"What!" exclaimed Paullus, turning pale from excitement; "Is it yours? Do you say that it is yours?"
"Look! look!" exclaimed Catiline, springing to his feet; "here they come, here they come now; this is the last [pg 87]round. By the gods! but they are gallant horses, and well matched! See how the bay courser stretches himself, and how quickly he gathers! The bay! the bay has it for five hundred sesterces!"
"I wager you," said a dissolute-looking long-haired youth; "I wager you five hundred, Catiline. I say the gray horse wins."
"Be it so, then," shouted Catiline; "the bay, the bay! spur, spur, Aristius Fuscus, Aurelius gains on you; spur, spur!"
"The gray, the gray! There is not a horse in Rome can touch Aurelius Victor's gray South-wind!" replied the other.
And in truth, Victor's Gallic courser repaid his master's vaunts; for he made, though he had seemed beat, so desperate a rally, that he rushed past the bay Arab almost at the goal, and won by a clear length amidst the roars of the glad spectators.
"I have lost, plague on it!" exclaimed Catiline; "and here is Clodius expects to be paid on the instant, I'll be sworn."
And as he spoke, the debauchee with whom he had betted came up, holding his left hand extended, tapping its palm with the forefinger of the right.
"I told you so," he said, "I told you so; where be the sesterces?"
"You must needs wait a while; I have not my purse with me," Catiline began. But Paullus interrupted him—