he point of being executed against
himself, he would have remained silent as to the names of the traitors;
however he might have deemed it his duty to reveal the meditated treason.

With his plans therefore all matured, his chief subordinates drilled
thoroughly to the performance of their parts, his minions armed and ready,
he doubted not in the least, as he gazed on the setting sun, that the next
rising of the great luminary would look down on the conflagration of the
suburbs, on the slaughter of his enemies, and the triumphant elevation of
himself to the supreme command of the vast empire, for which he played so
foully.

The morning came, the long desired sun arose, and all his plots were
countermined, all his hopes of immediate action paralyzed, if not utterly
destroyed.

The Senate, assembled on the previous evening at a moment's notice, had
been taken by surprise so completely by the strange revelations made to
them by their Consul, that not one of the advocates or friends of Catiline
arose to say one syllable in his defence; and he himself, quick-witted,
ready, daring as he was, and fearing neither man nor God, was for once
thunderstricken and astonished.

The address of the Consul was short, practical, and to the point; and the
danger he foretold to the order was so terrible, while the inconvenience
of deferring the elections was so small, and its occurrence so frequent--a
sudden tempest, the striking of the standard on the Janiculum, the
interruption of a tribune, or the slightest informality in the augural
rites sufficing to interrupt them--that little objection was made in any
quarter, to the motion of Cicero, that the comitia should be delayed,
until the matter could be thoroughly investigated. For he professed only
as yet to possess a clue, which he promised hereafter to unravel to the
end.

Catiline had, however, so far recovered from his consternation, that he
had risen to address the house, when the first words he uttered were
drowned by a strange and unearthly sound, like the rumbling of ten
thousand chariots over a stony way, beginning, as it seemed, underneath
their feet, and rising gradually until it died away over head in the murky
air. Before there was time for any comment on this extraordinary sound, a
tremulous motion crept through the marble pavements, increasing every
moment, until the doors flew violently open, and the vast columns and
thick walls of the stately temple reeled visibly in th