"She is at rest, now, Paullus, she is happy!" murmured Julia. "How excellent she was, how true, how brave, how devoted! Oh! yes! I doubt not, she is happy."
"The Gods grant it!" he replied fervently. "But I have yet a duty," and drawing his short straight sword he severed one long dark curl from the lifeless head, and raising it aloft in his left hand, while with the right he pointed heavenward the gleaming steel, "Ye Gods!" he cried, "supernal and infernal! and ye spirits and powers, shades of the mighty dead! Hear earth, and heaven, and thou Tartarus! by this good steel, by this right hand, in presence of this sacred dead, I swear, I devote Catiline and his hated head to vengeance! By this sword may he perish; may this hair be steeped in his lifeblood; may he know himself, when dying, the victim of my vengeance—may dogs eat his body—and his unburied spirit know neither Tartarus nor Elysium!"—
It was strange, but as he ceased from that wild imprecation, a faint flash of lightning veined the remote horizon, and a low clap of thunder rumbled afar off, echoing among the hills—perchance the last of a storm, unheard before and unnoticed by the distracted minds of the spectators of that scene.
But the superstitious Romans accepted it as an omen.
"Thunder!"—cried one.
"The Gods have spoken!"—
"I hail the omen!" exclaimed Paullus, sheathing his sword, and thrusting the tress of hair into his bosom. "By my hand shall he perish!"
And thenceforth, it was believed generally by the soldiers, that in the coming struggle Catiline was destined to fall, and by the hand of Paul Arvina.