Volume Ii Part 33 (2/2)
”We are lost! we are lost!” she screamed.
”We are saved! we are saved!” shouted the soldier as he saw coming up the road at a gallop to meet them, the bronze casques and floating horse-hair crests, and scarlet cloaks, of a whole squadron of legionary cavalry, arrayed beneath a golden eagle-the head of their column scarcely distant three hundred yards.
But they were not saved yet, nor would have been-for Catiline's horse was close upon their croupe and his uplifted blade almost flashed over them-when, with a wild cry, Lucia dashed her white Ister at full speed, as she crossed the bridge, athwart the counter of black Erebus.
The thundering speed at which the black horse came down the hill, and the superior weight of himself and his rider, hurled the white palfrey and the brave girl headlong; but his stride was checked, and, blown as he was, he stumbled, and rolled over, horse and man.
A minute was enough to save them, and before Lucia had regained her feet, the ranks of the new comers had opened to receive the fugitives, and had halted around them, in some slight confusion.
”The G.o.ds be blessed for ever!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven. ”I have saved her!”
”And lost thyself, thrice miserable fool!” hissed a hoa.r.s.e well known voice in her ear, as a heavy hand seized her by the shoulder, and twisted her violently round.
She stood face to face with Catiline, and met his horrid glare of hate with a glance prouder than his own and brighter. She smiled triumphantly, as she said in a clear high voice,
”I have saved her!”
”For which, take thy reward, in this, and this, and this!”
And with the words he dealt her three stabs, the least of which was mortal; but, even in that moment of dread pa.s.sion, with fiendish ingenuity he endeavored to avoid giving her a wound that should be directly fatal.
”There writhe, and howl, 'till slow death relieve you!”
”Meet end to such beginning!” cried the unhappy girl. ”Adulterous parent!
incestuous seducer! kindred slayer! ha! ha! ha! ha!” and with a wild laugh she fell to the ground and lay with her eyes closed, motionless and for the moment senseless.
But he, with his child's blood smoking on his hand, shook his sword aloft fiercely against the legionaries, and leaping on his black horse which had arisen from the ground unhurt by its fall, gallopped across the bridge; and plunging through the underwood into the deep chesnut forest was lost to the view of the soldiers, who had spurred up in pursuit of him, that they abandoned it ere long as hopeless.
It was not long that Lucia lay oblivious of her sufferings. A sense of fresh coolness on her brow, and the checked flow of the blood, which gushed from those cruel wounds, were the first sensations of which she became aware.
But, as she opened her eyes, they met well known and loving faces; and soft hands were busy about her bleeding gashes; and hot tears were falling on her poor pallid face from eyes that seldom wept.
Julia was kneeling at her side, Paullus Arvina was bending over her in speechless grat.i.tude, and sorrow; and the stern cavaliers of the legion, unused to any soft emotions, stood round holding their chargers' bridles with frowning brows, and lips quivering with sentiments, which few of them had experienced since the far days of their gentler boyhood.
”Oh! happy,” she exclaimed, in a soft low tone, ”how happy it is so to die! and in dying to see thee, Paullus.”
”Oh! no! no! no!” cried Julia, ”you must not, shall not die! my friend, my sister! O, tell her, Paullus, that she will not die, that she will yet be spared to our prayers, our love, our grat.i.tude, our veneration.”
But Paullus spoke not; a soldier, and a man used to see death in all shapes in the arena, he knew that there was no hope, and, had his life depended on it, he could not, at that moment have deceived her.
Little, however, cared the dying girl for that; even if she had heard or comprehended the appeal. Her ears, her mind, were full of other thoughts, and a bright beautiful irradiation played over her wan lips and ashy features, as she cried joyously, although her voice was very tremulous and weak.
”Paullus, do you hear that? her friend! her sister! Paullus, Paullus, do you hear that? Julia calls me her friend-me, me her sister! me the disgraced-”
”Peace! peace! Dear Lucia! you must not speak such words!” said Paullus.
”Be your past errors what they may-and who am I, that I should talk of errors?-this pure high love-this delicate devotion-this death most heroical and glorious no! no! I cannot-” and the strong man bowed his head upon his hands, and burst into an agony of tears and pa.s.sion.
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