ataline, "but come, we must
make up for the loss of time. Some friends of mine are waiting for us, to
whom I wish to introduce you, that you may become altogether one of us,
and take the oaths of fidelity. Give me the dagger now, and let us be
going on our way."

"I have it not with me, Catiline."

"Have it not with you! Wherefore not? wherefore not, I say, boy?" cried
the conspirator, very savagely. "By all the furies in deep hell, you were
better not dally with me."

"Because it is no longer in my possession; and therefore I could not bring
it with me," he replied firmly, for the threats of the other only inflamed
his pride, and so increased his natural courage.

"By the Gods, you brave me, then!" exclaimed Catiline; "fool! fool! beware
how you tamper with your fate. Speak instantly, speak out: to whom have
you dared give it?"

"There was no daring in the matter, Catiline," he answered steadily,
keeping an eye on the arch-traitor's movements; "before I knew that it was
yours, I sent it, as I had promised, to Cicero, with word that Volero
could tell him who was the owner of it."

"Ha, didst thou so?" said the other, mastering instantly his fury, in his
desire to make himself fully acquainted with all that had passed. "When
was all this? has he seen Volero, and learned the secret of him, then?"

"I sent it, Catiline, within an hour of the time I left the Campus
yesterday."

"Before coming to my house to dinner?"

"Before going to thy house to dinner, Sergius."

"Before seducing Lucia Orestilla?" again sneered the desperate villain.

"Before yielding," answered the young man, who was now growing angry, for
his temper was not of the meekest, "to her irresistible seduction."

"Ha! yielding--well! we will speak of that hereafter. Hath the consul seen
Volero?"

"He hath seen him dead; and how dead, Catiline best knoweth."

"It was, then, thou, whom I saw in the feeble lamplight with the accursed
wretch that crosses my path everywhere, the dastard, drivelling dotard of
Arpinum; thou that despite thine oath, didst lead him to detect the man,
thou hadst sworn to obey, and follow! Thou! it is thou, then, that
houndest mine enemies upon my track! By the great Gods, I know not whether
most to marvel at the sublime, unrivalled folly, which could lead thee to
fancy, that thou, a mere boy and tyro, couldst hoodwink eyes like mine; or
at the daring which could prompt thee to rush headlong on thine own ruin
in betrayin