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Updated: June 15, 2025
Fuscus Aristius here, and I—we will start instantly, if no one else has the ground." "Away with you then," answered the other; "come sit by me, Arvina, I would say a word with you."
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 friendship. I care not which it be. I can defend my own life, and assail none. Beware how you follow us. If you do, by all the Gods! you die.
"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 Gods you will repent it.
Under the mingled influence of surprise, and bashfulness at being overheard, and something not very far removed from alarm at the unexpected presence of one so famed for evil deeds as the man beside him, Arvina recoiled a pace or two, and thrust his hand into the bosom of his toga, disarranging its folds for a moment, and suffering the eye of the conspirator to dwell on the hilt of a weapon, which he recognized instantly as the stiletto he had lost in the struggle with the miserable slave on the Esquiline.
Such was the wondrous spectacle, more like a fairy show than a real scene of earthly splendour, to look on which Arvina paused for one moment with exulting gladness, before descending toward the mansion of the consul. Nor was that mighty panorama wanting in moving crowds, and figures suitable to the romantic glory of its scenery.
"See, Julia, see," whispered Arvina, as he passed slowly by their chariot, "that must be one of their great chiefs, and a man of extraordinary prowess. Look at the horns of the mighty Urus on his helmet, a brute fiercer, and well nigh as large as a Numidian elephant.
Mute and humiliated, he sank into a chair, while she continued standing erect and self-sustained before him by conscious, though new, rectitude of purpose. "Mark me, I say, Arvina, when I tell you, that you are as free as air from the oath, with which I bound you. That wicked vow compels you only so long as I hold you pledged to its performance.
I would wish nothing better," said Curius, taking Fulvia by the hand, and leading her forward. "Should you, Arvina?" "Not I, indeed," replied Paullus, "if Lucia be content." And he looked to catch her eye, as he took her soft hand in his own, but her face remained cold and pale as marble, and her eye downcast.
While he was speaking yet a slave entered, and announced that Paullus Cæcilius Arvina had arrived, and Curius, and the noble Fulvia; and as he received the tidings the frown passed away from the brow of the conspirator, and putting on his mask of smooth, smiling dissimulation, he went forth to meet his guests.
Quickly, however, seeing that he was in error, Arvina turned upon his traces, and was almost immediately successful; for there, scarce twenty feet from the spot where he had found the dagger, with his grim gory face turned upward as if reproachfully to the dark quiet skies, the black death-sweat still beaded on his frowning brow, and a sardonic grin distorting his pale lips, lay the dead slave.
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