These things flashed upon Aulus in an instant; the rather that he saw the hated cousin, whom he had passed unnoticed in his headlong charge, quietly bringing the clients into line between himself and his wavering associates.
He was in fact hemmed in on every side; he was alone, and his horse, which he had taxed to the uttermost, was wounded and failing fast.
His case was indeed desperate, for he could now see that his own faction were drawing off already with the evident intention of rejoining the bulk of the party, careless of his fate, and glad to escape at so small a sacrifice.
Still, even in this extremity he had no thought of surrender—indeed to him death and surrender were but two names for one thing.
He looked to the right and to the left, if there were any possibility of scaling the wooded slopes and so rejoining the sturdy swordsmith without coming to blows again with his father's household; but one glance told him that such hopes were vain indeed. On either hand the crags rose inaccessible even to the foot of man, unless he were a practised mountaineer.
Then rose the untamed spirit of his race, the firm Roman hardihood, deeming naught done while anything remains to do, and holding all things feasible to the bold heart and ready hand—the spirit which saved Rome when Hannibal was thundering at her gates, which made her[pg 120] from a petty town the queen and mistress of the universe.
He gathered his reins firmly in his hand, and turning his horse's head down the declivity put the beast to a slow trot, as if he had resolved to force his way toward Rome; but in a moment, when his manœuvre had, as he expected caused the men in his rear to put their horses to their speed, and thus to break their line, he again wheeled, and giving his charger the spur with pitiless severity drove up the steep declivity like a thunderbolt, and meeting his enemies straggling along in succession, actually succeeded in cutting down two, before he was envelopped, unhorsed and disarmed, which, as his cousin's men came charging up and down the road at once, it was inevitable that he must be from the beginning.
"Curses upon thee! it is thou!" he said, grinding his teeth and shaking his weaponless hand at his kinsman in impotent malignity—"it is thou! Caius. Curses upon thee! from my birth thou hast crossed me."
"It were better thou hadst died, Aulus," replied the other solemnly, but in sorrow more than anger, "better that thou hadst died, than been so led back to Rome."
"Why didst thou not kill me then?" asked Aulus with a sneer of sarcastic spite—"Why dost thou not kill me now."