We'll have a
long start of them.
"You can watch the whole thing from your crag. This ideal weather is going
to last many days yet. And the moon will be full two nights from now, so
its light will help us two nights on our getaway. I envy you up on that
crag watching the show, comfortable as a senator at a theater, aloft like
Jupiter on Olympus in the Iliad."
Next day I made sure that the _Villicus_ would not want me, had Septima
put up for me an abundant supply of her inviting food and set off about
the middle of the morning for my crag, on foot, of course. I climbed to
the very top and ensconced myself under and among sheltering bushes so
that I was certain that I could not be seen from the road in either
direction, yet could view it both ways as far as the horizon, except just
at the foot of the crag and where, in the distance, hilltops hid the
hollows behind them. Close by me I placed my precious kidskin of much
watered wine, I might say of water flavored with wine, so that it would
keep cool in the thickest shade. The day was hot, clear and still and the
rays of the sun fierce. The occasional slight breezes were very welcome.
The outlook was really magnificent; a broad prospect of rolling pasturage,
hilly pasturage, and wooded mountains; the grass-lands and grassy
hillsides diversified by scattered trees, clumps of trees and small
groves; the lower levels of woodland broken by grassy glades; the brighter
green of the forests of chestnut, beech, and oak merging imperceptibly
into the darker green of the pine-forests; the score of farms in sight
brilliant in the green landscapes like semi-jewels; all the wide prospect
glowing under a deep blue sky, varied by a very few very white clouds, the
intense sunlight beating down on everything.
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