e dread earthquake.

Nor was this all, for as the portals opened, in the black skies, right
opposite the entrance, there stood, glaring with red and lurid light, a
bearded star or comet; which, to the terror-stricken eyes of the Fathers,
seemed a portentous sword, brandished above the city.

The groans and shrieks of the multitude, rushed in with an appalling sound
to increase their superstitious awe; and to complete the whole, a pale and
ghastly messenger was ushered into the house, announcing that a bright
lambent flame was sitting on the lance-heads of the Praetor's guard, which
had been summoned to protect the Senate in its deliberations.

A fell sneer curled the lip of Catiline. He was not even superstitious.
Self-vanity and confidence in his own powers, and long impunity in crime,
had hardened him, had maddened him, almost to Atheism. Yet he dared not
attack the sacred prejudices of the men, whom, but for that occurrence, he
had yet hoped to win to their own undoing.

But, as he saw their blanched visages, and heard their mutterings of
terror, he saw likewise that an impression was made on their minds, which
no words of his could for the present counteract. And, with a sneering
smile at fears which he knew not, and a smothered curse at the accident,
as he termed it, which had foiled him, he sat down silent.

"The Gods have spoken!" exclaimed Cicero, flinging his arms abroad
majestically. "The guilty are struck dumb! The Gods have spoken aloud
their sympathy for Rome's peril; and will ye, ye its chosen sons, whose
all of happiness and life lie in its sanctity and safety, will ye, I say,
love your own country, your own mother, less than the Gods love her?"

The moment was decisive, the appeal irresistible. By acclamation the vote
was carried; no need to debate or to divide the House--'that the elections
be deferred until the eleventh day before the Calends, and that the Senate
meet again to-morrow, shortly after sunrise, to deliberate what shall be
done to protect the Republic?'

Morning came, dark indeed, and lurid, and more like the close, than the
opening of day. Morning came, but it brought no change with it; for not a
head in Rome had lain that night upon a pillow, save those of the unburied
dead, or the bedridden. Young men and aged, sick and sound, masters and
slaves, had wooed no sleep during the hours of darkness, so terribly, so
constantly was it illuminated by the broad flashes of blue lightning, and