"
I kissed her as heartily as if she had been my own mother.
"Don't worry, Uturia," I said, "as long as I live I'll take care of you
and if I die you shall be a free woman with a cottage and garden and three
slaves of your own."
But she only sobbed harder, both as she clung to me and after I had
mounted.
Tanno, of course, rolled into his litter and slid the panels against the
rain. His bearers were muffled up precisely like my tenants. So was
Tanno's intendant, so was Hirnio, so was I. The entire caravan was a mere
column of horses, cloaks and hats, not a man visible, all the faces hid
under the flapping hat-brims, no man recognizable.
Hirnio and I led, next came Tanno in his litter, then his extra bearers,
next his intendant on horseback, then my nine tenants, each horsed and
leading a pack-mule, last the mounted servants, Tanno's, Hirnio's and
mine, similarly leading pack-mules, in all twenty-seven men afoot, sixteen
mounted and twelve led mules.
As we strung out Tanno called to me:
"Luck for us if we don't blunder into one of those ambushes we heard about
at dinner last night. With all this cavalcade everybody we meet cannot
fail to conjecture that so large a party can only be from either Villa
Vedia or Villa Satronia, such an escort misbefits anyone not of senatorial
rank.
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