And with a reckless and unmoved demeanor, well pleased with his success,
and casting not one retrospective thought toward his murdered victim, not
one repentant sigh upon his awful crime, he too hurried away to join his
dread associates at their appointed meeting.

CHAPTER II.

THE MEASURES.

For what then do they pause?
An hour to strike.
MARINO FALIERO.

The hours of darkness had already well nigh passed, and but for the thick
storm-clouds and the drizzling rain, some streaks of early dawn might have
been seen on the horizon, when at the door of Marcus Laeca, in the low
grovelling street of the Scythemakers--strange quarter for the residence of
a patrician, one of the princely Porcii--the arch-conspirator stood still,
and glared around with keen suspicious eyes, after his hurried walk.

It was, however, yet as black as midnight; nor in that wretched and base
suburb, tenanted only by poor laborious artizans, was there a single
artificial light to relieve the gloom of nature.

The house of Laeca! How little would the passer-by who looked in those days
on its walls, decayed and moss-grown even then, and mouldering--how little
would he have imagined that its fame would go down to the latest ages,
imperishable through its owner's infamy.

The house of Laeca! The days had been, while Rome was yet but young, when
it stood far aloof in the gay green fields, the suburban villa of the
proud Porcian house. Time passed, and fashions changed. Low streets and
squalid tenements supplanted the rich fields and fruitful orchards, which
had once rendered it so pleasant an abode. Its haughty lords abandoned it
for a more stately palace nigh the forum, and for long years it had
remained tenantless, voiceless, desolate. But dice, and wine, and women,
mad luxury and boundless riot, had brought its owner down to indigence,
and infamy and sin.

The palace passed away from its inheritor. The ruin welcomed its last
lord.

And here, meet scene for orgies such as it beheld, Rome's parricides were
wont to hold their murderous assemblies.

With a slow stealthy tread, that woke no echo, Cataline advanced to the
door. There was no lamp in the cell of the atriensis; no sign of
wakefulness in any of the casements; yet at the first slight tap upon the
stout oaken pannel, although it was scarce louder than the plash of the
big raindrops from the eaves, another tap responded to it from