And, still at every shout, he struck down, and stabbed, and maimed, and trampled, even amid defeat and ruin victorious, unsubdued, a terror to his victors. "Who will slay Sergius Catiline?" And, as Arvina rushed upon the scene, the veteran who had so confidently announced his coming triumph, crossed swords with the traitor, and went down in a moment, stabbed a full span deep in his thigh. "Ho! Romans! Ho! who will slay Sergius Catiline?"— "Paullus Arvina!"—cried the youth, springing forward, and dealing him with the word a downright blow upon the head, which cleft his massive casque asunder. "I will! I, even I, Paullus Arvina!"— But he shouted too soon; and soon rued the imprudence of raising his arm to strike, when at sword’s point with such a soldier. As his own blow fell on the casque of the traitor, _his_ shortened blade, aimed with a deadly thrust tore through the sturdy shield, tore through the strong cuirass, and pierced his side with a ghastly wound. Arvina staggered—he thought he had received his death blow; and had not the blade of Catiline, bent by the violence of his own effort, stuck in the cloven shield, resisting every attempt to withdraw it, the next blow must have found him unprepared, must have destroyed him. But ere the desperado could recover his weapon, Arvina rallied and closed with him, grasping him by the throat, and shouting "Lucia! Vengeance!"— Brave as he was and strong, not for a single moment could Arvina have maintained that death-grapple, had his foe been unwounded. But the arch traitor was bleeding at every pore; gashed in every limb of his body; he had received three mortal wounds already; he was fast failing when Arvina grappled him, and at the name of his injured child, his conscience conquered. His sword at length came away, extricated when too late from the tough bull-hide; but, ere he could nerve his arm to strike again, Arvina’s point had torn his thigh, had gored his breast, had pierced his naked throat, with three wounds, the least of them mortal. But even in that agony he struck home! He could not even curse, but he struck home, and a fierce joyous smile illuminated his wan face, as he saw his slayer stumble forward, and fall beside him on the bloody greensward. In a moment, however, Paullus rallied, recovered his feet, drew from his bosom the long black ringlet of poor Lucia, and bathed it in the life blood of her slayer. "Lucia! Ho! Lucia! Rejoice! my vow, my vow is kept! Thou art avenged, avenged! Ah! Lucia!—Julia!"— And he fell sick and swooning upon the yet living bleeding body of his mortal foeman. CHAPTER XXII. A NIGHT OF HORROR. Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent. CHILDE HAROLD.