Agathemer laughed out loud.

"Delighted to oblige you," he bowed. Tanno looked at me.

"Hedulio is blushing," he said, "this promises to be interesting. As king of the revels I forbid Hedulio from interrupting. Everybody drain a goblet. Boy, pour a goblet for Agathemer. Agathemer, take a good long drink, so you may start in good voice. And, boy, fill his goblet again when it gets low. Keep an eye on it. Begin, Agathemer."

"It is a shorter story than you anticipate," Agathemer began.

"Hedulio and I had completed the final inspection of the estate. We had begun each inspection with Chryseros' farm and had taken the farms in rotation, ending up with Feliger's. We had inspected Macer's farm in the morning, had had a leisurely bath, lunch and snooze and had ridden out to Feliger's. After looking over the last details of the toolsheds and henneries we were riding home under the over-arching elms down Bran Lane. As we passed Chryseros' entrance we heard yells for help. Hedulio spurred his horse up the avenue and towards the yells, I after him. The yells guided us to the lower barn-yard gate. Hedulio reined up abruptly, leaped off, leaving me to catch his mare, and vaulted the gate. I tethered our mounts as quickly as I could and climbed the gate. I saw old Chryseros pinned against the wall of his barley-barn, in between the horns of his white bull. The points of the bull's horns were driven into the wood of the barn and the horns were so long that Chryseros was in no immediate danger of being crushed between the bull's forehead and the barn wall. The bull was so enraged that he was pushing with all his might, puffing and bellowing, spraying Chryseros' legs with froth, grunting and lowing between bellows. As long as he kept on pushing Chryseros was more scared than hurt; but, sooner or later, the bull was certain to draw back, lunge, and skewer Chryseros on one or the other of his horns.

"When I first saw them Chryseros and the bull were as I have described. Hedulio was twisting the bull's tail.

"The bull paid no more attention to the tail-twisting than if Hedulio had been in the moon.

"Hedulio shouted to Chryseros to hold tight to the bull's horns, as he was already doing, and to stand still. He let go the bull's tail and turned round. Seeing me, he ordered me to get back over the gate and to stay there. He looked about, ran to the stable door, peered in, went in and returned with a manure fork. With that in his hand he ran back to the bull and jabbed him with the fork.

"Then the bull did roar. He backed suddenly away from the barn, shaking his horns loose from the futile grip Chryseros had on them, and whirled on Hedulio. Hedulio jabbed him in the neck with the fork. The bull bellowed with rage, it seemed, more than with pain, lowered his head and charged at Hedulio.

"Hedulio side-stepped as deftly as a professional beast-fighter in an amphitheatre and to my amazement, well as I knew him, threw away the fork.

"The bull's rush carried him almost the whole breadth of the barn-yard. When he turned round he stood, pawing the ground, shaking his head and bellowing. I never saw a bull angrier-looking. He lowered his head to charge.

"But he never charged.

"Hedulio was walking toward him and the bull just stood and pawed and bellowed till Hedulio caught hold of the ring in his nose and led him off to his pen.

"Chryseros, who had dodged through the little door into the barn and had slammed it after him, had peered out of it just before Hedulio reached the bull and had stood, mouth open, hands hanging, letting the door swing wide open.

"Hedulio led the bull into the pen, patted him on the neck and then turned his back on him and sauntered out of the pen, shutting the gate without hurry.

"Chryseros ran to him, stumbling as he ran, fell on his knees, caught Hedulio's hand, and poured out a torrent of thanks."

"Did all that really happen?" Tanno queried.

"Precisely as I have told it." Agathemer affirmed.

"Well," said Tanno, "I know why Caius did not want to tell it. He knew I'd think it an impudent lie."

"Don't you believe it?" Agathemer asked, respectfully.

"Well," Tanno drawled, "I've been watching the faces of the audience. Nobody has laughed or smiled or sneered. I'm an expert on curios and antiques and other specialties, but I am no wiser on bulls than any other city man. So I suppose I ought to believe it. But it struck me, while I listened to you, as the biggest lie I ever heard. I apologize for my incredulity."

"It would be incredible," said Juventius Muso, "if told of any one except Hedulio and it would probably be untrue. As it is told of Hedulio it is probably true and also entirely credible."

"Why of Caius any more than any one else?" queried Tanno.

Muso stared at him.

"I beg pardon," he said, "but I somehow got the idea that you were an old and close friend of our host."

"I was and am," Tanno asserted.

"And know nothing," Muso pressed him, "of his marvellous powers over animals of all kinds, even over birds and fish?"

"Never heard he had any such powers." Tanno confessed.

"How's this, Hedulio?" Juventius demanded of me.

"I suppose," I said, "that Tanno and I have mostly been together at Rome. Animals are scarcer there than in the country and human beings more plentiful. He knows more of my dealings with men and women than with other creatures."

"Besides," Tanno cut in, "you must all remember that our Caius not only never boasts but is absurdly reticent about anything he has done of such a kind that most men would brag of it. Towards his chums and cronies he is open-hearted and as unreserved as a friend could be about everything else, but especially close with them about such matters. So I know nothing of his powers concerning which you speak."

My guests cried out in amazement, all talking at once.

"I'm king of the revels," Tanno reminded them.

"Juventius was talking; let him say his say. Everyone of you shall talk his fill, I promise you. I am immensely interested and curious, as I expect to hear many things which I should have heard from Caius any time these ten years. Speak out, Juventius!"

"Before I say what I meant to say," Muso began, "I want to ask some questions. What you have just told me has amazed me and what little you have said leaves me puzzled. Surely there are dogs in Rome?"

"Plenty," Tanno assured him.

"Haven't you ever seen a vicious dog fly at Hedulio?" Muso pursued.

"Many a time," Tanno admitted.

"Did you ever see one bite him?" Muso asked.

"Never!" Tanno affirmed.

"Can you recall what happened?" queried Muso.

Tanno rubbed his chin.

"It seems to me," he said, "that every time I saw a snarling cur or an open-mouthed watch-dog rush at Caius, the dog slowed his rush before he reached him, circled about him, sniffing, and trotted back where he came from."

"Did you never see Hedulio beckon such a dog, handle and gentle him, even pet him."

"Once I did, as I now recall," Tanno confessed, "yet I thought nothing of it at the time and forgot it at once."

"Probably," Muso conjectured, "you thought the dog was only pretending to be cross and was really tame."

"Just about that, I suppose," Tanno ruminated.

"Well," said Muso, "I take it that any one of the dogs you saw run at Hedulio was affected by him just as was the bull this afternoon; each began by acting towards him as he would have towards any other man; each was cowed and tendered mild by the nearer sight of him. That is the way Hedulio affects all animals whatever."

"Tell us some cases you have seen yourself," Tanno suggested.

"I fear your skepticism, even your derision," Muso demurred.

"I haven't a trace of either left in me by now," Tanno declared. "What you say has knocked the mental wind out of me, so to speak, and I see that the others feel as you do and seem to have similar ideas to express. I vow I believe you, gentlemen, though something inside me is still numb with amazement. Tell us, Juventius, the biggest story you know of these alleged powers of our Caius."

"I told you so," said Muso. "In spite of your disclaimers you slip in that 'alleged.' I don't like that 'alleged' of yours, Opsitius."

"That wasn't mine." Tanno laughed. "That was the numb something inside me talking in its sleep. I'm all sympathetic interest, with no admixture of unbelief. I can see you have startling anecdotes to tell. Tell the most startling."

"The most startling," Juventius began, "I most solemnly aver is literally true. Hedulio and I were once riding along a woodcutters' road through the forests on the Aemilian estate, in the wildest portion of it. The road forms a part of a good short-cut from Villa Aemilia to this valley. It was hot weather and very dry. We were both thirsty. There is a cool and abundant spring not many paces up a steep path on the left of that road. At the path we tethered our horses and walked to the spring. When we had quenched our thirst and had started down the little glade below the spring we saw the head of a big gray wolf appear among some ferns at the lower end of the glade by the path on our left. I stopped, for we had no weapons. Hedulio, however, went on, never altering his easy saunter. The wolf came out of the ferns and paced up to Hedulio like a house dog. Hedulio patted his head, pulled his ears and the wolf not only did not attack him nor snap at him, nor even snarl, but showed his pleasure as plainly as any pet dog. When Hedulio had stopped petting him, I reached them. We two went on as if we were alone, leaving the wolf standing looking after us as if he were watch-dog at the house of an intimate friend."

"Rome," said Tanno, when Muso paused, "is rated the most wonderful place on earth. Rome is my home. Rome rates Sabinum low, except for olives, wines, oaks, sheep and mules. Wonders are not named among the staple products of Sabinum. Yet I come to Sabinum for the first time and hear wonders such as I never dreamed of at Rome."

"And you are only at the beginning of such wonders," spoke up Entedius Hirnio. "That tale of Muso's is mild to one I can tell and I take oath in advance to every word of my story."

"Begin it then, in the name of Hercules," Tanno urged him. "If it is what you herald we cannot have it too quickly."

"When Hedulio and I were hardly more than boys," Hirnio began, "we bird- nested and fished and hunted and roamed the woods like any pair of country lads. Parts of our woodland hereabouts are wilder than anything on the Aemilian estate, and we liked the wildest parts best. I had an uncle at Amiternum and it happened that Hedulio's uncle allowed him to go with me once when my father visited his brother. My uncle had a farm high up in the mountains east of Amiternum and Hedulio and I there revelled in wildness wilder than anything hereabouts. We had no fear and ranged the hillsides, ravines and pine-woods eager and unafraid.

"High up the mountains we blundered on a bear's den with two cubs in it. They were old enough to be playful and young enough not to be fierce or dangerous. I was for carrying them off, but Hedulio said that if the mother returned before we were well on our way home she would certainly catch us before we could reach a place of safety and we should certainly be killed.

"'We had better stop playing with these fascinating little brutes,' he said, 'and be as far off as possible before she comes back.'

"Just as he said it we heard twigs snapping, the crash of rent underbrush, and I looked up and saw the bear coming.

"I had never seen a wild bear till then. She looked to me as big as a half grown calf, and as fat as a six-year-old sow. She came like a race-horse. Besides my instantaneous sense of her size, weight and speed, I saw only her great red mouth, wide-open, set round with gleaming white teeth, from which came a snarl like the roar of a cataract.

"I sprang to the nearest tree which promised a refuge, caught the lowest boughs and scrambled up, the angry snarls of the bear filling my ears. As I reached the first strong branch the snarls stopped.

"I settled myself and looked down.

"The bear was standing still, some paces from her den, peering at it and snuffing the air, working her nose it seemed to me, and moving her head from side to side.

"Hedulio had not moved. He stood just where I had left him, one cub in his arms, the other cuddled at his feet.

"The bear, growling very short, almost inaudible growls, approached him slowly, moving only one foot at a time and pausing before she lifted another foot. She sniffed at the cub on the ground, sniffed at Hedulio's legs, and looked up at the cub in his arms. She made a sound more like a whine than a growl. Hedulio lowered the cub and she sniffed at it. Then Hedulio caught her by the back of the neck. She did not snarl but yielded to his pull and rolled over on her side. He picked up the cub on the ground and laid both by her nipples. They went to, nursing avidly, almost like little pigs, yet also somewhat like puppies. Hedulio sauntered away and to my tree, beckoned me down and we strolled away as if there were no bear near: she in fact paying no attention to either of us after the cubs began nursing her."

Tanno looked wildly about.

"Boys," he said, "forgive me if I am dazed, and don't be insulted. I recall that Entedius prefaced his narrative with an oath to its veracity. I am ready to believe all this if he reaffirms it. But I have a horrible feeling that you farmers think you have caught a city ignoramus and that it is your duty to stuff me with the tallest stories you can invent. Please set me right. If you are stuffing me the joke is certainly on me, for these incredible tales seem true: if they are true the joke is doubly on me. As I am the butt, either way, don't be too hard on me: Please set me right."

They chorused at him that they had all heard the story, most of them soon after the marvel took place; that they had always believed it, and believed it then. I corroborated Hirnio's exactitude as to all the details.



CHAPTER IV

HOROSCOPES AND MARVELS

Tanno looked about again, less wildly, but still like a man in a daze.

"But," he cried, "if you do such wonders, how do you do them, Caius?"

"I don't know now," I said, "any more than I knew the first time I gentled a fierce strange dog. It came natural then, it always has come natural."

"Naturally," said Lisius Naepor, "since it is part of your nature from before birth. Do you mean to tell us, Opsitius, that Hedulio has never shown you his horoscope?"

"Never!" said Tanno, "and he never spoke of it to me. I'm Spanish, you know, by ancestry, and Spaniards are not Syrians or Egyptians. Horoscopes don't figure largely in Spanish life. I never bothered about horoscopes, I suppose. So I never mentioned horoscopes to Hedulio nor he to me."

"Nor he to you of course," said Neponius Pomplio, "he is too modest."

"In fact," said Naepor. "I should never have known of Hedulio's horoscope if his uncle had not shown me a copy. Caius has never mentioned it, unless one of us talked of it first."

"What's the point of the horoscope?" Tanno queried.

"Why you see," Naepor explained. "Hedulio was born in the third watch of the night on the Ides of September.

"Now it is well known that persons are likely to be competent trainers of animals if they are born under the influence of the Whale or of the Centaur or the Lion or the Scorpion or when the Lesser Bear rises at dawn or in those watches of the night when the Great Bear, after swinging low in the northern sky, is again beginning to swing upwards, or at those hours of the day when, as it can be established by calculations, the Great Bear, though invisible in the glow of the sunlight, is in that part of its circle round the northern pole.

"It is disputed which of these constellations has the most powerful influence, but it is generally reckoned that the Whale is most influential, next the Centaur, next the Lion, and the Scorpion least of all, while the dawn rising of the Lesser Bear and the beginning of the upward motion of the Great Bear are held to have merely auxiliary influence when the other signs are favorable. If two or more of these are at one and the same time powerful in the sky at the moment of any one's birth, he will be an unusually capable animal-tamer, the more puissant according as more of the potent stars shine upon his birth.

"It is manifest that, at no day and hour, will all of these signs conspire at their greatest potency. For clearly, for instance, the Lion and the Scorpion, being both in the Zodiac, and being separated in the Zodiac by the interposition of two entire constellations, can never be in the ascendant at one and the same time, nor can one be near the ascendant when the other is in that position. Yet there are times when a majority of them all exert their most potent or nearly their most potent influence, there are some moments when their possible combination of influences is nearly at its maximum potency.

"Now the day, hour, and moment of Hedulio's birth is, as astrologers agree, precisely that instant of the entire year when the stars combine their magic powers with their most puissant force to produce their greatest possible effect on the nature of a child born at that instant, in order that he may have irresistible sway over the wills of all fierce, wild and ferocious animals.

"Such, from his birth and by the divine might of his birth-stars, is our Hedulio."

"After all that," said Tanno, "I should believe anything. I believe the tale of the she-bear. Who has another to tell?"

"Before anyone begins another anecdote," said Neponius Pomplio, "I want to state my opinion that Hedulio's habitual and instantaneous subjugation of vicious dogs which have never before set eyes on him and his miraculous powers of similarly pacifying such wild animals as bears and wolves, while inexpressibly marvellous, is no more wonderful, if, in fact, as wondrous as his power to attract to him, even from a great distance, creatures naturally solitary, or timorous."

"It is strange," said Juventius Muso, "that I should have begun by telling the story of the wolf at the spring, an occurrence of which I was the only witness, instead of mentioning first Hedulio's power over deer, something known to all of us, and many miracles which everyone of us has seen. I suppose we each thought of the most spectacular example of Hedulio's powers known to us, whereas he had so generally handled and gentled deer that we instinctively regarded that as commonplace."

"I think you are right," said Lisius Naepor, "for Hedulio's ability to approach a doe with fawns and to handle the young in sight of the mother without her showing any sign of alarm or concern, is, to my mind, quite as marvellous as his dealings with the she-bear. It seems to me as miraculous to overcome the timidity of the doe as the ferocity of the bear. And we have all seen him play with fawns, fawns so young that they had barely begun to follow their dam. We have all seen a herd of deer stand placidly and let him approach them, move about among them, handle them. We have all seen him handle and gentle stags, even old stags in the rutting season. There is no gainsaying our Hedulio's power over animals, it is a matter of too general and too common knowledge."

"I have seen a mole," said Fisevius Rusco, "come out of its burrow at dusk and eat earth worms out of Hedulio's hand."

"I," said Naepor, "have watched him catch a butterfly and, holding it uncrushed, walk into a wood, and have seen a woodthrush flutter down to him, take the butterfly from his fingers, speed away with it to feed its young and presently return to his empty hand, as if expecting another insect, perch on his hand, peck at it and remain some time; and there is no song-bird more fearful of mankind, more aloof, more retiring, more secret than a wood-thrush."

Several of the others told of my similarly attracting seed-eating birds with handfuls of millet, wheat or other grains or seeds; of squirrels, anywhere in the forests, coming down trees to me and taking nuts from my fingers.

Bultius Seclator said:

"I have seen Hedulio seat himself on a rock in the sunshine and seen a golden eagle, circling in the sky, circle lower and lower till he perched on Hedulio's wrist and not only perched there, but sat there some time, preening his feathers as if alone on the dead topmost limb of a tall tree, eye Hedulio's face without pecking at him and finally take wing and leave Hedulio's arm not only untorn by his talons, but unscratched, without even a mark of the claw-points."

Said Mallius Vulso:

"Hedulio has a way of catching flies with a quick sweep of his hand. I have seen him catch a fly and hold him, buzzing between his fingers and thumb and have seen a lizard run up to him and dart at the fly."

"And I," said Lisius Naepor, "have seen fish in a tank rise to his hand and let him take them out of the water, handle them and slip them back into the water again, all without a struggle."

"More wonderful than that," spoke up Juventius Muso, "I have seen lampreys feed from his hand without biting it, and I have even seen him pick up lampreys out of the water without their attempting to bite him. I'll wager no other man ever did the like."

"True," ruminated Naepor, "Hedulio can pick up and handle a puff-adder and it will never strike at him and he can similarly handle any kind of snake."

"Well," Tanno summed up, after they had talked the subject out, "you countrymen beat me. Here I've been cronying with Caius for years and years and never suspected any such wizardry in him."

"May I speak?" asked Agathemer from his stool, where he had sat silent, sipping his wine very moderately at infrequent intervals.

"Certainly, man," said Tanno, "speak up if you have anything to tell as good as the bull story."

"Although I know my master's modesty." Agathemer said, "I cannot conceive how you can have associated with him so long without knowing of his power over animals. Have you never seen him, for instance, with Nemestronia's leopard?"

"Never that I recall," said Tanno, "and if I had I should have thought nothing of it. Nemestronia's leopard has been tame since it learned to suck milk from Nemestronia's fingers, before its eyes were half open. It always has been tame and is tame with everybody, not only with all Nemestronia's household, not only with frequenters of her reception rooms, but also with casual visitors, total strangers to it. Nobody would think it anything wonderful for Hedulio to handle Nemestronia's leopard."

"I do not mean merely handling," said Agathemer respectfully. "I mean something quite amazing in itself. And that leads me to remark that none of you gentlemen has mentioned or referred to what I regard as one of my master's most amazing feats and one which he has repeated countless times in the presence of uncountable witnesses: I mean taking a bone away from a vicious dog which has never seen him before. I think that amounts to a portent, or would if it had not happened so often."

"Incredible!" cried Tanno.

Then the whole room broke into a hubbub of confirmations and corroborations of Agathemer's statement.

"I give in," Tanno declared, "now for the leopard."

"I am told," said Agathemer, "that all such animals, lions, tigers, leopards, panthers and lynxes, when they set out on their nocturnal prowlings, intent on catching prey, have the strange habit of giving notice to all creatures within hearing that they are about to begin hunting, by a series of roars, snarls, squalls, screams, screeches or whatever they may be properly called for each variety of animal.

"Now one of the tricks of Nemestronia's leopard, which she is fond of exhibiting to her guests, is its method of approaching any live creature exposed to its mercy for its food. If a kid, hare, lamb, porker or what not is turned into one of Nemestronia's walled gardens and the leopard let in, she will, at first sight of the game, crouch belly-flat on the ground and give out a really appalling series of screams or whatever they should be called, entirely unlike any other noise she ever makes. Her hunting- squall, as Nemestronia calls it, rises and falls like a tune on an organ, and besides changing from shriller to less shrill alters in volume from louder to less loud and louder again. It is an experience to hear it, for it is like no sound anyone in Rome ever heard and is unforgettable."

"There you are wrong," Tanno cut in, "it is the normal hunting cry of a leopard. But not many leopards in captivity ever give it. She is the only leopard I ever heard give it in captivity, but I have heard it in the deserts south of Gaetulia and Africa, when I was there with my cohort, while I was still in the army. And let me tell you right here, what I have often told Nemestronia, only the dear self-willed old lady will not listen to me at all, there will be trouble yet with that leopard. She has been a parlor and bedroom pet from birth and she is tame, not only to all Nemestronia's household but to all visitors. But the mere fact that she is old enough to give her hunting-squall for small game is warning enough, if Nemestronia would only realize it, that she is getting fiercer as she gets older. It's only a question of time, no matter how liberally she is fed, that she will turn on her human associates. Possibly she'll give them warning with her hunting-squall, and precious little help it will be towards escaping her, but most likely she'll just turn on someone, without warning, and there'll be a corpse and a pool of blood on the floor or pavement. You mark my words: that is coming as sure as fate, if Nemestronia keeps that leopard about her mansion."

"That may all be true," Hirnio cut in, "but Opsitius, do let Agathemer say his say, whatever it may be."

"You are right and I was wrong," Tanno admitted.

"Proceed, Agathemer."

"Let me describe her behavior fully, for the sake of others," Agathemer resumed. "When she sights a victim she flattens herself out on the ground and gives her long, quavering squall. If the victim remains stationary she crawls toward it very slowly, almost imperceptibly, moving one paw only at a time. If it runs about she ceases her advance and pivots around until it is again stationary and she facing it. She keeps that up until she is within springing distance. But if she sees it near a gate or a door and apparently trying to escape through that, she springs and bounds on it. Otherwise, if the victim keeps quiet and still, she spends a long time in her approach, seeming to enjoy every breath she draws and to be gloating over her helpless prey."

"Just so, gentlemen," Tanno put in, "Agathemer is exact. I have seen all that over and over."

"It is the more astonishing to me," Agathemer went on, "that you have never seen Hedulio divert her attention and entice her away from her victim, even when she is within leaping distance and ready for her final spring. That, to me, is the only thing I ever saw Hedulio do surpassing his repeated success in taking a bone from a cross dog without resistance from the dog."

"Never saw him do it," Tanno declared. "Never heard of it from Nemestronia, and she'll talk 'leopard' by the hour, if you let her. Never suspected any such sorcery from Hedulio. How does he do it? Expound his methods."

"Very simple," said Agathemer. "He calls to her or he walks in front of her. At once she turns her attention to him, appears to forget her prey altogether, rubs against him, purrs, lets him chafe her ears, head and neck, seems to beg for more chafing, rolls on the ground by him and invites him to play with her. Sometimes she seems to insist on his playing with her and to threaten to lose her temper unless he does play with her."

"What do you mean by playing with her?" Tanno queried.

"Have you ever seen any of these little Egyptian cats which some folks have nowadays for pets?" Agathemer asked in his turn. "Creatures about as long as your forearm and rather gentle?"

"Certainly," said Tanno. "I've seen a number of them at ultra-fashionable mansions of the fast set, who must have the latest novelty."

"Ever see any of their kittens?" Agathemer asked.

"Two or three times I have," Tanno replied. "Amusing, fluffy little creatures, not much bigger than a man's hand."

"Ever see one play with a ball?" Agathemer asked.

Tanno laughed.

"Run after a ball, you mean," he said, "slap it first with one paw and then with the other, bound after it and all that?"

"No," said Agathemer, "I do not mean that way; I mean the way a kitten will pretend that a ball is another kitten, will lie on the floor with the ball between its paws, will kick it with its hind feet and paw at it with its forefeet and yet not really claw it."

"I've seen that, too," said Tanno.

"Well," said Agathemer, "Hedulio acts as the ball or the other kitten for that big leopard. He lies down on the pavement by her and they tussle like two puppies, only it is cat-play not dog-play. Hedulio kicks and slaps the leopard and she kicks and slaps him, and they are all mixed up like a pair of wrestlers, and she growls and mouths his hands and arms and shoulders, yet she never bites or claws him, does all that clawing of him with her claws sheathed; never hurts him, and, when she has had enough play, lets him lead her off to her cage."

"Miraculous!" cried Tanno, "but beastly undignified. Fancy a Roman, of equestrian rank, moving in Rome's best society circles, a friend of the Emperor, sprawling on a pavement playing with a stinking leopard, letting her tousle him and rumple his clothes, and letting her slobber her foul saliva all over his arms and shoulders! I'm ashamed of you, Hedulio!"

"Nothing to be ashamed of!" I said. "I thought it fun, every time I have done it, and I did it only for Nemestronia and a few of her intimates, never before any large gathering."

"I should hope not!" Tanno cried, "and I trust you will never try it again. It's disgraceful! And it's too risky. If you keep it up some fine day she'll slash the face off you or bite your whole head off at one snap."

I was surprised and abashed at Tanno's reception of the leopard story and Agathemer seemed similarly affected and more so than I. He tried to start a diversion.

"Most marvellous of all Hedulio's exploits," he said, "I account his encounter with the piebald horse."

"Tell us about it," said Tanno. "Horse-training is, at least, and always, an activity fit for a gentleman and wholly decent and respectable."

"It happened last year," said Agathemer, "in the autumn, before Andivius died; in fact, before we had any reason to dread that the end of his life was near. Entedius saw it, perhaps he would be a more suitable narrator than I."

"Go on," said Hirnio, "I'd rather listen to you than talk myself."

Agathemer resumed.

"We were at Reate Fair. You know how such festivals are always attended by horse-dealers and all sorts of such cheats and mountebanks. There was a plausible and ingratiating horse-dealer with some good horses. Entedius bought one and has it yet."

"And no complaints to make," said Hirnio, "the brute was as represented and has given satisfaction in every way."

"Some others in our party bought horses of him also." Agathemer continued. "Later, when the sports were on, he brought out a tall, long-barrelled piebald horse, rather a well-shaped beast, and one which would have been handsome had he been cream or bay. He showed off his paces and then offered him as a free gift to anyone who could stick on him without a fall. Several farm-lads tried and he threw them by simple buckings and rearings. Some more experienced horse-wranglers tried, but he threw one after the other.

"Then there came forward Blaesus Agellus, the best horse-master about Reate. He had watched till he thought he knew all the young stallion's tricks. No kicking, rearing or bucking could unseat him and the beast tried several unusual and bizarre contortions. Blaesus stuck on. Then the horse-dealer seemed to give a signal, as the horse cantered tamely round the ring.

"Instantly the horse, without any motion which gave warning of what he was about to do, threw himself sideways flat on the ground.

"Blaesus was stunned and his right leg badly bruised, though not broken.

"The owner gloried in his treasure and boasted of his control over the horse, even at a distance.

"Then Hedulio came forward. The crowd was visibly amazed to see a young nobleman put himself on a level with the commonality. But they all knew Hedulio's affable ways and there were no hoots or jeers.

"Hedulio examined the horse carefully, fetlocks, hoofs, mouth and all. Then he gentled and patted it. When he vaulted into the saddle, the brute did a little rearing, kicking and bucking, but soon quieted.

"Hedulio trotted him round the ring, calling to the owner:

"I dare you to try all your signals.'

"The owner seemed to try, at first far back in the crowd, so confident was he of his control of the horse, then nearer, then standing in the front row of spectators.

"The horse remained quiet.

"So Hedulio rode him home and all at the villa acclaimed the horse a great prize.

"The marvel was that he was only a two-year-old, as all experts agreed. I have seen many trick horses, but seldom a good trick horse under eight years old and never a well-trained trick horse under four years old. This was barely two."

"Is he still in your stables?" Tanno asked.

"Let Agathemer finish his tale," I replied.

"Two mornings afterward," Agathemer summed up, "we found the stable was broken into and the young stallion gone. No other horse had been stolen."

"Just what might have been expected," said Tanno, "and now, as king of the revels, I pronounce this symposium at an end. I mean to be up by dawn and to get Hedulio up soon after I am awake. I mean to start back for Rome with him as soon after dawn as I can arrange. You other gentlemen can sleep as late as you like, of course."

"I'm going with you," Hirnio cut in. "I came prepared, with my servant and led-mule loaded with my outfit. I'm to be up as soon as you two."

"Let's all turn in," Tanno proposed.

Mallius Vulso and Neponius Pomplio, who lived nearest me, declared their intention of riding home in the moon-light. The others discussed whether they should also go home or sleep in the rooms ready for them. I urged them to stay, but finally, they all decided to ride home.

Agathemer went to give orders for their horses to be brought round.

"By the way, Caius," Tanno asked, "how are you going to travel?"

"On horseback," I replied.

"Why not in your carriage?" he queried. "I was hoping to ride with you to the Via Salaria, at least, unless your roads jolt a carriage as badly as bearers on them jolt a litter. What's wrong with the superperfect travelling carriage of your late Uncle?"

"I have lent it," I explained, "to Marcus Martius, to travel to Rome in with his bride. I wrote you of his wedding. He has just married my uncle's freedwoman Marcia. I wrote you about it."

"Pooh!" cried Tanno, "how should I remember the marriage of a freedwoman I never saw with a bumpkin I never heard of?"

"No bumpkin," cut in Lisius Naepor. "Not any more of a bumpkin than I or any of the rest of us here. You are too high and mighty, Opsitius. It is true that in our countryside the only senators are Aemilius, Vedius and Satronius, and that in our immediate vicinity Hirnio and Hedulio are the only proprietors of equestrian rank but we commoners here are no bumpkins or clodhoppers."

"I apologize," Tanno spoke conciliatingly. "You are right to call me down. We Romans of Rome really know the worth of farmers and provincials and the like. But we are so used, among ourselves, to thinking of Rome as the whole world, that our speech belies our esteem for our equals. I should not have spoken so. Who is Marcus Martius, Caius, and who is Marcia?"

"Marcus Martius," I said, "is a local landowner like the rest of us. He would have been here to-night but for his recent marriage and approaching journey to Rome. I have always asked him to my dinners."

"Then how, in the name of Ops Consiva," cried Tanno, "did he come to marry your uncle's freedwoman?"

"This time I agree with you, Opsitius," said Naepor. "Your tone of scorn is wholly justified. Marrying freedwomen is getting far too common. If things go on this way there will be no Roman nobility nor gentry nor even any Roman commonality; just a wish-wash of counterfeit Romans, nine-tenths foreign in ancestry, with just enough of a dash of Roman blood to bequeath them our weaknesses and vices."

"On the other hand," said Juventius Muso, "while agreeing with Naepor as to the propriety of the tone, I object to the question. Instead of asking how Martius came to marry Marcia, had you been acquainted with the recent past history of this neighborhood, Opsitius, you would have asked how most of the rest of us managed to escape marrying her."

"A freedwoman!" cried Tanno.

"A most unusual freedwoman," Hirnio asserted, "as she was almost a portent as a slave-girl. Haven't you ever heard of her, Opsitius?"

"We Romans," Tanno bantered, "are lamentably ignorant on the life- histories of brood-sows, slave-girls, prize-heifers and such-like notabilities of Sabinum."

"She is no Sabine," Hirnio retorted, "but, as far as the locality of her birth and upbringing goes, is as Roman as you are. Did you never hear of Ummidius Quadratus?"

"Hush!" Tanno breathed. "I have heard of the man you have named, heard of him on the deaf side of my head, as did all Rome. But, in the name of Minerva, do not utter his name. It is best forgotten. Even so long after his execution and so far from Rome, the mention of the name of anyone implicated as he was might have most unfortunate results."

"Not here and among us," Hirnio declared. "The point is that Quadratus had a eunuch less worthless than most eunuchs. He became a very clever surgeon and physician, and endeared himself to Quadratus by many cures among his countless slaves, and even among his kin. Quadratus made him his chief physician and trusted him utterly. Naturally he let him set up an establishment of his own, allowing him to select a location. Hyacinthus, for that is the eunuch's name, instead of choosing for a home any one of a dozen desirable neighborhoods well within his means with the liberal allowance Quadratus gave him, settled in a peculiarly vile slum, because, as he said, his associates mostly lived there; meaning by his associates the votaries of some sort of Syrian cult, chiefly peddlers and such, living like ants or maggots, all packed together in the rookeries of that quarter.

"Hyacinthus was not only a member of their sect, but their hierophant, or whatever they call it, and presided at the ceremonies of their religion at their little temple somewhere in the same part of the city.

"He divided his energies between his calling of surgeon, at which he prospered amazingly, and his avocation of hierophant.

"As head of their cult it fell to him to care for the orphans of their poorer families and for foundlings, for such Asiatics never expose infants or fail to succor exposed infants.

"Marcia was a foundling and brought up by Hyacinthus, therefore, legally a slave of Quadratus.

"Quadratus saw her and took a fancy to her. He had her taught not only dancing, music and such accomplishments, but had her educated almost as if she had been his niece or daughter.

"When she was yet but a half-grown girl, she had acquired such a hold on him that he used to bewail it. What was it he said, Hedulio?"

"I have heard him say to my uncle," I said, "that Marcia was as imperious as if she were Empress and that living with her was as bad as being married. Quadratus was born to be a bachelor and never thought of matrimony. But though he had solaced himself with a long series of beauties in all previous cases his word had been law and not one of his concubines had had any will of her own. Marcia's word was law to him, even her tone or look. She had wheedled him into lavishing on her flowers, perfumery, jewels, an incredibly varied and costly wardrobe, maids, masseuses, bathgirls, a mob of waiters, cooks, doorkeepers, litter-bearers and what not and the most costly equipages.

"He groaned, but was too infatuated to deny her anything.

"My uncle sympathized with him and, with the idea of disabusing him of his folly, somehow, while visiting him, saw Marcia.

"Uncle at once fell madly in love with her.

"He offered to buy her.

"That was just before Quadratus became involved in the intrigues radiating from Lucilla's conspiracy, was implicated in the conspiracy itself and so disgraced and executed.

"Marcia seems to have had some prevision or inkling of what was coming. Anyhow she could not have acted more for her own interest if she had had accurate information of what was impending. She cajoled Uncle into buying her and coaxed Quadratus into selling her.

"'Take her,' Quadratus told him, 'at your own price. If you don't or if somebody else don't free me from this vampire, I'll be fool enough to manumit her and marry her as soon as she is free!'

"Uncle brought her up here.

"Did she wail at leaving Rome and mourn over seclusion in our hills? Not she.

"She made as big a fool of Uncle as she had of Quadratus.

"He, with his ill health and his frequent illnesses, got as much satisfaction out of Marcia as a blind man would get from a painting. But he indulged her far beyond his means. He gave her the little west villa for her home, and a small horde of servants. She wheedled him into freeing her and then, from the day she was freed, set herself to marry and marry well. She had every bachelor and widower hereabouts visiting her, dangling about her, competing for her smiles, showering gifts on her, soliciting her favor!

"When they found, one by one, that the only road to her favors was by matrimony, they sheered off in terror, one by one.

"She nearly married Vedius Caspo, came almost as near with Satronius Sabinus.

"Then, when she saw no hope left of a senator, she almost landed Hirnio, tried to marry Uncle, and tried to marry me."

"And just missed all three," said Hirnio, fervently. "I am still equally congratulating myself on my escape and wondering over it. I was sure Andivius would marry her, sure of it until his last illness made it impossible. And I feared for our Hedulio here.

"The only man hereabouts whom she did not try to marry was Ducconius Furfur. She had made eyes at his father, and Ducconius was precious afraid she would be his stepmother. At first he railed at her. Then, just before his father's death, it was manifest to everybody that he was yielding to her fascinations, himself. Hardly was old Ducconius buried when young Furfur lost his head completely and fell madly in love with Marcia. She could have married him easily; in fact, he offered marriage, not only to her in private, but before witnesses. She, for some reason, would not hear of marrying him. In fact, Furfur, it seems, was the only bachelor hereabouts whom she was unwilling to marry. She flouted him, derided him, and finally forbade him her house and ordered him never to dare to approach her. He kept away, sulky and morose and low-spirited.

"After that episode she had a go at Muso, the only other bachelor among us seven.

"Finally she fastened on Marcus Martius, who is not quite as rich as Muso, but yet comfortably well off. She married him day before yesterday."

"Thanks be to Hercules," Tanno cried, "that I have never set eyes on the jade. I'm for matrimony only with an heiress of my own class and only with such an heiress as I personally fancy. No matrimony for me otherwise."

With this the party broke up. We all went out on the terrace. My six neighbors mounted and cantered off on their various roads home; Tanno, Hirnio and I went in and to bed.



CHAPTER V

ENCOUNTERS

Next morning I was wakened by a dash of cold water over me and sat up in bed dripping and angry. Tanno was bending over me.

"I had to souse you," he explained. "I've been shaking you and yelling at you and you stayed as fast asleep as before I touched you. Get up and let's start for Rome."

We enjoyed a brief rubdown and after Entedius joined us each relished a small cup of mulled wine and one of Ofatulena's delicious little hot, crisp rolls.

In the east courtyard we found our equipages and I descried my tenants outside the gate, all horsed and each muffled in a close rain-cloak, topped off by a big umbrella hat, its wide brim dripping all round its edge, for the weather was atrocious; foggy mist blanketing all the world under a gray sky from which descended a thin, chilly drizzle.

Hirnio was inspecting Tanno's litter and chatting with Tanno about it.

"Never saw one with poles like this," he said. "All I have seen had one long pole on each side, a continuous bar of wood from end to end. What's the idea of four poles, half poles you might call them, two on a side?"

"You see," Tanno explained, "It is far harder to get sound, flawless, perfect poles full length. Then, too, full-length spare poles are very bothersome and inconvenient to carry. With a litter equipped in this fashion one man can carry a spare pole, and they are much easier and quicker to put in if a pole snaps."

"I should think," Hirnio remarked, "that the half-poles would pull out of the sockets."

"Not a bit," said Tanno, "they clamp in at the end, this way. See? The clamps fasten instantly and release at a touch, but hold tenaciously when shut."

Under the arcade my household had gathered to say farewell and wish me good luck. I spoke briefly to each and thanked Ofatulena for her distinguished cookery, both in respect to the credit her masterpieces had done me at dinner and also for the taste of her rolls, which yet lingered in mouth and memory. Tanno also expressed his admiration of her powers.

Last I said farewell to my old nurse and foster mother Uturia, who, when I was scarcely a year old, had closed the eyes of my dying mother, and not much later of my father, and who had not merely suckled me, but had been almost as my real mother to me in my childhood.

She could not keep back her tears, as always at our partings; the more as she had had dreams the night before and she took her dreams very seriously.

"Deary," she sobbed, "it has been revealed to me that you go into great perils when you set out to-day. I saw danger all about you, danger from men and danger from beasts. Beware of strangers, of narrow streets, of walled gardens, of plots, of secret conferences. All these threaten you especially."

I kissed her as heartily as if she had been my own mother.

"Don't worry, Uturia," I said, "as long as I live I'll take care of you and if I die you shall be a free woman with a cottage and garden and three slaves of your own."

But she only sobbed harder, both as she clung to me and after I had mounted.

Tanno, of course, rolled into his litter and slid the panels against the rain. His bearers were muffled up precisely like my tenants. So was Tanno's intendant, so was Hirnio, so was I. The entire caravan was a mere column of horses, cloaks and hats, not a man visible, all the faces hid under the flapping hat-brims, no man recognizable.

Hirnio and I led, next came Tanno in his litter, then his extra bearers, next his intendant on horseback, then my nine tenants, each horsed and leading a pack-mule, last the mounted servants, Tanno's, Hirnio's and mine, similarly leading pack-mules, in all twenty-seven men afoot, sixteen mounted and twelve led mules.

As we strung out Tanno called to me:

"Luck for us if we don't blunder into one of those ambushes we heard about at dinner last night. With all this cavalcade everybody we meet cannot fail to conjecture that so large a party can only be from either Villa Vedia or Villa Satronia, such an escort misbefits anyone not of senatorial rank. If we do blunder into an ambush either side will know we are not their men and will assume we are of the other party. No one can recognize anybody in this wet-weather rig. Any ambush will attack first and investigate afterwards or not at all."

Had I heeded his chance words I might, even then, have saved myself. But while my ears heard him my wits were deaf. I called back:

"There are no ambushes. Each side spreads such rumors to discredit the other, but neither so much as thinks of ambush. If Xantha or Greia is located, the clan concerned for her freedom will gather a rescue-party and there may be fight over her, but there are no ambushes."

At the foot of my road Hirnio and I turned to our left. Tanno from his litter emitted a howl of protest.

"Nothing," he yelled, "will induce me to traverse that road again. I told you so. You promised to take the other road. What do you mean?"

"Don't worry, Opsitius," Hirnio reassured him. "We turned instinctively according to habit. You shall have your way. It is not much farther by the other road."

"Anyhow," I added, "Martius is not in sight. He was to have been here before us. If we went this way we should have to wait for him. If we go the other we shall most likely meet him at the fork of the road."

We turned to our right towards Villa Vedia and Vediamnum. About half way to the entrance to Villa Vedia, at the top of the hill between the two bridges, the rain for a brief interval fairly cascaded from the sky. During this temporary downpour, as we splashed along, we saw loom out of the rain, fog and mist the outline of what might have been an equestrian statue, but which, as we drew up to it, we found a horse and rider, stationary and motionless to the south of the road, on a tiny knoll, facing the road and so close to it that I might have put out my right hand and touched the horse's nose as we passed.

Like everyone in our convoy the rider was enveloped in a rain-cloak and his head and face hidden under a wide-brimmed umbrella hat. He saluted as I came abreast of him, but his salutation was merely a perfunctory wave of a hand, an all-but-imperceptible nod and an inarticulate grunt.

I barely caught a glimpse of his face, but I made sure he was no one I had ever seen before and equally sure that he was not a Sabine.

When we reached the entrance of Villa Vedia, which was also the crossroad down which Marcus Martius and his bride must come, there was no sign of a travelling carriage, nor any fresh ruts in the road.

We halted and peered into the mist. Nothing was in sight on the road, but there was a stir in the bushes by the roadside. Out of them appeared a bare head, with a shock of tousled, matted, rain-soaked gray hair, a hatchet face, brow like a bare skull, bleared eyes, far apart and deepset on either side of a sharp hooked nose like the beak of a bird of prey, high cheekbones under the thin, dry, tight-drawn skin above the sunken cheeks, a wide, thin-lipped mouth and a chin like a ship's prow. The rain trickled down the face.

Up it rose, till there was visible under it a lean stringy neck, a tattered garment, and the outline of a gaunt, emaciated body, that of a tall, spare, half-starved old woman.

I recognized the Aemilian Sibyl, as all the countryside called her, an old crone who had, since before the memory of our oldest patriarchs, lived in a cave in the woods on the Aemilian Estate, supported by the gifts doled out to her by the kindness, respect or fear of the slaves and peasantry living nearest her abode, for she had a local reputation for magical powers in the way of spells to cure or curse, charms for wealth or health, love philtres, fortune-telling, prophecy and good advice on all subjects likely to cause uncertainty of mind in farm-life.

She towered out of the dripping shrubberies and pointed a long skinny finger at me.

"I know you under your cloak and hat, Hedulio," she wheezed. "Well for you if younger folk than I had such, eyes in their heads as I have in my spirit. I know you, Andivius Hedulio. You turn your face towards Reate, but you shall never see Reate this day. You might as well take the road to Rome and be done with it, for to Rome you shall go, whether you will or not. Whether you will or not, whatever road your feet take, you will find it leads you to Rome, whatever ship you take, no matter to what port she steers, will land you at Rome's Wharf. They say all roads lead to Rome. For you, in truth, every road leads to Rome, whether you face towards Rome or away from Rome.

"Be warned! Yield to your fate! If you would have luck, go to Rome, abide in Rome; and if you must leave Rome, return to Rome.

"And hearken to my words, let them sink deep into your mind, remember them and heed them; beware of a man with a hooked nose, beware of secret conferences, beware of plots, walled gardens, beware of narrow streets, for these will be your undoing."

Agathemer had edged his horse along the roadside the length of our cavalcade and had joined me. He dismounted, strode to the hag and held out his hand to her, some silver pieces on its palm, saying:

"My master thanks you for your warning and offers you these as a guerdon."

"Greek!" she screamed. "I warn not for guerdons, but at the behest of the God of Prophecy. Begone with your silver! Silver I scorn and gold and all the treasures of mankind's folly and all the joys of mankind's life. I am the Sibyl!"

And she tramped off through the crackling underbrush till the trees hid her and the noise of her going died away, till she was so far off that we heard the rain drops drip from the boughs and the horses fret at their bits.

So at a standstill, as we stared expectantly up the crossroad, we saw come into sight, not a travelling carriage, but a horseman, looming huge out of the fog, a vast bulk of a man on a big black horse like a farm work-horse.

He drew rein and saluted civilly, tilting up his hat. His face was ruddy, his eyes blue, his expression that of a mountaineer from a village or small town.

"I have lost my way," he said. "My name is Murmex Lucro. I come from Nersae and am bound for Rome. I was told of a short cut that should have brought me out on the Salarian Road near Trebula. But I must have taken a wrong turn, for I was wholly at a loss at dusk yesterday and so camped in the woods by a spring. I have not met a human being since daylight. Where am I and how can I reach the Via Salaria?"

"You are not far from it," Hirnio told him. "We are bound for Rome and if you join us you can reach Via Salaria with us by the road on which we are going. Should you prefer to follow the road along which we have come, which is rough, but less roundabout, you can, by taking every turn to the right, reach the Via Salaria some miles nearer Rome than where our road will bring us out on it."

"I'll join your cavalcade, if you have no objection," the stranger said.

Hirnio and I expressed our entire willingness to have his company.

Hirnio asked him:

"Are you in any way related to Murmex Frugi?"

"He was my father," Murmex replied, simply.

"Was!" Hirnio repeated. "The word strikes ominously on my ear. Someone from this neighborhood, I forget who, was in Nersae since the roads became fit for travelling this spring and returned from there, or perhaps some wayfarer from Nersae stopped with someone hereabouts. At any rate we heard he had seen Murmex Frugi still hale and sound, even at his advanced age."

"My father," said Murmex, "was still hale and sound on the Kalends of May and for a day or two thereafter. He fell ill with a cough and fever, and died after only two nights' illness, on the Nones of May, barely more than a month ago."

"He lived to a green old age," said Hirnio, "and must have enjoyed every moment of his life."

"He seemed to," said Murmex.

"And I conjecture," I put in, "that he was proud of his son."

"He seemed so," Murmex admitted, "but he was never a tenth as proud of me as I of him."

"It is an honor," I said, "to be the son of the greatest gladiator of our fathers' days, of the man esteemed the best swordsman Italy ever saw live out his term of service and live to retire on his savings."

"It is," Murmex said, as simply as before.

Here we were interrupted by a yell from Tanno, as he leaned out of his litter.

"Are we going to take root here," he bawled, "like Phaethon's sisters? We were supposed to be journeying to Rome. We appear to be bound for Hades; we shall certainly reach it if we continue sinking into your Sabine mud!"

"Martius agreed to wait for me, if I was late," I shouted back to him. "I agreed to wait for him; I keep my word. If you choose, we'll get out of your way and let you pass on. We can catch up with you."

"Bah!" he roared. "No going it alone on a Sabine road for me! I'm tied to you hand and foot. But this waiting in the rain is no fun! Did you notice that man on horseback we passed on the road?"

"I did," I called back.

"Do you know who he is?"

"Never set eyes on him before," I replied.

"Do you know what he is?"

"No," I answered, "I do not. What is he, according to your conjecture?"

"I'm not depending on any conjectures," Tanno bellowed, "I know to a certainty."

"Then tell us," I called.

"Not here!" cried Tanno. "I'll tell you later."

He pulled his head inside his litter.

We again stared up the crossroad. Nothing was in sight.

"It seems to me," Hirnio again addressed Murmex, "that not only your father was a Nersian, but also Pacideianus and that I have heard that he also was living in retirement at Nersae."

"He is yet," rejoined Murmex, laconically.

"Then you know him?" Hirnio queried.

"My mother," said Murmex, "is his sister."

"Your uncle!" cried Hirnio, "son to one of the two greatest retired gladiators in Italy, nephew to the other! Living in the same town with them! Did either of them ever teach you anything of sword play?"

"Both of them," said Murmex, "taught me everything they knew of sword play, from the day I could hold a toy lath sword."

"Hercules!" I cried, "and what did they say of your proficiency?"

"My father with his last breath," said Murmex solemnly, "and my uncle Pacideianus as he bade me farewell, told me that I am the best swordsman alive."

"Why have you never," I asked, "tried your luck in the arena?"

"My father forbade me," Murmex explained. "He bade me wait. He trowed a grown man was worth ten growing lads, and he said so and stuck to that. On his death-bed he told me I was almost seasoned. After we buried him I felt I could abide Nersae no longer. Uncle agreed with me that I had best follow my instincts. I fare to Rome to seek my fortune as a swordsman on the sand in the amphitheatres."

"You have fallen into good company," I said, "for I can bring you at once to the Emperor's notice."

"I should be most grateful," said Murmex.

At that instant we heard an halloo from the road and saw a horseman appear out of the mist, then a travelling carriage behind him. It was Martius. When he was near enough I could see his grave, handsome, mediocre face far back in the carriage, and beside it Marcia's; small, delicate, shell-pink, her intense blue eyes bright even in that blurred gloomy daylight, shining close together over her little aquiline nose.

We conferred and he agreed to fall in behind Tanno's extra bearers, between them and my farmers, Tanno's intendant getting in front of the litter where he normally belonged.

We got properly into line as arranged and plodded on down the road.

Just outside of Vediamnum was, as Tanno had related, the village idiot, guarding his flock of goats. He mowed and gibbered at us and then spoke some intelligible words, as he occasionally did.

"I know you, Hedulio," he called. "You can't hide yourself under that hat nor inside that raincloak. I know you, Hedulio. But nobody but an idiot would ever recognize you inside that rig and with all this escort. I know you, you aren't Vedius Vindex, you aren't Satronius Sabinus. You're Andivius Hedulio. I know you. But nobody else will guess who you are. Nobody else around here is an idiot!"

Again, as with Tanno's utterance when we were leaving my villa, the words fell on my ears but did not penetrate to my thinking consciousness. Had I noted what I heard, had I thought instantaneously of what the idiot's words really signified, I might even then have saved myself.

We plodded on, a long cavalcade of horsemen and bevy of men afoot, convoying a shut litter and a closed travelling carriage.

Round the turn of the road, after passing the idiot and his goats, with the brawling stream of the Bran Brook, now swollen to a respectable little river, on our left, with the wooded hills rising on our right, we entered the long, narrow winding single street of Vediamnum, a paved lane along the close-crowded tall stone houses built against the hillside on the northeast, with the stream along it to the southwest, and houses wedged between the street and the stream, brokenly, for about half of its length, with open intervals between.

As we entered the village I saw ahead on the street not a human form, saw no face at any door of any house. I wondered over this, wondered uncomprehendingly. I had never seen the street of Vediamnum. wholly deserted, not even in rains much harder than that which descended on us. Still wondering, still uncomprehending, when we were far enough into the village for the travelling carriage to be already between the first houses, I saw fall across the roadway, in front of me, two stout trunks of trimmed trees, straight like pine trees; I heard the crash as they jarred on the stones of the stream-side wall, I saw them quiver as they settled; breast high and shoulder high from house-wall to house-wall, effectually blocking the highway.

At the same instant there sounded a chorus of yells, shouts, calls, cheers and commands; and men poured out of the house doors, out of the alleys between the houses, up the river bank in the unbuilt intervals; men hatless and cloakless, clad only in their tunics, men with clubs, with staffs, with staves, with bludgeons, with cudgels, men yelling:

"Greia! Greia! Rescue Greia! Club 'em! Brain 'em! Chase 'em! Vedius forever! At 'em boys! Mustard's the word! Make 'em run! Rescue Posis!"

They clubbed us. They clubbed the horses, they clubbed the mules, they clubbed the bearers and their reliefs. They gave us no time to explain, and though I yelled out who I was and who was with me, though Hirnio and Tanno and Martius yelled similarly, their explanations were unheard in the hubbub or unheeded. Also our effort to explain was brief. Swathed as we were in our cloaks the hot gush of rage that flamed up in us drove us instinctively to free our arms and fight.

Now anyone might suppose that it would be an easy matter for some eighteen horsemen to ride down and scatter a mob of varlets afoot. So it would be in the open, when the riders were aware of the attack and ready to meet it. We were taken wholly by surprise whereas our assailants were ready and agreed. For a moment it looked like a rout for us, our horses and mules rearing and kicking, our whole caravan in confusion, jammed together higgledy-piggledy, with all our attackers headed for the carriage, mistaking Marcia for Greia.

Marcia never screamed, never moved, sat still and silent, apparently calm and placid.

They all but dragged her out of the carriage.

In fact we should indubitably have been frightfully mauled and Marcia carried off had it not been for Murmex and Tanno.

At first onset Tanno had yelled explanations; but almost with his first yell he rolled out of his litter, snatched a spare pole from a relief, and with it laid about him; Murmex did the like. The two of them, one on the right of the litter and carriage, the other on the left, bore the whole shock of our attackers' first rush and alone delayed it.

Somehow, probably by Tanno's orders, perhaps by their own instincts, the reliefs with the other poles handed them to Hirnio and me as we dismounted. Three of the clever blacks caught our horses and Murmex's. Others detached the poles from the litter and the four biggest bearers seized them and used them vigorously.

Thus, actually quicker than it takes to tell of it, eight powerful, skillful and justly incensed men on our side were plying litter poles against the cudgels of our attackers.

I was severely bruised before I warmed up to my work; when I did warm up I laid a man flat with every blow of the pole I wielded.

When my adversaries had had a sufficient taste of my skill to cause them to draw away from me, as far as they could in that press of men, horses and mules, and I had cleared a space around me, I looked about.

Agathemer, light built as he was, had wrenched a bludgeon from some Vedian and was wielding it not ineffectually.

Hirnio was doing his part in the fighting like a gentleman and an expert.

But Murmex and Tanno chiefly caught my eye.

It was wonderful to see Tanno fight. Every swing of his pole cracked on a skull. Men fell about him by twos and threes, one on the other.

If Tanno was wonderful Murmex was marvellous. Never had I seen a man handle a staff so rapidly and effectively.

By this time my nine tenants were afoot, and uncloaked. Now a Sabine farmer, afoot or horsed, is never without his trusty staff of yew or holly or thorn. These the nine used to admiration, if less miraculously than Tanno and Murmex.

Since there were now a round dozen skilled fencers plying their staffs on our side, and four huge and mighty Nubians doing their best (with no mean skill of their own, either) to assist us, we soon were on the way to victory.

The remnant of our adversaries still on their feet fled; fled up the alleys between the houses, into the houses, down the bank towards the stream or into the stream, over the barricade of the twin logs.

That barricade made it impossible for us to go on. The number of men laid low, some of whom were reviving from their stunned condition and crawling or staggering away from under the hoofs of the crazed horses and mules, made it unthinkable that any explanation of the mistake which had led to the fracas could be possible, or if possible, that explanation could quench the fires of animosity which blazed in the breasts of all concerned.

With one accord, without any conference or the exchange of a word, our party made haste to escape from Vediamnum before our assailants rallied for a second onset. No horse or mule was hamstrung or lamed, no man had been knocked senseless. All of us were more or less bruised and sore, some were bleeding, two of my tenants had blood pouring from torn scalps, but every man, horse and mule was fit to travel.

We carried, lifted, dragged or rolled out of the way the disabled Vedians in the roadbed, making sure that not one was killed, we somehow got the travelling carriage turned round, no small feat in that narrow space; we readjusted the litter-poles, Tanno climbed in, Hirnio and Murmex and I mounted, Tanno's extra litter bearers led my farmers' horses and mules and we set off on our retreat, my nine tenants, even with two of them half scalped, forming a rearguard of entirely competent bludgeoners; certainly they must have impressed the Vedians as adequate, for no face so much as showed at a doorway until we were clear of the village and my tenants remounted. Then came a few derisive yells after us as the mist cut off our view of the nearest houses.

We made haste, you may be sure. Outside of the village we passed the idiot and his goats. He mowed and grinned at us, but uttered no word. We saw no other human figure till we had passed the entrance to Villa Vedia and felt safer. Nor did we pass anyone between that cross-road and the foot of my road, save only the same immobile horseman on the same knoll, in the same position, and, apparently, at precisely the same spot, as if he were indeed an equestrian statue. His salutation was as curt as before.

At the foot of my road we held a consultation. Hirnio advised returning to my villa and demanding an apology from Vedius, even instituting legal proceedings at Reate if he did not make an apology and enter a disclaimer. But Tanno, Martius and all my tenants, even the two with cracked heads, were for going on, and, of course, Murmex, who talked as if he had been a member of our company from the first.

"Hercules be good to me," Tanno cried, "to get out of this cursed neighborhood I am willing even to face the horrors of the bit of road I suffered on as I came up. Let us be off on our road to Rome."

"With all my heart," I said. "But first tell me who or what is that voiceless and moveless horseman we passed twice between here and the crossroads. You said you knew."

"I do know," Tanno grunted, "and I'm not fool enough to blurt it out on a country road, either. Let's be off. Attention! Form ranks! Ready! Forward! March!"

Off we set, ordering our caravan as at first, except that Agathemer rode by me, with Hirnio and Murmex in advance.

We plodded down the muddy road, through the fine, continuous drizzle, wrapped in our cloaks, all the world about us helmed in fog, mist and rain, the trees looming blurred and gray-green in the wet air.

Without meeting any wayfarers, with little talk among ourselves, we had passed the entrance to Villa Satronia and were no great distance from the Salarian Highway, when, where the road traversed a dense bit of woodland, the trees of which met overhead, the underbrush on both sides of the road suddenly rang with yells and was alive with excited men.

It was almost the duplicate of our experience in Vediamnum, save that our assailants were more numerous and shouted:

"Xantha, Xantha, rescue Xantha!"

"Satronius forever! Eat 'em alive, boys! Get Xantha! Get Xantha!" and such like calls.

This time we had an infinitesimally longer warning, as the bushes to right and left of the road were further apart than had been the houses lining the streets of Vediamnum; also we reacted more quickly to the yells, having heard the like such a short time before.

The fight was fully joined all along the line and was raging with no advantage for either side, when I missed a parry and knew no more.

Afterwards I was told that I fell stunned from a blow on the head and lay, bleeding not only from a terrific scalp wound but also from a dozen other abrasions, until the fight was over, our assailants routed and completely put to flight, and Tanno with the rest of the pursuers returned to the travelling carriage and litter to find Marcia, pink and pretty and placid, seated as she had been when she left home, and me, weltering in a pool of blood.

A dozen Satronians lay stunned. Tanno reckoned two of them dead men.

I was the only man seriously hurt on our side.

Agathemer was for convoying me home.

Tanno hooted at the idea, expatiating on the distance from Reate and the improbability of such a town harboring a competent physician, on the number of excellent surgeons in Rome, on the advisability of getting me out of the locality afflicted with our Vedian-Satronian feud, and so on.

He had me bandaged as best might be and composed in his litter.

He took my horse.

To me the journey to Rome was and is a complete blank. I was mostly insensible, and, when I showed signs of consciousness, was delirious. I recall nothing except a vague sense of endless pain, misery and horror. I have no memory of anything that occurred on the road after I was hit on the head, nor of the first night at Vicus Novus nor of the second at Eretum. I first came to myself about the tenth hour of the third day, when we were but a short distance from Rome and in full sight of it. The view of Rome, from any eminence outside the city from which a view of it may be had, has always seemed to me the most glorious spectacle upon which a Roman may feast his eyes. As a boy my tutors had yielded to my importunities and had escorted me to every one of those elevations near the city famous as viewpoints. As a lad I had ridden out to each many times, whenever the weather promised a fine view, to delight my soul with the aspect of the great city citizenship in which was my dearest heritage. To have been born a Roman was my chief pride; to gaze at Rome, to exult at the beauty of Rome, was my keenest delight.

More even than the acclaimed viewpoints, to which residents like me and visitors from all the world flocked on fine afternoons, did I esteem those places on the roads radiating from Rome where a traveller faring Romeward caught his first sight of the city; or those points where, if one road had several hill-crests in succession, one had the best view possible anywhere along the road.

Of the various roads entering Rome it always appeared to my judgment that the Tiburtine Highway afforded the most charming views of the city.

But, along the Salarian Highway, are several rises at the top of each of which one sees a fascinating picture when looking towards Rome. Of these my favorite was that from the crest of the ascent after one crosses the Anio, just after passing Antemnae, near the third milestone.

This view I love now as I have always loved it, as I loved it when a boy. To halt on that crest of the road, of a fair, still, mild, brilliant afternoon when the sun is already visibly declining and its rays fall slanting and mellow; to view the great city bathed in the warm, even light, its pinnacles, tower-roofs, domes, and roof-tiles flashing and sparkling in the late sunshine, all of it radiant with the magical glow of an Italian afternoon, to see Rome so vast, so grandiose, so majestic, so winsome, so lovely; to know that one owns one's share in Rome, that one is part of Rome; that, I conceive, confers the keenest joy of which the human heart is capable.

It so happened that Tanno had his litter opened, that I might get all the air possible, and the curtains looped back tightly. Somehow, at the very crest of that rise on the Salarian Road, on a perfect afternoon, about the tenth hour, I came to myself.

I was aching in every limb and joint, I was sore over every inch of my surface, I was all one jelly of bruises, my head and my left shin hurt me acutely. More than all that I was permeated by that nameless horror which comes from weakness and a high fever.

Now it would be impossible to convey, by any human words, the strangeness of my sensations. My sufferings, my illness, my distress of mind enveloped me and permeated me with a general misery in which I could not but loathe life, the world and anything I saw, and I saw before me the most magnificent, the most noble, the most inspiriting sight the world affords.

At the instant of reviving I was overwhelmed by my sensations, by my recollections of the two fights and of all they meant to me of misfortune and disaster, and I was more than overwhelmed by the glory spread before me. I went all hot and cold inside and all through me and lost consciousness.

After this lapse I was not conscious of anything until I began to be dimly aware that I was in my own bed in my own bedroom, in my own house and tended by my own personal servants.

Strangely enough this second awakening was as different as possible from my momentary revival near Antemnae. Then I had been appalled by the rush of varying sensations, crowding memories, conflicting emotions and daunting forebodings, each of which seemed as distinct, vivid and keen as every other of the uncountable swarm of impressions: I had felt acutely and cared extremely. Now every memory and sensation was blurred, no thought of the future intruded, I accepted without internal questionings whatever was done for me, and lay semi-conscious, incurious and indifferent. Mostly I dozed half-conscious. I was almost in a stupor, at peace with myself and all the world, wretched, yet acquiescing in my wretchedness, not rebellious nor recalcitrant.

This semi-stupor gradually wore off, my half-consciousness between long sleeps growing less and less blurred, my faculties more alive, my personality emerging.

When I came entirely to myself I found Tanno seated by my bed.

"You're all right now, Caius," he said, "I have kept away till Galen said you were well enough for me to talk to you."

"Galen?" I repeated, "have I been as ill as all that?"

"Not ill," Tanno disclaimed, "merely bruised. You are certainly a portent in a fight. I never saw you fight before, never saw you practice at really serious fencing, never heard anybody speak of you as an expert, or as a fighter. But I take oath I never saw a man handle a stave as you did. You were quicker than lightning, you seemed in ten places at once, you were as reckless as a Fury and as effectual as a thunderbolt. You laid men out by twos and threes. But jammed as you were in a press of enemies you were hit often and hard, so often and so hard that, after you were downed by a blow on the head, you never came to until I had you where you are."

"Yes I did," I protested, "I came to on the hilltop this side of Antemnae."

"Not enough to tell any of us about it," he soothed me. "Anyhow, you are mending now and will soon be yourself."

I was indifferent. My mind was not yet half awake.

"Did I fight as well as you say?" I asked, "or are you flattering me?"

"No flattery, my boy," he said. "You are a portent."

Then he told me of the result of the fight with the Satronians, of their complete discomfiture and rout, of how he had brought me to Rome, seen me properly attended and looked after my tenants.

"They are having the best time," he said, "they ever had in all their lives."

And he told me where he had them lodged and which sights of Rome they had seen from day to day.

"Just as soon as I had seen to you and them," he said, "I called on dear old Nemestronia and told her of your condition. She is full of solicitude for you and will overwhelm you with dainties as soon as you are well enough to relish any."

He did not mention Vedia and I was still too dazed, too numb, too weak, too acquiescent to ask after her, or even to think of asking after her or to notice that he had not mentioned her.

"While I was talking to Nemestronia," Tanno said, "I took care to warn her about that cursed leopard. She would not agree to cage it, at least not permanently. She did agree to cage it at night and said she would not let it have the run of her palace even by day, as it has since she first got it, but would keep it shut up in the shrubbery garden, as she calls it, where they usually feed it and where you and I have seen it crawl up on its victims and pounce on them."

I could not be interested in leopards, or Nemestronia or even in Vedia, if he had mentioned Vedia. I fell into a half doze. Just on the point of going fast asleep I half roused, queerly enough.

"Caius!" I asked, "do you remember that man on horseback we passed in the rain between my road entrance and Vediamnum?"

"You can wager your estate I remember him!" Tanno replied.

"What sort of man was he?" I queried, struggling with my tendency to sleep. "You said you knew."

"I do know," Tanno asserted, "I cannot identify him, though I have questioned those who should know and who are safe. I should know his name, but I cannot recall it or place him. But I know his occupation. He is a professional informer in the employ of the palace secret service, an Imperial spy.

"Now what in the name of Mercury was he doing in the rain, on a Sabine roadside? I cannot conjecture."

This should have roused me staring wide awake.

But I was too exhausted to take any normal interest in anything.

"I can't conjecture either," I drawled thickly.



CHAPTER VI

A RATHER BAD DAY

Next morning, strangely enough, I wakened at my normal, habitual time for wakening when in town, and wakened feeling weak indeed and still sore in places, but entirely myself in general and filled with a sort of sham energy and spurious vigor.

By me, when I woke, was Occo, my soft-voiced, noiseless-footed, deft- handed personal attendant. At my bidding he summoned Agathemer. When I told him that I proposed to get up, dress and go out as I usually did when in Rome, in fact that I intended to follow the conventional and fashionable daily routine to which I had been habituated, he protested vigorously. He said that both Celsianus and Galen, the two most acclaimed physicians in Rome, who had been called in in consultation by my own physician, but also he himself, had enjoined most emphatically that I must remain abed for some days yet, must keep indoors for many days more, if I was to continue on the road to recovery on which their ministrations had set me, and that all three had bidden him tell me that any transgression of their instructions would expose me to the probability of a relapse far more serious than my initial illness and to a far longer period of inactivity.

I was determined and obstinate. When he added that I must not only remain quiet, but must not talk for any length of time nor concern myself with any news or any matters likely to excite me, I revolted. I commanded him to obey me and to be silent as to the physicians' orders.

I began by asking him what day it was. I then learned that I had been ill fifteen days since reaching Rome, for I had left my villa on the eighth day before the Ides of June and it was now the ninth day before the Kalends of July.

Next I asked after my tenants. Agathemer said that they had most dutifully presented themselves each morning to salute me and attend my reception, if I should be well enough to hold one; to ask after my progress towards recovery if I was not; that Ligo Atrior, as recognized leader among them, had also come each evening between bath-time and dinner-time to ask personally after my condition; that, as all the physicians had, the day before, stated that I must by no means be allowed to see anyone save Tanno or to leave my bedroom, for some days, he had told Ligo the evening before not to diminish his and his fellows' time for sight-seeing by coming on this particular morning; that Ligo had expressed his unalterable intention of coming each evening in any case.

I commended Agathemer's discretion but told him to tell Ligo, when he came in the afternoon, that I intended to hold a reception next morning and wanted to see all nine of them at it.

I then asked about Murmex. Agathemer said that Tanno had offered to bring him to the Emperor's notice, but that Murmex had declined, thanking him, but remarking that, as I had offered to bring him to the Emperor's notice, it would be bad manners on his part to appear under the countenance of any other patron and would moreover be inviting bad luck instead of good luck on his presentation.

Agathemer said Murmex had called twice to ask after me and had told him where he lodged. I instructed him to apprise Murmex of my intention to hold a morning reception. I knew Agathemer would send out notifications to all my city clients of long standing without any admonition of mine.

He told me that no message of any kind had come from Vedia nor from Vedius Vedianus, the head of her clan, nor from Satronius Satro. I could not conjecture just why Vedia had remained silent, and I was not only worried over the fact of her silence and aloofness, but felt myself wearied, even after a very short time, by the uncontrollable turmoil of my mind, puzzling as to why she had ignored me.

As to Vedius and Satronius, I was vividly aware of their state of mind and acutely wretched over it.

Only nineteen days before I had seen my triclinium walled and floored with flowers presented by the local leader of one clan; had seen my dinner table groan under the fruit sent me by the local leader of the other clan, had known that both clans were competing for my favor and that I was high in the good graces of each.

Now I felt that all men of both clans must be bitterly incensed with me, for I knew their clan-pride. No man of either clan would weigh the facts: that neither fight had been of my seeking; that both fights had been forced on me; that I could not by any exercise of ingenuity have avoided either, once the onset began; that each had been the result of the headlong impetuosity and self-deception of my assailants, that both were the outcome of conditions which I could not be expected to recognize as dangerous beforehand, of a mistake not of my causing, for which I was in no way to blame. I knew that every man of both clans, and most of all the head of each clan, would consider nothing except that I had participated in a roadside brawl in which men of their clan had been roughly handled, some of them by me personally, and from which their men had fled in confusion, routed partly by my participation.

I saw myself embroiled with both clans, conjectured that the two fights were the staple of the clan gossip on both sides, and that animosity against me was increasing from day to day. I felt impelled to state my case to both Vedius and Satronius, but I knew that even if I had been in the best of health, even if I should be eloquent beyond my best previous effort, there was little or no chance that anything I might say would avail to placate either magnate or to abate either's hostility toward me. And I knew that, in my dazed condition, the chances were that I would bungle the simplest mental task.