"No one!" said Orestilla—"and no one can hinder you of it. No! not the Gods!"
"There are no Gods!" exclaimed the Traitor, "and if there be, it were all one—I defy them!"
"Cicero says there is one, they tell me," said Cethegus, half mocking, half in earnest—"and he is very wise."
"Very!" replied the other, with his accustomed sneer—"Therefore that one may save him—if he can!"
"The thing is settled," cried Aurelia Orestilla, "I told him yesterday he ought to do it, himself—I should not be content, unless Catiline's hand dealt him the death blow, Catiline's eye gloated upon him in the death-struggle, Catiline's tongue jeered him in the death-pang!"
"You love him dearly, Orestilla," said Cethegus.
"And clearly he has earned it," she replied.
"By Venus! I would give half my hopes, to see him kiss you."
"And I, if my lips had the hydra's venom. But come," she added, with a wreathed smile and a beaming eye, "Let us go see the fishes eat yon varlet; else shall we be too late for the sport."
"Rare sport!" said Cethegus, "I have not seen a man eaten, by a tiger even, these six months past; and by a fish, I think, never!"