Let's be off. Attention! Form ranks! Ready! Forward!
March!"
Off we set, ordering our caravan as at first, except that Agathemer rode
by me, with Hirnio and Murmex in advance.
We plodded down the muddy road, through the fine, continuous drizzle,
wrapped in our cloaks, all the world about us helmed in fog, mist and
rain, the trees looming blurred and gray-green in the wet air.
Without meeting any wayfarers, with little talk among ourselves, we had
passed the entrance to Villa Satronia and were no great distance from the
Salarian Highway, when, where the road traversed a dense bit of woodland,
the trees of which met overhead, the underbrush on both sides of the road
suddenly rang with yells and was alive with excited men.
It was almost the duplicate of our experience in Vediamnum, save that our
assailants were more numerous and shouted:
"Xantha, Xantha, rescue Xantha!"
"Satronius forever! Eat 'em alive, boys! Get Xantha! Get Xantha!" and such
like calls.
This time we had an infinitesimally longer warning, as the bushes to right
and left of the road were further apart than had been the houses lining
the streets of Vediamnum; also we reacted more quickly to the yells,
having heard the like such a short time before.
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