Herculanus hastily grasped with his shield arm at the creature making the rustling and lifted the broad short sword in his right for a death-stroke. He seized something warm and drew it upward from the hay, which fell on the right and left as he dragged forward a girl whose face was covered with tangled red locks and blades of grass, through which she gazed in mortal terror and fiery wrath at her assailant.
So strange, so bewitchingly beautiful was the young creature that Herculanus uttered a fierce cry of pleasure. He had vowed that the first moment he had the dangerous Barbarian alone within reach of his sword, should be her last; and even now he did not really waver in the resolve. Neither pity nor passion could influence a mind fixed solely on his uncle's wealthy yet so much youthful beauty awakened a fleeting desire for it: before he stabbed the foe, he would have one kiss from those red lips. So, reserving his right hand for the death-blow, he drew her closer to him with the left. The girl struggled with the strength of despair. Turning her head as far as possible from him, she uttered a cry of terror, like a dying fawn. It was only a moment's delay of the assassin's thrust, but it saved her.
Before Herculanus could press his lips on her averted face a shadow fell from outside upon the opening toward the lake, where the struggling figures were now standing. "Murderer!" cried a deep voice; and Herculanus, receiving a severe blow on the breast, staggered back, loosing his hold upon his captive. Swiftly as the trout glides away, the girl tried to slip through the opening; but she felt her arm seized in the iron grasp of a much stronger hand, and looked up at another helmeted Roman.
"Is it you, Tribune?" stammered Herculanus, hastily thrusting his sword into the sheath.
The latter did not vouchsafe him a single word. "You are Bissula, little one, are you not?" he asked, gazing with wondering eyes at the strange vision. A sweet rapture ran through his veins as he saw the lovely little face, the delicate, graceful limbs, the bare white feet, and felt the pulsing of the young life through the round arm his hand held so firmly.
The prisoner made no reply, but she looked up trustfully into the Illyrian's handsome, manly face. Then she cast a strange glance, as if seeking for some one, back into the hut,--Saturninus had dragged her from the doorway into the open air,--and seemed to be listening anxiously.
"Yes, it is Bissula," said Herculanus, now also coming out. "What made you imagine that I wanted to kill her? I have been searching for her since the earliest dawn."
"So I thought."
"Not for myself; I was only holding her firmly to prevent her escape."
"With a quivering sword uplifted to strike?"