grandson of that Fulvius Flaccus,
who--"

"Was murdered by Opimius, while striving for the liberties of Romans. But
what is this! By Mars and Quirinus! there is something afoot without!"

And, as he uttered the words, he sprang to the wicket, which Aulus had not
fastened, and gazed out earnestly into the darkness, through which the
regular and steady tramp of men, advancing in ordered files, could now be
heard distinctly.

The others were beside him in an instant, with terror and amazement on
their faces.

They had not long to wait, before the cause of their alarm became visible.
It was a band of some five hundred stout young men of the upper classes,
well armed with swords and the oblong bucklers of the legion, though
wearing neither casque nor cuirass, led by a curule aedile, who was
accompanied by ten or twelve of the equestrian order, completely armed,
and preceded by his _apparitores_ or beadles, and half a dozen
torch-bearers.

These men passed swiftly on, in treble file, marching as fast as they
could down the Sacred Way, until they reached the intersection of the
street of Apollo; by which they proceeded straight up the ascent of the
Palatine, whereon they were soon lost to view, among the splendid edifices
that covered its slope and summit.

"By all the Gods!" cried Caius Crispus, "This is exceedingly strange! An
armed guard at this time of night!"

"Hist! here is something more."

And, as old Bassus spoke, Antonius, the consul, who was supposed to be
attached to the faction of Catiline, came down a bye-street, from the
lower end of the Carinae, preceded by his torch-bearers, and followed by a
lictor(18) with his fasces. He was in full dress too, as one of the
presiding magistrates of the senate, and bore in his hand his ivory
sceptre, surmounted by an eagle.

As soon as he had passed the door of the forge, Crispus stepped out into
the street, motioning his guests to follow him, and desiring his foreman
to lock the door.

"Let us follow the Consul, at a distance," he exclaimed, "my Bassus; for,
as our Fulvius says, there is assuredly something afoot; and it may be
that it shall be well for us to know it: Come, let us follow quickly."

They hurried onward, as he proposed; and keeping some twenty or thirty
paces in the rear of the Consul's train, soon reached the foot of the
street of Apollo. At this point, however, Antonius paused with his lictor;
for, in the opposite direction coming up from the C