"Shame on thee, filth and carrion that thou art, so to speak of a betrothed bride to her promised husband! If[pg 108] it were true, wretched villain! I would save the hangman his task, and break your traitor's throat with this hand—but thou liest! thou liest!" he shouted, pushing him to the other end of the narrow sleeping chamber. "In poor revenge thou liest! But if you wish to live, beware how you so lie any more!"
"I do not lie indeed, my dear Arvina," replied the other in a bland fawning voice full of mock humility. "But, I prithee, boy, keep thy hands from my throat in future, unless thou wouldst desire to know how a crook-bladed sica some sixteen inches long feels in the region of thy heart. Such an one as this, Arvina," he added, showing a long keen weapon not unlike a Turkish yatagan in shape, which he drew from beneath his pillow. Then casting it aside, with a contemptuous gesture, he continued—"But this is mere child's play. Now mark me. I did not lie, nor do! Aulus Fulvius wrote the letter—Aulus Fulvius' slave carried it, yester-even—Aulus Fulvius beset the road by which they must come—Aulus Fulvius is ere this time on his road many a league conveying her to Catiline—and this," he said, putting a small slip of parchment into the hands of the astonished Paullus, "is Aulus Fulvius' handwriting. Yes! certainly, that is his S in the word Salutem. He affects ever the Greek sigma in his writing. He is a very pretty penman, Aulus Fulvius!"
The strip of parchment bore these words:
"Whom I am you will know by the matter. The camp in Etruria will receive the dove from the Latin villa. All hath succeeded—health!"
"I found it on my desk, when I returned from supper this morning. Aulus's slave brought it hither. He is within, if thou wouldst speak him."
Arvina staggered back like a man who has received a mortal stab, as he read those fatal words; and stared about him with a wild and wandering eye.
It was a moment or two before he could find any speech, and when he did speak at length, it was in tones so altered and broken that his nearest friend would not have recognized his voice.
"Wherefore"—he gasped—"Wherefore have you done this to me."
"For vengeance!" thundered the proud conspirator,[pg 109] casting his crimson-bordered toga over his laticlavian tunic. "For vengeance, boy. Lead on—lead on to your consul."
"In what have I wronged you?" cried Arvina, in a paroxysm of almost unspeakable despair. "In what, that you should take such infernal vengeance?"