"Who will slay Sergius Catiline?"
And, as Arvina rushed upon the scene, the veteran who had so confidently announced his coming triumph, crossed swords with the traitor, and went down in a moment, stabbed a full span deep in his thigh.
"Ho! Romans! Ho! who will slay Sergius Catiline?"—
"Paullus Arvina!"—cried the youth, springing forward, and dealing him with the word a downright blow upon the head, which cleft his massive casque asunder.
"I will! I, even I, Paullus Arvina!"—
But he shouted too soon; and soon rued the imprudence of raising his arm to strike, when at sword's point with such a soldier.
As his own blow fell on the casque of the traitor, his shortened blade, aimed with a deadly thrust tore through[pg 233] the sturdy shield, tore through the strong cuirass, and pierced his side with a ghastly wound.
Arvina staggered—he thought he had received his death blow; and had not the blade of Catiline, bent by the violence of his own effort, stuck in the cloven shield, resisting every attempt to withdraw it, the next blow must have found him unprepared, must have destroyed him.
But ere the desperado could recover his weapon, Arvina rallied and closed with him, grasping him by the throat, and shouting "Lucia! Vengeance!"—
Brave as he was and strong, not for a single moment could Arvina have maintained that death-grapple, had his foe been unwounded.