Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Part 56

"Certainly," I said, "and I am amazed at your offer. How can you be away three days or more at this juncture? Might not your prizes: procurator, propraetor, widow, jewels, coin, and gold all slip through your hands during your absence in my behalf?"

"No fear, lad!" he laughed; "our advices never deceive us. The procurator with his gold is far away and approaching slowly; neither the widow nor the propraetor is ready to leave Rome; both are occupied with endless preparations. I have plenty of time. And it won't take me any three days to reach Sentinum and return. I'll set off at sunset. About the third hour tomorrow I'll be at Sentinum, my mount lathered and blown, but far from used up; about the ninth hour I'll pa.s.s out of one of the gates of Sentinum on my return, completely refreshed myself and with my mount fit for the return journey: I'll be here in camp at dawn day after tomorrow, with the coin bags. You can come for your cash any time after the third hour day after tomorrow. Is it a bargain?"

"Done!" said I.

"Then get home," he said. "If I'm to go two nights without sleep I'll give orders now, post my out-pickets and what not and snooze till dusk."

I spent the next day on my crag. Several trains of wagons with arena- beasts pa.s.sed, but they were farther apart than ten days before. The other traffic on the road was normal.

Next day, not long after the third hour, I was in the outlaws' camp. Bulla I found awake and with no signs of drowsiness or fatigue. In full sight of all of his men he spread a blanket, and, on it placed four coin-bags, two small and two full size. From the larger he spilt their contents on the blanket and, each of us taking a bag, we picked up the silver one piece at a time, both keeping count together. There was an odd piece.

"It's yours, lad!" said Bulla. "I've enough here."

The gold pieces similarly spilled and counted, came out even.

"Are you satisfied?" Bulla queried.

"Both with the amount and the division," I replied, "and now I'll be off.

You must need sleep."

"Sit still!" Bulla commanded.

He rose and went into his tent, for the outlaws had excellent hide tents.

He returned with a fine new coin-belt of pigskin leather.

"Here," he said as he squatted down and handed it to me, "is a little gift from Bulla. Wear it next your skin. And remember to keep it flat and loose. Many a man has lost his life with his coin in a tight place because a bulging belt betrayed him to greedy ruffians. My lads will respect you, but you may encounter bandits who have no inkling that you are under my protection. Don't attempt to carry too much, of your coin about your waist."

I thanked him and tramped off.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE POINT OF VIEW

That evening, after our dinner, a perfect dinner eaten under a grape- arbor, lingering over the fruit and honey in the mingled light of waning dusk and a clear crescent moon, I showed Septima my belt and bags, put in the belt what silver would fill it to a flaccid and comfortable flatness, and gave her all the gold and the rest of the silver. I had already explained to her what impended over us, and had emphasized my wish to remain with her and my anxiety to know that she was provided for, if we were to be separated.

I did not visit the post of the road-constabulary as often as the camp of the outlaws. Next day I rode over to their post and chatted with one of the sergeants and several of the men. They were in doubt between, two opinions: most held that their presence in the district had frightened the bandits away and that they had left the neighborhood and transferred their attention to a wholly different region; only a few maintained the view that the brigands had been lurking near from before their arrival and that all their efforts had failed to locate their hiding place. I heard nothing which led me to believe that they had any inkling of the location of the outlaws' camp, of their purposes, or of their intended coup.

After a day of happy idling on my crag I visited Bulla. He was gay.

"It promises well," he volunteered. "The procurator and his gold are well on this side of Ariminum and the propraetor and widow left Rome yesterday.

They'll he here within two days of each other, if he holds the rate he has kept all the way from Bononia and they travel as such luxurious folks generally do. Come over as often as you like. No one will suspect you or follow you. I'll keep you posted as to what our advices promise us. You may be able to help us."

By this time I was so interested in Bulla and his plans that I oscillated between my crag, the outlaws' camp and the constabulary post, with no more other occupations than what I judged absolutely needful to forestall any unwelcome interest in my doings and the possibility of too many persons knowing of my visits to the outlaws.

When next I visited them Bulla told me that something had alarmed the procurator. Either some rumor of their presence along the road had reached him or he knew of the bad reputation of the stretch of the Flaminian Highway through the Umbrian mountains between Forum Semp.r.o.nii and Nuceria, which it had acquired some years before when the King of the Highwaymen himself had made on it a succession of valuable captures which had yielded him princely booty and the reports of which had spread all over Italy.

Anyhow their advices informed them that he had packed his bullion-chests with stones and old-iron and had parcelled out his packets of dust and nuggets among the wagons of a long train of arena-beasts.

"We'll fool him!" Bulla boasted. "We'll nab him and hold him for a big ransom. Also we'll not only make sure of his bullion chests in case our information is false, or based on an intentional rumor he has given out as a blind; but we'll get that bullion, too, if it is not in the chests, but hidden in the wagons in the guise of dusty packets of provender for the draft-cattle or of meat for the caged beasts. We'll get it!"

Prom his mention of the wagons we fell into talk of the increasing difficulty of getting fresh meat for the lions and other beasts, of the depletion of the flocks and herds along the roads from Aquileia, to Rome; and he told me that his advices reported that the whole country near the highways was already swept clean of all goats, sheep and cattle, except breeding stock, milch stock and their choicest young kept for breeding.

The inhabitants could get no beef, mutton or goats' flesh for themselves; all had gone into the maws of hyenas, tigers, wolves and the rest; and the procurators were insisting on the farmers selling their kids, lambs, calves, ewes and cows-in-milk, any stock, even mules and horses; any animals fit to butcher for lion-food.

From this we came round to chatting of my talks with the teamsters and of my prospect from my crag. I had told Bulla of the crag long before, but he did not seem to have taken in the idea. Now he was delighted.

"If I'd paid attention to you soon enough," he said, "I'd have put in a day or two with you watching the show. It's too late now. Our prayed for chances are coming soon, and not far apart."

Next day he was gleeful.

"It's all going to work out like the end of a theater-play," he said. "The procurator and the propraetor and his charge are practically certain to come along tomorrow afternoon. I calculate that they will meet not far south of your crag. I've planned to post one ambush near the foot of your crag, just south of it, another at a judicious interval down the road nearer Rome. I'll have 'em between the two ambushes about the middle of the afternoon or between that and sunset. We'll nab all three ransom prizes at once and we'll lay our hands on the jewels, coin and gold almost at the same instant. I've arranged to lead the constables off on a false scent about noon and they'll be miles away up a lonely crossroad when we pull off our coup. We'll make our getaway, with the swag, hours before they can get wind of the occurrence and follow on our trail. We'll have a long start of them.

"You can watch the whole thing from your crag. This ideal weather is going to last many days yet. And the moon will be full two nights from now, so its light will help us two nights on our getaway. I envy you up on that crag watching the show, comfortable as a senator at a theater, aloft like Jupiter on Olympus in the Iliad."

Next day I made sure that the _Villicus_ would not want me, had Septima put up for me an abundant supply of her inviting food and set off about the middle of the morning for my crag, on foot, of course. I climbed to the very top and ensconced myself under and among sheltering bushes so that I was certain that I could not be seen from the road in either direction, yet could view it both ways as far as the horizon, except just at the foot of the crag and where, in the distance, hilltops hid the hollows behind them. Close by me I placed my precious kidskin of much watered wine, I might say of water flavored with wine, so that it would keep cool in the thickest shade. The day was hot, clear and still and the rays of the sun fierce. The occasional slight breezes were very welcome.

The outlook was really magnificent; a broad prospect of rolling pasturage, hilly pasturage, and wooded mountains; the gra.s.s-lands and gra.s.sy hillsides diversified by scattered trees, clumps of trees and small groves; the lower levels of woodland broken by gra.s.sy glades; the brighter green of the forests of chestnut, beech, and oak merging imperceptibly into the darker green of the pine-forests; the score of farms in sight brilliant in the green landscapes like semi-jewels; all the wide prospect glowing under a deep blue sky, varied by a very few very white clouds, the intense sunlight beating down on everything. It was a perfect summer day.

I conned the road, on which I saw only the rear of a column of wagons convoying arena-beasts receding over the hilltops to southwards, and the normal traffic, hors.e.m.e.n or two-horse carriages or wagons far apart and few. I dozed.

I must have slept a full hour. I waked hot, but much refreshed, feeling lively and full of interest in what was to come. Just after I waked I saw the constabulary, the officers and about a third of the men on horseback, the rest afoot, come up the road from the direction of their post, which was south of the crag. The infantrymen, tramped their fastest and the mounted men kept pace with them. They were evidently off on their wild- goose chase. As they came into sight below me, after pa.s.sing my perch, I watched them double-quick northwards and wheel to their right into the first crossroad. They were barely out of sight among the forested hills when I saw momentarily, on the Highway, fully four miles to northward, on a sunlit hilltop, what I took to be the first wagon of a train of teams drawing cages of arena-beasts. I watched the road in that direction. What I saw confirmed my conjecture. Soon the road to northward was filled from its farthest visible hilltop to just below my crag with wagon-teams such as I had many times watched transporting cages of lions, tigers, leopards, panthers and the like. I made out also some cages which I was certain contained hyenas.

Every little while I glanced the other way. Just as the first wagons of the long train vanished from my sight into that section of the road immediately below me where my crag hid it from my view, I saw appear on a hilltop to southwards what I made sure was the travelling carriage of a wealthy n.o.ble. I conjectured that it had inside of it the ransomable propraetor. I kept my eyes on the road in that direction, only glancing northward from time to time. One such glance caught a glimpse of a travelling carriage among the beast-wagons; probably the procurator in charge of the bullion.

After I had caught glimpses of it on several successive hilltops the propraetor's carriage was near enough, on one of them, for me to recognize it. Of course, I had known from childhood the travelling carriages of our senate and n.o.bility. As everybody knows, each, has a certain unmistakable individuality. Our makers of travelling carriages never make two precisely alike, and, what is more, the tastes of different families are so different that patterns are very unlike. I recognized the carriage for that of Faltonius Bambilio.

Why he was going out as propraetor of Asia so long after his term as praetor was a puzzle to me. I accepted it as one of the countless eccentricities of Imperial administration under Commodus. The irregularities of the management of the provinces ruled in the name of Caesar by prefects and procurators had notoriously extended to the provinces ruled by proconsuls and propraetors in the name of the senate. I had always disliked, despised and even hated Bambilio for his pomposity, self-esteem and bad manners. I rejoiced at the opportunity to look on at his capture.

It was by this time past the middle of the afternoon, the day still surpa.s.singly fair and lovely, with few clouds in the sky, a steady light breeze, the mellow afternoon sunlight bathing the world and the sun already visibly declining towards the western horizon.

While I was grinning at my thoughts and watching the advance of Bambilio's carriage, glancing back at intervals at the beast-train and the procurator's coach, I caught sight, on the highway behind Bambilio's carriage, of another travelling carriage of which I had descried no glimpse before, though I must have missed seeing it as it topped several hills further south. When I caught sight of it, it was near enough for me to recognize it at first view.

Vedia's travelling coach!

Between the first and second beat of my thumping heart, I went through an amazing variety of complex, s.h.i.+fting and lucid thinking. And my thinking, multifold and effective as it was, was but as a chip on the surface of a freshet in a mountain gorge amid the torrent of emotions which inundated me.

Since I had begun to mend as the result of the succour and medication of old Chryseros Philargyrus I had resolutely refrained from, thinking of Vedia. I had argued with myself that it was impossible for me to forget or ignore the daily and hourly contrasts between my former status as a wealthy n.o.bleman and my present condition as a fugitive always in danger and generally in acute discomfort. Amid the inevitable resultant depression I might keep alive, healthy and sane if I concentrated my thoughts on self-congratulation at my survival. If I dwelt on my downfall I should lose my wits. If, in addition to thoughts of my loss of rank, wealth, friends and ease I yielded to my inclination to brood over my loss of Vedia, I should infallibly go insane. I resolutely put thoughts of her away. I succeeded in keeping them away. During my winter at the hut in the mountains, during my succeeding adventures, I had not thought of Vedia; thoughts of her had crossed my mind but seldom and fleetingly.

Now, all at once, I was overwhelmed by the realization of how ardently, how unalterably I loved her, how keenly I longed for her, how tenderly I felt towards her. Nothing, past, present or future, mattered to me except Vedia and her welfare. I had been thinking with relished amus.e.m.e.nt of the dismay of some pampered beauty haled from, her luxurious coach and off through the wild mountains, immured in some lonely cave in the forests, guarded by coa.r.s.e ruffians, reduced to the most primitive diet and bedding, forced to endure all sorts of discomforts, and threatened with death or worse if an enormous ransom were not forthcoming promptly. I had been chuckling at the prospect of getting a far-off glimpse of the first act of this comedy.

My revulsion of feeling was dazing. I was hot and cold with horror at the thought of Vedia's agony, terror and misery and of her danger among Bulla's swarthy, brutal ruffians with their black curly hair and beards intensifying the villainy of their lowering faces, with their mighty hands always close to their daggers. Vedia I must save!

How?

Almost as I recognized her carriage, my eyes, instinctively sweeping my entire outlook, caught sight of Selinus feeding among a small herd of young mares on a hillside midway of the extensive pasture on the other side of the road just to north of my crag. I knew there was, a little to the north of the crag, on the same side of the road, a knoll from which that bit of hillside was plainly visible at no great distance. I had my plan worked out in all its details.