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Now then, Arvina, doff your toga, you will not surely ride in that." "Indeed I will not," replied Paullus, "if master Volero will suffer me to leave it here till my return."
The commons re-elect Volero as tribune. The senators, considering that the question would be carried to the very extreme of a struggle, elect to the consulate Appius Claudius, the son of Appius, who was both hated by and hated the commons, ever since the contests between them and his father. Titus Quintius is assigned to him as his colleague.
"Ay, it is," replied the other gravely. "You were disturbed not a little at what stout Volero said." "I was, I was," answered Arvina very quickly, "because I could not tell him; and it is not pleasant to be suspected.
For as they came within about a bow-shot of the booth of Volero, the sound of a slight scuffle was heard from within, and the light of the lamp became very dim and wavering, as if it had been overset; and in a moment went out altogether. But its last glimmering ray shewed a tall sinewy figure making out of the door and bounding at a great pace up the street toward the Carmental gate.
Nor was this all; his peril was no less than his guilt; equal on either side—sure ruin if he should be true to his country, and scarce less sure, if he should join its parricides. For, though he had not dared say so much to Catiline, he had already sent the poniard to the house of Cicero, and a brief letter indicating all that he had learned from Volero.
Speak instantly, speak out: to whom have you dared give it?" "There was no daring in the matter, Catiline," he answered steadily, keeping an eye on the arch-traitor’s movements; "before I knew that it was yours, I sent it, as I had promised, to Cicero, with word that Volero could tell him who was the owner of it."
He told of his first meeting with Cataline upon the Cælian; of his visit to Cicero; of his strange conversation with the cutler Volero; of his second encounter with the traitor in the field of Mars, not omitting the careless accident by which he revealed to him Volero’s recognition of the weapon.
"Before seducing Lucia Orestilla?" again sneered the desperate villain. "Before yielding," answered the young man, who was now growing angry, for his temper was not of the meekest, "to her irresistible seduction." "Ha! yielding—well! we will speak of that hereafter. Hath the consul seen Volero?" "He hath seen him dead; and how dead, Catiline best knoweth."
"You may be so, my Sergius, for, of a truth, until Chærea swore as he did touching Medon, I was myself deceived." "You believe, then, that this will be sufficient to secure his condemnation?" "Beyond doubt. He will be interdicted fire and water, if these men stick to their oaths only. It would be well, perhaps, to convict one of Arvina’s slaves of the actual death of Volero.
The lictors rushed away upon his track, but there seemed little chance that, encumbered with their heavy fasces, they would overtake so swift a runner, as, by the momentary sight they had of him, the fugitive appeared to be. Arvina and the Consul speedily reached the booth. "Volero! Volero!" But there came forth no answer. "Volero! what ho! Volero!"
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