I have not met a human being since daylight. Where
am I and how can I reach the Via Salaria?"
"You are not far from it," Hirnio told him. "We are bound for Rome and if
you join us you can reach Via Salaria with us by the road on which we are
going. Should you prefer to follow the road along which we have come,
which is rough, but less roundabout, you can, by taking every turn to the
right, reach the Via Salaria some miles nearer Rome than where our road
will bring us out on it."
"I'll join your cavalcade, if you have no objection," the stranger said.
Hirnio and I expressed our entire willingness to have his company.
Hirnio asked him:
"Are you in any way related to Murmex Frugi?"
"He was my father," Murmex replied, simply.
"Was!" Hirnio repeated. "The word strikes ominously on my ear. Someone
from this neighborhood, I forget who, was in Nersae since the roads became
fit for travelling this spring and returned from there, or perhaps some
wayfarer from Nersae stopped with someone hereabouts. At any rate we heard
he had seen Murmex Frugi still hale and sound, even at his advanced age."
"My father," said Murmex, "was still hale and sound on the Kalends of May
and for a day or two thereafter. He fell ill with a cough and fever, and
died after only two nights' illness, on the Nones of May, barely more than
a month ago.
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