The Roman Traitor Volume Ii Part 32

"Another time for this;" he said, "Catiline. There are tidings from Rome; which-"

"To Tartarus with thy tidings! Let them tarry!"

"They will not tarry, Catiline," replied the smith, who was as pale as a ghost and almost trembling-"least of all for such painted woman's flesh as this is!"

"Get thee away! It were better, wiser, safer to stand between the Lion and his prey, than between Catiline and Julia."

"Then have it!" shouted the smith. "All is discovered! all undone!

Lentulus and Cethegus, Gabinius and Statilius, and Caeparius all dead by the hangman's noose in the Tullianum!"

"The idiots! is that all? thy precious tidings! See! how I will avenge them." And he struggled to shake himself free from the grasp of Crispus.

But the smith held him firmly, and replied, "It is not all, Catiline.

Metellus Celer is within ten leagues of the camp, at the foot of the mountains. We have no retreat left into Gaul. Come! come! speak to the soldiers! You can deal with this harlotry hereafter."

Catiline glared upon him, as if he would have stabbed him to the heart; but seeing the absolute necessity of enquiring into the truth of this report, he turned to leave the room.

"The G.o.ds be praised! the G.o.ds have spoken loud! The G.o.ds have saved me!"

cried Julia falling on her knees. "Are there no G.o.ds now, O Catiline?"

"To Hades! with thy G.o.ds!" and, striking the unhappy girl a coward blow, which felled her to the ground senseless, he rushed from the room with his confederate in crime, barring the outer door behind him.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RESCUE.

Speed, Malise, speed, the dun deer's hide On fleeter foot was never tied.

LADY OF THE LAKE.

Scarcely had the door closed behind Catiline, who rushed forth torch in hand, as if goaded by the furies of Orestes, when half a dozen stout men, sheathed in the full armor of Roman legionaries, sprang out of the brushwood on the gorge's brink, and seizing the ropes which had hung idle during that critical hour, hauled on them with such energetical and zealous power, that the ladder was drawn across the chasm with almost lightning speed.

The hooks, with which its outer end was garnished, caught in the crevices of the ruined wall, and a slender communication was established, although the slight structure which bridged the abyss was scarcely capable of supporting the weight of a human being.

The soldiers, accustomed, as all Roman soldiers were, to all the expediences and resources of warfare, had prepared planks which were to be run forward on the ladder, in order to construct a firm bridge. For the plan of the besiegers, until interrupted by Catiline's arrival, had been to take the stronghold in reverse, while a false attack in front should be in progress, and throwing ten or twelve stout soldiers into the heart of the place, to make themselves masters of it by a coup-de-main.

This well-devised scheme being rendered unfeasible by the sudden charge of Catiline's horse, and the rout of the legionaries, the small subaltern's detachment which had been sent round under Lucia's guidance-for it was she, who had discerned the means of pa.s.sing the chasm, while lying in wait to a.s.sist Julia, and disclosed it to the centurion commanding-had been left alone, and isolated, its line of retreat cut off, and itself without a leader.

The singular scenes, however, which they had witnessed, the interest which almost involuntarily they had been led to take in the fate of the fair girl, her calm and dauntless fort.i.tude, and above all the atrocious villainy of Catiline, had inspired every individual of that little band with an heroic resolution to set their lives upon a cast, in order to rescue one who to all of them was personally unknown.

In addition to this, the discovery of Lucia's s.e.x-for they had believed her to be what she appeared, a boy-which followed immediately on the loss of her Phrygian bonnet, and the story of her bitter wrongs, which had taken wind, acted as a powerful incentive to men naturally bold and enterprising.

For it is needless to add, that with the revelation of her s.e.x, that of her character as the arch-traitor's child and victim went, as it were, hand in hand.

They had resolved, therefore, on rescuing the one, and revenging the other of these women, at any risk to themselves whatsoever; and now having waited their opportunity with the accustomed patience of Roman veterans, they acted upon it with their habitual skill and celerity.

But rapid as were their movements, they were outstripped by the almost superhuman agility of Lucia, who, knowing well the character of the human fiend with whom they had to contend, his wondrous prompt.i.tude in counsel, his lightning speed in execution, was well a.s.sured that there was not one moment to be lost, if they would save Arvina's betrothed bride from a fate worse than many deaths.

As soon therefore as she saw the hooks of the scaling ladder catch firm hold of the broken wall, before a single plank had been laid over its frail and distant rungs, she bounded over it with the light and airy foot of a practised dancer-finding account at that perilous moment in one of those indelicate accomplishments in which she had been instructed for purposes the basest and most horrible.

Accustomed as they were to deeds of energy and rapid daring, the stout soldiers stood aghast; for, measuring the action by their own weight and ponderous armature, they naturally overrated its peril to one so slightly made as Lucia.

And yet the hazard was extreme, for not taking it into account that a single slip or false step must precipitate her into the abyss, the slender woodwork of the ladder actually bent as she alighted on it, from each of her long airy bounds.

It was but a second, however, in which she glanced across it, darted through the small embrasure, and was lost to the eyes of the men within the darkness of the old barrack.

Astonished though they were at the girl's successful daring, the soldiers were not paralyzed at all, nor did they cease from their work.

In less than a minute after she had entered the window, a board was thrust forward, running upon the framework of the ladder, and upon that a stout plank, two feet in breadth, capable of supporting, if necessary, the weight of several armed men.

Nor had this bridge been established many seconds before the soldier in command ran forward upon it, and met Lucia at the embrasure, bearing with strength far greater than her slight form and unmuscular limbs appeared to promise, the still senseless form of Julia.

Catching her from the arms of Lucia, the robust legionary cast the fainting girl across his shoulder as though she had been a feather; and rushed back with her toward his comrades, crying aloud in haste alarm-

"Quick! quick! follow me quick, Lucia. I hear footsteps, they are coming!"-

The caution was needless, for almost outstripping the heavy soldier, the fleet-footed girl stood with him on the farther bank.

Yet had it come a moment later, it would have come all too late.

For having with his wonted celerity ascertained the truth of these fatal tidings, and ordered the body of horse whom he had brought up with him, and who had returned from pursuing the infantry, on seeing a larger body coming up from Antonius' army, to return with all speed to the camp of Manlius, retaining only a dozen troopers as a personal escort, Catiline had come back to bear off his lovely captive.

The clang of his haughty step had reached the ears of the legionary just as he drew poor Julia, unconscious of her rescue, through the barrack window; and as they stood on the brink of the ravine, thus far in safety, the red glare of the torches streaming through the embrasures, announced the arrival of their enemies, within almost arm's length of them.

The awful burst of imprecations which thundered from the lips of Catiline, as he perceived that his victim had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from him, struck awe even into the hearts of those brave veterans.

A tiger robbed of its young is but a weak and poor example of the frantic, ungovernable, beast-like rage which appeared to prevail entirely above all senses, all consideration, and all reason.

"May I perish ill! may I die crucified! may the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field devour me, if she so escape!" he shouted; and perceiving the means by which she had been carried off, he called loudly for his men to follow, and was in the very act of leaping out from the embrasure upon the bridge, which they had not time to withdraw, when one of the legionaries spurned away the frail fabric with his foot, and drawing his short falchion severed the cords which secured it, at a single blow.

Swinging off instantly in mid air, it was dashed heavily against the rocky wall of the precipice, and, dislodged by the shock, the planks went thundering down into the torrent, at the bottom of the gorge; while upheld by the hooks to the stone window sill, the ladder hung useless on Catiline's side of the chasm, all communication thus completely interrupted.

At the same moment three of the heavy pila, which were the peculiar missiles of the legion, were hurled by as many stout arms at the furious desperado; but it was not his fate so to perish. One of the pondrous weapons hurtled so close to his temple that the keen head razed the skin, the others, blunted or shivered against the sides or lintel of the window, fell harmless into the abyss.

"Thou fool!" cried the man who had rescued Julia, addressing him who had cut away the bridge, "thou shouldst have let him reach the middle, ere thou didst strike that blow. Then would he have lain there now," and he pointed downward with his finger into the yawning gulf.

"I do not know," replied the other. "By the G.o.ds! Catiline is near enough to me, when he is twenty paces distant."

"Thou art right, soldier, and didst well and wisely," said Lucia, hastily.

"Hadst thou tarried to strike until he reached the middle, thou never wouldst have stricken at all. One foot without that window, he would have cleared that chasm, as easily as I would leap a furrow. But come! come!

come! we must not loiter, nor lose one instant. He will not so submit to be thwarted, I have two horses by the roadside yonder. Their speed alone shall save us."

"Right! right!" replied the soldier, "lead to them quickly. It is for life or death! Hark! he is calling his men now to horse. We shall have a close run for it, by Hercules!"-