"None indeed," said Cethegus—"but I warrant you this German will howl gloriously, when the fish are at him." "Yes! yes!" exclaimed the lovely woman, clapping her hands joyously. "We must have the gag removed, to give free vent to his music. Come, come, I am dying to see him." "Some one must die, since Cicero did not." "Happy fellow this, if he only knew it, to give his friends so much pleasure!" "One of them such a fair lady too!" "Will there be more pleasure, think you, in seeing the congers eat the gladiator, or in eating the congers afterward?" "Oh! no comparison! one can eat fat congers always." "We have the advantage of them truly, for they cannot always eat fat gladiators." And they walked away with as much glee and expectation, to the scene of agony and fiendish torture, vitiated by the frightful exhibitions of the circus and the arena, as men in modern days would feel, in going to enjoy the fictitious sorrows of some grand tragedian. Can it be that the contemplation of human wo, in some form or other, is in all ages grateful to poor corrupt humanity? CHAPTER V. THE ORATION. Quousque tandem abutere— CICERO. The Senate was assembled in the great temple on the Palatine, built on the spot where Jupiter, thence hailed as Stator, had stayed the tide of flight, and sent the rallied Romans back to a glorious triumph. A cohort was stationed on the brow of the hill, its spear-heads glancing in the early sunshine. The Roman knights, wearing their swords openly, and clad in their girded tunics only, mustered around the steps which led to the colonnade and doors of the temple, a voluntary guard to the good consul. A mighty concourse had flowed together from all quarters of the city, and stood in dense masses in all the neighboring streets, and in the area of the temple, in hushed and anxious expectation. The tribunes of the people, awed for once by the imminence of the peril, forgot to be factious. Within the mighty building, there was dead silence—silence more eloquent than words. For, to the wonder of all men, undismayed by detection, unrebuked by the horror and hate which frowned on him from every brow, Catiline had assumed his place on the benches of his order. Not one, even of his most intimate associates, had dared to salute him; not one, even of the conspirators, had dared to recognize the manifest traitor. As he assumed his place, the senators next to him had arisen and withdrawn from the infamous vicinity, some of them even shaking their gowns, as if to dissipate the contamination of his contact. Alone he sat, therefore, with a wide vacant space around him—alone, in that crowded house—alone, yet proud, unrebuked, undaunted. The eyes of every man in the vast assembly were riveted in fear, or hatred, or astonishment, on the set features and sullen scowling brow, of the arch conspirator.