That so much time had
elapsed since the authorities must have been warned of our approach, that
we should have advanced so near Rome and yet that this should be the first
visible indication of espionage upon us, amazed both me and Agathemer.
Next day, a cloudy but rainless day, we marched only to Rubrae, the
change-station nearest Rome. There, as at every previous halt, we found
the authorities apprised of our approach and prepared to lodge and feed
us. And, as always since we left Nuceria, we were comfortably sheltered in
a camp all ready for our occupancy and lavishly provided with varied food
and passable wine.
Next day, the sixth day before the Kalends of August, dawned exquisitely
fair and bright, with a soft steady breeze; a perfect July day, mild but
not too warm. Our elected sergeants, now quite habituated to their duties
and authority as centurions, routed us up early and, after a leisurely
camp-breakfast, we fell in and set off on the last stage of this amazing
unopposed march of fifteen hundred insurgent mutineers for nineteen
hundred miles, in making which they had so loitered that they had consumed
on the road more than half a year and along which they had added to their
company casual associates twice as numerous as themselves.
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