I heard nothing
which led me to believe that they had any inkling of the location of the
outlaws' camp, of their purposes, or of their intended coup.
After a day of happy idling on my crag I visited Bulla. He was gay.
"It promises well," he volunteered. "The procurator and his gold are well
on this side of Ariminum and the propraetor and widow left Rome yesterday.
They'll he here within two days of each other, if he holds the rate he has
kept all the way from Bononia and they travel as such luxurious folks
generally do. Come over as often as you like. No one will suspect you or
follow you. I'll keep you posted as to what our advices promise us. You
may be able to help us."
By this time I was so interested in Bulla and his plans that I oscillated
between my crag, the outlaws' camp and the constabulary post, with no more
other occupations than what I judged absolutely needful to forestall any
unwelcome interest in my doings and the possibility of too many persons
knowing of my visits to the outlaws.
When next I visited them Bulla told me that something had alarmed the
procurator. Either some rumor of their presence along the road had reached
him or he knew of the bad reputation of the stretch of the Flaminian
Highway through the Umbrian mountains between Forum Sempronii and Nuceria,
which it had acquired some years before when the King of the Highwaymen
himself had made on it a succession of valuable captures which had yielded
him princely booty and the reports of which had spread all over Italy.
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