Already the Roman trumpets were heard sounding, and the shouts of the soldiers, as they discerned some friend living, or some leader of the rebels dead or dying, came swelling to their ears, laden with rapture, on the fresh morning air. At this moment, some groans broke out, so terribly acute and bitter, from a heap of gory carcasses hard by Arvina and the old trooper, that after calling several times in vain to enquire who was there, the veteran said, "It were pity, Paullus, that after living out such a meleè as this, and such a night as the last, any poor fellow should die now. Cannot you crawl to him with the flask, and moisten his lips; try, my Paullus." "I will try, Caius, but I am stiffer than I was, and my hurts shoot terribly, but I will try." And with the word, holding the leathern bottle in his teeth, he crawled painfully and wearily toward the spot whence the sounds proceeded; but ere he reached it, creeping over the dead, he came suddenly on what seemed a corpse so hideous, and so truculently savage, so horribly distorted in the death pang, that involuntarily he paused to gaze upon it. It was Catiline, although at first he recognised him not, so frightfully was his face altered, his nether lip literally gnawed half-through, by his own teeth in the death agony, and his other features lacerated by the beak and talons of some half-gorged vulture. But, while he gazed, the heavy lids rose, and the glazed eyes stared upon him in ghastly recognition; Paullus knew him at the same moment, and started back a little, drawing a deep breath through his set teeth, and murmuring, "Ah! Catiline!" The dying traitor’s lips were convulsed by a fearful sardonic grin, and he strove hard to speak, but the words rattled in his throat inarticulate, and a sharp ruckling groan was the only sound that he uttered. But with a mighty effort he writhed himself up from the ground, and drove his sword, which he still clasped in his convulsed fingers, by a last desperate exertion through Paullus’ massive corslet, and deep into his bosom. With a sharp cry the youth fell prone, and after two or three struggles to arise, lay on his face motionless, and senseless. Catiline dropped back with a fiendish grin, and eyes rolling in a strange mixed expression of agony and triumph; while old Pansa, after crying, twice or thrice, "Paullus, ho! noble Paullus!" exclaimed mournfully, "Alas! He is dead! He is dead! And I it is who have slain him." Within half an hour, Petreius and his guards with several mounted officers, and a lady upon a white palfrey, came riding slowly toward the fatal spot, pausing from time to time to examine every pile of carcasses, and after causing his men to dismount and turn over the bodies, in the hope of finding him they sought.