ge to be already between the first
houses, I saw fall across the roadway, in front of me, two stout trunks of
trimmed trees, straight like pine trees; I heard the crash as they jarred
on the stones of the stream-side wall, I saw them quiver as they settled;
breast high and shoulder high from house-wall to house-wall, effectually
blocking the highway.

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

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

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

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

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

They all but dragged her out of the carriage.

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

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