mpossible!" cried the conspirator; "why it was but the
fifth, when that occurred. What said I, my good Chaerea? What said the
Germans? Be they here now? Answer me quick, I pray you."

"There was but one word on your lips, Catiline; a constant cry for water,
water, so long as you were awake; and after we had given you of it, as
much as you would take, and you had fallen into a disturbed and feverish
sleep, you still muttered in your dreams, 'water!' The Germans answered
nothing, though all the household questioned them; and, in good truth,
Catiline, it was not very long that they were capable of answering, for as
soon as you were in bed, they called for wine, and in less than an hour
were thoroughly besotted and asleep. They are here yet, I think, sleeping
away the fumes of their potent flagons."

"Call me Arminius, hither. Hold! What is the time of day?"

"The sun is high already; it must be now near the fourth hour!"

"So late! you did ill, Chaerea, to let me lie so long. Call me Arminius
hither; and send me one of the boys; or rather go yourself, Chaerea, and
pray Cornelius Lentulus the Praetor, to visit me before he take his seat on
the Puteal Libonis. It is his day, I think, to take cognizance of criminal
matters. Begone, and do my bidding!"

Within a moment the Athenian freedman, for he was of that proud though
fallen city, returned conducting the huge German gladiator, whose
bewildered air and bloodshot eyes seemed to betoken that he had not as yet
recovered fully from the effect of his last night's potations.

No finer contrast could be imagined by poet or painter, than was presented
by those three men, each eminently striking in his own style, and
characteristic of his nation. The tall spare military-looking Roman, with
his hawk nose and eagle eye, and close shaved face and short black hair,
his every attitude and look and gesture full of pride and dominion; the
versatile and polished Greek, beautiful both in form and face, as a marble
of Praxiteles, beaming with intellect, and having every feature eloquent
of poetry and imagination, and something of contempt for the sterner and
harder type of mind, to which he and his countryman were subjugated; and
last, the wild strong-limbed yet stolid-looking German, glaring out with
his bright blue eyes, full of a sort of stupid fierceness, from the long
curls of his auburn hair, a type of man in his most primitive state, the
hunter and the warrior of the forest, ensla