To all her entreaties, and promises of safety from his captors, and reward from her friends, if he would release her, he had replied only with a sneer; saying that he would ensure his own safety at an obolus’ fee, and that, for his reward, he would trust noble Catiline. "For the rest," he added, "imagine not that you shall escape, to rejoice the heart of that slave Arvina. No! minion, no! We will fight ’till our flesh be hacked from our bones, ere they shall make their way in hither; and if they do so, they shall find thee—dead and dishonored! Pray, therefore, if thou be wise, for our success." Such might in part indeed have been his reasoning; for he was cruel and licentious, as well as reckless and audacious; but it is probable that, knowing himself to be in the vicinity of Catiline’s army, he calculated on finding some method of conveying to him information of the prize that lay within his grasp, and so of securing both rescue and reward. If he had not, however, in the first instance thought of this, it was not long ere it occurred to him; when he at once proceeded to put it into execution. Within half an hour of the entrance of the little party into this semi-ruinous strong-hold, the legionary foot came up, about a hundred and fifty men in number, but without scaling ladders, artillery, or engines. Elated by their success, however, they immediately formed what was called the _tortoise_, by raising their shields and overlapping the edges of them above their heads, in such a manner as to make a complete penthouse, which might defend them from the missiles of the besieged; and, under cover of this, they rushed forward dauntlessly, to cut down the palisade with their hooks and axes. In this they would have probably succeeded, for the arrows and ordinary missiles of the defenders rebounded and rolled down innocuous from the tough brass-bound bull-hides; and the rebels were already well nigh in despair, when Caius Crispus, who had been playing his part gallantly at the barricade, and had stabbed two or three of the legionaries with his pilum, in hand to hand encounter, through the apertures of the grating, rushed up to the battlements, covered with blood and dust, and shouting— "Ho! by Hercules! this will never do, friends. Give me yon crow-bar—So! take levers, all of you, and axes! We must roll down the coping on their heads,"—applied his own skill and vast personal strength to the task. In an instant the levers were fixed, and grasping his crow-bar with gigantic energy, he set up his favorite chaunt, as cheerily as he had done of old in his smithy on the Sacred Way— "Ply, ply, my boys, now ply the lever! Heave at it, heave at it, all! Together! Great Mars, the war God, watches ye laboring Joyously. Joyous watches"—