The stern impassive face of Marius Gratidianus, unmoved alike by agony or insult, frowned on him, in the serene dignity of sustaining virtue. Men of all ranks and ages, done to death by his hand or his head, by poison, by the knife, by drowning, by starvation—women deceived or violated, and then murdered, while their kisses were yet warm on his lips—infants tortured to death in the very wantonness of cruelty, and crime that must have been nigh akin to madness, gibbered, and glared upon him. These things would seem impossible, they are in truth incredible, but they are true beyond the possibility of cavil. He was indeed one of those unaccountable and extraordinary monsters, who, thanks to nature! appear but once in many ages, to whom sin is dear for its own naked self, to whom butchery(8) is a pastime, and blood and agonies and tears a pleasurable excitement to their mad morbid appetites. And in this hour of downfall, one by one, did his fancy conjure up before him the victims of his merciless love, his merciless hatred—both alike, sure and deadly. It was a strange combination of mind, for there must have been in the spirit that evoked these phantoms of the conscience, something of remorse, if not of repentance. Pale, ghastly, grim, reproachful, they all seemed to him to be appealing to the just heavens for justice and revenge. Yet there was even more of triumph and proud self-gratulation in his mood, than of remorse for the past, or of apprehension for the future. As he thought of each, as he thought of all, he in some sort gloated over the memory of his success, in some sort derived confidence from the very number of his unpunished crimes. "They crossed me," he muttered to himself, "and where are they?—My fate cried out for their lives, and their lives were forfeit. Who ever stood in my path, that has not perished from before my face? Not one! Who ever strove with me, that has not fallen? who ever frowned upon me, that has not expiated the bended brow by the death-grin?—Not one! not one! Scores, hundreds, have died for thwarting me! but who of men has lived to boast of it!—Not one!" He rose from his seat, stalked slowly across the room, drew his hand across his brow twice, with a thoughtful gesture, and then said, "Cicero! Cicero! Better thou never hadst been born! Better—but it must be—my Fate, my fate demands it, and neither eloquence nor wisdom, virtue nor valor, shall avail to save thee. These were brave, beautiful, wise, pious, eloquent; and what availed it to them? My Fate, my fate shall prevail! To recede is to perish, is to be scorned—to advance is to win—to win universal empire," and he stretched out his hand, as if he clutched an imaginary globe—"to win fame, honor, the applause of ages—for with the people—the _dear_ people—failure alone and poverty are guilt—success, by craft or crime, success is piety and virtue!—On! Catiline! thy path is onward still, upward, and onward! But not here!"