the common gaol, till your very
bones are bare?"

"And do you know what difference it makes, whether my hide be slashed with
dog-whips in the gaol, or with broadswords in the amphitheatre? A man can
only die! and it were as well, in my mind, to die having killed a Roman in
his own house, as a countryman on the arena."

"By all the Gods!" cried Catiline, "he is a philosopher! but, look you
here, my German Solon, you were better regard me, and attend to what I
tell you; so may you escape both gaol and amphitheatre. Tell me, briefly,
distinctly, and without delay, what fell out last evening."

"You led us to assault that younker, whom you know; and when we would have
set upon him, and finished his business easily, he blew a hunting horn,
and fifteen or sixteen stout fellows in full armor came down the bank from
behind and shut up the cave's mouth--you know as well as I do."

"So far I do, most certainly," replied the conspirator, "but what then?"

"Why, then, thou wouldest not hear reason; but, though the youth swore he
would not betray thee, must needs lay on, one man against sixteen; and so,
as was like, gottest thine head broken by a blow of a boar-spear from a
great double-handed Thracian. For my part, I wondered he did not put the
spear-head through and through you. It was a great pity that he did not;
it would have saved us all, and you especially, a world of trouble."

"And you, cowardly dogs, forsook me; and held back, when by a bold rush we
might easily have slain him, and cut our way through the dastard slaves."

"No! no! we could not; they were all Thracians, Dacians, and Pannonians;
and were completely armed, too. We might have killed him, very likely, but
we could never have escaped ourselves."

"And he, he? what became of him when I had fallen?"

"He bade us take you up," replied the German, "and carry you home, and
tell you 'to fear nothing, he would betray no man, least of all you.' He
is a fine young fellow, in my judgment; for he might just as well have
killed us all, as not, if he had been so minded; and I can't say but that
it would have served us rightly, for taking odds of four to one upon a
single man. That is, I know, what you Romans call fighting; beyond the
Rhine we style it cowardly and murder! Then, after that he went off with
his men, leaving us scratching our heads, and looking as dastardly and
crest-fallen as could be. And then we brought you home hither, after it
had got late enough