The privates and corporals stood silent while one of the
three sergeants addressed us:
"No one shall be compelled to join us. Every man of you shall have his
unforced choice. All who join us shall be free. Such as prefer to remain
where they are sit down! All who select to join us stand up!"
If any man sat down I did not see him. Through the door we flowed without
jostling or crowding, for at the first appearance of a tendency to push
forward the sergeant's big voice bellowed a warning and order reigned. Up
the stair we poured, passing on the landing the mute, motionless porter-
accountant and his Scythian guard, cowed immobile between two burly
frontier centurions; out into the courtyard we streamed, more and more
following till the courtyard was packed. The whole movement was made in
silence, without a cheer or yell, for, like the porter and the Scythians,
the most unconscionable villains in our _ergastulum_ quailed before the
truculence of the frontier sergeants.
In the outer court, at the suggestion of one of those same centurions,
every man of us drank his fill at the well-curb, pairs of the legionaries
taking turns at hauling up the buckets and watering us, much as if we had
been thirsty workhorses.
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