ven 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 oc