"We cannot."
"Enough! Look to him, then, that he escape you not."
"Fear us not. But whither goest thou?"
"To rescue Julia. Tell thou to Arvina how these things have fallen out, and whither they have led her; and, above all, that one is on her traces who will die or save her."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Aulus savagely in the glee of his vengeful triumph, "Thou wilt die, but not save her. I am avenged, already—avenged in Julia's ruin!"
"Wretch!" exclaimed his kinsman, indignant and disgusted—"almost it shames me that my name is Fulvius! Fearful, however, is the punishment that overhangs thee! think on that, Aulus! and if shame fetter not thy tongue, at least let terror freeze it."
"Terror? of whom? perhaps of thee, accursed?"
"Aulus. Thou hast—a father!"
At that word father, his eyes dropped instantly, their haughty insolence abashed; his face turned deadly pale; his tongue was frozen; he spoke no word again until at an early hour of morning, they reached the house he had so fatally dishonored.
Meanwhile, as the party, who had captured him, returned slowly with their prisoner down the mountain side, the last of the rebels having gallopped off long before to join the swordsmith and his gang, the boy, who took so deep an interest in Julia, dismounted from the white horse, which had borne him for so many hours with unabated fire and spirit, and leaving the high road, turned into a glade among the holm oaks, watered by a small streamlet, leading his courser by the rein.