Although the Tribunes had failed, in the consternation of the moment, to respond to the call of Cæsar, there was no doubt, that, if one night should intervene, those miscalled magistrates would check the course of justice. Confined, apart one from the other, in free custody, the traitors had not failed to learn all that was passing, almost ere it passed. Their hopes had been high, when the rabble were alert and thundering at the prison gates—nor when the charge of the knights had beaten back the multitude, did they despair; for simultaneously with those evil tidings, they learned the effect of Cæsar’s speech; and shortly afterward the news reached them that Cicero’s reply had found few willing auditors. Confined, apart one from the other, they had eaten and drunken, and their hearts were "jocund and sublime"; the eloquence of Cæsar, the turbulence of the tribunes, were their predominant ideas. Confined, apart one from the other, one thought was common to them all,—immediate liberation, speedy vengeance. And, in truth, immediate was the liberation; speedy the vengeance. Night was at hand. The Triumvirs, whose duty it was to superintend all capital punishments—a thing almost unknown in Rome—had been instructed to prepare whatever should be needful. Lentulus sat alone in an inner chamber of the house of Publius Lentulus Spintherus, an Ædile at that time. There was, it is true, a guard at the door, and clients under arms in the atrium; but in his own apartment the proud conspirator was still master of himself indeed, soon to be master of Rome, in his own frantic fantasy. Bright lights were burning in bronze candelabra; rich wines were before him; his own favorite freedman leaned on the back of his ivory arm chair, and jested lightly on the discomfiture of _noble_ Cicero, on the sure triumph of _democratic_ Cæsar. "Fill up the glass again, my Phormio," cried the exhilarated parricide; "this namesake of my own hath good wine, at the least—we may not taste it again shortly—fill up, I say; and do not spare to brim your own. What if our boys were beaten in the streets to-day. Brave Cæsar was not beaten in the Senate." "By Hercules! no!" cried the wily Greek, base inheritor of a superb name—"and if he had been checked, there are the tribunes." "But he was _not_ checked, Phormio?" asked the conspirator in evident anxiety. "By your head, no! You shall yet be the THIRD CORNELIUS!"— "WHO SHALL RULE ROME!"— The door of the small room was suddenly thrown open, and the tall form of Cicero stood in the shadow of the entrance. The gleam of the lamps fell full on his white robes, and glittered on his ivory sceptre; but behind him it showed the grim dark features of the Capital Triumvirs, and flickered on the axe-heads of the lictors.