Volume I Part 18 (1/2)
”Give me a sword,” shouted the fierce conspirator, furious at being foiled, and perceiving that his whole enterprise depended on the young man's destruction. ”He is armed under his gown with a breast-plate! Give me a sword, and then set on him all at once. So that will do, now, on.”
”Hold, Sergius Catiline,” exclaimed Arvina, ”hold, or by all the G.o.ds you will repent it. If you have three men at your back I have full five times three within call.”
”Call them, then!” answered the other, making at him, ”call them! think you again to fool me? Ho, Geta and Arminius, get round the fountain and set on him! make haste I say-kill-kill.”
And with the word he rushed at him, aiming a fierce blow at his head, while the others a moment afterward charged on him from the other side.
But during the brief parley Arvina had disengaged the folds of his gown from his light shoulder, and wrapped it closely about his left arm, and when Catiline rushed in he parried the blow with his sword, and raising the little horn he carried, to his lips, blew a long piercing call, which was answered by a loud shout close at hand, and by the rush of many feet without the grotto.
Catiline was himself astonished at the unexpected aid, for he had taken the words of the young patrician for a mere boast. But his men were alarmed and fell back in confusion, while Paul, profiting by their hesitation, sprang with a quick active bound across the basin of the fountain, and gained the cavern's mouth just as his stout freedman Thrasea showed himself in the entrance with a close casque and cuira.s.s of bronze, and a boar spear in his hand, the heads and weapons of several other able-bodied men appearing close behind.
At the head of these Arvina placed himself instantly, having his late a.s.sailants hemmed in by a force, against which they now could not reasonably hope to struggle.
But Paullus showed no disposition to take undue advantage of his superiority, for he said in a calm steady voice, ”I leave you now, my friend; and it will not be my fault, if aught that has pa.s.sed here, is remembered any farther. None here have seen you, or know who you are; and you may rest a.s.sured that for _her_ sake and mine own honor, if I join not your plans, I will not betray you, or reveal your counsels. To that I am sworn, and come what may, my oath shall not be broken.”
”Tush,” cried the other, maddened by disappointment, and filled with desperate apprehensions, ”men trust not avowed traitors. Upon them, I say, you dogs. Let there be forty of them, but four can stand abreast in the entrance, and we can front them, four as good as they.”
And he again dashed at Arvina, without waiting to see if his gladiators meant to second his attack; but they hung back, reluctant to fight against such odds; for, though brave men, and accustomed to risk their lives, without quarrel or excitement, for the gratification of the brute populace of Rome, they had come to the cave of Egeria, prepared for a.s.sa.s.sination, not for battle; and their antagonists were superior to them as much in accoutrement and arms-for their bronze head-pieces were seen distinctly glimmering in the rays of the rising moon-as in numbers.
The blades of the leaders clashed together, and several quick blows and parries had been interchanged, during which Thrasea, had he not been restrained by his young master's orders, might easily have stabbed the conspirator with his boar-spear. But he held back at first, waiting a fresh command, until seeing that none came, and that the unknown opponent was pressing his lord hard; while the gladiators, apparently encouraged by his apathy, were beginning to handle their weapons, he s.h.i.+fted his spear in his hands, and stepping back a pace, so as to give full scope to a sweeping blow, he flourished the b.u.t.t, which was garnished with a heavy ball of metal, round his head in a figure of eight, and brought it down so heavily on the felt skull-cap of the conspirator, that his teeth jarred audibly together, a quick flash sprang across his eyes, and he fell, stunned and senseless, at the feet of his intended victim.
”Hold, Thrasea, hold,” cried Paullus, ”by the G.o.ds! you have slain him.”
”No, I have not. No! no! his head is too hard for that,” answered the freedman; ”I felt my staff rebound from the bone, which it would not have done, had the skull been fractured. No! he is not dead, though he deserved to die very richly.”
”I am glad of it,” replied Paullus. ”I would not have him killed, for many reasons. Now, hark ye, ye scoundrels and gallows-birds! most justly are your lives forfeit, whether it seem good to me, to take them here this moment, or to drag you away, and hand you over to the lictors of the city-praetor, as common robbers and a.s.sa.s.sins.”
”That you cannot do, whilst we live, most n.o.ble,” answered the boldest of the gladiators, sullenly; ”and you cannot, I think, take our lives, without leaving some of your own on our swords' points.”
”Brave me not,” cried the young man, sternly, ”lest you drive me to do that I would not. Your lives, I say, are forfeit; but, seeing that I love not bloodshed, I leave you, for this time, unpunished. Take up the master whom you serve, and bear him home; and, when he shall be able to receive it, tell him Paullus Arvina pardons his madness, pities his fears, and betrays no man's trust-least of all his. For the rest, let him choose between enmity and friends.h.i.+p. I care not which it be. I can defend my own life, and a.s.sail none. Beware how you follow us. If you do, by all the G.o.ds! you die. See, he begins to stir. Come, Thrasea, call off your men; we will go, ere he come to his senses, lest worse shall befal.”
And with the words he turned his back contemptuously on the crest-fallen gladiators, and strode haughtily across the threshold, leaving the fierce conspirator, as he was beginning to recover his scattered senses, to the keen agony of conscious villainy frustrated, and the stings of defeated pride and disappointed malice.
The night was well advanced, when he reached his own house, having met no interruption on the way, proud of his well-planned stratagem, elated by success, and flattered by the hope that he had extricated himself by his own energy from all the perils which had of late appeared so dark and difficult to shun.
CHAPTER X.
THE WANTON.
Duri magno sed amore dolores Pollute, notumque furens quid femina possit.
aeN. V. 6. VIRGIL.
It was not till a late hour on the following day, that Catiline awoke from the heavy and half lethargic slumber, which had fallen upon him after the severe and stunning blow he received in the grotto of Egeria.
His head ached fearfully, his tongue clove to his palate parched with fever, and all his muscular frame was disjointed and unstrung, so violently had his nerves been shattered.