The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) - The UK Mirror Service

THE MEASURES 21
of their own footsteps, much more of their own voices.
Thus with extreme precaution, when they had traversed several
chambers, among which were an indoor triclinium, or dining
parlor, and a vast picture gallery, groping their way along in
utter darkness, they reached a small square court, surrounded
by a peristyle or colonnade, containing a dilapidated fountain.
Passing through this, they reached a second dining room, where
on the central table they found a small lamp burning, and by the
aid of this, though still observing the most scrupulous silence,
quickly attained their destination—a low and vaulted chamber
entirely below the surface of the ground, accessible only by a
stair defended by two doors of unusual thickness.
That was a fitting place for deeds of darkness, councils of desperation,
such as they held, who met within its gloomy precincts.
The moisture, which dripped constantly from its groined roof
of stone, had formed stalactites of dingy spar, whence the large
gouts plashed heavily on the damp pavement; the walls were
covered with green slimy mould; the atmosphere was close and
fœtid, and so heavy that the huge waxen torches, four of which
stood in rusty iron candelabra, on a large slab of granite, burned
dim and blue, casting a faint and ghastly light on lineaments so
grim and truculent, or so unnaturally excited by the dominion of
all hellish passions, that they had little need of anything extraneous
to render them most hideous and appalling. There were
some twenty-five men present, variously clad indeed, and of all
ages, but evidently—though many had endeavoured to disguise
the fact by poor and sordid garments—all of the higher ranks.
Six or eight were among them, who feared not, nor were
ashamed to appear there in the full splendor of their distinctive
garb as Senators, prominent among whom was the most rash and
furious of them all, Cethegus.
He, at the moment when the arch-conspirator, accompanied
by Læca and the rest of those who had admitted him, entered
the vault, was speaking with much energy and even fierceness of