hed the goblet with the residue over the pedestal and shrine. And there
was not one there who shrank from that foul draught. With ashy cheeks
indeed, but knitted brows, and their lips reeking red with the
abomination, but fearless and unfaltering, they pledged in clear and
solemn tones, each after each, that awful imprecation, and cast their
goblets down, that the floor swam in blood; and grasped each others'
hands, sworn comrades from that hour even to the gates of hell.

A long and impressive silence followed. For every heart there, even of the
boldest, recoiled as it were for a moment on itself, not altogether in
regret or fear, much less in anything approaching to compunction or
remorse; but in a sort of secret horror, that they were now involved
beyond all hope of extrication, beyond all possibility of turning back or
halting! And Cataline, endowed with almost superhuman shrewdness, and
himself quite immovable of purpose, perceived the feelings that actuated
all the others--which he felt not, nor cared for--and called on Laeca to
bring wine.

"Wine, comrades," he exclaimed, "pure, generous, noble wine, to wash away
the rank drops from our lips, that are more suited to our blades! to make
our veins leap cheerily to the blythe inspiration of the God! and last,
not least, to guard us from the damps of this sweet chamber, which alone
of his bounteous hospitality our Porcius has vouchsafed to us!" And on the
instant, the master--for they dared trust no slaves--bore in two earthen
vases, one of strong Chian from the Greek Isle of the Egean, the other of
Falernian, the fruitiest and richest of the Italian wines, not much unlike
the modern sherry, but having still more body, and many cyathi, or
drinking cups; but he brought in no water, wherewith the more temperate
ancients were wont to mix their heady wines, even in so great a ratio as
nine to one of the generous liquor.

"Fill now! fill all!" cried Cataline, and with the word he drained a
brimming cup. "Rare liquor this, my Marcus," he continued; "whence had'st
thou this Falernian? 'tis of thine inmost brand, I doubt not. In whose
consulship did it imbibe the smoke?"

"The first of Caius Marius."

"Forty-four years, a ripe age," said Cethegus, "but twill be better forty
years hence. Strange, by the Gods! that of the two best things on earth,
women and wine, the nature should so differ. The wine is crude still, when
the girl is mellow; but it is ripe, long after she i