aid, in more reassuring
tones. "Whose farm is it that is burning? Loose him, Marcus."

Released from the hands that held him, the fugitive seemed to waver for
a moment between speech and flight. Perhaps exhaustion turned the
balance, for, still panting for breath, he threw himself on his knees
before Sergius' bridle and gasped:--

"My master's farm--a veteran of the first war--a centurion--the
Numidians."

"Where is it? How many are there?"

The man pointed down the slope up which he had scrambled.

"I did not note their numbers, lord. Perhaps a hundred--perhaps more."

As he spoke, the sky began to brighten as with fire, and Sergius,
wheeling his horse, urged him downward toward the plain. Decius was by
his side in an instant, and behind them came the cavalry at a speed
that threatened to hurl them headlong to the foot of the rocky
declivity. Joy and fury shone on the faces of the men: only Marcus
Decius seemed troubled and abstracted.

"We shall be with them soon, my Marcus," cried Sergius, gayly, and
then, noting the furrowed face of his first decurion: "Surely,
Trasimenus has not cooled your heart. Take courage. There is no water
here to chill you."

Decius flushed through the deep bronze of his skin.

"It is true that there is no water here, and blows might warm my blood.
It was the command of the dictator that I thought of."

They had reached the level plain now. A cluster of burning buildings
hardly a mile ahead marked their goal.

"And it is you, Marcus, who have been railing at those same commands?"

"I am an old soldier, my master. I growl, but I obey."

For answer, Sergius urged on his horse with knee and thong. Now they
could distinguish dark shapes gliding hither and thither around the
fires, and now they burst in upon a scene as of the orgies of demons.

Utterly unsuspicious of danger, the marauders had taken no precautions.
Their wiry, little horses had been turned loose about the gardens,
while the riders murdered and pillaged and ravished and destroyed. The
worst was over now. Little remained of the buildings, save clay walls
covered with plaster; dead bodies were scattered here and there; the
women and such of the slaves as had not been slaughtered, together with
the farm stock and other things of value, were gathered beyond the
reach of the fires; while, bound high upon a rude cross before his own
threshold, the master of the farm writhed amid flames that shot upward
to