He gave one glance at me and went.



CHAPTER IX

THE SQUALL OF THE LEOPARD

When he was gone, when I had seen the postern door shut behind him, I felt suddenly weak and faint. I was amazed to find how exhausted I was left by the ebbing of the hot wave of indignation and rage which had surged through me as I revolted from his absurd and contemptible proposals. I felt flaccid and limp.

At this instant Agathemer brought me a tray of food. My impulse was to burst out at him with reproaches for having, without consulting me, presumed to arrange for me an interview with a man not among my intimates. But I was so enraged that I dreaded the effect on me, in my weakened state, if I let myself go in respect to rebuking my slave. I kept silent and was mildly surprised to find myself tempted by the food. I ate and drank all that was on the tray, and Agathemer vanished noiselessly, without a word.

I sat there, revived by the food and wine, feeling the weakness caused by my rage gradually passing off and meditating on the sudden change in my condition. Before Capito accosted me I had felt perfectly well and was looking forward to resuming my normal life next day, to going to the Palace Levee, to enjoying a bath with my acquaintances at the Thermae of Titus. Since Capito had left me I had felt so overcome that I was ready to look forward to some days yet of strict regimen and isolation.

Thus meditating I was again aware of footsteps on the walk.

I looked up and was more amazed than when I had caught sight of Capito. Approaching me, but a few paces from me, was one of the most detestable bores in Rome, a man whom I sedulously avoided, Faltonius Bambilio. His father, the Pontifex of Vesta, was an offensively and absurdly unctuous and pompous man. His son, who had already held several minor offices in the City Government, had been one of the quaestors the year before, and so was now a senator. But he was, as he always had been, as he remained, a booby. I do not believe that there was any man in Rome I detested so heartily.

He greeted me as if he had a right to my notice and said:

"I was told that Egnatius Capito was in this garden."

"He was," I replied curtly, "but he has left it."

"I certainly am disappointed," he said, seating himself by me, uninvited. "I particularly wanted to speak to Capito at once."

"You might find him at his house," I suggested.

But Bambilio was impervious to suggestions.

"I wanted to talk to him and you together," he said, "but that can be managed some other time."

I was about to reply tartly, but I remembered how my irritation with Capito had affected me and recalled Galen's injunction that I must avoid all causes of excitement and emotion. I held my peace.

Bambilio, as if he had been an intimate and had been specially invited, lolled comfortably on the bench and gazed approvingly about.

"Fine garden, Andivius," he said. "Fine trees, fine flowers and I say, what a jewel of a slave-girl, eh! Hedulio!"

I could have hit him, I was so incensed at his familiarity, I was already choking with internal rage at Agathemer for having let anyone in to talk to me in that garden, still more at his having done so without consulting me and most of all that after doing so he had not made sure that no one but Capito could pass the postern door. But I almost exploded into voluble wrath when I looked where he indicated, saw a pretty, shapely young woman in the scanty attire of a slave-girl picking flag-flowers into a basket she carried, and recognized Vedia. That Agathemer's presumption should have spoiled the interview with Vedia which she and Nemestronia had manifestly arranged for us, that it should have exposed Vedia in her undignified disguise to recognition by the greatest ass and blatherskite in the senate, this infuriated me till I felt internally like Aetna or Vesuvius on the verge of eruption.

Vedia, for it was she, had evidently been approaching me circuitously, hoping to be noticed and hailed from afar. Now when she was near enough for not merely a lover but for any acquaintance to recognize her, she looked up at me over her basket as she laid a flower-stalk in it.

Instantly her face flamed, she turned away and went on picking flowers diligently. After she had moved a few steps she sprang into the path and scampered off like a child, her basket swinging, vanishing through a door in the upper wall on my left.

"Neat little piece!" Bambilio commented. "Taking, and every part of her pretty. Fine calves, especially."

I was by this time in a condition which, had I been old and fat, must have brought on an apoplexy. But my hot rage cooled to an icy haughtiness, and, though it took a weary, tedious long time, I kept my temper and my demeanor, look, tone and word, managed to convey to him, even through the thick armor of his self-conceit, that he was not welcome. He rose, said farewell and waddled off to the postern. As soon as he was outside, more rapidly than I had moved since I was felled in the roadside affray, I walked to that door and made sure that it was bolted.

I was strolling unhurriedly back to the seat I had left and was perhaps half way to it, when I heard, loud and clear, the long-drawn, blood- curdling hunting-squall of Nemestronia's pet leopard; heard in it more of menace, more of adult ferocity, more of the horrible joy of the power to kill than I had ever heard before.

Instantly I comprehended what had happened. Either Agathemer when he took off my tray or Vedia when she escaped had passed through the wild-garden (probably it had been Vedia, who would not know that the leopard was confined there), and had left a door imperfectly closed. The leopard, which might have been asleep, under the shrubberies and invisible, had roused and had passed through the unfastened door up into the terrace- garden. This was the kind of morning on which Nemestronia would have many visitors, the kind of weather which would tempt them to have their chairs out on the upper terrace, the hour of the morning at which they would be most likely to be out there. The leopard, I instantly inferred, was stalking, not some hare, porker, kid or lamb, but her owner and her owner's guests.

I disembarrassed myself of my outer garments, threw off my sun-hat, and, clad only in my shoes and tunic, sprinted for the door into the wild- garden, through it, through its upper door, which, as I had forecasted, I found open, and out on the lower terrace. From there I could not see anything on the upper terrace, but, as I cleared the door, I heard again, rising, quavering, sinking, rising, the leopard's hunting cry from the upper terrace. I sprang up the stair to the middle terrace, and half way up that to the upper; but, when my head was about on a level with the pavement of the walk along the upper terrace, I checked myself and moved a hairs-breadth at a time; for the rescue on which I had come was a delicate task and any quick movement might precipitate the leopard's killing- spring.

Through the spaces between the yellow Numidian marble balusters I saw what I had anticipated. Partly under the big middle awning, but mostly out in front of it on the walk, were set a score of light chairs. On those furthest out were seated nine ladies: Nemestronia, Vedia, Urgulania, Entedia, Aemilia Prisca, Magnonia, Claudia Ardeana, Semnia, Papiria and Cossonia. They were rigid in their chairs, white with terror and yet afraid to move a muscle. Belly flat on the walk, about twelve paces from them, crouched the leopard, moving forward a paw at a time. As I gained a view of her she emitted a third squall.

I saw that I was in time and felt so relieved that I almost fainted in the revulsion from my agony of anxiety. As I began to move my mind was free enough to wonder how Vedia had found time to change from her slave-girl disguise into a bewitching fashionable toilet. Among those leaders of Roman society, the very pick of Rome's noblewomen, she showed her best and outshone them all.

I moved evenly and steadily up the steps and along the balustrade till I was past the crouching leopard and then on round till I was in her line of sight and half between her and her victims.

She recognized me at once, the evil switching of her tail ceased, she half rose; she began to purr, a purr that sounded to me as loud as the roar of a water-fall in a gorge; she took a few steps towards me, then, suddenly, she made a peculiar movement hard to describe, something like the curvetting of a mettlesome colt, but characteristic of a leopard and therefore like the movement of no other animal save a leopard or lion or tiger; she leapt daintily clear of the pavement and struck sideways with her forepaws. The antic perfectly expressed playful delight and friendliness.

I recognized her mood and knew that I had not only distracted her from her bloodthirst but had her entire attention. I knew what I must do, but I raged at the ridiculous exhibition which I must make of myself before the most fastidious and conventional of Rome's noblewomen. Yet, if I was to save them, I must not hesitate. I threw myself flat on my side on the pavement and made clawing motions with my hands and feet, the leopard responded to my suggestion, capered again as before and, when close to me, lay down before me on the pavement and began to paw at me, purring loudly in her throat, now and then snarling softly. She played with me as she had often played before, all her claws sheathed and her paws soft as thistledown; mumbling my hands and forearms in her hot mouth, slavering over them, yet never so much as bruising the skin with her needle-sharp teeth. Yet I seemed to detect a subtle difference in her mood and, from moment to moment, dreaded that she might claw me to ribbons or sink her fangs in my shoulders or face.

All the while she was mouthing, pawing and kicking me I was raging at Agathemer for having put me in a position where I had to make so undignified an exhibition of myself before such an assemblage.

Presently I recognized that alteration in her mood which made it possible for me to rise, take her by the scruff of the neck, and lead her off to her cage.

When I had her inside I realized how hot, sweaty, dusty tousled, rumpled and mussed I was. Her cage was under the vaulted arcade beneath the second terrace. I was, when I shot its bolts, altogether out of sight of Vedia, Nemestronia and the other noble ladies who had been spectators of my tussle with the leopard. I did not want them to see me again in my dishevelled and dirty condition: I sneaked into the house by the passage from the arcade into the cellars and up the scullery stairs, made the first slave I saw escort me to the guest-room I usually occupied when at Nemestronia's and bade him summon bath-attendants and dressers. Nemestronia had a store-room lined with wardrobes of men's attire containing every sort of garment of every style and size. I was soon clean and clad as a gentleman should be in a fresh tunic and in the garment I had left in the water-garden, which a footman had fetched for me.

Then I went out on the upper terrace.

There I found the nine ladies, with some maids and waiters. Before the ladies, facing Nemestronia, stood Agathemer; behind and about him Nemestronia's six big, husky, bull-necked slave-lashers, the two head- lashers with their many-lashed scourges.

I realized at once what had happened. Nemestronia had needed no one to inform her that it was through Agathemer's negligence or mismanagement that the leopard had escaped from the wild-garden. She had not waited to ask me to investigate the matter and punish my slave. She had, like the great noblewoman she was, assumed my acquiescence and approval and summoned and questioned Agathemer. Before I appeared his answers had convicted him. She did not look round at me as I joined the group and seated myself in a vacant chair on her left, between Vedia and Claudia Ardeana. As I seated myself she gave the order:

"Strip him and give him a hundred lashes!"

Now, then and there I found myself in the most cruel and painful situation I had ever been in my life. Agathemer and I had been playmates almost from our cradles; comrades, cronies, chums all our lives. Neither of us had ever had a brother. Each had been, since infancy, a brother to the other. I could not have loved a real brother any more than I loved Agathemer, nor could he have had more implicit confidence in the goodwill of a blood brother. I was, in fact, as solicitous for Agathemer's welfare as for my own, and I rejoiced with his joys and mourned with his griefs. I would have done anything to protect him and save him, as he had faithfully and tirelessly nursed and cared for me in my illness.

But I knew that no explanations could ever make Nemestronia understand our mutual relations or accept my views of them; to her a slave was a slave; she felt as unalterable a gulf between free man and slave as between mankind and cattle. I could only let her have her way, though I was inundated with misery at the thought of Agathemer's approaching agonies. I had been hotly wrathful with him and had meditated, as I dressed, what sort of punishment would befit his fault: now that Nemestronia had ordered him flogged my resentment against him had all oozed out of me and I was filled with sympathy for him and scorn of my cowardice in not protecting him. I glanced at him as the lashers stripped and bound him. He sent back at me a glance which said, as plain as words:

"I am to blame. I know you are sorry for me. But give no sign, I must go through this alone."

And I had to sit there while the head-lasher flogged him till the pavement on which he lay was all a pool of gore, till his back was in tatters from neck to hips, till he was carried off, insensible, perhaps dead.

Also I had to express my approbation of Nemestronia's orders, and had to sit there and chat with the ladies, seven of whom were inclined to be facetious over the figure I had cut sprawling on the mosaic walk, tussling with that abominable leopard. They thanked me for saving their lives, or at least, the life of some one of them. But they were sly about my comical appearance while the leopard mauled and tousled me.

Two did not speak.

Vedia was cold and mute and spoke only when she rose, excusing herself to Nemestronia and calling for her litter first of them all.

Nemestronia was so weak from the reaction after her fright and so unwilling to display her weakness that she hardly spoke, limiting herself to the brief words courtesy demanded.

When I reached home I forgot everything else in my solicitude for Agathemer. I not only called for my own physician, but sent urgent messages summoning Galen and Celsianus. Celsianus was affronted at the suggestion that he stoop to prescribe for a slave and incensed at having been called in haste for such a trifle: but Galen, who came in while Celsianus was expressing his indignation, diverted his mind at once by rejoicing that I was sufficiently recovered to take that much interest in one of my slaves. He made haste to see, inspect and assist Agathemer: when he was somewhat relieved and we had left him abed with Occo to watch him and with injunctions that quiet was the best medicine for him, Galen turned to me.

"You have had a shock," he said, "and a superabundance of excitement. Tell me all about it."

When I had told him what had happened, omitting only Vedia's disguise and her presence in the water-garden, he said:

"I certainly should not have prescribed any such excitements and efforts as medicaments for a case like yours. But it sometimes happens that being startled accomplishes more towards a cure than long rest can. Your perturbation of mind and activity of body has cured you. You are, as far as I can judge, well. I am of the opinion that you may safely eat and drink what you like in moderation, rest only as you please and may resume your normal life."

I was, naturally, much pleased, but had no impulse to resume my habits that day. I kept indoors, denied myself to all visitors, slept long after Galen had left, ate a moderate dinner and went early to bed.

Next day I went through the normal routine of a Roman of my rank. The story of the leopard had been noised about and the husbands of the ladies concerned every one came to salute me at my morning reception and to thank me for my miraculous intervention, as they called it. As six of the eight were senators my atrium had an aspect seldom seen at the reception of a man of equestrian rank.

At the Palace I found the tale of the leopard had reached the ears of the Emperor. He congratulated me, saying:

"You are not only a good fighter, Hedulio, but also incredibly bold and marvellously favored by the gods."

Tanno was at the Palace to say farewell for the summer, as he was off for Baiae to enjoy the scenery and sea-breezes.

"I envy you," said Commodus. "I must remain, here many days yet to get rid of the most pressing matters on my crowded files of official papers."

After the Palace levee was over I went to Vedia's mansion and tried to see her, but was rebuffed, the porter declaring that, by her physician's orders, she was denying herself to all visitors.

At home I found Agathemer still suffering terribly, but without fever, with no sign of proud flesh anywhere on his flayed back and not only entirely able to talk to me but eager to do so. We had a long talk on the entire subject of our peculiar relations as a master and slave who were more like brothers. He assured me that I had done just right to act as I had and he begged my pardon for his blunders in arranging to have Capito admitted to talk to me, in arranging it without my permission or even knowledge, in neglecting to guard the outer door of the garden and so admitting Bambilio, and in causing the escape of the leopard. I heartily forgave him, told him to forget all that, that I forgot it all and, on my side, begged his forgiveness for his agonies. He said there was nothing to forgive: that my uncle's injunctions had compelled my leaving him a slave and the rest had been his fault, not mine.

I told him that I would do anything in my power to make him well, comfortable and happy, except setting him free, from which I was restrained by my uncle's behests.

He asked to be allowed to return to Villa Andivia as soon as the physicians pronounced him fit to travel.

I agreed: commanded that my travelling carriage, which Marcus Martius had returned to me, should be put in order and prepared for the journey; and consulted Galen, who came of his own accord to see Agathemer two days in succession. On his third visit he gave Agathemer permission to travel by carriage the next day and he accordingly set off for Villa Andivia on the Ides of August.

Each day I had spent most of my afternoon at the Baths of Titus. Each afternoon I had seen Vedia at a distance, but she had always taken pains to avoid me, and one cannot pursue or seem to pursue, a lady in the Thermae.

Each day, also, I had called to see her at her house; each day I had been rebuffed. On the morning of the nineteenth day before the Kalends of September one of the runners brought me a letter. It read:

"Vedia gives greetings to Andivius. If you are well I am well also."

But this formal opening altered at once to familiar writing.

"You are acting like a silly boy. As things are, both in my cousins' clan and in that of my late husband, I cannot receive you at my house, and you ought to have sense enough to realize that without being told. Be patient and I shall arrange for an interview with you. Please avoid me at the Baths, as I have you.

"Farewell."

This letter greatly encouraged me and I felt so elated that I really enjoyed life for the next few days, which were filled up with a reception of my own each morning, a round of receptions to salute magnates, my salutation to the Emperor, a lunch always with some friends, a long nap at home, a lingering afternoon at the Baths of Titus, and a jolly dinner at some friend's house, for I was invited out twice each day.

On the seventh day before the Kalends of September, as I was on my way to the Palace levee, a runner inconspicuously clad ranged himself alongside my litter and handed me a letter.

It read:

"She whose handwriting he will recognize gives greeting to Hedulio. Take care! Do not let anyone see this letter; take care to seem negligent and uninterested as you read it.

"A conspiracy against the life of Caesar has been detected and reported. Its leader is said to be Egnatius Capito. As some informer, sponsored by Talponius Pulto, claims to have seen you in Capito's company, you are implicated. Save yourself. Do not return home. Do not go to the Palace, order yourself carried immediately to the Querquetulan Gate. On the way there purchase a raincloak and an umbrella hat and whatever else may be needful for your journey. Outside the Porta Querquetulana, in front of Plosurnia's tavern, you will find one of the fastest horses in Italy, a blood-bay, noticeable for light-blue reins with silver bosses, his saddlecloth light-blue with a silver edge. Descend from your litter in front of the tavern, accost the man holding the horse, say to him:

"'Is this the leopard-tamer's horse?'

"He will reply:

"'It is.'

"Then say:

"'I am the leopard-tamer.'

"He will then allow one of your spare bearers to take the horse.

"Divest yourself of your toga then, not sooner. Equip yourself for your journey. Mount and order your bearers to take your empty litter home. Follow the Praenestine Highroad till it meets the Via Labicana. Then take the first crossroad to the Highroad to Tibur. From Tibur press on to Carseoli. Prom there return to Villa Andivia as you judge best. Provide for yourself thereafter as best you may.

"Farewell."

I recognized Vedia's handwriting. I trusted her implicitly. I was far more elated at her concern for me than I was depressed at my impending ruin. Somehow the fact that she had taken the trouble not only to warn me, but to think out for me all the details of a plan of at least temporary escape, the inference that she hoped, hoped against hope, that I might be somehow saved, heartened me amazingly; so that I was rather inspirited at the prospect of adventure than daunted by the shadow of inescapable doom. I gathered myself together, determined to take as much advantage as possible of Vedia's warning, and of the respite it afforded me. I resolved to follow her suggestions. I had set out for the Palace unusually early. I had plenty of time. I ordered my bearers to carry me through the heart of the City down the whole length of the Vicus Tuscus to the meat market.

I should, I suppose, have been in an agony of vain regrets; I rather expected from moment to moment to be drowned in an inundation of such sensations, I was more than a little surprised at my actual feelings. Here I was, hitherto a wealthy Roman nobleman in excellent standing with my fellows, my superiors and the Prince; from now on a hunted fugitive and not likely to postpone my last hour more than a few days. I was, presumably, viewing the throbbing heart of glorious Rome for the last time. I should have felt chief mourner at my own funeral. Actually I relished, I hugely enjoyed, every pace of my progress through the filling streets, where the passers-by and idlers were still fresh, and lively after a night's sleep and where everything was irradiated by cheerful morning sunlight. I felt cheerful as the sunlight.

Beyond the Meat Market I had my bearers stop at the Temple of Fortune, which I entered, there I prayed fervently before the statue of the Goddess.

When I was again out in the market I bought two live white hens, young and plump, and assigned one of my relief-bearers to carry carefully the basket in which the old market-woman ensconced them, after I had paid her well for her basket as well as her hens.

Then I had my men carry me down the straight empty street along the southwest flank of the Circus Maximus. Half way along it I halted them before the Temple of Mercury. This I entered and, bidding one of the attendants lead me to the priest in charge at that hour, I requested him to offer for me the two white hens and beseech for me the favor of the God.

Outside I reentered my litter and made my bearers trot all the way round by the big and little Coelian Hills to the Querquetulan Gate. We passed on this route many cheap shops. From one I bought a pair of horseman's high boots, soft and supple and mud-proof. All the way I enjoyed hugely my outing and the sights and sounds around me. From another shop one of my reliefs brought me an umbrella hat which fitted me and a voluminous horseman's raincloak which could not but protect anybody; at another I had bought for me a wallet; at another flint and steel in a good horn case, compact and neat.

Outside the Querquetulan Gate, which my bearers reached blown and sweating, although the reliefs had changed at short intervals, we had no difficulty in locating Plosurnia's tavern. The holder of the bay horse with the blue and silver trappings recognized my pass-words and surrendered his charge to one of my extra bearers. At the tavern another lined my wallet with bread, sausages, olives, dried figs and cheese, while I was changing into horseman's kit.

I put into the wallet my money, more than enough cash for my journey home, and Vedia's letter. I then mounted, gave my boys their orders and set off at an easy canter. I knew I must show no signs of haste until I was on the Highroad, so I took my time about working round to it. Once on the Via Tiburtina, where horsemen at a tearing gallop, going in either direction, were too common a sight to cause any remarks, I let out my mettlesome mount and covered the remainder of the twenty-four miles to Tibur not long before noon.

Between the bridge over the Anio and Tibur are a number of hilltops, from each of which one has a fine view of Rome, if the weather is clear and bright. The weather was very bright and clear and the views very fine. At each hilltop I checked my mount, wheeled him and remained so for sometime, contemplating the magnificence I might never see again, the glory upon which my gaze, most likely, would never again feast. I should have felt my eyes fill with tears at each of these prospects, the viewing of which was, each time, in the nature of a last farewell. Yet, somehow, most irrationally, I felt anything but dejected, rather hopeful and full of conjectures about my future, instead of being filled with forebodings of doom, with sorrow for my hard fate.



BOOK II

DISAPPEARANCE



CHAPTER X

ESCAPE

At Tibur I put up at a clean little inn I had known of since boyhood, but which I had never before entered or even seen, so that I felt safe there and reasonably sure to pass as a traveller of no rank whatever. My knowledge of country ways, too, enabled me to behave like a landed proprietor of small means.

After a hearty lunch I pushed boldly on up the Valerian Highway and covered the twenty-two miles between Tibur and Carseoli without visibly tiring my mount. He was no more winded nor lathered than any traveller's horse should be at the end of a day on the road. At Carseoli I again knew of a clean, quiet inn, and there I dined and slept.

Thence I intended to follow the rough country roads along the Tolenus. Stream-side roads are always bad, so I allowed two days more in which to reach home, and I could hardly have done it quicker. The night after I left Carseoli I camped by a tributary of the Tolenus in a very pretty little grove. From Carseoli on the weather was fine.

About the third hour of the day, on the fifth day before the Kalends of September, of a fair, bright morning, I came to my own estate. On the road nearing it I had met no one. I met no one along the woodland tracks leading into my property from that side: on my estate I met no one save just as I was about to enter my villa. Then I encountered Ofatulenus, bailiff of the Villa Farm. He, of course, was amazed to see me. I bade him mention to no one, not even to his wife, that I had returned home.

"Be secret!" I enjoined.

He nodded.

I believed he would be dumb. Give me a Sabine to keep a secret; I'd back any Sabine against any other sort of human being.

Ofatulenus took my horse and swore that no one outside of the stable should know it was there or suspect it. I told him to lock the trappings in the third locker in my harness-room, which locker I knew should be empty.

I got from the stable to my villa without encountering any human being. Outside I found Agathemer, as I had hoped I would, sunning himself on the terrace.

He was even more amazed than Ofatulenus and began to exclaim. I silenced him and questioned him as to his health. He told me that his back was entirely healed and that, while any effort still caused him not a little pain, he was capable of the customary activities of his normal life.

I then told him why I had returned home. He listened in silence, except that he here and there put in a query when I omitted some detail in my excitement.

When he understood my situation thoroughly he asked:

"And what do you propose to do?"

"I propose," I said, "to live here unobtrusively, visiting no one, receiving no one and, by all the means in our power, arranging that as few persons as possible may know of my presence here. There is not the faintest scintilla of hope in my doing anything whatever. But if I merely exist without calling attention to my existence there may be some hope for me. No man accused as I am is ever allowed an opportunity to clear himself: but it has often happened that, by keeping away from Rome for a time, a man in my situation has given his friends a chance to use their influence in his behalf, to gain the ear of someone powerful at Court, to get an unbiassed hearing for what they had to say, to prove his complete innocence and rehabilitate him. Vedia and Tanno will do all they can for me. I have hosts of friends, not a few of whom will aid Vedia and Tanno as far as they are able. By keeping quiet here I shall give my friends a chance to save me, if I can be saved. If not, I shall here await such orders as may be sent me, or my arrest, if I am to be seized."

"Is that your whole plan?" Agathemer queried.

"All," I said.

"May I speak?" he asked. "May I speak out my full mind?"

"Certainly!" I agreed. "Speak!"

"If you stay here as you propose," he said, "you will be arrested not later than tomorrow and haled to your death, if not butchered at sight. At most the centurion in charge might allow you an hour in which to commit suicide. But if you remain here inactive your death is certain, you will never see two sunrises.

"But I agree with you that your friends will do what they can and I heartily believe that Opsitius and Vedia will move sky, earth and sea and Hades beneath all, as far as their powers go, to save you. If they have any chance of succeeding they will need more time than Perennis will give them. If you stay here you will be dead before they can so much as lay plans to gain them the ear of Saoteros and Anteros or some other Palace favorite, let along groping through all the complicated intrigues necessary to arrange for an audience with the Emperor when he might be in a compliant humor.

"Your plan means certain death for you. I think I can save you if you will put yourself in my hands. Will you?"

"I most certainly will," I said, "and without reservation. If you think you can save me, tell me what you want me to do and I shall do it. I shall follow your suggestions implicitly."

"Well," said Agathemer, "since remaining here means certain death and since there seems a chance of final salvation for you through the efforts of your friends and especially those of Opsitius and Vedia, since they will need plenty of time to save you, if you can be saved, from every point of view the right course of action is not merely inaction, not merely hiding, but an immediate and complete disappearance. If you are found you will be ordered to kill yourself or will be put to death. If you cannot be found you cannot be killed or made to kill yourself. Since you cannot be found you will stay alive until you can be rehabilitated with the Emperor. If that cannot be done or is not done, at least you will be alive. My deduction is, disappear at once and completely. You have many times, for a lark, disguised yourself as an ordinary country proprietor or small farmer and mingled with the crowd at a fair without being recognized. What you have done for an evening in jest now attempt in earnest and for as long a period as is necessary. And to begin with, vanish from here at once and completely."

"But how?" I queried.

"If you are to disappear," said Agathemer, "why should I waste time in explaining how. Let us disappear together, leaving no trace and let us do it at once."

"But," I cried, "I could never consent to anything like that! You are not in any danger. You will be manumitted by my will and you can live safely, comfortably and at ease. Why should I drag you into I know not what miseries, hardships and privations along with me? Tell me what to do and I will proceed to do it. But do you stay here."

"If I told you my plan," said Agathemer, "you could not carry it out alone. My scheme for your escape and vanishment pivots on my disappearing along with you. If you agree, as I beg that you will, we shall both be safe, I hope and trust; alive, able to return here if it can be arranged, able to live elsewhere, somehow, if it cannot be arranged. If you refuse your assent, I shall die with you or soon after you; I am resolute not to survive you."

"I agree," I said. "I am under your orders henceforth, not you under mine."

Agathemer at once guided me into the house and upstairs to his rooms, for he inhabited the guest-suite next my rooms, which had been my uncle's.

"The first thing to do," he said, "is for both of us to eat heartily, for we do not know when we shall eat again. I have been choicy and whimmy about my eating since I came back here and mostly my meals have revolted me and I have left the triclinium practically unfed, whereas I have often been seized with imperative hunger between meals. I have an overabundant supply of all sorts of tempting cold viands up here."

And, in fact, in the room he used as a reading and writing room, on a side table, I found an inviting array of cold meats, jellies, cakes, and fancy breads, with an assortment of wines. We ate till we could eat no more, masticating our food carefully and taking wine in moderation.

Then Agathemer put up a liberal supply of bread and relishes in a small linen bag, obliterated all traces of our meal and presence and went into his dressing-room, where he stripped stark naked and rubbed himself down with a rough towel, carefully disposing of his garments in his wardrobes.

From one of his tables he took a small silver case containing flint, steel and tinder. Then we went into my rooms, where he stripped me, rubbed me down, and disposed of my garments as he had of his. My wallet he took pains to hide in the bottom of a chest, after emptying it and putting the contents about so that each article was hidden in a different place and none could be connected with the others or with the wallet. The little horn case with flint and steel he retained.

The ante-room to what had been my uncle's bed-room and was now mine, had on its walls trophies of hunting-spears and other weapons of the chase. Agathemer selected two knives for killing wounded stags, dependable implements, blade and shank one piece of fine steel, the handles of stag- horn, fastened on with copper rivets.

With the bag of food, the two knives and the two tinder boxes we went up my uncle's private stair to his library and reading room.

My uncle had had his own ideas as to nearly everything, usually much at variance with other people's ideas. As to building his ideas, perhaps, were less aberrant than his opinions on other subjects, but, certainly he was as tenacious of them as of his other notions.

He held, in the first place, that sleeping-rooms on the ground-floor of any house were unhealthy and a relic of primitive barbarism. He was equally positive that, in the country, where there was ample room for a building to spread out, it was folly to construct a dwelling of three or more stories: such villas he railed at as exhibitions of silly extravagance and of a desire to appear different from one's neighbors. His villa, therefore, was of two stories only.

But, on the other hand, he loved fresh air, light, and wide prospects from his windows; also he spent most of his daylight reading or writing, or both. To gratify to the full all his chief tastes at once he included in the plans of his villa a sort of tower, at the northwest corner, rising well above the remainder of the structure, so that the floors of its third story were on a level higher than that of the ridge-poles of the roofs of the other parts of the villa and from the wide windows of its rooms there was an unobstructed view over the tiles of the villa upon the farm- buildings and beyond them across the fields to the woodlands and the forested eastern and southern horizon as well as a fine outlook down the valley northward and across it westward.

In this third story of this tower he housed his library and there he spent most of his time. It was reached by three stairs. One was connected with the villa in general and was used by him when going down to meals in his triclinium, or when escorting visitors up to his library, as he sometimes did with his particular favorites; and this stair was also used by such servants as he might summon to him while in his library or as might have to go up there to attend to it in his absence. The second stair connected with his living-rooms on the second floor, which rooms looked northwestward, as he detested being waked early by the rays of the rising sun and loved basking in the mellow radiance of afternoon sunlight. The third stair is not easy to describe and was one of my uncle's oddest eccentricities. It was inside a sort of minor tower built against the tower in which his library was set aloft, which minor tower extended far up towards the sky, like a great chimney. What was the primary purpose of this minor tower I shall explain later. In it, however, was a narrow, cramped, spiral stair, unlit by any window or loop-hole, unconnected with the second or first floor of the villa, opening at the top into the library and at the bottom into a cellar, a cellar so far down the hillside that its vault was below the level of the floors of the cellars under the villa in general. This stair my uncle had had constructed to enable him to apply his idea that a master could ensure the diligence of his tenants and slaves only if he was known to be in the habit of coming upon them unexpectedly at any hour of the day, only if they never knew when he might appear and so were spurred to continual diligence for fear he might catch them idling. For my uncle, though he habitually spent his entire daylight in his library, might at any hour slip down this stair, slip out onto the northwestern slope from the villa through a door locked to all but him and of which he kept the key, or might slip out southeastward or southwestward or northeastward, through similar doors on the ground floor, reached by passages built between the many cellars of the upper level of cellars under the ground floor of the villa. By this plan and by popping out sometimes many times a day, sometimes after an interval of many days, he kept his underlings alert.

My uncle's tastes in respect to books were as peculiar as in all other respects. He had a really magnificent library, including all the Greek poets, all our own, and other noble works of literature, such as the historians in both the Greek and Latin tongues; the orators, and the writers on painting, sculpture, architecture and music.

But he paid more attention to his personal fads. He had a creditable collection of all works on divination, a similarly inclusive assemblage of works on the theory of government, and an almost complete array of the writings of the Emperors, from the Divine Julius to the Divine Aurelius, whose meditations he extolled.

But he extolled above all other Princes and authors the Divine Julius.

"Caius Julius Caesar," he was never tired of saying, "was, in all respects, the greatest man who ever lived on earth. He was also the greatest author earth has ever produced. His poems, his mimes, his comedies, his dramas, compare favorably with the best of their kind. His accounts of his wars, whether against the Gauls or against his domestic adversaries, are models of narration, of lucidity, of terseness and of style. His astronomy is the best manual of that subject in Latin. His works on Engineering surpass anything of their kind in clearness and preserve for the benefit of future generations more useful and original ideas than ever before came from the brain of any one man. His works on divination, particularly that on Auspices, excel everything previously written on that most important of all human arts.

"But his two books against Cato are his masterpiece. It is wonderful that any man could have, in the space of eight days, written, with his own hand, so fiery an invective, so compelling of the attention of any reader, so completely annihilative of his antagonist's pretensions and contentions, so convincingly establishing his own: to have made of it, in the course of composition so rapid and totally unrevised, such a jewel of Latinity, in a style not only pure and impeccable, but glowing and charming, is astonishing. But it is downright miraculous that he should have embodied in it the whole theory of government with all its principles marshalled in their array with the most perfect subordination of considerations of lesser importance to main principles. The two Anticatones contain all that a ruler or any minister of a ruler need know to guide him aright in his tasks. The First Book displays a complete theory of internal policy, the Second of external policy. The two together form a whole which is the most brilliant product of Rome's literary and political genius."

In accordance with his high esteem for Caesar's masterpiece he had possessed himself of a beautiful copy of it, written by the celebrated calligrapher Praxitelides, upon papyrus of the finest quality. It was in seven rolls, each book of Caesar's text occupying two rolls, the index a fifth, and the commentaries of grammarians two more. The rollers inside the rolls were of Nubian ivory, their ends carved into pine cones, each of the fourteen representing the cone of a different variety of pine. Each roll was enclosed in a copper cylinder made accurately to be both watertight and airtight. The seven cylinders were housed in an ebony case, inlaid with mother of pearl. I have never seen any literary work more beautifully enshrined.

When Agathemer and I were in the library he shut and locked the door at the top of my uncle's private stair, as he had the door at the bottom of it. The two keys he hid far apart, where neither was at all likely to be found easily or soon. He had laid the knives, tinder-boxes and bag of food on a table. He went to the case containing my uncle's most highly prized treasures. From it he took the ebony box, opened it and took out two of the cylinders. From these he removed the rolls embodying the grammarians' comments. These rolls he put back in the box, shut it, returned it to the case and closed the case.

The two cylinders he had laid on the table by the things which he had brought up stairs. Inside each cylinder he placed a knife, a tinder-box, and a selection of the food. The bag, with what remained of the food, he tied up again. He handed me one cylinder.

"Now," he said, "we are prepared to escape. My idea is to leave no trace of how we leave this villa, to have no one see us leave, to have nothing with us which could identify us after we have left. We are to go down the secret stair, crawl out through the big lower drain pipe, hide in the bushes till dark, take to the woods, hide by day, creep northward by night, and, if we succeed in reaching a district where no one would recognize us, press on northward boldly, passing ourselves off as runaway slaves if anyone encounters us."

"We'd be locked up as runaway slaves," I said, "advertised, sold to the highest bidder if unclaimed and henceforth kept in slavery."

"I'm in slavery now," said Agathemer. "You, if kept in slavery, would at least be alive and in no danger of being recognized."

"Let us go," said I.

We looked at each other and burst out laughing. We made a sufficiently absurd spectacle, each stark naked, each holding a copper cylinder, as we stood in that elegant and luxurious room. According to the fashion of the time, which aped the ways of the young Emperor, we wore our hair moderately long and as both had hair naturally curly, were perfectly in style as to hair. Our beards, also, we wore clipped but not shaved, and long enough to show a tendency to curl, as the Emperor wore his.

Our laugh over I gave a farewell glance about my little-used library. It was then about the fifth hour. Agathemer gazing rather outside at the landscape than inside at the room remained frozen stiff, staring northward down the valley.

"We are barely in time," he said. "Mercury is with us and Fortune."

"Before I left Rome," I said, "I prayed to Fortune and sacrificed to Mercury."

"Time well spent," he said. "Look there!"

Peering where he pointed I saw, where the road was first visible in the distance, fully two miles away, a dozen or more horsemen, manifestly, even at that distance, of military bearing: I caught, against the sunrays, a gleam of crimson and a glint of gold; I conjectured a detail of Praetorian Guards coming to arrest me or to put me out of the way.

Agathemer opened the upper door of the secret stair, which unlike most doors, could be locked on either side, for my uncle always wanted to lock the doors he used, whichever way he passed through them. After we had passed this door Agathemer closed it behind us, and, as we stood in the pitch dark, locked it.

We groped our way down the dizzying turns of the steep stair, Agathemer going first and, at the bottom, whacking his knee-cap on the lower door. This he unlocked and I found myself in a dim-lit cellar which I had visited but twice before. Agathemer locked the stair-door behind us.

Now the minor tower, in which was the spiral stair, was built as a vent to carry up into the air, far above the roofs of the villa, any miasma, effluvium or exhalation from the drainage-water of the villa's baths, kitchen and latrines. On the subject of harmful vapours from drains my uncle was fanatical and to bear out his contentions he quoted from the works of many celebrated philosophers and physicians, including those of Galen.

Pursuant with his notions as to how to get rid of the exhalations from drainage and to make certain that no whiff of any such vapours ever found its way up any offset into his kitchen or any latrine or bathroom, he had built in this small high tower a shaft reaching its top and full six feet square all the way up. At its bottom it widened out into a chamber fully twelve feet square, carried down below the level of the cellar floor to form a cemented tank, vat, cistern or cesspool fully as deep as it was wide. The outfall from this trap was by a terra-cotta pipe of considerable size, its opening at such a point that the drain-water in the trap never reached higher than a foot or so below the level of the cellar floor. The various drainage-pipes from different parts of the villa were so led into this trap-room that their lower ends were always under water, so that no exhalations could ever pass up any of them.

To the bottom of the trap settled the solid matter and sediment from the drainage-water. The trap was cleaned by slaves so often that the ooze in it never rose high enough to escape down the outfall pipe and befoul the Bran Brook. For cleaning out the trap-room had an outer door, of heavy, solid oak, carefully locked, which when opened enabled the slaves entrusted with this task to dredge or bale or scoop out the filth and convey it off to be used as garden manure. There was also an inner door, as heavy and solid as the other, opening from the cellar, which enabled my uncle to inspect the trap at his convenience. This door Agathemer opened.

I peered in and, after my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, descried the opening of the outfall drain opposite me. It was large enough for lean men like me and Agathemer to crawl through, but certainly barely large enough. I could see, after some moments, the lower ends of the drain pipes, two dozen or more, dipping into the foul liquid which filled the cistern. It was very foul, for since my uncle's death the cleaning out of the trap had been neglected and the ooze came almost to the top of the water.

Agathemer hunted about the cellar, found some bits of stone about the size of apples, put them in the bag of food, tied up its neck again, and threw it into the trap, where it sank out of sight. After it he threw in the two keys.

Now was the moment for our plunge into the unknown. Agathemer's plan implied that we must crawl a full furlong through the outfall drain. We might be drowned, at any point of the crawl, by a rush of water from the bath-tank. We might suffocate in the foul vapours of the drain. But, plainly, Agathemer had pitched upon our only chance of escape, and we must escape that way and at once or not at all.

Agathemer threw the two copper cylinders, one after the other, neatly and deftly into the mouth of the outfall drain.

"Now," he said, "one of us must jump for that opening, and must cling to it, his arms inside, his body in the ooze of the trap. The other must stand on the narrow stone ledge inside this door, must contrive to slam the door behind him so that it will shut fast and stay shut, must then, in the pitch dark, jump for the shoulders of the other. If the drag of his weight pulls the other down, both of us will drown in this deep trap in the vile ooze. If the under man clings on, the upper must crawl over him into the drain, pass back to him one of the cylinders and then we shall be ready for our crawl down. Which goes first?"

"You choose," said I.

"Can you slam the door?" Agathemer queried.

I considered the door, the sill, the ledge inside, the jambs of the door, its edges; stood on the ledge, went through the motions and concluded that I could slam the door shut and not be knocked off into the ooze by its impact or topple off because of the sill's narrowness. I said so.

"Then I'll go first," said Agathemer. "You are, even yet, far more impaired in strength by your beating than I by my flogging. If I came second you might not be able to hold on to the opening of the drain. I know I can hold on, no matter how much filth is plastered over my head as you crawl over me. I should not like the idea of defiling your head with filth in crawling over you. Jump so that your clutching hands just reach my shoulders; so that your weight will come on me gradually as you sink into the ooze. Take your time about crawling over me. Be sure to pass back to me one cylinder."

Then he drilled me as to the signals he would give me by pinching my feet. When he was sure we both knew them he grinned a wry grin, and made a whimsical boyish gesture with his uplifted right hand, took a careful stand on the sill, balanced himself and jumped.

"I'm all right," he called back, "and ready for you."

Three times I tried to slam that door and failed to shut it. The fourth time I found myself, my back against the shut door, my toes sticking out over the edge of the stone sill, balanced in the pitch dark on a too narrow ledge.

"Lean back against the door," Agathemer called, thickly. "If it gives it is not shut."

It did not give.

I said so.

"Then no one will ever know how we got out," said Agathemer; adding: "Jump when you are ready, but say 'now.'"

I jumped and my fingers caught his shoulders. He held on. My body sank slowly through the ooze, which gave way with a sickening sliminess, until I was in contact with Agathemer all the way to my toes. Then I began to try to crawl up over him. I found it far harder than either of us had anticipated.

All slippery as we were with the foul ooze it was a fearful struggle for me to scramble up over him, I slipped back so often. After what seemed an hour of effort and apprehension I had my head, shoulders and most of my body in the drain and knew I had succeeded. I wriggled forward till I felt my feet beyond the opening, then about as far ahead, pushing before me the cylinders. When Agathemer touched my foot I pushed a cylinder past my body and felt, with my ankle, that he pulled it back.

After that, escape was a matter of wriggling on down the drain. And wriggling was not impossible, though excessively difficult and exhausting. The drain was nowhere choked with silt, but all along was furred with ooze and there was more than an inch of ooze along its bottom. In this, hitching myself forward on my elbows by violent contortions, I slipped back almost as much as I heaved forward.

Agathemer seemed to have as much trouble as I had and to find the effort as exhausting. For he had instructed me that I was not to crawl forward until he pinched my foot. One pinch was to mean "advance," two pinches "rest." More than once he had signalled me to rest.

Our worst moment came somewhere near half way down the sewer. There I encountered a cracked drain-pipe, the ragged edge of the broken terra- cotta projecting into the sewer, its point toward me. I wriggled my shoulders by it, though it gouged my shoulder-muscle on that side; but, at my hips, it stuck into me so that I could not get past it.

Agathemer, behind, kept pinching my foot, signalling for me to go forward. I bellowed explanations, but could not suppose that he could hear them in that horrible tube. But he either heard or guessed, he never could be sure which. Anyhow, he felt that we must get forward or perish. In desperation he sunk his teeth into the soft part of the inner side of the sole of my left foot. The pain made me give a convulsive wriggle and I scraped past the obstacle, tearing my hip badly in getting clear.

From there on we wriggled frantically till I could see ahead a round patch of light at the lower outfall of the drain.

It seemed an age before I reached the opening, but reach it I did. I lay there, my head just inside, panting and guzzling clean air in great gulping gasps. Agathemer pinched my foot. I slipped out into the oozy pool below the outfall, slid out as quietly as I could and kept myself submerged up to my chin, clutching my cylinder with one hand, pulling myself clear of the drain and keeping my head out of the drainage by holding to the stem of an alder bush growing by the brook's edge.

I came to rest, the sunlight dazzling my eyes, though the outfall was shaded by willows above the alders, and looked for Agathemer. He, his face purple, kept his head inside the sewer and I could see him suck in the clean air in long gasps as I had.

At that instant there was a squawking above us and, through the alders, came, quacking and flapping their wings, a hundred or more of my uncle's valued white ducks. Their alarm made me peep through the alder stems. I saw, not ten yards from my face, the legs of horses, heard their hoofs thud on the roadway, descried men's feet against their bellies, recognized the gilded edges of the boot-soles, the make of the boots, the gilt scales on the kilt-straps, the gilded breast plates, the crimson tunics and short-cloaks, the gilded sword-sheaths and helmets. There, just above us, was passing the detachment of Praetorian Guards sent to arrest or despatch me.

They clanked by us, never suspecting our proximity, though the ducks resented our presence in their favorite pool and quacked at us protestingly. They continued, in fact, to quack at us most of the time until sunset, so that both of us were in an agony of dread for fear that some passer-by might notice their voluble expressions of displeasure and might take a notion to investigate to discover what was exciting their wrath.

But no one was attracted by the ducks' noise and, if anyone passed up or down the road we, where we were, did not know it.

We talked, at intervals, in whispers. Agathemer said that he had been barely grazed by the broken drain-pipe and hardly noticed his scratches. I, on the other hand, was in great pain from the gouge along my hip, and hardly less pained by the tear in my shoulder. The water, under which I had to keep up to my chin, dulled the pain of my wounds, but chilled me till my teeth chattered, though the weather was hot; so hot in fact, that the sunrays on my head seemed to scorch my hair, even through the willows and alders. I was devoutly glad when the sunrays became more slanting and the daylight began to wane, and the ducks, still quacking protestingly, departed.



CHAPTER XI

HIDING

It was fully dark before we dared to leave our hiding-place and attempt the risky venture of essaying to reach a safer shelter or refuge in the forests without attracting the attention of any dog at any of the several farmsteads which we must pass.

Agathemer led and I followed, my teeth chattering and the night insects biting me severely. Hugging our precious copper cylinders we waded more than waistdeep in the water, up the Bran Brook, sometimes all but swimming, as we skirted some of the deeper pools. There was no moon and we could see but little by the faint starlight. We had to go slowly, as we could not swim and keep hold of our cylinders; and must not risk losing one if Agathemer went over his head in a deep pool. It seemed to me that we had been threading the curves of the brook for at least two hours when I began to feel as if something were wrong. Even in the dark I had been aware of a sort of recognition of each pool, shallow, riffle, bend, bank or what not. Now, gradually, it came over me that I was among surroundings as unfamiliar as if I had not been in Sabinum, or even in Italy.

I caught Agathemer by the arm.

"Where are we?" I whispered.

"Don't talk!" he warned.

But I insisted; for, as we were by now no more than knee-deep in the water, I knew we must be well up towards the headwaters and it came over me that we had not turned off anywhere as sharply as we should had we turned up either the Chaff or the Flour.

"Are we going up the Bran?" I queried.

"Precisely!" Agathemer breathed.

I almost spoke out loud.

"This," I said, "is the last place on earth I'd expect you to guide me to."

"Precisely," he repeated, "and it's the last place on earth anybody else would expect me to lead you to or you to be in, by any chance; therefore it's the last place in Italy where any one will look for you; therefore it is, just now, the safest place in Italy for you. Come on, I know every stone of this brook."

I followed him. His logic was good, but, on Ducconius Furfur's land I felt hopelessly lost and overwhelmed by despair.

We had not gone far from where I had forced Agathemer to reveal his ruse, when he turned round and whispered:

"This is the place. Here we leave the water. Follow me."

I was dimly aware of a blacker blackness before us, as of a big, tall rock. This we skirted and then stepped out of the brook towards the left. There we stepped into deep drifts of dead leaves.

"Here is bedding," said Agathemer, "such as Ulysses was content with after his long sea-swim to the island of the Phaeacians. Perhaps we can get along in such bedding."

Naked as we were we burrowed into the dead leaves, and, after a bit I felt less chilly, though by no means warm.

Agathemer took from me the cylinder I had been carrying; opened one of the two, a matter of some difficulty, as the top was so tight; sniffed at it, and took from it some morsels of food: a bit of cold ham, a bit of cold fowl and a bit of bread. These I ate, chewing them slowly. At the same time he ate, as slowly, an equal share.

After eating we tried to sleep. I was too weary and drowsy to keep awake, and too cold and too much in pain from the scratch on my shoulder and the gouge on my hip to be able to sleep long. I got some sleep before dawn, but not much.

Fortunately for us the night had been clear, warm and windless. Even so we suffered severely with the cold; since the chilled air, of course, rolled down the hillsides into the hollow along the bed of the brook, till the valley was filled with thick mist and every leaf and twig dripped with moisture. Through the mist the dawn broke pearly gray at first and then iridescent; and, when the first sunrays penetrated the white haze and gilded every leaf-edge, turning the tree-tops to gold and making every waterdrop a diamond, no lovelier morning could be imagined.

The trees about and above us were mostly beeches, with many chestnuts and a few plane-trees and poplars. We were in a clump of willows with thick alders under them, so that, even with no other protection, we could not have been seen from any distance. And we were most excellently protected, being on a little island where the brook forked and flowed, three or four yards wide and nearly a yard deep, round a huge gray rock, fully fifteen yards across and nearly seven yards high, a bulge of worn stone, shaped much like half a melon and almost as symmetrical. And, as one might lay half a melon, curve up, and then split it with one blow of a kitchen- knife, so this great rock, as if cleft by a single sweep of a Titan's sword, was rent in half and the halves left about four yards apart. The fracture was clean and smooth, except that a piece about two yards square had cracked loose at the ground level from the southern half and lay bedded in the mud, its top a foot or so above the earth, leaving in the face of one rock a rectangular niche about a man's length each way, in which cavity two men could shelter from the rain.

As soon as it was light enough to see I was for crawling into this little cavern. But Agathemer restrained me.

"The face of the rock," he said, "would feel cold as ice to your skin. You have, even if you do not realize it, somewhat warmed the leaves next you. For the present we are least uncomfortable where we are. The dawn-wind cannot get at our hides while we are under these leaves. Keep still."

He kept himself as much as possible under the leaves but wriggled nearer the altar-shaped bit of rock. Half-sitting, half crouching by it, little besides his head out of the heap of leaves in which he was, he opened both cylinders and laid out on the top of the stone what food was in them. This he divided into six equal portions, two he put back in each cylinder. We munched interminably, making every morsel last as long as possible.

The food revived me, and even before the dawn-wind had died, the rays of the sun began to make themselves felt. I began to be restless; Agathemer again checked me.

"Keep still," he commanded. "As soon as the sun has dried the dew off the leaves I can make you more comfortable. Just now we are best as we are."

I kept under the leaves, but I peered about. At each end of the cleft between the two halves of the rock I could see the brook brawling by among the worn stones. The line of the cleft was directly across the bed of the brook; and, along the cleft, past the detached, almost buried, altar- shaped stone, I descried, barely discernible but unmistakable, such a path as is made by the bare or sandalled feet of even one human being following daily the same track. I conned it. I judged that it was many, many decades old and had been trodden daily for a lifetime or so, but that it had been totally disused for at least a year and possibly for more.

I pointed it out to Agathemer and asked him about it.

"That," he said, "is part of what used to be the shorter and more used of the two paths from Furfur's villa to Philargyrus's farmstead. Naturally, since the Philargyrus farm has been detached from Furfur's estate and has become part of yours, there must be very little intercommunication between the farm and the villa and I judged that any slave going from one to the other would avoid the more obvious path and sneak round the longer way. Therefore I judged it safer to locate here, as this path is probably totally unused."

"How did you know of it?" I queried.

Up to his neck in leaves, arms under too, only his head out, Agathemer blushed all over his handsome face.

"Before Andivius won the suit," he said, "while Philargyrus was still Furfur's tenant, I had an impassioned love-affair with one of Furfur's slave-girls. We used to meet here, at first on moonlit nights, and, later, when we each knew every inch of our way here and home again, more often on moonless nights. I always waded up and down the bed of the brook, so as to leave no scent for any dog to follow. I know this nook well and thought of it the instant I began to plan an escape for you."

I said nothing.

"It is barely possible," he said, "that some one may use this path, even if no one has passed along it for months. That is just the way luck turns out. I mean to be invisible if anyone does come. There was no likelihood of anyone coming by at dawn, and no possibility of doing anything if anyone did come. Now it is warm enough for me to pick off the outer layer of dew-wet leaves from whatever heaps of dead leaves are hereabouts. I can gather the dry leaves into that little grotto. We can lie on a bed of them, wrapped up in them we can cower under them, we can even pull our heads under and be invisible if we hear footsteps approaching. You keep still."

He then stood up and went off. After a time he returned with a great armful of leaves, which he threw into the niche. After many trips he had the niche almost full of fairly dry dead leaves. By this time the warmth of the sun was making itself felt and I stood up and stretched myself. I did not feel weak, but my shoulder and hip, where the drain-pipe had torn me, and the sole of my foot, where Agathemer had bitten me, were decidedly painful. Agathemer, solicitously, steadied me on my feet and led me to the streamside. There I seated myself on a convenient rock and he bathed my foot, hip and shoulder. There was no sign of puffiness or heat in any of the three wounds, but all three were raw and sore. We had nothing with which to dress them and Agathemer merely dried them as well as he could by patting them.

Meanwhile, even in my misery and despair, even hungry, weak and cold and in pain as I was, I could not but feel a gleam of pleasure at the enchanting beauty of the woodland scene about our hiding place. I gazed up at the bits of blue sky between the sunlit boughs, at the canopy of green, at the tenderer green of the underwood, at the carpet of grass, ferns, sedges and flowering plants which hid the earth and I almost rejoiced at its loveliness.

Agathemer led me back to our retreat and ensconced me in the nook of rock, on a soft deep bed of dry dead leaves, under a coverlet of more. Into the heaps he burrowed. The warmth of his naked body warmed me a trifle. There we lay still till dark. I slept, I think, from about noon till after sunset.

While we could still see, Agathemer, making me keep flat as I was, wriggled out of the leaves and pushed them aside from my head and face. We then ate half our remaining food. As it grew dark Agathemer expounded to me his plans.

"Last night," he said, "there was no sense in doing anything. Hiding and keeping out of sight was the best thing we could do. But tonight I must try to steal what we need most. The risk must be taken. If I do not return you will know I have done my best. But I feel confident of returning before midnight. I know every farmstead on Furfur's estate and all the dogs know me. On your estate I not only know the dogs, but I have just finished an inspection and I know the location of every dairy, smoke- house, larder and oven, I might almost say of every loaf, cheese, ham, flitch, wine-vat and oil-jar on the estate, not to mention every store- room where I might get us hats, tunics, sandals, quilts and what not.

"If I cannot do it otherwise, as a last resort I'll wake Uturia and tell her of our situation; she will help and will be secret. But I'll not resort to her if I can help it. Her most willing secrecy will not be as safe as her ignorance of our fate. No torture could surmount that."

I wanted to say "Farewell," but restrained myself and uttered a not too gloomy:

"Good luck and a prosperous return!"

After that, I lay and quaked till long past midnight. Then, I seemed to hear sounds which I could but interpret as heralding Agathemer's approach. In fact he soon spoke to me from close by and I heard the unmistakable blurred noise made by a soft and yet heavy pack deposited on the ground by my bed of leaves.

"I've nearly everything I wanted," said Agathemer. "Keep still while I untie the quilt I carried it all in, and find things in the dark."

Presently he said:

"Stand up, and I'll try to dress you."

In the dark his hand found my hand and he guided me so that I extricated myself from the heap of leaves without hitting my head on the jutting roof of rock and without slipping on the wet earth or stumbling from weakness.

In the dark he slipped over my head a coarse, patched tunic. (I could feel against my skin the rude stitching of the patches.) Then he wrapped about me a coarse cloak, also much patched.

"Now," he said, "stand where you are till I make some sort of a bed for you."

He fumbled about in the dark, grunting and making, I thought, too much rustling in the leaves. Presently he said:

"I've laid a doubled quilt on the leaves and packed them down. Give me your hand and I'll arrange you on it. Then I'll cover you with another quilt."

He did, deftly and solicitously.

I began to feel warm for the first time since I had sunk into the ooze of the drain-trap.

Agathemer fumbled about in the dark for a while and then came near again and felt me, making sure where my head was. He made me sit up.

"Smell that!" he said, "and catch hold of it."

I smelt ewe's-milk cheese and my fingers closed on a generous piece of it. Then, he put into my other hand a big chunk of bread, not yet entirely cold.

I bit the bread. It was Ofatulena's unsurpassable farm bread, half wheat flour and half barley flour and at that more appetizing and flavorsome than any wheat-bread I ever tasted.

"There is plenty for both of us," Agathemer said, "eat all you want, but eat slow and be careful not to bolt a morsel."

He sat down by me and we munched in silence.

By and by he asked:

"Do you want any more?"

"No," I answered, "you judged my capacity pretty well. I am filled up."

"Don't lie down," he said, "I have a small kid-skin of wine."

We laughed a good deal before he made sure precisely where my mouth was and put into it the reed which projected from one leg of the kid-skin. I drank in abundance of a thin, sour wine, such as we kept for the slaves. It gave me new life.

After that draught of wine I composed myself to sleep and went to sleep at once. I knew nothing of Agathemer's doings after that and did not feel him when he lay down by me. I slept till broad daylight.

When I waked Agathemer gave me a moderate draught of wine and all the bread and cheese I chose to eat: also a handful of olives. Then he displayed the total of his plunder: hats, with brims neither too broad nor too narrow, the best pattern if one was to have only one hat, worn and battered enough to suit us as being inconspicuous, yet nowhere torn, broken or slit; a tunic and cloak apiece, about the oldest and most patched in my villa-farm storage-loft, such as Ofatulena would hand out to newly bought and untried slaves; three quilts, as bad as the cloaks and tunics, yet, like them, fairly serviceable and far from worn out; the kid- skin of wine, a whole loaf of bread and the remains of the one we had been eating, what was left of a cheese and another whole; a little, tall, narrow jar of olive oil; a small bag of olives; a tiny box full of salt, the box of beechwood and about the size of a man's three fingers; a whetstone, a pair of rusty scissors; two small beechwood cups; a little copper dipper; some rags, old and worn, but perfectly clean; and a flageolet!

"In the name of Dionysius!" I cried laughing, "why the flageolet?"

Agathemer laughed also.

"My hand," he said, "came on it in the dark while feeling for the scissors. I could not resist bringing it. It is small, it weighs little, it will not add to our burdens and, once far away from here, I can play on it when we are lonely and so cheer us up."

"You appear," I said, "to have been able to help yourself as you pleased."

"No more trouble," said he, "than if I had walked out of the villa night before last and poked about the out-buildings to see whether everything was as when I inspected them by day; only three dogs barked, and they quieted down almost immediately. I am sure I roused no one and am ready to wager that every slave was as sound asleep as if I had not been there."

I lazily readjusted myself on my quilt and leaf mattress, tucking my quilt close about me. The morning was still, warm and cloudy, not a ray of sunshine visible, even for a moment, since sunset the night before.

"Time to dress your wounds!" said Agathemer.

He brought from the brook a cupful of water, and, with the smallest of the rags, solicitously bathed the gouge on my hip. He pronounced it healing healthily. He then anointed it with olive oil. The bathing and anointing comforted me greatly. Then, he similarly treated my shoulder and foot. When I was composed and covered he said:

"Now for the scissors!" and he sharpened them on his whetstone until he felt satisfied that he could get them no sharper, then he clipped my hair and beard, as closely as those scissors could. Then I sat up and clipped him, awkwardly and unevenly, but effectively.

Hardly were we shorn when drops of rain began to patter on the leaves above us. Agathemer wrapped his bread in the rags, put it between the two hats and tucked it under the leaves in one inner corner of the little grotto; bestowed the other things on it, or by it or in the other corner; and then lay down by me and pulled his quilt over him, then managing to cover both of us with leaves so that no trace of our presence would be visible to any passer-by, yet we could breathe comfortably behind or under our screen of leaves.

It rained all day, a sluggish drizzle, soaking the earth, but not accumulating enough water on it to produce visible trickles flowing on the surface. The air was perfectly windless, so that no rain blew in on us as we lay; we were damp, but not wet.

Before dusk the rain ceased and a brisk, warm wind shook the drops from the trees. We ate and Agathemer declared his intention of going on another raid about an hour after dark.

"What are you after this time?" I queried.

"More food," he said, "all I dare steal. I must not steal too much from any one place. I'll wager my pilferings of last night will pass, not merely unheeded, but entirely unnoticed. Ofatulena herself is so scatter- brained that she will never be sure that two loaves vanished from her oven; I doubt if she will so much as suspect any loss. But I cannot repeat that depletion of her baking tonight; she might talk. She is not quick- witted enough to conjecture the truth, if she did her utter loyalty would keep her mute; she'd impute the theft to some slave and likely as not have an investigation and advertise her loss. If there happened to be a crafty inspector with the Praetorians and if they have lingered, they might suspect the truth, beat the woods for us and capture us. So I must take a little here and a little there.

"Then I want another quilt for myself, and shoes for both of us. Is there anything else you can think of?"

"Manifestly!" I said, "we need a slave-scourge, a branding-iron with the long F for 'runaway', [Footnote: Fugitivus. The short F stood for fur, "thief."] a brazier big enough to heat the branding iron and enough charcoal to fire it once."

"What, in the name of Mercury," he whispered amazedly, "do you want of a branding-iron and a scourge?"

"We are to pass as runaway slaves, if caught, according to your outline of a plan," I said, "we had best do all we can to be sure of being thought ordinary runaway slaves. Few slaves travel far from their owners' land when they first venture to run away. We should be branded, to seem old offenders.

"As for you, thanks to Nemestronia, your back is all it should be to help play the part we intend. My back has no scars. You must scourge me till I have as many as you."

In the late dusk, inside that grotto, under the dead leaves, I could see the horror on his face.

"I scourge you!" he cried aloud.

"Hush!" I admonished him. "Scourged I must be, if I am to hope to escape Caesar's agents as you have cleverly conceived that I might. Steal a scourge and a branding-iron tonight, and let us be ready for the road as soon as may be; we cannot set out northwards till my back is healed and the brands on both of us, too."

We wrangled and argued till it was past time for him to start on his expedition. I finally declared that, unless he fetched a scourge and a branding-iron, I would, at daybreak, walk back to my villa and give myself up to the authorities. At that he consented.

I went to sleep soon after he was gone and never woke till daylight.

I woke from a troubled sleep, haunted by nightmare dreams, woke aware of a general discomfort, misery and horror, and of acute pain in my wounds. I seemed to have a good appetite and ate with relish; but, hardly had I ceased eating, when I appeared definitely feverish and the pain in my foot became unbearable.

I told Agathemer how I felt and he examined my wounds. All three were puffy, red, even purplish, and with pus at the edges. It was then and has always been since a puzzle to both of us why wounds, seemingly healing naturally when unwashed and undressed, should inflame and fester after careful washing and dressing.

My fever was not high, but enough to make me fretful and irritable. The day was very hot and still. I made Agathemer show me what spoil he had brought and at once ordered him to light the charcoal brazier, heat the iron and brand me. He demurred.

"If you feel feverish," he said, "the pain of the branding will double your fever and, if you have three inflamed wounds, the brand will fester to a certainty. You'll probably die of it, if I brand you."

"As well die one way as another," I said. "If we stay here we are certain to be discovered sooner or later. Our only hope is to get away as soon as may be. That cannot be until my back and both brands heal enough for us to tramp northward. Your back is healed, so your brand will heal promptly. I have to get over these wounds and the branding and scourging too. We must be quick."

He argued, but I was half delirious and wholly unreasonable. I again threatened to go straight to the villa and give myself up unless I had my way.

Agathemer, distraught and aghast, yielded. I argued that in the early haze, the little trifle of smoke from the charcoal could not attract notice. He complied. He had trouble getting a light from his flint and steel, but he succeeded, and, when the charcoal caught, set the little brazier close to our nook and fanned it with a leafy bough to disperse the smoke. When no further trace of smoke appeared and the charcoal glowed evenly, he put the iron to heat.

When it was hot enough he suggested, again, that we put off branding me till next day, and that he brand only himself. I insisted on his branding me and branding me first.

To my amazement, when he had bared my shoulder, set me in position, and snatched the iron from the brazier, I shrank back with a sort of weak scream.

Agathemer instantly replaced the iron in the brazier and turned, staring at me in silence.

Instantly I had a revulsion of resolution, of obstinacy, of delirious rage. I reviled him. I commanded, I threatened.

Coolly he bared his left shoulder, knelt by the brazier and made as if to brand himself.

"You can't do it," I protested, "you'll scar yourself to no purpose and anyone will know the mark is not a brand. Fetch the iron here and hand it to me."

He did, deftly. Without a wince or squeak he, kneeling and leaning, held his shoulder to the white-hot iron. I could not have done better if I had been well and standing, instead of delirious and sitting, wrapped in a quilt, in a bed of dried leaves. I set the iron fair on the muscle of his shoulder, held it there just the brief instant required for branding without injury and snatched it away without any drag sideways.

After witnessing the stoical heroism of my slave I could not but insist on his branding me and was exalted to the point of nerve-tension at which I bit in my half-uttered scream as the heat seared my flesh. Agathemer dressed each brand with an oil-soaked rag and we composed ourselves to hide until dark.



CHAPTER XII

SUCCOUR

As on the days before, no one passed us and, indeed, as far as I could judge, no living thing came near us, except a hare or two. We kept close under our heap of leaves, inside our niche of rock. But this time I did not snuggle inside my cloak and quilt; I cast off, first the quilt, then the cloak, and lay in my tunic only, panting and gasping. For it was a very hot, still day, and my fever increased, increased so much, in fact, that I could stomach but little food at dusk and took but little interest in anything; in my condition, in Agathemer's brand, in his departure.

His return, late at night, was to me only one incident of a sort of continuous nightmare: I was half asleep, wholly delirious and every impression was as the half-delusion of a half-waking dream. I was barely half-conscious, yet I had sense enough to lie still, except for writhing and turning over, and to restrain myself from singing or screaming.

At dawn I ate even less than at dusk, but I did eat something. Eating roused me enough for me to insist on Agathemer's stripping me and scourging me. He felt my forehead, my wrists and my feet, and shook his head.

"You have a terrific fever," he said, "and four festering wounds, for the brand-mark is festering already; you are in danger of death anyhow as it is; you will never recover from a scourging."

I, with all a delirious man's unreasoning, insisted and again threatened to give myself up.

The sun was about two hours high, gilding the treetops and sending shafts of golden light through the still wet foliage. One such shaft of sunshine shot between the two halves of the great rock that sheltered us and fell on the table-topped fragment of stone, like a nearly buried altar, which lay midway of them.

Writhing and groaning I slipped out of my quilt, cloak and tunic, and, groaning, I crawled to the flat-topped stone. Face down on it I lay, my chest against it, my knees on the ground, my arms outstretched, my fingers gripping the far edge of the altar-stone.

So placed I bade Agathemer lay on with the scourge.

"Flay me!" I ordered. "I should be torn raw from neck to hips. The worse I am scored and ripped the more protection the scars will be. Lay on furiously. If I faint, finish the job before you revive me."

He began lashing me, but hesitatingly; I reviled him for a coward; but the pain, even of the first strokes, was too much for me. I could feel the sweat on my forehead, my finger nails dug into the sides of the stone, its sharp edge cut into the soft inside of my clutching fingers, I bit my tongue to keep from shrieking, yet my voice, as I taunted Agathemer and railed at him, rose to a sort of scream.

He laid on more fiercely. After a dozen blows or more a harder blow made me groan. At that instant I was aware of a shadow above me, of a human figure rushing past me, and the blows ceased.

I let go my clutch on the rock and tried to stand up. I did succeed in kneeling up, supported by my hand on the altar stone. So half erect I looked round.

Agathemer lay under the intruder, who had him by the throat with both hands. Partly by sight, even from behind him, partly by the objurgation which he panted out, I recognized Chryseros Philargyrus and realized that he thought that Agathemer had been torturing me in revenge for his flogging at Nemestronia's.

I instantly forgot my plight and my natural instincts asserted themselves. As if I had been then what I had been ten days before, I ordered Chryseros to loose Agathemer and he obeyed me, as if I had been what I felt myself, his master.

He and Agathemer stood up and looked at me and each other: I must have made a laughable spectacle, swaying as I knelt, my hands on the rock, my hair and beard mere clipped stubble, and I naked, with my back bleeding and both shoulders and one hip inflamed, purple-red and puffy. Certainly both Chryseros and Agathemer appeared comical to me, even in my pain and misery and weakness and through the enveloping horror of my fever. Agathemer, his hair and beard a worse stubble than mine, was gasping and ruefully rubbing his throat, making a ridiculous figure in his brown tunic, patched with patches of red, yellow and blue, all sewed on with white thread. Chryseros was panting, and his bald head shone in the sun. He had cast off his cloak as he rushed at Agathemer and stood only in his rusty brown tunic, himself as dry and lean as a dead limb of a tree.

Although he had obeyed instantly when I ordered him to loose Agathemer, yet, perhaps from some vagary of my fever, I stared at Chryseros without any other feeling than that he had been for most of his life the tenant of our family enemy. As I looked at him I felt utterly lost, as if there was now no hope for me, as if Chryseros would certainly betray me to the authorities. I felt utterly despairing and totally reckless. This mood, oddly enough, urged me to do the very best thing I could have done.

Either from right instinct or delirious folly, I informed Chryseros fully of our purposes, doings and plans. He apologized to Agathemer for his assault on him, affirmed his complete loyalty to me and promised all possible assistance and perfect secrecy. He examined me and said:

"I'll have your wounds clean, your back dried up, every inch of you healing properly and your fever cooled before morning. Here, Agathemer, help get him abed."

They washed my back and laid me, naked as I was, on the quilt laid over the bed of leaves, then they covered me with the other quilt.

"You two keep close till I come back," Chryseros advised. "Someone else might use this path. I'll be back soon and I'll arrange to excite no suspicion."

When he returned he had me out on the flat-topped stone, washed my back and wounds, and then bathed them with some lotion which, when first applied, felt cooling and soothing, but almost at once burnt into me till every part of my back, my hip and both my shoulders smarted worse than had the one shoulder as the brand seared it: at least that was how I felt. I writhed and groaned.

"Keep still!" Chryseros admonished me. "Keep quiet! This is doing you good."

And he chafed my back, inundating it with his fiery liniment till I was on the verge of fainting from mere pain. Half fainting I was as the two raised me to my feet and put the tunic on me, as they helped me back to my bed in the little grotto. When I was recumbent Chryseros made me drink a nauseous, black, bitter liquid and then lie flat.

"Keep there till morning," he said, "and fast. Food can do you no good while you have such a fever and fasting can do you no harm."

Actually I was asleep before I knew it and slept all day and all night, not waking until Agathemer, when Chryseros ordered it, roused me. They pressed on me a quart bowl of milk warm from the cow, and I drank most of it. I felt much better and Chryseros pronounced me free from fever and after he had inspected my back and wounds and again inundated them with his fiery lotion, declared all inflammation had vanished and that I was healing up properly. He enjoined Agathemer to let me have no food but milk, said he would bring more after sunset, and told us to keep close in the niche. I slept all day long, and after a second draught of milk at dusk, all night till the sun was well up.

I woke feeling stiff and sore, uncomfortable on my back, hip and shoulders, but with no positive pain anywhere: also I felt like my usual self. And I may say here, parenthetically, that I never had another day's illness through all the vicissitudes of my flight, hiding, adventures and misfortunes.

Chryseros brought me milk; excellent wheat bread; a smooth and appetizing veal-stew, with beans and lentils in it and seasoned with spices; cheese newly made from fresh curds, and luscious plums. He let me eat my fill and drink all the milk I wanted. But he would not let me taste the wine of which Agathemer drank moderately.

"If you feel sleepy," said Chryseros, "roll over, cover yourself and go to sleep; we can talk tomorrow."

"I do not feel sleepy," I declared, "and I feel very much like asking questions."

"Then we'll talk at once," he said, "we'll take all the time needed for your recovery; but once you are recovered, we'll waste no time in getting you out of Sabinum."

The morning was fair and warm, with a light breeze. I was on my bed of leaves inside my nook of rock. Agathemer was squatted by my head, his back against that edge of the niche; by my feet, leaning against the opposite edge of the niche, facing Agathemer, and therefore where I could best see and hear him sat Chryseros.

He began by telling me that I must remain where I was until he judged me fit to travel, even if I remained ten days more; but that he thought I might be able to start to-morrow night and would make his preparations accordingly. His first idea, he said, had been to set off on horseback for Spolitum, near, which he had a sister married to a prosperous farmer, to whom he had paid visits at intervals of about five years. He had thought that it would be easy and safe to take me and Agathemer with him on foot, disguised as slaves. This idea, however, Agathemer had antagonized, pointing out that any convoy from my estate would be severely scrutinized and every man examined and searched; that there was no chance of our escaping by such a plan.

At this point of his discourse he told me that the Praetorians had already departed from Villa Andivia leaving in charge Gratillus, a treasury officer of the confiscation department, a man whom I knew too well as also a member of the secret service, an articled Imperial spy and an active professional informer, moreover a man who had always hated my uncle, and who had hated me from my boyhood.

According to Chryseros, Gratillus had made no great effort to find me, since, in fact, neither he nor anyone connected with the government had had any suspicion that I had returned home. He had merely made a perfunctory investigation to assure himself, as he thought, that I had not so returned. He had examined all the tenantry and slaves, had asked questions, but had tortured no one and had been quite satisfied with the answers he had received. Oddly enough, while he had closely questioned himself and my other eight tenants as to the date of my departure for Rome and as to whether they had seen me since they last saw me in Rome, and while he had questioned Uturia and Ofatulena as to whether they had seen me since I set off for Rome, he had somehow omitted or forgotten to ask Ofatulenus the same questions, so that he had been able to answer truthfully the only questions asked of him. Agathemer, I found, had told Chryseros that only he and Ofatulenus had seen me between my return and escape.

Gratillus had especially questioned the wives of my eight tenants, and as Chryseros was a widower, his widowed daughter, who lived with him. Each of these he had summoned before him separately and had interrogated alone and at length. This was like Gratillus.

He had made but one arrest, and this dumbfounded me. Ducconius Furfur had been interrogated, like all my neighbors, but, while the rest had been dismissed after answering what questions were put to them, Furfur, with two servants, had accompanied to Rome the Praetorians when they went away.

The more I reflected on this the stranger it seemed.

Neither Chryseros nor Agathemer had any doubt that a close watch was being quietly kept to make sure that I could not now return to Villa Andivia without being caught; nor yet leave it if I did return or had returned.

As a result of his discussion with Agathemer they had agreed that we were to leave by night and on foot, as we had originally intended. But he had argued that, while it was perfectly sensible for us to plan to pass ourselves off as runaway slaves if arrested and questioned, there was no sense whatever in doing anything to appear like runaway slaves unless we were actually arrested and questioned. Agathemer had admitted this, but had pointed out that, while we had no hope of any assistance whatever, and were planning to escape by our own unaided efforts, there was no possibility of our trying to appear anything else than runaway slaves, as he could easily steal slaves' cloaks and tunics from my spare stores, but had no hope of getting his hands on any other garments. He had joyfully accepted the ideas and suggestions which Chryseros put forward, as well as his proffers of assistance.

Chryseros directed that the two copper cylinders and most of the spoils of Agathemer's pilferings should be left in our little grotto, hidden under the dead leaves. He would then smuggle them away and dispose of them. He would supply us with rusty brown tunics and cloaks of undyed mixed wool, such as were worn by poor or economical farmers throughout Sabinum. Also he would supply us with hats better than those Agathemer had fetched; belts; and travelling wallets, neither too big nor too small, neither too new nor too worn, and each with a shoulder-strap for easy carriage; good, heavy shoes, two pair of them for each of us, so that we might carry a spare pair in each wallet. In the wallets also we were to hide the hunting knives Agathemer had taken from my uncle's collection; which knives, blades, handles and sheaths Chryseros highly approved.