"Try him on Selinus."
"That would be plain murder," one of the others cried.
"I am not so sure," the _Villicus_ ruminated. "I am almost ready to feel that he might even tame Selinus."
Off we trooped to the stable of the choice breeding-stallions. There, in a darkened box-stall, I was shown a beautiful demon of a horse, four years old, a sorrel, with a white face and white forefeet. He certainly looked wicked enough.
"Will you try him?" the _Villicus_ asked me.
"Of course," I said. "Let him out into the yard or the paddock."
Into the paddock he was let out, by means of a door in his stall worked by winches from above. In the afternoon sunlight he pranced and curvetted about, a joy to see.
"Let me show Felix what he is like," one of the younger horse-wranglers suggested.
"You can," the _Villicus_ agreed. "We all know how agile you are and how quick at vaulting a fence."
The fellow vaulted into the paddock when Selinus was at its further corner. The moment the beast saw him he charged at full-run, screaming like an angry gander, the picture of a man-killer, ears laid back, nostrils wide and red, mouth open, teeth bared, forehoofs lashing out high in front, an equine fury. The lad vaulted the fence handily when Selinus was not three yards from him and the brute pawed angrily at the palings and bit them viciously.
"Want to try, Felix?" the _Villicus_ asked me again.
Without a word I vaulted the enclosure within two yards of Selinus. He stood, ears c.o.c.ked forward, nostrils quiet, mouth shut, all four hoofs on the ground, quivering all over.
Inch by inch I neared him till my hand touched him. He trembled like an aspen-leaf, but did not attack me.
"Hercules be good to us all!" exclaimed one of the men.
After that I did with Selinus all I had done with the first stallion-colt, gentling him, leading him by the nose, mounting him, riding him, crawling under his belly, between his fore-legs and hind-legs, pulling his tail, slapping him liberally all over. Then, timidly, urged by their comrades"
jeers, the two wranglers whom I invited brought me a saddle and bridle and I bitted him and held him while they saddled. Then I rode him.
Afterwards, with much misgiving, but shamed into boldness, the chief horse-wrangler mounted him and rode him.
Selinus was tamed!
"Felix," said the _Villicus_, "you are too valuable to set to herding cattle. You are henceforward chief horse-wrangler of this estate. I"ll give you a house all to yourself and a girl to keep house for you. When not horse taming here or wherever I lend you out, you can spend your time as you please."
The onlookers acclaimed his award and the displaced chief horse-wrangler shook hands with me and declared that he was proud to be second to such a wonder as "Felix the Wizard."
After that I lived a life of ease. My dwelling was a neat cottage well shaded with fine trees and bowered in climbing vines, with a tiny courtyard, a not too tiny atrium with a hearth, a kitchen, a store-room and two bed-rooms. It was as clean as possible and well furnished for a slave"s quarters. The girl and I liked each other at first sight. I am not going to tell her name, but a jest we had between us led me to call her by the pet name of Septima. If she had been a free-woman, she would have been described as a young widow. Her former mate, one of the horse-wranglers, had been killed by Selinus the previous autumn. Their child, not a year old, had died before his father. Septima had recovered from her grief during the winter and had become normally cheerful before she was a.s.signed to me. I found her const.i.tutionally merry, very good company, always diligent, a surpa.s.sing cook, magical with the garden, especially with her beloved flowers, a capable needle-woman, always neat, and very good- looking. We got on famously together.
With her beehives only, Septima had trouble. She understood bees perfectly, but was afraid of them, and with reason, for she was manifestly obnoxious to bees and was far too often stung. Of course, bees, like all other living creatures, were mild to me. I tended her hives, under her supervision, for I knew nothing of bees; according to her directions I captured several swarms for her. Also I, when the time came, removed combs from such hives as she designated.
Spring was in its full glory and I felt the exhilaration of it. Each home- coming was a delight. And I was much away, for the _Villicus_ had me convoyed about the countryside to every estate which possessed an unbroken colt or an intractable horse. I gentled successfully every one I encountered.
After all the bad horses and raw colts for miles around had been tamed I spent some days idling about my cottage and getting acquainted with it and with Septima. But within not many days I grew restive. I told the _Villicus_ I wanted something to do.
"Well," he said, "five steers have eluded one of my herd-gangs and no one can find them. Question the men (he named them) so as to get the right start, and try your luck."
I was off, trailing those five steers, for three days and two nights. By sunset of the third day I had them back at the villa.
After that I was called on to hunt down and round up all stampeded cattle and all strays, whether cattle, horses, goats, sheep or swine. I enjoyed my lone outings and between them basked contentedly in the comfort of my cottage and the amenity of Septima"s cheeriness. During my stays at home I thoroughly familiarized myself with the villa, its outbuildings and all their inhabitants. Also I put a good deal of time on Selinus, whom I transformed from an insane man-killer into one of the gentlest stallions I ever heard of. I taught him all the niceties of obedience acclaimed in perfect parade horses till he would stand, sidle, back, sidle diagonally, curvet and execute all the show-steps promptly at the signalling touch or sound. I tamed him till he would let anybody gentle him, till it was perfectly safe for anyone to ride him. I even trusted Septima on him and he justified my confidence in my training of him and in him. In fact, from being a man-killer who had to be kept penned up in the dark, whom not even the boldest horse-master dare approach, he became so gentle and so trustworthy that he could be let run at large, mild to all human beings, even to strangers.
He grew to love me like a pet dog, followed me about when I was not riding him, and would come to me from far away to a call or gesticulation; and he could see me and recognize me at such distances that I revised my notions as to the powers of sight possessed by horses, for I had held the common opinion that no horse can see clearly or definitely any object at all far from him. Selinus repeatedly saw and recognized me a full half-mile away and galloped to me, approaching with every demonstration of joy.
During my horse-wrangling expeditions and my excursions after wandering stock I had grown well acquainted with the country-side and its inhabitants. I was on terms of comradeship with all my fellow-slaves, of easy sociability with the yeomanry; while I was treated by the overseers, the _Villicus_, and inspectors with marked consideration. Thus I rapidly learnt all there was to know of the idiosyncrasies of the locality, since everybody seemed to trust me and no one held aloof or was reticent with me.
I found conditions in the Umbrian mountains as amazing, as incredible as in the _ergastulum_ at Nuceria. There the two vital facts were the negligence and impotence of the warders and the secret system for cheating and thwarting them. Here all the thoughts of slaves, peasants and yeomen on the one hand, and of overseers, inspectors and landowners on the other, pivoted on the existence in the district of a post of road-constabulary on the lookout for bandits and of a camp of brigands owing allegiance to the King of the Highwaymen.
The wealthy proprietors, the gentlemanly landowners, the inspectors of the Estate, its _Villicus_ and his overseers all suspected the presence of the bandits and were doing all they could to a.s.sist the road-constabulary to locate them, pounce on them and capture them. Their efforts were completely futile. Neither any of the constabulary nor any of the well-to- do persons who sided with them, could ever get an inkling of the location of the outlaws" various camps nor was any of them ever able to be really sure that bandits were actually within a few miles. For the whole body of yeomanry, peasants and slaves, even the slaves of those proprietors keenest on the scent of the brigands and most eager to nab them, were leagued to bamboozle, thwart and oppose their masters and betters, and to aid the outlaws, to keep them posted on everything said and proposed by the loyal inhabitants, and to a.s.sist them in outwitting the authorities, the constabulary and all persons who sided with them. In this they were notably successful.
It is my keen recollection of this condition of things which determines me to omit from this part of my narrative all names of persons and places.
The generality of the population made a sort of religion out of their complicity with the outlaws. They took an almost religious pride in cooperating with them and in antagonizing their adversaries. They hated all the adversaries of the outlaws, whether landowners, constabulary or inspectors. But, above all, they loathed, abhorred, abominated and detested with a white-hot animosity any yeoman, peasant or slave who failed to do all in his power to foster the interests of the outlaws; regarding such persons, male or female, as traitors to the cause of the populace. Especially did they cherish an envenomed and malignant grudge against anyone who actually sided with the constabulary, gave them information or betrayed the outlaws: or even against anyone who helped or shielded any such informer.
As I was the means of spoiling the long-prepared and much-hoped for coup on which the robbers had set their highest hopes, as not a few men and women a.s.sisted me with information, aided me in other ways and protected me afterwards, I dare not name any names for fear that some survivor or some son or grandson of some partic.i.p.ant in these doings might learn through me of long suspected but never verified treason to the unwritten law of the country-side and might bloodily avenge it on a surviving helper of mine or on any such helper"s children or grandchildren. The Umbrian mountaineers are spleenful, tenacious of a grudge and ferociously acrimonious.
I learnt all these amazing facts without difficulty, for slaves, peasants and yeoman alike a.s.sumed that I was of their party and was heart and soul with the outlaws. I was not subject to suspicion because I visited the post of the constabulary, became acquainted with every man of them, their sergeants and their officers and frequented their company. All the yeomen, peasants and slaves whose abodes were near the post, were, on the surface, on the best of terms with the road-constables; pretended to help them with information, retailing to them as rumors all sorts of inventions calculated to throw them off the scent of the outlaws, always with an air of the friendliest good-will; and loitered, idling about the post, chatting of local gossip.
I was so entirely trusted that I was taken to the outlaws" camp and made acquainted with the entire band. Paradoxically the members of the band were all hulking burly ruffians of twenty-five to thirty-five years, whereas their chief, while big and brawny enough, was inferior in size to any of his subordinates and younger by six full years than the youngest of them. To him I was boisterously presented as a brother, for his name also was Felix. In fact, he was the man since famous as Felix Bulla, for long the most redoubtable outlaw in Italy. Then he was hardly more than a lad, for all his bulk and strength and ferocity. He had been appointed chief of the band by the King of the Highwaymen in person, who held him in the warmest regard for his ruthlessness, courage, skill, and cunning, especially for his cunning, rating him, as I was told by all the band, and having proclaimed him to them, as the most subtle and crafty outlaw alive after himself.
Bulla, like everybody else, appeared to take to me and treated me as an equal, after conversing with me for hours at a time. I was always a welcome guest at any of the bandits" camps and they often made me show off my admired powers on fox-cubs, badgers, weasels and other such wild creatures which they or their peasant friends had trapped alive. My ability to tame, handle, fondle and make tractable to anyone such animals appeared a source of unflagging interest and unceasing entertainment to these ruffians.
As I was allowed to dispose of my time as I chose, whenever I was not busy rounding up strayed stock or taming raw colts, I had plenty of leisure to ride about the country-side, make friends, get intimate with the constabulary and the outlaws and idle many of my days as appeared most pleasant. I took full advantage of my partial liberty.
The weather, from my arrival at the Imperial estate, was mostly fine and often glorious. Spring came early and merged beautifully into summer. I enjoyed myself hugely. Besides local peculiarities and the humors of the tacit league to thwart the constabulary and foster the interests of the outlaws, I derived much entertainment from the traffic on the Flaminian Highway. Of course, there were Imperial couriers, travellers of all sorts, and convoys of every kind of goods, long strings of wagons, carts or pack- mules laden with wheat, other grains, wine, oil, flax, charcoal, firewood, ingots of bronze, lead or iron, and countless other commodities on their way to Rome; or convoys of clothing, hangings, furniture, utensils and the like, going northwards from the City.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE OUTLAWS
From early spring, however, all this normal traffic was interfered with, delayed, hindered and even totally blockaded by column after column of wains and wagons pa.s.sing southwards, huge wagons, drawn by six or eight or even ten horses or mules or by as many big long-horned white oxen, every wagon laden with a cage or two or more cages containing beasts being conveyed to the Colosseum in Rome. This amazing procession roused my interest as soon as it began to pa.s.s; filling, clogging, blocking the highway and continuing without intermission day after day, ceasing its movement, indeed, each night, but making the roadside almost a continuous camp of teamsters and caretakers, barely half of them sleeping, the moiety busy about their draft-cattle or the cages of their charges.
The endless stream of caravans amazed me. I had seen beast-fights without number in the Colosseum, but had never thought of the enormous labor and expense incident on the preparations for even one morning"s exhibition of, say, a hundred lions and other beasts in proportion. Now I meditated over the thousands of trappers and other hunters who must scour the forests of Dacia, Moesia, Thrace, Illyric.u.m, Pannonia, Noric.u.m, Rhaetia and Germany to gather such a supply of beasts for exhibition. I saw wolves, bears and boars by the thousand, and hundreds of lynxes, elk and wild bulls, both the strange forest-bisons, unlike our cattle, with low rumps and high shoulders and their horns turned downwards and forwards, parallel to each other, and the huger and even fiercer bulls, much like farm bulls, but larger, taller and leaner and with horns incredibly long, so that their tips were often two yards and more apart. I had no idea of the vast numbers of such beasts which were yearly poured into Rome from all the mountains and forests to the north and east of the Alps. I was amazed.
Even more was I amazed to see hundreds upon hundreds of cages containing beasts not from northern Europe, but from Africa, or even from Asia: lions without number, panthers and leopards by the hundred, many tigers, antelopes of all kinds by scores of each kind, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami in enormous cages on gigantic wains drawn by twelve yoke of oxen; even a dozen huge gray elephants pacing sedately, their turbaned _mahouts_ rocking on their necks.
I knew that the traffic in beasts from the northern forests concentrated at Aquileia and I had a hazy notion that they were customarily shipped from there by sea round Italy and through the straits to the Tiber. My curiosity was excited as to why they were now coming overland instead of going by sea. Still more was I curious as to why these hordes of animals from the south should be traversing Italy from the north.
I asked questions and could get no satisfaction from the natives of the district: slaves, peasants, yeomen, proprietors, overseers, _Villicus_ and all, they one and all knew nothing. If they claimed to know, what they alleged merely emphasized their ignorance.
The constabulary knew, but were inclined to be reticent and, when they spoke, were laconic. Yet their briefest utterances contained hints which confirmed the only fact I had elicited from the natives: namely, that this traffic was not only unusual along the Flaminian Highway, but had never been seen on it before; was a complete novelty, even a portent. They also confirmed my impression that few animals destined for beast-fights in the amphitheatres reached Rome overland; as I had thought, practically all had hitherto come by sea and up the Tiber.
Still curious, I made friends with the teamsters. Some were from Ravenna, and even these grumbled at the two hundred and fifty miles as ruinous to their cattle. The animals they convoyed had come overland from Aquileia to Altinum and from there to Ravenna by sea. In this way had come the crocodiles, hippopotami and rhinoceroses.
More teamsters were from Aquileia itself. Some of these with the lighter wagons for the cages containing wolves, lynxes, small antelopes, hyenas or African apes, had been able to take the shorter though poorer road by way of Patavium and Ateste to Bononia, which made their total journey under five hundred and twenty miles. But most, including all those conveying bears, boars, panthers, leopards, lions or tigers, had come by the more northerly road through Verona. Those with panthers, leopards or small stags had come from Verona, by way of Hostilia to Bononia and from there southward as did all, making their journey about five hundred and fifty miles; the men conveying cages of tigers, lions, bears, boars, elk, or wild bulls had mostly come from Verona through Cremona; from there some through Regio to Bononia, others through Placentia; and for these their total teaming did not differ much, about six hundred and twenty miles for the ones and ten miles more for the others. Teams tugging wains carrying the heaviest cages containing unusually large elk, boars, bears or bulls, had had to go by way of Milan and had been put to it to keep their teams fit for a journey of over seven hundred miles.