At sight of the flageolet he grinned, the only smile I saw on his face while he was helping us in our hiding and out of it. Agathemer, obstinately, insisted on taking that flageolet. And Chryseros grudgingly admitted that it might prove a really valuable possession, perhaps. We took, of course, our two little flint and steel cases.

Chryseros said we ought to eat all we could manage to swallow up to the moment of our departure. He would pack our wallets with food which could be made to last four or five days and would be plenty for two days. Most important of all he would supply us with money, half copper and half silver, as much as our wallets could properly hold, so as not to make us appear thieves, if we were suspected and haled before a magistrate. With money we could travel openly and by day after we were well out of Sabinum.

We planned to make our way eastward, inclining very little to the north, towards Fisternae. The crossing of the Tolenus and Himella should give us no trouble whatever. We would pass south of Cliternia and north of Fisternae. Chryseros questioned Agathemer closely as to his knowledge of the byroads, and applauded him highly, only on a few points correcting him or amplifying what he knew. North of Fisternae we could gain the mountains and work northwards.

The most dangerous part of our proposed route, the critical point of our escape, would be the crossing of the Avens and the Salarian Highway, which we must effect somewhere near Forum Decii, between Interocrium and Falacrinum. Once in the mountains we should be able easily to continue on northwards into Umbria.

Chryseros suggested that, once in Umbria, we could pass ourselves off as buyers of cattle, goats and mules, all of which were bred on the mountain farms and regularly bought up by itinerant dealers who drove them or had them driven to Rome. The Umbrian mountains had no such numbers of these animals as Sabinum produced and their quality was far inferior, so that the dealers were always men of small means, driving close bargains.

All this sounded very promising and, about half way between sunrise and noon, he left us to hide for the rest of the day. I slept well and woke feeling almost myself, with merely trifling discomfort from my fast healing wounds.

When Chryseros returned in the dusk, I ate ravenously. He brought us good, coarse tunics and cloaks, also hats, shoes, and belts; and for each of us, a small leather case containing two good needles and a little hank of strong linen thread. We talked in subdued tones, as before, and kept it up until long after dark.

Next morning I woke full of hope and eager to be off. Chryseros brought our wallets and we packed them with everything they were to hold except most of the food. We had a long wrangle over the money, as Chryseros wanted to force on us more silver than I thought it safe to carry.

That night, after a generous meal and a long final talk with Chryseros, we set off to sneak our way into the Aemilian Estate and from there eastward. Before we set off Chryseros insisted on hanging round each of our necks, by the usual leathern thong, one of those tiny, flat leathern pouches, in which slaves were accustomed to wear protective amulets. He declared that these contained talismans of great potency and of inestimable value to us in our flight, as in any risk or venture. At the moment of parting, to my amazement, he burst into tears, threw his arms around me, held me close and clung to me sobbing, and kissing me as if I had been his own son. As we moved off I could still hear his sobs.

We had excellent luck. Hiding by day and threading devious paths by night we reached and passed the Avens and the Salarian Highway without any encounter with any human being; and indeed without near proximity to any. Our daytime hiding-places all turned out to have been well chosen and no one approached us in any one of them. The moon, which was in her first quarter on the night of our setting out, helped us nightly. There was no rain and only some moderate cloudiness, enough to be helpful at the time of the full moon, when there was enough light all night for us to see to travel at a good rate of speed and without any error at forks in the paths; and yet not enough light to make us conspicuous to any who might be abroad late at night.

Once beyond the Nar and almost at the borders of Umbria, we grew bolder, travelled by day, bought food as we needed it, put up at inns and acted the character we had assumed, of Sabines intent on stock-buying in the Umbrian mountains. No one appeared to suspect us and we had no adventures.

But, inevitably, once we had escaped, we did not so much think of immediate danger as of permanent safety. Chryseros had confirmed our instinctive opinion that, as Sabines, we should be much less likely to arouse suspicion in Umbria and the Po Valley than in Samnium, Lucania or Bruttium. We had never thought of escape southward; northward we had meant to work our way, from the instant of conceiving the idea of escaping. But we had no settled, coherent plan as to how to achieve safety and keep alive. We could not hide in the mountains indefinitely.

We both agreed that we could hide best in a large city. Marseilles might have been a perfect hiding-place could we have reached it, full as it always was of riff-raff from all the shores of the Mediterranean and from all parts of Italy. But Marseilles we could reach only by the Aurelian Highway, through Genoa along the coast, and the Aurelian Highway was certain to be sown with spies and likely enough might be travelled upon by officials who had known me from childhood and would probably know me through any disguise.

Aquileia, on the other hand, was far more populous than Marseilles, even more a congeries of rabble from all shores and districts, even more easy- going. In Aquileia we should be able to earn a comfortable living by not too onerous activities and to be wholly unsuspected. Towards Aquileia we decided to try to make our way. The roads, being less travelled, would be less spied-on and we should meet officials less likely to recognize me.

But, if we were to reach Aquileia, we must husband our silver. Agathemer's idea was that, from where we reached the borders of Umbria, somewhere between Trebia and Nursia, we should keep as near as possible to the chine of the mountain-chain, using the roads, paths, tracks or trails highest up the slope of the mountains; avoiding being seen as much as possible, and, if we were seen, claiming to have lost our way through misunderstanding the directions given us by the last natives we had met. He proposed to steal food for us, instead of buying it, and expounded his ideas, maintaining that it would be easy and not dangerous.

We tried his plan and succeeded well with it. So wild and untravelled were the districts which we traversed that, nearly half the time, we were welcomed at farmsteads, (to which welcome Agathemer's flageolet-playing greatly assisted us), invited to spend the night and had lavished upon our entertainment all their rustic abundance, so that we visibly grew fat. When such luck did not befall us we had no trouble in helping ourselves to supplies, for, far up the mountains, most habitations were shacks tenanted only in summer and only by lads acting as goat-herds or herdsmen, who spent the day abroad with their charges, so that we could readily enter their deserted cabins and take what we pleased; especially as, if a dog had been left to guard the hut, I could always master him so that he greeted me fawning and stood wagging his tail as we made off.

Except these not very risky raids for provender and such encounters as called for more than usually ingenious lying from Agathemer, we had no adventures.

But we realized from day to day and more and more insistently, that we were progressing slowly, far slower than we had anticipated. It was plain that we could not hope to reach Aquileia before winter set in. It was manifest that it would be unsafe to attempt to winter anywhere in the Po valley between the mountains and Aquileia. At Ravenna, Bononia or Padua we should be noticed, investigated and perhaps recognized: anywhere in the open country, at any village or farm, we should, even more certainly excite suspicion. We must winter in the mountains. But how or where?

The question was solved for us by our first considerable adventure. I never knew the precise locality. We had, in traversing the mountains trails, avoided any semblance of ignorance of our general locality and had sedulously refrained from asking any questions except as to our way to some nearby objective, generally imaginary. All I know is that we were somewhere on the northeastern slope of the long chain of mountains beyond Iguvium and Tifernum perhaps near the headwaters of the Sena. On the morning of our adventure we were on a long spur of the main range, so that we were headed not northwest but northeast. The weather was still fine and warm, but autumn was not far off. We hadn't seen a habitation since that at which we had passed the night, and we had made about three leagues since we left it, following what was at first a good mountain road, but which grew worse and worse till it became a mere trail.



CHAPTER XIII

THE LONELY HUT

Some time before noon we were threading a barely visible track not far below the crest of the spur, a track bordered and overshadowed by chestnuts and beeches, but chestnuts and beeches intermingled with not a few pines and firs, when, out of the bushes on our left hand, from the up slope above us, appeared a large mouse-colored Molossian dog, very lean and starved looking. I first saw his big, square-jowled, short-muzzled head peering out between some low cornel bushes, his brown eyes regarding me questioningly.

He fawned on me, of course, and I made friends with him, fondled him, pulled his ears and played with him a while.

Agathemer tartly enquired whether we really had time to waste on skylarking with strange dogs. I laughed, picked up my wallet, and started to follow him as he swung round and strode on, ordering the dog to go back home, a command which, from me, almost always won instant compliance and disembarrassed me of any casual roadside friends.

But the dog did not obey. He pawed at me, whined, and caught my cloak in his teeth, tugging at it and whining. I could not induce him to let go, could not shake him off, and was much puzzled. Agathemer, impatient and irritated, halted again and urged our need of haste.

After exhausting every wile by which I had been accustomed to rid myself of too fond animals, I began to realize that the dog did not want to follow us, did not want us to remain where we were and go on playing with him, but, as plainly as if he spoke Latin, he was begging us to accompany him somewhere.

I said to Agathemer:

"I'm going with this dog; come along."

He remonstrated.

I declared that I had an intuition that to follow the dog was the right thing to do. Agathemer, contemptuous and reluctant, yielded. The dog led us along an all but undistinguishable track through densely growing trees, up steep slopes and out into a flattish glade or clearing at the brow of the slope, overhung by merely a few hundred feet of wooded mountain side and bare cliffs to the crest. The clearing was clothed in soft, late, second-growth grass, and had plainly been mown at haying time and pastured on since. In it we found some well-built, well-thatched farm-buildings: a sheepfold, a goatpen, a cowshed, a strongly built structure like a granary or store-house, another like a repository for wine-jars and oil-jars; hovels such as all mountain farms have for slave-quarters and a house or cabin little better than a hut, mud-walled, like the other buildings, but new thatched. It was nearly square and had no ridge-pole, the four slopes of the roof running together, at the top, yet not into a point, but as if there were a smoke-vent: in fact I thought I saw a suggestion of smoke rising from the peak of the roof.

To this hut the dog led us. The heavy door of weathered, rough-hewn oak was shut, but, when I pushed it, proved to be unfastened. I found myself looking into a largish room, roofed with rough rafters from which hung what might have been hams, flitches and cheeses. It was mud-walled and had a floor of beaten earth, in which was a sand-pit, nearly full of ashes and with a small fire smouldering in the middle of it. Opposite me was a rough plank partition with two doors in it, both open. Against the partition, between the doors, hung bronze lamps, iron pots and pottery jars. The room was dim, lighted only from the door, in which I stood, and from the narrow smoke-vent overhead.

By the fire, on their hands and knees, and apparently poking at it, each with a bit of wood, or about to lay the bits of wood on it, were two little girls, shock-headed, barefoot and bare-legged, clad only in coarse tunics of rusty dark wool. I am not accurate as to children's ages: I took these girls for seven and five; but they may have been six and four or eight and six. At sight of us they scrambled to their feet and fled through one of the doors, one shrieking, the other screaming:

"Mamma! Mamma! Strange men! Strange men!"

In her panic she did not attempt to shut the door behind her and bolt it, both of which, as I afterwards discovered, she might have done.

No other voices came to our ears and I followed the children into the rear room in which they had taken refuge. It was totally dark, except for what light found its way through its door, and was cramped and small and half filled by a Gallic bed. I had never seen a Gallic bed before. Such a bed is made like the body of a travelling-carriage or travelling litter, entirely encased in panelling, topped off with a sort of flat roof of panelling, and with sliding panels above the level of the cording, so that the occupants can shut themselves in completely; a structure which looks to a novice like a device for smothering its occupants, but which is a welcome retreat and shelter on cold, windy, winter nights, as I have learned by later experience. As this was my first sight of one I was amazed at it.

Usually, as I learned later, such a bedstead is piled up with feather- beds, so that the occupant is much above the level of the top edge of the lower front on which the panels slide. But this bed was poorly provided with mattresses and I had to stare down into it to descry the children's mother, who lay like a corpse in a coffin, but half buried in bedding and quilts, only her face visible. She was certainly alive, for her breathing was loud and stertorous; but she was, quite certainly, unconscious. Between the shrieking children, who clung to the frame of the bed, I spoke to her and assured her that we were friends. She gave no sign of understanding me, of hearing me, of knowing of my presence; but my repeated assurances quieted the elder girl, who not only ceased screaming but endeavored to calm her little sister.

Seeing her so sensible, I questioned the child. All I could learn from her was that her father had been away nearly ten days, her mother ill for five and insensible for three and their four slaves had run away the day before, taking everything they chose to carry off. I then examined the other room which had a similar bed in it, and in which, the child told me, she and her sister slept. She declared that she did not know her mother's name, that her father never called her anything but "mother"; she also declared that she did not know her father's name, her mother, always calling him "father," as she and her sister did. Her name was Prima and her sister's Secunda.

As I could not rouse the woman and learned that the slaves had been gone more than a full day, Agathemer and I went to save the bellowing and bleating stock. We found in the shed two fine young cows with udders appallingly distended. But our attention was momentarily distracted from them by the sight of eight full-sized bronze pails, finer than those at any public well in Reate or Consentia, which hung on pegs by the door, four on each side of it. They were flat-bottomed, bulged, but narrowed at the rim so that no water would splash out in carrying. The rims were ornamented with chased or cast patterns, scallops, leaves, egg and dart and wall of Troy: four patterns, showing that they were pairs. All had heavy double handles. We looked for carrying-yokes, but could see none. Such pails, which would be the treasures of any village and the pride of most towns, amazed us in this fastness. Glancing at the pails took us less time than it does to tell of it. The cows needed us sorely and we each picked up one of the suitable earthenware jars which stood inverted just inside the shed door and milked them at once. Agathemer said he thought we were in time to forestall any serious and permanent harm to them. But their udders were frightfully swelled and blood came with the milk from one teat of the cow I attended to.

The sheep were in a worse state than the cows. Not a lamb was visible; besides the ewes there was only a two-year-old ram penned by himself in a corner of the fold. There were eight fine young ewes, in full milk. As with one cow, so among these ewes, four gave bloody milk from one teat each, and we milked that onto the earth. We found plenty of empty earthenware crocks, clean, and turned upside down, in which to save the good milk.

The he-goat, a noble young specimen, was penned by himself, like the ram. There were nineteen she-goats, with not a kid anywhere, yet all in full milk and far worse off than the ewes. All but two gave bloody milk and three gave no clean milk. These three I judged might die, but Agathemer vowed he could save them.

When we had finished milking we searched about for water. Towards the northeast the clearing narrowed and here we came upon a tiny rill trickling through a fringe of sedge. It came from a clear and abundant spring in a cleft of rock against the sharp up slope which rose there under the pines. At the lower edge of that part of the clearing, near the margin of the more nearly level ground, just before it plunged over the rim of the flat, it was dammed into a drinking pool for the stock. We did not dare let them out to drink and so laboriously carried water, I from the spring and Agathemer from the pond, using each a pair of the bronze pails, pouring the water into the troughs made of hollow logs, which were set, one to each, in the shed, pen and fold. We kept this up till every goat and ewe had had her fill, and then watered the he-goat and ram. The cows, of course, we had watered first. After the watering we gave each cow a feed of mixed barley and millet and then filled with hay all the mangers and racks.

When we had concluded this exhausting toil we filled the water-jar which stood in one corner of the cabin and then carried some milk into the house, and offered Prima and Secunda whichever they preferred. They chose ewe's milk and drank their fill. Prima was much impressed by the dog's confidence in me and seemed to give me hers. She said the dog's name was Hylactor. I tried to make the mother drink some cow's milk, but she swallowed only a few drops which I forced through her teeth by the help of a small horn spoon which I found on the floor of the outer room.

Agathemer roused the fire and piled more wood on it. There were no less than seven tripods lying about the floor of the cabin, but all roughly made and of the squat, short-legged pattern which holds a pot barely clear of a low bed of coals; not one was fit to hold a cauldron over a newly made deep fire of half-caught wood.

On the tallest of them, or rather on that least squatty, Agathemer set a small pot, which he filled with fresh water. When he had this where it seemed likely to boil and certain to heat, he ferretted about for supplies. He found a brick oven with about half a baking of bread in it; medium-sized loaves of coarse wheat bread. Two forked sticks stood in one corner of the cabin and with one he lifted from its peg in the rafters a partly used flitch of good coarse bacon. There was a jar more than half full of olive oil by the sticks in the same corner of the cabin. In a small pot set in the ashes Agathemer stewed some of the onions he lifted down from the rafters. In the other corner of the cabin was an amphora nearly full of harsh, sour wine. We made a full meal of bread, onions, bacon, olives and some raisins, drinking our fill of the wine. The little girls ate heartily with us, now convinced that we were friends and accepting us as such. They seemed to some extent habituated to their mother's condition of helplessness and insensibility.

As soon as we had fed we inspected the place. The glade or clearing was enclosed all around by the tall trees of a thick primitive forest. Towards the up slope and the cliffs below the crest of the mountain the trees were all pines, firs or such-like dark and somber evergreens. There were a few of these also on the lower slopes, but there, as along all that rim of the clearing, the forest was mostly of oak, beech, chestnut and other cheerful trees. Their tops towered far above the verge of the slope and screened the clearing all round. Nowhere could we catch sight of any sign of a town, village or farmstead, though there were three several rifts in the forest through which we could see far into the valleys to the eastward. The cliff above the clearing ran nearly from southwest to northeast, so that the place was well situated towards the sun.

The cow-shed was divided by a partition and half of it had been used for stabling mules. Agathemer judged that no mule had been in it for about ten days. We inferred that the children's father had taken the mules with him when he departed. Over the cow-shed was a loft, well stored with good hay, as were the smaller lofts over the sheds which formed one side of the sheepfold and goat-pen. The hay was not mountain hay, but distinctly meadow hay, such as is mown in valleys along streams. It was all in bundles, such bundles as are carried on mule-back, two to a mule. This was queer; even queerer the absence of any fowls or pigeons, or of any sign that any had ever been about the place. An Umbrian mountain farm without pigeons was unthinkable.

In the granary we found an amazingly large store of excellent barley, but only two jars of wheat, and that not very good, and neither jar entirely full. On the floor were loose piles of turnips, beets and of dried pods of coarse beans. There were jars of chick-peas, cow-peas, lentils, beans and millet, more millet than wheat. From the rafters hung dried bean-bushes, with the pods on; long strings of onions, dried herbs, marjoram, thyme, sage, bay-leaves and other such seasonings, dried peppers, strung like the onions, and bunches of big sweet raisins. Also many rush-mats of dried figs, the biggest and best of figs, some of them indubitably Caunean figs. On the floor, in heaps, were some hard-headed cabbages, only one or two spoiled. It was a very ample store and we marvelled at it and wondered whence it all came and how it came where it was.

The other store-house amazed us. It was, as we had conjectured, full of great jars; jars of wine, of olive oil, of pickled olives, of pickled fish, of pickled pork, of vinegar, of plums in vinegar, and smaller jars of honey, sauces and prepared relishes. The rafters were set full of cornel-wood pegs till they looked like weavers-combs. From the pegs hung hams, flitches, strings of smoked sausage, cheeses of all sizes, smoked so heavily that they appeared mere lumps of soot, and bags of a shape unfamiliar to both of us. Agathemer knocked one down and opened it. It was full of tight packed fish, salted, dried and smoked, a fish of a kind unknown to us.

There was, along the upper edge of the clearing, under the boughs of the pine trees, a huge pile of trimmed logs of oak, chestnut, pine and fir, with a scarcely smaller heap of cut lengths of boughs and branches. Under a lean-to shed was a small store of cut fire-wood. In a corner of the same shed were four big cornel-wood mauls and eleven good iron wedges, not one of them bearing any sign of ever having been used, but appearing as if fresh from the maker's hands. By the woodpile were four even heavier mauls, showing plenty of marks of hard usage and near them or about the woodpile we found eight rusty wedges.

We could find no axe, hatchet or any other such tool anywhere about the place. The logs and six-foot lengths of boughs afforded a lavish supply of fuel for two long winters; the cut fire-wood could not be made to keep the fire going ten days.

The slave-quarters, as I said, were mere hovels, but they were provided with bedding, quilts, and stores of clothing by no means such as are generally used for slaves. Slaves' quilts are mostly old and worn, made of patches of woollen or linen cloth all but worn out by previous use; and then, when torn, patched with a patch on a patch and a patch on that. These quilts were the best of their kind, such as ladies of leisure make for their own amusement, of squares and triangles of woolen stuff unworn and unsoiled. The mattresses were stuffed with dried grass or sedge, craftily packed to make a soft bed for any sleeper. The pillows were of lambs' wool, as good as the best pillows. And, in a big chest in each hovel, were good, new, clean tunics, cloaks, rain-cloaks, and with them sandals, shoes, hats, rain-hats and all sorts of clothing, not as if for slaves, but as if for middle-class farmers, prosperous and self-indulgent.

We were dumbfounded at such abundance in such a place.

By each bed in the hut was a chest. These we opened and found in both women's clothing; tunics, robes, cloaks and rolls of linen and fine woolen stuffs.

The woman, although moaning and stirring in her bed, gave no more signs of life than when we first saw her. Agathemer said, speaking Greek so the children would not understand:

"We must try to save this woman's life. You manage to get the children to follow you outside and I'll lift her out of the bed, and wash her, put a clean tunic on her, put clean bedding in the bed and put her back in it; I can do all that handily. She is so ill she will never know."

We went out in the slave-hovels and chose what bedding seemed suitable and carried it into the hut. Agathemer had put more fuel on the fire and set a big pot of water on the tripod. We put the bedding in a corner of the hut and selected from the contents of the chests a tunic and some rough towels, of which there were some in each chest.

I was not hopeful of being able to wheedle the children; but my first attempt was a complete success. I suggested to Prima that she tell me the names of the sheep and goats and she at once became absorbed in instructing me. Each had a name, she was certain; but, I found, very uncertain as to which name belonged to which and not very sure of some of the names. Her hesitations and efforts to remember took up so much time that we were still at the goat-pen, Secunda with one hand clinging confidingly to mine, when Agathemer called to me from the door of the hut.

He told me in Greek that he had done all he could for the woman, had effaced all traces of his activities and had put the soiled bedding out in the late sunshine to dry and air. We strolled about the clearing, remarking again that it seemed out of sight from any possible inhabited or travelled viewpoint. Agathemer fetched a rough ladder he had seen in the cow-shed, set it against the hut, which was highest on the slope, and climbed to the top of its roof. From there, he said, he could descry nothing in any direction which looked like a town, village, farmstead or bit of highway. The place was well hidden, by careful calculation, for this could not have come about by accident.

We peered into each of the buildings and poked about in them, hoping to find an axe or hatchet, and marvelling that a place so liberally, so lavishly, so amazingly oversupplied with hams, flitches, sausages and other such food should show nowhere any trace of the presence of hogs. There was no hog-pen nor any place where one might have been, nor did any part of the clearing show any signs indicating a former wallow, nor had any portion of it been rooted up. It was very puzzling.

As we returned to the house, about an hour before sunset, we simultaneously uttered, in Greek:

"Here we stay—"

"Go on," said I checking.

"Here we stay," he began again, "until the husband comes home, or, if he does not return, until spring."

"That is my idea, also," I said, "and there is but one drawback."

"Pooh," said Agathemer, "if we do not find an axe somewhere hereabouts I'll steal one from a farm if I have to spend two days and a night on the quest."

We agreed that there was no question but that we must spend the night where we were. The stock, after their long neglect and late milking, would be best left unmilked and unwatered till morning. As we must not leave the woman unwatched, we must sleep in the hut. We could bring in sedge mattresses and quilts from the hovels and sleep on the earth floor by the fire. When we had agreed on these points we forced some more milk on the semi-unconscious woman, gave the stock more hay, ate an abundant meal of bread, oil, sausages broiled over the fire on a spit, olives and raisins; and, soon after sunset, composed ourselves to sleep by the well-covered fire, leaving open the door into the woman's bedroom, but shutting the two children into theirs after telling them by no means to stir until we called them in the morning.

Hylactor curled up outside the cabin door, almost against it, after Agathemer had convinced him that we would not let him sleep in the hut. We slept unbrokenly till dawn woke us.

It was cold before sunrise so high up the mountains. My face felt cold even inside the hut and by the smouldering fire. I was reluctant to roll out of my quilts. But, what with Agathemer's urgings and my own realization of what was required, I did my share of the milking, watering and feeding of the stock and ate a hearty breakfast. For, as when hiding in Furfur's woods, as when anywhere on our escape, since it was not possible to eat as if at home and at ease, we ate our fill soon after dawn and again before dark, but during the day we ate nothing. We had from necessity already formed the habit of two meals a day, at sunrise and sunset.

The woman seemed less violently ill than the day before. When we first saw her she had been in the throes of a violent fever and it had lasted until after Agathemer bathed her. From then on it seemed to abate, but, when I last felt her forehead and hands before we lay down to sleep, she was still feverish. When we first went to her in the morning she was unconscious and as if in a stupor, but showed no signs of fever. She did not struggle against feeding as on the previous day, but swallowed, a spoonful at a time, as much milk as Agathemer thought good for her.

When we had done what seemed necessary Agathemer suggested that I remain by the cabin while he investigated the woods round the clearing to make sure how many roads or paths led out of it. He proposed to carry his sheath-knife and the stout and tried staff which had helped him along the mountain trails, as a similar one had helped me, and to take Hylactor with him: to make a circuit about the clearing some ten yards or so inside the forest and, if necessary a second circuit, further away from our glade. These two circuits should make him sure how many tracks led from or to our clearing. Then he would follow each track and acquaint himself with it, and, if possible, learn where it led. I approved.

Before noon he reported that only three tracks approached our location; that by which we had reached it up the slope of the mountain, and one along the slope in each direction. About mid-afternoon he returned up the track by which we had come, stating that the trail southwards, about a league south of us, joined the road along which we had travelled till Hylactor diverted us: he had made the circuit along the length of the league or more of trail, back along the road by which we had travelled and up the track by which Hylactor had led us; he had met no living thing, save a hare or two, too fleet for Hylactor to catch; he had caught sight of no town, village or farmstead, even afar. He had made sure that the mules had left the clearing by the track he had followed out of it, so that, probably, the children's father had gone south. Exploring the other trail he had put off till the next day.

Next day he found that the other track joined the lower road only about half a league to northeastwards. He turned back along the lower road and returned by the uphill track, as he had done the day before to the south. He met no one and saw no town, village or farmstead anywhere in sight, and at some places he could see far to the eastward.

We discussed his proposal to go off alone, with a wallet of food and try to steal an axe. Plainly he would have to go far. It would be easy enough to sneak back to the farm where we had spent our last night before meeting Hylactor, but we both felt bound by the obligation of our hospitable entertainment there: though nameless fugitives we were still under the spell of the standards of our former lives. We admitted to each other that he might steal an axe from that farm and I condone the knavery and avail myself of its proceeds; but we agreed that such baseness must be stooped to only as a desperate last resort. He was to set off northwards next day.

That night the woman, who had been inert and manageable, in a half-stupor, became violently delirious and for a time it took all the strength Agathemer and I jointly possessed to hold her in bed. Prima and Secunda, waked by her shrieks, were in a pitiable panic, Secunda merely dazed and aghast, Prima begging us not to kill her mother, fancying we were attacking her. We managed to convince the child that we were doing our best and what was best for her mother and that her mother's ravings would quiet and that she might regain her reason and health. I induced both children to return to their bed and shut and bolted their door. Agathemer and I, by turns, and twice again each helping the other, kept the poor woman in her bed all night. At dawn she quieted and fell into a profound stupor. But the vigil left me and Agathemer worn out. We attended to the milking, feeding and watering of the stock and then I went to sleep in one of the slave hovels, which were free from vermin, not the least amazing of the many amazing features of our place of sojourn.

This outbreak of our insensible hostess made impossible the immediate execution of Agathemer's project. He had to have adequate rest before he could set off. After I had slept all the morning, he slept most of the afternoon. During his nap I found, behind the water-jar in the hut, a hatchet-head, with the handle broken off and what was left of it jammed in the hole. It was small, but not very rusty or dull. Before Agathemer wakened I had it well sharpened. We had found a mallet in the storehouse, and, with this and a cornel-wood peg he whittled with his sheath-knife, Agathemer drove out the broken bit of hatchet handle. He then fashioned with his sheath-knife a good handle of tough, seasoned ash from a piece he had found in one of the buildings. With this hatchet we could cut up small boughs selected from the big woodpile, but it was too small to enable us to cut logs into lengths or split lengths of logs.

Again, when Agathemer was planning for the next day his axe-stealing expedition, the woman had a fit of raving. This lasted a night, a day and a night and left both of us to the last degree weary and drowsy. Before we had recuperated our firewood was almost used up. The situation looked hopeless. It was well along into the Autumn, though we were now unsure of what month we were in, so completely had we lost count of the days. Again Agathemer projected an expedition for the next day, in the faint hope of obtaining us an axe, and I feared he now aimed for our last harborage. At dusk, as he hunted for small wood under the margin of the woodpile, he found a good, big, double-edged axe-head. It was dull and very rusty, and he had a vast deal of trouble getting out the fragment of broken handle and shaping a new handle, in which he was greatly helped by a fairly good draw-knife, which I had that very morning found hanging on a peg behind the hay in the loft over the cow-shed. He had quite as much trouble in fitting the handle into the axe-head and in sharpening both edges. But he did all that before we composed ourselves to sleep. Besides those on the partition we had found a score of fine bronze lamps and we had olive oil enough for all uses for two winters.

Next morning we woke to find all our world buried under a foot of snow, the pines laden with it, the boughs of the beeches, oaks and chestnuts furred with it along their tops. It was a magic outlook, the like of which neither of us had ever seen.

After that, all through the winter, our life was an unvarying routine of milking, feeding and watering the stock, preparing and eating meals limited only by our appetites, nursing the sick woman, and chopping firewood. From the first streak of dawn till the last gleam of twilight one or the other of us chopped the firewood. Neither of us was an adept at handling an axe. But Agathemer, with his half Greek ancestry and his wholly Greek versatility and adaptability, taught himself to be a good axeman in ten days. I bungled and blundered away at it all winter. Agathemer could cut a two-foot oak log into suitable lengths with a minimum of effort, with clean, effective strokes of the ringing axe, the cuts sharp and even; I could cut any log into lengths and enjoyed the effort, but I sweated over it and laid half my strokes awry, so that the ends of my lengths were notched and unsightly.

Also I broke five several axe-helves in the course of the winter. The first time I broke a helve Agathemer had no substitute ready, and, what was more, the fragment of the old helve was in so tight that he had to burn it out in the fire and then retemper and resharpen our one precious axe-head. His retempering and resharpening turned out all right, but he said his success was accidental and he might ruin the axe if he tried again. So he made two extra helves and had a dozen cornel-wood pegs ready to drive out the bit of broken handle next time I broke it; as I did, according to his laughing forecast.

The incessant labor of our days hardened both of us. Our muscles were like steel rods. We slept on our mattresses by that ash-covered fire as I had never slept at Villa Andivia or at my mansion in Rome. We ate enormously and relished every mouthful.

Riving lengths of logs with wedges and maul was a kind of work calling for no special skill; Agathemer taught me all he knew in a day or two. All winter we alternated this work with woodchopping, afterwards chopping the riven lengths into firewood lengths and then splitting these into firewood. Although we worked at riving and chopping and splitting every moment of daylight when we were not busy at something else, we never accumulated any comfortable store of firewood, so as to be able to rest even one day. We drank new milk by the quart, with both our meals; wine, abundantly as we were supplied with it and good as it proved to be, we drank sparingly, merely a draught at waking, one after each meal, and one at bedtime. What we took we took strong, mixing wine and water in equal proportions.

Both Agathemer and I preferred cows' milk and drank that only, as we gave cows' milk only to the sick woman. Both children preferred ewes' milk. As we had no hogs to feed we were put to it what to do with our surplus milk. Agathemer made a sort of soft cheese, by putting sour curds in a bag and hanging it up to drain. We both liked this and so did the little girls. But we could not use much this way. Agathemer, always resourceful, fed the dog all the goat's milk he would lap up, and, after he had set to curdle what seemed enough, mixed the rest, while fresh and sweet, with water and gave this mixture to the cows to drink, saying it increased their yield of milk. As the winter wore on he fed similarly the best milkers among the ewes and goats.



CHAPTER XIV

WINTER IN THE MOUNTAINS

Neither Agathemer nor I knew anything about bread-making. He tried, but merely wasted flour. And both of us hated the wearisome labor of grinding grain in either of the rough hand-mills which were in the store-house. He found a means of keeping us well fed, satisfied and looking forward to the next meal with pleasure. He screened a peck or so of barley, put it to soak in a crock, and then, when it was swelled, put it in a crock or flat- bottomed jar, with just enough water to cover it, and bedded this in the hot coals by the edge of the fire. There, under a tight lid, it stewed and swelled and steamed all day, unless he judged it done sooner. When it was cooked to his taste he mixed through it cheese, raisins, and several sorts of flavorings, also a little honey. The porridge-like product he baked, as it were, by turning a larger crock over the crock containing it. The result was always tasty and relishable.

I asked him why he used barley, not wheat, of which there was quite a supply. He said barley was supposed to be heating, and we certainly needed all the heating we could get.

The old smoked cheeses, of which an amazing number hung in the hut and store-houses, were, to me, very appetizing, used in this way, though too strongly flavored for me to eat any quantity of any sort as one would eat normal cheese. Agathemer said they had all been smoked too soon, while the cheese was yet soft, so that the smoke had penetrated all through the cheese. Certainly the outside of each cheese was mere soot to the depth of an inch, so that we had to throw it away. Even Hylactor would not eat it.

Soon after the first hard freeze we found, one morning, one of the goats with a leg broken. Agathemer, with me to help him, got her out into one of the buildings, out of sight or hearing of the other animals; and, there later, butchered her. We had, by this time, found butchering knives and kitchen knives, to the number of a score, but each hidden by itself, and in the oddest places, one under a sill of the cowshed, another under a wine-jar, several between the rafters and thatch, most buried in the thatch itself, as if they had been hidden on purpose. They were all rusty, but we soon had them bright and sharp. With some of these we butchered and cut up the goat. The offal we fed to Hylactor, not much at a time. Most of the rest of her we ate, a little at a time, as the frost kept the meat from spoiling.

The kidneys Agathemer used first. He washed them, soaked them, parboiled them, cut them into bits, fried the bits in olive oil, and then, when they were crisp, stirred some of them through one of his crocks of cooked barley. The result was delicious. The kidneys sufficed for two or three crocks of barley. Then he did something similar with the liver with a result almost as appetizing.

We had some chops, broiled over the hot coals; also collops, spitted, with bits of fat bacon between. But neither of us cared much for goat's meat, and Agathemer's attempt at a broth made of the tougher meat was not a success. It had a repulsive smell and a more repulsive taste, though it seemed nourishing. He made only one pot of broth. After that we fed the coarser parts, little by little, to Hylactor.

This loss of one goat led Agathemer to do some thinking. There was a pretty large supply of hay, but not enough to keep in good milk all through the winter, until grass grew next spring, two cows, eight ewes and twenty goats. We talked the matter over. The ram and the he-goat were manifestly of choice breeding stock, probably carefully selected and cherished. We judged their owner would be angry if he did not find them on his return. So Agathemer considered which of the ewes gave the least milk and promised least as a breeder, and, after all the goat's meat was used up, we killed her. Sheep's-kidneys and sheep's-liver are better eating than goat's-kidneys and goat's-liver. We both agreed on that and we liked mutton chops and mutton cutlets. Hylactor got only the offal and the coarser bits, the rest Agathemer made into a relishable broth flavored with marjoram, bay-leaves and other herbs.

During the winter he killed six more goats and one more ewe, so that we fed, all winter, six ewes and twelve goats. For these the hay sufficed and not a little was left when we departed.

For ourselves, while we wasted nothing, we were lavish with the food stores. The bitter cold and our unremitting toil all day long, at a thousand other tasks and always at preparing fire-wood, contributed to keep us ravenous. We ate heartily twice a day, never taking anything between meals except all the milk we chose to drink, and I found ewes' milk and goats' milk, yet warm, or milked that morning, good to drink in cold weather. Often we mixed hot water with the goats' milk and drank the mixture while warm.

One intensely cold and brilliantly clear day, as I was riving a log, panting and glowing with the labor, yet with fingers numb and feet aching with the cold, I heard a yell from Agathemer. Axe in hand, my left hand making sure that my knife was loose in its sheath, where I wore it stuck in my belt, I raced to the store-house. There I found Agathemer alone, unhurt, standing by an olive-jar, staring into it.

"What is wrong?" I queried.

"Nothing wrong," he said, "but something amazing."

He fumbled in the jar, reaching his arm down into it as far as he could, his arm-pit tight down on the rim. After some straining he held up his hand, all dripping with dregs, and, between his thumb and forefinger, exhibited an unmistakable gold coin. How many there were in that jar we never knew; there were too many to count. We turned the jar over on its side, with some labor, and made sure that there were enough gold coins in it to weigh more than either I or Agathemer weighed and we were about normal-sized men, in every way.

We discussed this find a good deal. We agreed that the coins were of no use to us and could be of no use to us. As we meant to pass ourselves off for Sabine cattle-buyers until we were out of Umbria, as we meant to press on to Aquileia, as soon as the weather was warm enough, as we meant to pass ourselves off for runaway slaves, if we were arrested and questioned gold coins in our possession would have been most dangerous to us. We agitated the idea of sewing a few into the hems of our tunics and into the ends of our belts; but we came to the conclusion that any attempt to exchange a gold coin for silver would be very dangerous and much too risky a venture.

We also agreed that if the master of the place returned he must not suspect that we knew of his hoard. So we replaced the jar as it had stood, effaced all signs of its having been moved and refilled it with olives, taking them from another jar, which proved to contain olives only, all the way to the bottom.

This find led Agathemer to investigate every jar on the place, running a long rod of tough wood down into each as a sounder. In another jar of olives he found a similar hoard of silver denarii. Of these we took as many as were necessary to replenish the store of coins Chryseros had furnished us with. Even of silver we dared not carry too much. The hoard was so large that the handful of coins we took was unlikely ever to be missed.

The little girls, early in our stay, became entirely accustomed to us and utterly trustful of us. In the chests Agathemer found other tunics, warmer than those they had on when we came, which were suited to them. But there were no cloaks small enough for them to wear. With our precious scissors Agathemer cut in two the smallest warm cloak he could find and, with the needles and thread Chryseros had given us, he roughly hemmed the cut edge. The two awkwardly-shaped cloaks, thus made, the children wore till spring.

We could find no shoes for the children and they went barelegged and barefooted all the winter. They did not seem to mind it, except on the most bitterly cold days, when the wind howled about the hut, roaring through the pines and naked-boughed oaks, blowing before it the snow in silver dust. Then they kept inside the hut all day. But, on sunny and windless days, they ran about barefoot in the snow and seemed entirely indifferent to the cold, though they always appeared glad to dry and warm their little pink toes at the fire, after they returned to the hut. Agathemer, more knowing than I, would not let them approach the fire until they had bathed their feet in a crock of water he kept standing ready inside the hut door and had partially dried them afterwards. He said that otherwise their feet would puff and swell and perhaps inflame. They seemed happy-hearted little beings and Secunda was bright. But Prima was very dull and less intelligent than her younger sister. We concluded that she was, while not anything like an idiot, certainly a very backward child, lacking the wit of a normal child of her age.

After the first snow fell we had no more trouble with violent outbreaks from the sick woman; or, at least, very little. Her next fit of raving came about ten days after the first snowfall and began in the daytime, when both Agathemer and I were in the hut. We forced her back into her bed and then Agathemer had an inspiration. He bade me hold her where she was and he took down his flageolet, from where it hung on a high peg on the partition, and began to play it.

The woman quieted at once and seemed to sink to sleep. After that her fits, which recurred at frequent intervals, took up little of our time, as upon each we had only to get her back into her bed and compose her by means of Agathemer's music.

It was well along towards spring, certainly far towards the end of the winter, when Agathemer made his most astonishing discovery. By that time the animals gave no more milk than sufficed for the five of us; there was no surplus to feed back to the best milkers. Also we had a little reserve of firewood and did not have to drive ourselves so unremittingly to escape death by freezing if our fuel gave out.

I was chopping wood in a leisurely way, and enjoying the exercise. The little girls were inside the hut at the moment, after playing about most of the morning. Agathemer came out of the store-house, glanced around, and beckoned to me: together we went inside. There he showed me where he, led by a very slight difference of color, had dug into the earth floor and come upon a small maple-wood chest, like a temple treasure-box. It was, outside, perhaps a foot wide and about as high, and not over a foot and a half long. He had forced it open with the hatchet and a heavy knife, like a Spartan wood-knife. The wood of the chest was so thick that the inside cavity was comparatively small. But it was big enough to have held, say, two quarts of wine. And it was almost full of jewels; opals, turquoises, topazes, amethysts, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

Agathemer shut the store-house door and fastened it so the little girls could not open it if they should chance to try. Then he spread his cloak on the earth floor and dumped the contents of the chest on it. Most of the gems were small, at least two score were very large, and there were many, of notable, though moderate, size. We could see them fairly well, though the store-house was dim, since, with the door shut, the only light was what came through chinks. We ran our fingers through the heap of jewels, picked up the largest and held them to the light and gained a general idea of the value of the hoard. We put them all back into the chest, shut it, and reburied it. It showed no marks of Agathemer's dexterous attempts at opening it, for the lid was held down only by a clasp outside, and by the swelling of the inside flange of wood against the overlapping rim of the lid.

We went out to the woodpile and I resumed my chopping, while Agathemer set to riving logs with the wedges and maul. We had always kept the little girls away from the woodpile and so were sure of being alone. Also we talked Greek as an extra precaution.

Agathemer, resting between assaults on a very big log, said:

"I am of the same opinion I have held since we found the gold. This place belongs to some Umbrian farmer who is in partnership with a bandit chief or the leader of a gang of footpads. Just as the King of the Highwaymen is said to have a brother in Rome, important among the Imperial spies, so most outlaws have some anchor somewhere with associates apparently honest and respectable. The owner of this place may be brother of a brigand, or related to one in some other way or merely a trusted friend. At any rate I am of the opinion that this fastness is used as a repository for robbers' loot. Everything points to it. The gems and the coins make it certain, to my thinking, but even if we had found none of these it is pretty plain from everything else. There is no sign that there ever was a pig anywhere about here: yet the store of fine old bacon surpasses anything any mere farm ever kept on hand; there is not a square yard of ground hereabouts that ever has been plowed, spaded or hoed: yet the place is crammed with all sorts of farm produce. Manifestly it was all brought here, where there are no pigeons to reveal the place by their flight above it, nor any cock to call attention to it by his crowing. This is not a farm, it is a treasure-house, lavishly provided with everything portable.

"The absence of the man and the flight of the slaves puzzles me. As for the slaves, I can form no conjecture. But I am inclined to think it possible that the man was betrayed somehow to the authorities and is in prison or has been executed. We must assume, however, that he is alive and will return and must comport ourselves accordingly.

"Now I tell you what I mean to do. In such a hoard of gems a few of medium size could never be missed, even if missed, their abstraction could never be proved. I'm going to select the best of the medium-sized emeralds, topazes, rubies and sapphires; enough to fill the leather amulet-bags Chryseros gave us. All slaves wear amulet-bags, if they can get them; ours are old, worn and soiled and will make unsurpassable hiding places for as many gems as they will hold. I'll take out the amulets and sew them into the hems of our tunics, at the corners. I'll fill the bags as full of gems as is possible without making them look unusually plump. Then, if we reach Aquileia, we shall have a source of cash enough to last us years; for I can sell the jewels one at a time at high prices."

"Are you sure that the stones are worth all that care?" I cavilled. "May you not be mistaken as to their value or even as to their genuineness?"

"Not I," Agathemer bragged. "I am one of the foremost gem experts alive. Your uncle, as you know, held it a wicked waste of money for a sickly bachelor to buy gems; but he was a natural-born gem fancier. He knew every famous jewel in Rome: every one of the Imperial regalia, every one ever worn by anyone at any festival or entertainment, every one in every fancier's collection of jewels. From him I learned all I know: I myself possess the faculties to profit by my training. I know more of gems than most, I tell you!"

I agreed, and, during the nest few days, he selected the stones he judged most valuable, enough to fill the hollow of one of my hands and as much for him, and sewed the two batches up in our emptied amulet-bags. The amulets, which were two Egyptian scarabs and two Babylonian seals, very crude in workmanship and of the meanest glazed pottery, he sewed into the corners of our tunics.

Soon after this came the first thaw of the spring; a mild sunny day cleared every bough of every tree of the last vestiges of clinging snow or ice. Then we had two days of warm rain, sometimes a drizzle, sometimes a downpour. Then, on the fourth day, the sky was clear again and the sunshine strong.

As usual after my morning duties, I went in to take a look at our insensible hostess. She lay, as she had mostly lain all winter, breathing almost imperceptibly, her eyes closed. As I bent over her, her eyes opened.

She sat up, wide-eyed, startled, the picture of amazement and it came over me that she was no peasant woman, but a lady.

"Who are you?" she demanded, supporting herself on one elbow. "I do not know you; what are you doing here?"

"I have been helping to nurse you," I said. "You have been ill a long time and have needed much care. Lie down; you will hinder your recovery if you exert yourself too soon."

She lay back, but propped herself up on her pillows, and in no weak voice insisted on knowing who I was.

At that instant Agathemer entered. He, far more diplomatic than I, took charge of the situation. The woman, instead of losing consciousness again at once, as I expected, appeared possessed of much more strength than anyone would have anticipated and asked searching questions.

Agathemer, tactfully but without any attempt at beating about the bush, told her the whole truth, as to her illness, our finding her alone with the two children, our care of her, and the length of our stay. He said afterwards that he hoped the shock would cure her.

"Am I to understand you to say," she asked, "that I have been in this bed since the middle of the autumn and that it is now almost spring?"

"Just that," said Agathemer simply.

"And that you two men have been, practically, in possession of this entire place all that time?"

"That is true also," I said.

Agathemer and I looked at each other. We had used our one pair of scissors mutually and our hair and beards were not shaggy or bushy. But we were a rough, rather fierce-looking, pair.

"This," she said, "is terrible, terrible! Where are my daughters?"

"Playing about out in the sunshine," I said. "Plump and well-fed, and healthy and cheerful."

"This," she repeated, "is terrible, terrible! May I not see them, may I not speak to them, will you not bring them to me?"

"Indeed we will," I said and motioned to Agathemer. While he was gone the woman and I regarded each other without speaking. When Agathemer returned with the children I said:

"We will leave you to talk to your daughters alone. When you wish us to return send one of the children for us."

The joy of the two at the sight of their mother, sensible and able to recognize them, was pathetic. Sobbing and laughing, they flung themselves on the bed and embraced her, kissing her and she kissing each.

We went out and set to chopping and riving wood.

Before very long Secunda came out and said her mother wanted to speak to me. Leaving Agathemer plying his maul I went in.

The woman was now well propped up against a heap of pillows. She told the children to run off and play till she sent for them. Then she motioned me to seat myself on the chest. I did so.

She regarded me fixedly, as she had while Agathemer had gone for the children. When she spoke she asked:

"What god do you worship?"

I was amazed at this unusual and unexpected question and hesitated a moment before I answered:

"Mercury, chiefly. Of course, Jupiter and Juno; Dionysius, Apollo, Minerva. But most of all Mercury."

She sighed.

"I had expected a very different answer," she said. "But, whatever god or gods you worship, you are a good man and your servant is a good man. I am amazed. My children were truthful till I fell ill. I am sure they could not have changed in one winter. In any case Secunda's precocity and Prima's vacuity seem equally incapable of any deception. What they tell me is all but incredible, yet I believe it. You two men have acted to me and mine as if you had been my blood kin. If you two had been my own brothers you could have done no more for us. I shall always be grateful. What are your names?"

Agathemer and I had agreed to use the names Sabinus Felix and Bruttius Asper. These names, common enough in Sabinum, we, in fact, had given at the farms where Agathemer's flageolet-playing won us entertainment in the autumn. I gave them now. I added:

"It seems best to me that you should not ask either whence we came or whither we are bound."

"I understand," she said.

"And now," said I, "since you have our names, tell us how we should address the mother of Prima and Secunda."

"My name," she said, "is Nona. [Footnote: Ninth.] My mother had a larger family than I am ever likely to be blest with."

Nona recovered with marvellous rapidity. The weather continued fair and warm, with no strong winds, only steady, gentle breezes. This aided her, as it dried out the hut. She slept well at night, she said, and heavily in the afternoons. When awake she ate heartily and was almost alert. She questioned me again and again as to the condition in which we had found the place. I told her the exact truth, except as to finding the hoards of coins and jewels, to the smallest detail. I also told her of our stewardship and of our having killed and eaten a brace of ewes and eight goats. She approved.

I asked her about the children's tale of the slaves running away.

She sighed.

"I should have trusted any one of the seven," she said. "I believed that any one of them would have been faithful. I suppose almost all slaves are alike, after all. Hermes died about midsummer. He was the oldest of them and the best. I suppose that, in past winters, he had kept the others to their duty. But then, I was never ill before. Without Hermes to lead them, without me to order them, I suppose what they did was natural."

I told her of the great cold and abundant snow of the winter. She questioned me and said:

"Evidently you have had more cold and snow in one winter than I have had in ten."

On the third day after her revival she was able to get out of bed and, leaning heavily on me, to reach the door of the hut. There she sat basking in the sun, Secunda on one side of her, Prima on the other, Hylactor at her feet.

Hylactor had proved himself a perfect watchdog that winter. We had never allowed him to sleep in the hut, as he would have done if permitted, and as he tried to do at first. Agathemer had fashioned him a tiny shelter and into it he crawled nightly. Out of it, also, he dashed, if any sound or scent roused him. Tracks of wolves were frequent in the snow out in the forest, and not a few approached our clearing. But we lost not one sheep or goat to any wolf. Hylactor frightened off most and killed three, a medium-sized female and two full-grown young males, at the acme of their fighting powers. We rated Hylactor a paragon among dogs.

The warm weather held on, though unseasonable so early in the year. Nona recovered so rapidly that she was able to visit each of the outbuildings. Just when she was well enough to walk alone and firmly came a sharp spell of cold, as unseasonable as had been the heat. It began about noon, one clear day, with a high wind. By sunset everything was frozen.

Nona said:

"You two have had more than your share of sleeping on the earth floor by the fire. My bed will hold me and my girls, for a few nights. You two take their bed. It will be cold on the floor tonight."

That night, therefore, Agathemer and I enjoyed a sound night's sleep in a deep, soft bed. It was our first night in a Gallic bed, and we liked it. Since our crawl through the drain we had slept abed but four times, at farms in the Umbrian mountains. This was best of all. And we had a succession of nights of it, for the cold held on and, even when it abated, Nona insisted on our continuing to sleep so.

During the cold she mixed a batch of bread, and Agathemer baked it. She had praised his cookery, especially his savory messes of steamed barley, flavored with cheese, raisins and what not. But when the cold snap came after the thaws she suggested that we grind some wheat and she make bread. We acceded with alacrity. The bread tasted unbelievably good.

As soon as the weather was again warm it was plain that spring was coming in earnest. Nona stood out of doors after sunset, went out again after dark, staring up at the sky.

Next morning, while the children were at play, she said to me:

"Felix, you and Asper must leave this place at once and be on your way. My husband will return soon. He may return any day now. He is a terrible man. He will come with too many men for you to resist and he will not ask any questions until after he has killed you both. I know him. If I could be sure of telling him before he saw you what manner of men you are and how deeply I am in your debt he would repay you lavishly, for he is liberal and generous. But, being what he is, if he finds you here, you will be dead before I can explain. You must go. Prepare to set off at dawn tomorrow."

I told Agathemer and he agreed with me that we had best do as Nona said. She was, as she averred, well enough to care for herself and the children. But we lingered next day. By dusk she was frantic, begging, imploring us to depart at dawn. I feared a recurrence of her illness and gave her my promise.

We set off, actually, not at dawn, but about an hour after sunrise, the broad brims of our travelling hats flapping in the wind, our cloaks close about us, our wallets slung over our shoulders, our staffs in our hands. At the hut door Nona, Prima and Secunda bade us farewell, Nona thanking and blessing us. Hylactor was for following us: we had to order him back, for he paid more attention to us than to Nona.

With a last backward glance at the edge of the clearing we plunged into the forest by the track leading northward.

We had not gone a hundred paces when I thought I heard a scream and stopped. Agathemer declared he had heard nothing. But, listening, we did hear twigs snapping and Hylactor bounded into sight. He did not fawn on us, but seized my cloak in his teeth and tugged, growling and snarling.

"That dog," said Agathemer, "is asking for help. He knows what is too much for him to fight."

We threw off our shoes, wallets and cloaks, tucked up our tunics and, staffs in one hand and sheathless knives in the other, barefoot, raced back along the track after the guiding dog.

From that entrance of the clearing the outbuildings hid the hut from us. When our rush brought us in sight of the hut door we were not six paces from it and just in time to see Hylactor spring on and bear to the earth a man who stood before it. Leaving him to Hylactor we dashed inside, urged by indubitable shrieks.

In the dim interior we made out each child struggling with a man and Nona with two. Before they could turn our knives had slaughtered the children's assailants. One of the survivors Agathemer cracked over the head with his staff. I stabbed the other. Whereupon Agathemer cut the throat of the man he had downed, and dashing outside, finished the man Hylactor was worrying. Quicker than it takes to tell it the five were dead.

Nona had fainted, as we rescued her. But Agathemer revived her with a dash of cold water in her face and some strong wine poured between her lips. We laid her on her bed and told the children to watch her. Then we dragged out the corpses, laid them in a row and considered them. All five were pattern ruffians; black-haired, burly, brutal and fierce. We had had amazing luck to dispose of them so easily. Five lucky flukes, Agathemer called it, and we without a scratch.

One by one we picked them up and carried them off, down the slope, to a soft bit of soil among some beeches. There we laid them in a row. On them we found a few silver coins, five daggers, five knives, five amulet-bags, nothing else. Their tunics and cloaks were old and of poor material.

Back to the hut we went and found Nona revived and at the door.

"Begone!" she said. "Flee! Hasten! That man was my husband's bitterest enemy. He was intent on revenge. But he could never have found this place save by tracking my husband and conjecturing his destination. My husband must have camped last night less than a day's journey from here. He will be here today, he may be here any moment. Save yourselves. Begone!"

Agathemer and I looked at each other.

"We shall not set off," I said, "until we have buried the five corpses. I'm not going to be haunted on my way and perhaps for life by any such spooks as the ghosts of those five ruffians. We shall make sure that they are safely buried."

Agathemer agreed with me and we set about the task. During the winter we had found mattocks, pickaxes, hoes, spades and shovels hid in the most unlikely places, each by itself, and had hafted them; with these we dug a big pit and in it laid the five corpses, and buried them too deep for any wolf, badger or other creature to be at all likely to smell them and dig them out or dig down to them.

When the men were buried it was past noon. We went back to the hut, drank a second draught of the strongest and sweetest wine and drank it unmixed, as we had drunk our first before we set about carrying the corpses into the forest. Nona renewed her adjurations to begone.

But neither I nor Agathemer would listen to her. I said I was far too tired to travel until after a night's sleep and that after having saved her and her daughters, it was no more than fair that she should stand watch over us while we slept all the afternoon: she could easily watch at the hut door and explain matters to her terrible husband if he came and were as terrible as she averred.

We retrieved our wallets, cloaks and shoes, threw them down in a corner of the hut, ate some bread with plenty of milk to wash it down, and went to sleep in the children's bed, as we had slept the night before. We woke before sunset, did what was needful about the place, ate a hearty dinner of bread, bacon, olives, raisins and wine and at once went to bed for the night. After dark Nona ceased adjuring us to begone; she said that, if her husband came, she would hear him at the hut door and make him aware of the facts in time to prevent any trouble. We slept till sunrise. Then Nona declared that she and the children could milk the animals. We agreed with her, for they had little milk by then. We ate a hearty breakfast and set off.



CHAPTER XV

THE HUNT

That day we met no one and made a long march north-westwards along the flank of the mountain, camping at dusk by a spring. There we rehearsed our rescue of Nona and marvelled at the ease with which we had disposed of five burly ruffians. Agathemer agreed with me that it had been mostly the effect of complete surprise. But he took a good deal of the credit to himself. He reminded me how he had practiced me, ever since we began our flight, at the art of fighting with knives, at knife attack in general. In particular he had drilled me, as well as he could without a corpse or dummy to practice on, at the favorite stroke of professional murderers, the stab under the left shoulder-blade, the point of the knife or dagger directed a little upward so as to reach the heart. By this stroke I had killed both my victims, and he one of his. I acknowledged his claims, but was inclined to thank the gods for special aid and favor. We discussed that amazingly lucky fight until too sleepy to talk any more.

Next day we met some charcoal burners, who were both friendly and unsuspicious and who gave us intelligible directions for making our way towards Sarsina. The second night we again camped in the woods; the third we spent at a farmhouse, thanks to Agathemer's flageolet.

The farmer, whose name was Caesus, told a grewsome tale of the horrors of the plague and of the death of almost all his slaves. He was gloomy about his future, as he, his two sons, and their surviving slave were too few to work his farm. He seemed to regard us as fugitives from justice and as men whom it was his duty to help and protect. As the season was too early for comfortable travelling along byways or for safety from suspicion along highways, and as he welcomed us, we spent a month with him, well fed, well lodged and rather enjoying the hard farm work and the outdoor life, though we spent also much time under-cover, working at what could be done under shelter during heavy rains.

After he had come to feel at ease with us, our host, one day when we three were alone, asked:

"Are you some of the King of the Highwaymen's men?"

On our disclaiming any connection with the King of the Highwaymen, or any knowledge of such a character, he sighed and said:

"Oh, well! Of course, if you were, you would deny it, anyhow. You may be or you may not be. Anyhow, if you are, tell him I treated you well and shall always do my best for any man I take for one of his men.

"You don't look like his kind nor act like any I ever was sure of, but he has all sorts. I thought it best to make sure. It is best to stand well with him. He passes somewhere near here every spring or early summer on his way north and again in the autumn on his way south."

We left this bourne only on the solstice, the tenth day before the Kalends of July, and trudged comfortably to Sarsina, where we put up at the inn, frequented by foot-farers like us. So also at Caesena and Faventia. There we agreed that we had had enough of the highway, as we might encounter some Imperial spies of the regular secret service department, and not a few of these spies might know me by sight in any disguise. So we struck off due north through the almost level open country, intending to keep on northward until we came to the Spina and to follow that to the Po. As Agathemer said, if we could not find ferrymen by day we could steal a skiff by night.

Not far north of Faventia, after an easy-going day's march under a mild spring sky, we came, just before sunset, to a forest of considerable extent. As we could not conjecture whether to turn east or west, we camped at its edge and slept soundly, comfortable in our cloaks, for the night was warm and still.

Next morning the weather was so charming that we were tempted to plunge into the forest and cross it as nearly due north as we could guide ourselves by the sun. Since we reached the edge of the forest we had seen no human-being near enough for us to ask in which direction we had best try to go round it. We plunged into it and in it we wasted the entire day.

The country is very flat between Faventia and the Spina. I do not believe that in any part of that forest the surface of the soil was four yards higher than in any other part. And it was marshy, all quagmires and sloughs, with narrow, sinuous ribbons, as it were, of fairly dry land between them. We were hopelessly involved among its morasses before we realized our plight and, after we did realize it, we seemed to make little progress. We agreed that it would be folly to try to regain our camp: we held to our purpose and tried to advance northwards. But we doubled right and left, had to retrace our steps often and could form no idea how far we had penetrated.

There was an astonishing abundance of game in that forest: hares everywhere; does with fawns, young does, and not a few stags; wild boars, which fled, grunting, out of their wallows as we approached; foxes of which we three times glimpsed one at a distance; and we came on indubitable wolf tracks. We had plenty of food and ate some at noon, for we were tired. Then we spent the day threading the mazes of that swampy forest. We were careful not to get bogged and we kept our tunics and cloaks dry, though we were mired to the knees. But our very care delayed us. The day was breezy and mild but not really warm, so that we did not suffer from the heat. But by nightfall we were exhausted and had no idea how far we had advanced northward. Just at dusk we came to reasonably firm going and walked due north about a furlong. There, as the twilight deepened, we encountered another stretch of ooze. We retreated from it a dozen paces and camped under some swamp-maples on comfortably dry ground. We ate about half of our food, bread, olives, and dried figs; and while eating dried and warmed our feet and shanks at a generous fire of fallen boughs, which Agathemer, who was clever with flint and steel, had made quickly. When our feet felt as if they really belonged to us, we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and slept soundly.

We slept, indeed, so soundly, that it was broad day when, we waked. And we waked to hear the wood ringing with the barking and baying of dogs and with the cries of hunters and beaters. Instantly we realized that we were in danger. For a hunt of such size as was approaching us must have been gotten up by a coterie of wealthy land-owners; and such magnates, if they caught sight of us, would at once suspect us of being runaway slaves. It had been easy enough to pass ourselves off for farmerly cattle-buyers in the Umbrian Mountains. But, habited as we were, camped in the depths of a thick, swampy forest, we were sure to be suspected of being runaway slaves by anyone who encountered us; and such gentry as organize big hunts with swarms of beaters are always prone to suspect any footfarers of being runaway slaves.

We hastily girded ourselves for flight, meanwhile reminding each other of the story we had planned to tell if caught.

At first we seemed to have luck. We turned westwards away from the beaters and found and passed the upper end of the morass which had stopped us the night before. From there the going was good, through open underbrush, beneath big beeches and chestnuts, over firm and gently rolling ground. Stopping and listening we tried to judge by the sounds the location of the line of beaters. We seemed to have a chance of getting beyond its western end. We set off again; just as we started on nine deer dashed past us, a big stag, two young stags and six does.

Then we did run, for we knew it was our last chance and, indeed, but little further, a young wolf raced down a ferny glade, vanishing into some alders on the further side of the glade. I nearly trod on a fleeing hare. The beaters could not be far off.

Yet, for a bit, we seemed to be gaining on them, although we were quartering their front on a long slant. The third time we stopped to pant and listen we thought that our next dash would carry us where we might crouch in the first thicket and let their line sweep past us.

But, some fifty yards or so beyond, when we came to the dancing red feathers on the cord and thought we would be safe in a few breaths, there rose at us, from behind the feathered cord, three stocky men, armed with broad-bladed hunting-spears, who yelled at us:

"Halt! Stand! Surrender!"

We recoiled from them, amazed, threw away our wallets, threw off our cloaks, and bolted, incredulous; and as we ran, we heard them yelling:

"Here! Here! Here they are! We see them! This way, all of you! We've got them! Here they are!"

No bogs, no sloughs turned us or delayed us. The going was good, over firm footing, through light underwoods, among wide-set, big trees. For our lives we ran. There seemed a very slender chance of our crossing the whole length of the line of beaters and escaping on the other side, but that slender chance seemed our only chance. We ran fit to burst our hearts.

And the hunt was plainly converging on us. The noises of the beaters drew nearer. We seemed in a swarm of fleeing hares: more deer and more deer passed us, this time, I thought, does with young fawns. We caught a glimpse of another wolf, of two foxes. And, in a moist hollow, we barely avoided a nasty rush of eight panic-stricken, grunting wild swine.

We did run across the entire line of beaters, but little good it did us. Again we saw before us the feathered cord, the scarlet plumes dancing in the sun. At it we ran, sure of safety if we passed it unseen and penetrated even ten yards beyond it into the underbrush. But we were again disappointed.

This time only two huntsmen rose at us, but they, too, flourished hunting spears with gleaming points, as big as spades. They too yelled at us and yelled to their fellows:

"Halt! You are caught! Hands up! Give yourselves up!"

And:

"There they go! Both of them! Come on! Here they are!"

Off we went again, slanting back across the approaching line of dogs and beaters, now closer together as they drew on towards the nets, and already appallingly close to us. Again we crossed the whole line, now much shorter. But this time we ran, not against part of the long stretch of feathered cord, but against the outer yard-high net. Of course this was well guarded and again we were yelled at and turned back.

Doubling back, now steaming, panting, gasping, with knees trembling under us, we reached the net on the other side.

Turned again, we found the beaters so near us and so close together, that we ran away from them rather than across their line. We ran, in fact, in a sort of mob of hares, foxes, boars, deer and even wolves, for some of each were in sight every moment.

So running we came where we could see the line of nets, now of six-foot, heavy-meshed nets, on either side of us. We made a last, desperate dash at one of the nets, I hoping to leap it or vault it or clamber over it and escape, after all. But six keepers, all with broad-bladed hunting spears, rose at us beyond it, rose with triumphant yells:

"We've got you now! We've got you now!"

From them we shied off and ran, half staggering with exhaustion and despair, between the converging lines of nets, ran in a veritable press of terrified game of all sorts, ran madly, since we heard now, not the barking and whine of dogs straining at their leashes, but the exultant yelping, barking and baying of great packs of dogs unleashed behind their game.

Of course, although no single dog, however infuriated, would ever attack me in daylight, when it could see my face, yet I could do nothing whatever to protect myself, and far less Agathemer, against the massed onset of more than a hundred maddened hunting dogs, each bigger than a full-grown wolf.

So running, staggering, stumbling, at the end of our strength, we found ourselves running into the battue-pocket at the meeting of the two long converging lines of nets. Anything would be better than that. We tried to double back and were met by a dozen big dogs, some Gallic dogs of the breed of Tolosa, spotted black and white, others mouse-colored Molossians. To escape them we dodged apart, each ran for a tree, each jumped, each caught the lowest limb of a thick-foliaged maple, the two not much over five yards apart. So thick were their leaves that I could hardly make out Agathemer in his tree. The two maples were close to the beginning of the pocket net. From my perch I could see plainly how cunningly the pocket had been set.

It was of strong, close-meshed nets fully three yards high stretched on sturdy forked stakes and well guyed back outside to pegs like tent-pegs. These pocketing nets were set along the tops of the two banks of a gully about twenty yards wide, sloping sharply downward from its top near our trees and with sides three or four yards high and steep. Once in this gully, between the pocketing nets along the upper edge of its sides, no boar could scramble out, the lower meshes of the pocketing nets were too fine for any hare to squeeze through; no doe, no stag even, could leap such nets at the top of such banks.

I could just spy a part of the heaviest net across the gully at the end of the pocket. It seemed a large meshed net of rope thicker than my knee, with the large meshes filled in with smaller meshes of rope the size of my wrist.

Hardly was I safe in the crotch of my tree when the last of the game swept by below us, the dogs hot behind them, up came the press of beaters, and, from each side, in rushed the hunters, a score of handsome nobles and gentry, habited in green tunics, wearing small, green, round-crowned, narrow-brimmed hunting hats and green boots up to just below their knees. Each carried a heavy shafted hunting spear, tipped with a huge triangular gleaming head, pointed like a needle, edged like a razor, broad as a spade at its flare.

Even in my terror and exhaustion I could not but feel a certain pleasure in the beauty of the scene, a sort of thrill at its strangeness. I had participated in such hunts in Bruttium and Sabinum, but never as hunted game.

The sun was not yet half way up the heavens, the dew had not yet dried from the leaves, owing to the very late spring the freshness of springtime had not yet passed into the fullness of early summer. Through the tender green of the young leafage, starry with drops of moisture, the sunshine shot long shafts of golden light. Under the beautiful canopy of blue sky and golden green foliage was the amazing turmoil of the hunt.

More than a hundred large animals, pigs, fawns, sows, does, boars and stags had fled before the beaters and were now jammed pellmell in the gully, for the end-net held. There they frantically jostled each other and the half dozen wolves caught among them which, indeed, snapped, slashed and tore at everything within reach, but, cowed themselves, had no effect whatever on the maddened victims which all but trod them under and actually trampled on foxes and on the swarm of squeaking, helpless hares.

Upon this mass of terrified flesh the two hundred dogs flung themselves, through the nets the huntsmen stabbed at the nearest victims, behind the dogs the shouting hunters advanced to spear their game, the battue was on and I watched it till the last animal was flat. The few which, frenzied, doubled back through the dogs and hunters were met and killed by the beaters. Not one escaped.

As the battue ended up came the rush of beaters and our trees were soon surrounded by a crowd of eager, exultant, infuriated beaters and huntsmen.

Up the trees young beaters swarmed and we were plucked down, thumped, whacked, punched, kicked and manacled, our tunics torn off, ourselves mishandled till we streamed blood, all amid abuse, threats, epithets, execrations and curses.

We stood, half fainting, utterly dazed, supported by the two or three captors who held each of us, but for whose clutches we should have collapsed on the earth.

We expected to be torn limb from limb, yet could not conjecture why we were the objects of such infuriated animosity. A beater clutching either elbow, a hand clutching my neck from behind, my knees knocking together, naked, bruised, bloody, gasping, fainting, I, like Agathemer, was haled a few paces to one corner of the pocket net. There we were held till the gentlemen came up out of the gully.

Up they came, a score of handsome young fellows, mostly each with his hat in his hand and mopping his forehead.