Again the Roman trumpets were blown shrill and piercing, and a centurion stepping forward a little way in front of the advanced manipule, shouted at the pitch of his voice,
"Thus perish all the messengers of parricides and traitors!"
Excited, almost beyond his powers of endurance, by what he beheld and heard, the fierce traitor writhed in his hiding place, not sixty paces distant from the speaker, and gnashed his teeth in impotent malignity. His fingers griped the tough shaft of his massive pilum, as if they would have left their prints in the close-grained ash.
While that ferocious spirit was yet strong within him, the wretched freedman, half frenzied doubtless by his tortures, lifted his voice in a wild cry on his master—
"Catiline! Catiline!" he shrieked so thrillingly that every man in both camps heard every syllable distinct and clear. "Chærea calls on Catiline. Help! save! Avenge! Catiline! Catiline!"
A loud hoarse laugh burst from the Roman legionaries, and the centurion shouted in derision.
But at that instant the desperate spectator of that horrid scene sprang to his feet reckless, and shouting, as he leaped into the circle of bright radiance,
"Catiline hears Chærea, and delivers,"—hurled his massive javelin with deadly aim at his tortured servant.
It was the first blow Catiline ever dealt in mercy, and mercifully did it perform its errand.
The broad head was buried in the naked breast of the victim, and with one sob, one shudder, the spirit was released from the tortured clay.