If the course had been longer the safety of the fugitives would have been now certain; but so brief was the space and so little did they gain in that awful race, that the nicest eye hardly could have calculated which first would reach the bridge.
So secure of his prize was Catiline, that his keen blade was already out, and as he bowed over his charger's neck, goring his flanks with his bloody spurs, he shouted in his hoarse demoniacal accents, "Victory and vengeance!"
Still, hopeful and dauntless, the stout legionary gallopped on—"Courage!" he exclaimed, "courage, lady, we shall first cross the bridge!"—
Had Lucia chosen it, with her light weight and splendid horsemanship, she might easily have left Julia and the soldier, easily have crossed the defile in advance of Catiline, easily have escaped his vengeance. But she reined in white Ister, and held him well in hand behind the others, muttering to herself in low determined accents, "She shall be saved, but my time is come!"
Suddenly there was a hasty shout of alarm from the troopers on the other side, "Hold, Catiline! Rein up! Rein up!" and several of the foremost riders drew in their horses. Within a minute all except Catiline had halted.
"They see our friends! they are close at hand! We are saved! by the Immortal Gods! we are saved!" cried the legionary, with a cry of triumph.
But in reply, across the narrow gorge, came the hoarse roar of Catiline, above the din of his thundering gallop.—"By Hades! Death! or vengeance!"
"Ride! ride!" shrieked Lucia from behind, "Ride, I say, fool! you are not saved! He will not halt for a beat when revenge spurs him! For your life! ride!"
It was a fearful crisis.
The Thracian charger reached the bridge. The hollow arch resounded but once under his clanging hoofs—the second stride cleared it. He wheeled down the road, and Julia, pale as death, whose eyes had been closed in the ago[pg 199]ny of that fearful expectation, unclosed them at the legionary's joyous shout, but closed them again in terror and despair with a faint shriek, as they met the grim countenance of Catiline, distorted with every hellish passion, and splashed with blood gouts from his reeking courser's side, thrust forward parallel nearly to the black courser's foamy jaws—both nearly within arm's length of her, as it appeared to her excited fancy.