r. Lend me your ears
only, and I fear not that you will determine, worthily of yourselves, and
of the Republic!

"You all well know that on the 16th day before the calends of November,
which should have been the eve of the consular Elections, I promised that
I would soon lay before you ample proofs of the plot, which then I
foretold to you but darkly.

"Mark, now, the faces of the men I shall address, and judge whether I then
promised vainly; whether what I shall now disclose craves your severe
attention--your immediate action."

He paused for a moment, as if to note the effect of his words; then
turning round abruptly upon the spot, where Catiline sat, writhing with
rage and impatience, and gnawing his nether lip, until the blood trickled
down his chin, he flung forth his arm with an indignant gesture, and
instantly addressed him by his name, in tones that rang beneath the
vaulted roof, over the heads of the self-convicted traitors, like heaven's
own thunder, and found a fearful echo in their dismayed and guilty souls.

"Where wert thou, Catiline?" he thundered forth the charge, amid the mute
astonishment of all--"Where wert thou on the evening of the Ides? what wert
thou doing? Speak! Unless guilt and despair hold thee silent, I say to
thee, speak, Catiline!"

Again he stopped in mid-speech, as if for an answer, fixed his eye
steadily on the face of the arch conspirator. But he, though he spoke not
to reply, quailed not, nor shunned that steady gaze, but met it with a
terrible and portentous glare, pregnant with more than mortal hatred.

"Thou wilt not--can'st not--darest not! Now hear and tremble! Hear, and know
that no step of thine, or deed, or motion escapes my eye--no, traitor, not
one movement!

"On the eve of the Ides, thou wert in the street of the Scythemakers! Ha!
does thy cheek burn now? In the house of a senator--of Marcus Porcius Laeca.
But thou wert not there, till thou hadst added one more deed of murder to
those which needed no addition. Thou wert, I say, in the house of Laeca;
and many whom I now see around me, with trim and well-curled beards, with
long-sleeved tunics and air-woven togas, many whom I could name, and will,
if needs be, were there with thee!

"What beverage didst thou send around? what oath didst thou administer,
thou to thy foul associates? and on the altar of what God?

"Fathers, my mind shrinks, as I speak, with horror--that bowl mantled to
the brim with the gore of a huma