l his. For the rest, let him choose
between enmity and friendship. I care not which it be. I can defend my own
life, and assail none. Beware how you follow us. If you do, by all the
Gods! you die. See, he begins to stir. Come, Thrasea, call off your men;
we will go, ere he come to his senses, lest worse shall befal."

And with the words he turned his back contemptuously on the crest-fallen
gladiators, and strode haughtily across the threshold, leaving the fierce
conspirator, as he was beginning to recover his scattered senses, to the
keen agony of conscious villainy frustrated, and the stings of defeated
pride and disappointed malice.

The night was well advanced, when he reached his own house, having met no
interruption on the way, proud of his well-planned stratagem, elated by
success, and flattered by the hope that he had extricated himself by his
own energy from all the perils which had of late appeared so dark and
difficult to shun.

CHAPTER X.

THE WANTON.

Duri magno sed amore dolores
Pollute, notumque furens quid femina possit.
AEN. V. 6. VIRGIL.

It was not till a late hour on the following day, that Catiline awoke from
the heavy and half lethargic slumber, which had fallen upon him after the
severe and stunning blow he received in the grotto of Egeria.

His head ached fearfully, his tongue clove to his palate parched with
fever, and all his muscular frame was disjointed and unstrung, so
violently had his nerves been shattered.

For some time after he awoke, he lay tossing to and fro, on his painful
couch, scarce conscious of his own identity, and utterly forgetful of the
occurrences of the past evening.

By slow degrees, however, the truth began to dawn upon him, misty at first
and confused, until he brought to his mind fairly the attack on Arvina,
and the affray which ensued; with something of an indistinct consciousness
that he had been stricken down, and frustrated in his murderous attempt.

As soon as the certainty of this was impressed on him, he sprang up from
his bed, with his wonted impetuosity, and inquired vehemently of a
freedman, who sat in his chamber motionless as a statue in expectation of
his waking--

"How came I home, Chaerea? and at what hour of night?"

"Grievously wounded, Catiline; and supported in the arms of the sturdy
Germans, Geta and Arminius; and, for the time, it was past the eighth
hour."

"The eighth hour! i