapons on the anvils, which, not