Marcia wove her basket, putting a band of red around the curve.
Frontispiece.

By
L. LAMPREY

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
EDNA F. HART-HUBON

Copyright, 1922,
By Little, Brown, and Company.

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

to
Maitland C. Lamprey

[pg vii]

INTRODUCTION

It is scarcely necessary to say that these stories are not meant to be taken as history, even legendary history. The tales of the founding of Rome and of the early life of the Italian races are many and contradictory. It is quite possible that future discoveries may disprove half the theories now held on these subjects. There must have been, however, heroic semi-savage figures like the Romulus of the legends, and the aim of the author has been to re-create in some degree the atmosphere and the surroundings in which they may have lived.

The various customs and events introduced here were not, probably, part of the history of one generation. It is possible, however, that as a tree grows from a seed, the laws of the future city were foreshadowed and suggested in the relations between the Romans as individuals and between the town on the Palatine and its neighbors.

It will be observed that the forms of Latin and Italian names used in these stories do not [pg viii]follow the usual classic Latin style and end in “us.” It is said by some authors that the original immigrants from whose customs and traditions Roman civilization developed came from Greece, and in that case such Greek forms as “Vitalos” might have been preserved long after such clipped forms as “Marcus” and “Marcs” became current. Inasmuch as Italian peasant names hardly ever end in anything but a vowel it seems illogical to take it for granted that in a colony of farmers, such as the men who founded Rome, the names would all have taken the classical Latin form at first. They would have been much more likely to vary according to the ancestry, dialect and intelligence of the family. Later they would tend to a conventional form as certain families of distinction set a standard for others to follow and took pride in keeping their own speech correct.

In short, the period described here is a transition stage, and like any age of the founding of a new civilization, contains incongruous elements. It has been stated that even in the great days of the Roman Empire the number of people who actually spoke correct classical Latin was extremely small in proportion to the whole population of any city.

[pg ix]

THE LIVING LANGUAGE

Sing a song of little words, homely parts of speech,

Phrases children use at play, songs that mothers teach,—

Who would think when Rome was new, they used that language then—

Table, chair and family, map and chart and pen?

Sing a song of stately ways, camp and square and street,

Consuls, tribunes, governors, the legion’s myriad feet,

If those wise men so long ago had not known what to say,

All they gave us readymade we should not have to-day.

Clear and straight and brief their talk in country or in town.

Lucid, vivid, accurate the thoughts that they set down.

Still the world is using words that bear the Roman stamp—

Coined in forum, villa, temple, market place or camp.

Still our thoughts take day by day those shapes of long ago—

If you read the dictionary you will find it’s so.

[pg xi]

CONTENTS

[pg xiii]

ILLUSTRATIONS

[pg 1]

THE CHILDHOOD OF ROME

[pg 3]

I

THE MOUNTAIN OF FIRE

Marcia, the little daughter of Marcus Vitalos the farmer, sat on a sheltered corner of a stone wall, making a willow basket. Basket weaving was one of the first things that all children of her people learned, and she was very clever at it. Her strong, brown fingers wove the osiers in and out swiftly and deftly, as a bird builds its nest. The boys and girls cut willow shoots, and reeds, and grasses that were good for this work, at the proper time, and bound them together in bundles tidily, for use later on. The straw, too, could be used for making baskets and mats after the grain was threshed out of it.

A great many baskets were needed, for they were used to hold the grain, and the beans, and the onions, and the dried fruit, and the various other things that a thrifty family kept stored away for provisions. They were also used to gather things in and to carry them in, and some[pg 4]times they took the place of dishes in serving fruit or nuts. Almost every size and shape and kind could be made use of somewhere. The one Marcia was making was round and squat and quite large, and it was to have an opening at the top large enough to put one’s hand into easily, and a cover to fit.

The house in which she lived was one of the oldest in the village on the slopes of the Mountain of Fire. It was so old that there was no knowing how many children had grown up in it, but they were all of the same family,—the family of the Marcus Vitalos Colonus who built it in the first place. This long-ago settler was called Colonus, the farmer, not because he was the only farmer in the neighborhood, for everybody worked on the land, but because he was an unusually good one, a leader among them in the understanding of the good brown earth and all its ways.

His sons after him took the name Colonus, for among their people it was considered very important to belong to a good family. As soon as a man’s name was mentioned his ancestry was known, if he had any worth the naming. The ancestor of all this people was said to have been Mars, the god of manhood and all manly deeds. Their names showed this, for the common ones [pg 5]were Marcus, Mamurius, Mavor, Mamertius and so on, with some other name added to describe their occupations, or the place where they lived, or some peculiar thing about them. Plautus meant the splay-footed man; Sylvius, the man of the forest; Marinus, the seaman,—and there had been a Marcus Vitalos Colonus in this family, ever since the first one. Marcia’s elder brother, two years older than she was, had this name, but he was usually called Marcs, for in their language the last syllable was apt to be slurred over.

It was very quiet in the village just now, for all the men were off getting in the harvest. The grain lands and the pastures were some distance away, wherever the land was suitable for crops or grazing. Every morning, directly after breakfast, every one who had anything to do away from the village went out, and usually did not come back until supper time. It was said that the first Marcus Vitalos was the leader who had persuaded the people to settle down in one place instead of moving about, driving their herds here and there. It was said also that he began the custom of a common meal in the middle of the day for all the men who were working on the land. This not only saved time and trouble, but made them better acquainted and gave them time to talk over and plan the work during the hottest [pg 6]part of the day. When the day’s toil was finished, each man returned to his own house and had supper with his family. The houses were built, not too near together, around an open square. The wall around the house enclosed the sheepfold and the cattle sheds besides. The people worked and played together for much of the time, but there was a certain plot of ground that came down from father to son in each family and belonged to that family alone. Nobody else had any rights there at all.

The people were very careful to do everything according to custom. Almost everything they did had been worked out long ago into a sort of system, which was considered the best possible way to do it. Certain customs were always observed because the gods of the land were said to be pleased with them. Whether the gods had anything to do with it or not, these children of Mars were certainly more prosperous than most of their neighbors, and had many things which they might not have had if it had not been for their careful ways. The soil of the sunshiny mountain slopes was rich and fruitful and easy to work; the clear mountain waters were pleasant and wholesome, and in certain places there were hot springs which had been found good to cure disease. It was not strange that they believed [pg 7]the gods took especial care of them and would go on being kind to them so long as proper respect was shown.

Marcia wove her basket, putting a band of red around the curve before she began to draw it in, and her thoughts went far and near, as thoughts do.

The family spent very little time indoors when it was possible to be in the open air. The mother sat spinning in the doorway, and the baby played at her feet. The father was harvesting, and Marcs was out with the sheep. The next younger brother, Bruno they called him, had gone fishing. Supper was in an earthen pot comfortably bubbling over the fire. It would be ready by the time they all came home. Marcia had had her dinner and helped clear away before she came out here. Although the people had some vegetables and herbs, their main crop was grain. It was a kind of cereal a little like wheat and a little like barley, with a small hard kernel, and they called it “corn,” which meant something that is crushed or ground into meal. When it was pounded in a mortar and then boiled soft, it made good porridge. Boiled until it was very thick, and poured out on a flat stone or board to cool, it could be cut into pieces and eaten from the hand. The children had all they [pg 8]wanted, with some goat’s-milk cheese and some figs. Marcia could hear them laughing and shouting as they played with the pet kid. He was old enough now to butt the smaller ones right over on their backs, and he did it whenever they gave him a chance.

Marcia was rather a silent girl, with a great deal of long black hair in heavy braids, level black brows over thoughtful eyes, and a square little chin. As she began to draw in her basket at the top, she was thinking of the stories the old people sometimes told about a long-ago time when their ancestors lived in another and far more beautiful place. There the rivers ran over sands that gleamed like sunshine, and all the land was like a garden. The houses were larger than any here and built of a white stone. There were stone statues like those she and Marcs sometimes made in clay for the children to play with, but as large as men and women and painted to look like life. The gods came and went among the children of men and taught them all that they have ever known, but much had since been forgotten. So ran the story.

Sometimes in the heart of this mountain there were rumblings underground, as if the thunder had gone to earth like a badger. The old people said then that the smith of the gods was working [pg 9]at his forge. The noises were made by his hammer, beating out weapons for the gods. The plume of smoke that drifted lazily up from the deep bowl-shaped hollow in the mountain top came from his fires. To these people the mountain was like a great still creature, maybe a god in disguise. The forest hung on the slopes above like a bearskin on the shoulders of a giant. Up higher were barren rocks and cliffs, where nothing grew.

Marcia looked up at the mighty crest so far above, and then down across the valley, where the stubble of the grain fields shone golden in the westering sun. The river, winding away beyond it, was bluer than the sky. She wondered whether, if her people should ever go away, they would tell their children how beautiful this land was. But of course they never would go. They had lived too long where they were ever to be willing to leave their home on the mountain. No other place could be like it. The floods that sometimes ruined the lowlands never rose as high as this; the wandering, warlike tribes that sometimes attacked their neighbors did not trouble them here. They belonged to the mountain, as the chestnut trees and the squirrels did.

“Me make basket,” announced her little sister, pulling at the withes, her rag doll tumbling to [pg 10]the ground as she tried to scramble up on the wall. “Up! up!”

“O Felic’la (Kitty), don’t; you’ll spoil sister’s work! I’ll begin one for you.”

The Kitten had got her name from her disposition, which was to insist on doing whatever she saw any one else doing, just long enough to make confusion wherever she went. What with showing the little fingers how to manage the spidery ribs of the little basket she began, and working out the braided border of her own basket, Marcia’s attention was fully taken up.

She did not even see that Marcs was driving in the sheep until they began crowding into the sheepfold. The walls of this, like the walls of the house itself, were of stone, laid by that long-ago Colonus, and as solid and firm as if they were built yesterday. The stones were not squared or shaped, and there was no mortar, but they were fitted together so cleverly that they seemed as solid as the mountain itself. They hardly ever needed repair. The roofs, of seasoned chestnut boughs woven in and out, seemed almost as firm as the stonework. This place had been settled when the farmers had to fight wolves every year. Even now, if the wolves had a hard winter and got very hungry, they sometimes came around and tried to get at the sheep. [pg 11]Then the men would take their spears and long knives and go on a wolf-hunt. But that had not happened now for several years.

Why were the sheep coming in so early?

Marcs looked rather disturbed, and he was in a hurry. Bruno too was coming home without any fish, an unusual thing for him; and he looked both scared and puzzled. The mother was standing in the door, shading her eyes with her hand and looking at the sky. Marcs caught sight of the girls in their corner.

“You had better pick up all that and go in,” he called to them. “Pater sent us home as quick as we could scamper. See how strange the sky is.”

They all looked. Little Felic’la, with round eyes, dropped her basket and pointed.

“Giants,” said she.

It did not take much imagination to see, in the dark clouds spreading over the heavens, huge misty figures like gigantic men, or like gods about to descend upon the earth.

“Mater,” said Bruno, “the spring and the stream have dried up.”

The father was hurrying up from the grain fields, and the boys ran to help him manage the frightened cattle and get the load under cover. Other flocks of sheep and other men with oxen [pg 12]were hastening to shelter. The sky was growing darker and darker. Blue lights were wavering in the marshy lands by the river. The fowls, croaking and squawking in frightened haste, huddled on to their roosts, all but Felic’la’s pet white chicken, which scuttled for the house. Birds were flying overhead, uttering some sort of warnings in bird language, but there was no understanding what they said.

Suddenly there was a crash as if the earth had cracked in two. Everything turned black. The [pg 13]air was filled with smoke and dust and ashes raining down from the sky.

Marcia caught up her little sister and the baskets together and groped her way to the door. Her mother darted out to drag them in and barred the door against the unknown terrors outside. The boys and their father were under the cattle shed, with the stout timber brace against the door; it had been made to keep out wild beasts. In the roar of the tumult outside the loudest shout could not have been heard.

The terrific detonations above were heavier than any thunder that ever rolled down the valley, sharper than any blows of a giant hammer. The earth trembled and rocked under foot. Then came a pounding from all sides at once, like the trampling of frantic herds. An avalanche of dust and cinders came through the smoke hole and put out the fire. Part of the roof had fallen in, for they could hear stones tumbling down on the earth floor. Through the opening they saw a crimson glow spreading over the sky. Only the beams in one corner, the corner where the mother and her children were, still held firm.

At last the rain of ashes was over, the stones no longer fell, and it was light enough for them to see each other’s faces. They had no way of knowing how long they had crouched there in the [pg 14]dark, but they had been there all night. The house had no windows and only one door. Now the father and the boys were trying to get the door open against a heap of fallen roof beams and thatch and stones and ashes and broken furniture. In a minute or two they got it far enough open to let them in.

“Are you safe, Livia? And the children?” The man’s deep voice was shaking. But even as he spoke he saw that they were alive and unhurt. He took his baby boy from his wife’s arms, and put the other arm round the two girls, while the little boys clung to him as far up as they could reach. Livia sprang up at the first sight of Marcs and Bruno, for Marcs was bleeding all down one side of his face and his shoulder, where a stone had glanced along.

“I was trying to catch the white heifer,” he said rather shamefacedly, “but she got away. It’s only a scrape along the skin—let me go, Mater.” And before she had fairly done washing off the blood and bandaging the cuts, he was out from under her hands and out of doors after Bruno.

Cautiously they all went out, and stood outside the wall, gazing about them. Everything as far as they could see was gray with ashes and cinders and stones. Here and there the woods were on [pg 15]fire. Far up toward the top of the mountain, one tall tree by itself was burning like a torch. An arched hole was broken out in the cliff above, and down through it flowed a fiery river of molten rock, like boiling honey or liquid flame, cooling as it went. Ravines were broken out, great slices of rock and earth had fallen or slid, and the river, choked by fallen trees and earth and rocks, was tearing out another channel for itself. The very face of the earth was strange and unnatural.

The walls of their own house and of most of the others in the village had been wrenched and thrown down in places by the twisting of the earth. Then the roof had given way under the pelting rocks. In the corner where Livia and her children had taken shelter, one timber, a tree trunk set deep in the ground, had held firm and kept the roof from falling. The same thing had happened in the narrow cattle shed. They went on to see how their neighbors had fared.

There was less loss of life than one might have expected, considering that the oldest man there had never seen anything like this. The people were trained to obey orders and look out for themselves. The father was the head of the family, and in any sudden emergency the people did not run about aimlessly but looked to who[pg 16]ever was there to give orders. The children had each the care of some younger child or some possession of the family. Even Felic’la, trotting along beside Marcia, held tightly in her arms her white chicken. The chicken was trying to get away, but Felic’la felt that this was no time for the family to be separated.

[pg 17]

II

TEN FAMILIES

Whatever the strange and terrible outbreak of the Mountain of Fire could have meant, the people had no thought of abandoning the land. Within a few days they were repairing or rebuilding their huts and returning to the habits of their daily life. Centuries might pass, more than one such calamity might befall the village, but there would still be men living on the same spot where their forefathers lived, on the slopes of the Mountain of Fire.

All the same, a great change had taken place, and they felt it more as time went on. They began to see that the land that had once brought forth food for them all would not now feed them with any such abundance. They would be lucky if they could secure enough food to keep them alive. Some of the fields were burned over by the lava stream; some were ruined by the dammed-up river. Cattle and sheep had been killed or had run away. Much of the grain and [pg 18]wool and other provision for the future had been destroyed. It was a very hard winter.

Yet rather than leave their homes and be strangers and outcasts without a country, they endured cold and scarcity and every kind of discomfort, even suffering. Outside the land they knew were unknown terrors,—races who did not speak their language or worship their gods; soil whose ways they did not understand, and very likely far worse troubles than had come upon them here. Most of the people simply made up their minds that what must be, they must endure, because anything else would only be a change for the worse.

There were a few, however, who did not take this view. The first to suggest that some might go away was Marcus Colonus. He spoke of it to a little group of his friends while they were in the forest cutting wood. Sylvius, whose wife and children were killed when the stones fell, and Urso the shaggy hunter, who never feared anything, man or beast, and Muraena the metal-worker, a restless fellow who knew that he could get a living wherever men used plows and weapons, all agreed that if Colonus went they would go. If ten heads of households joined the party, it would make a clan. But first the head of the village must be consulted.

Old Vitalos was the grandfather of Marcus Colonus and related in one way or another to nearly every person in the village. When his grandson came to him and told what he had in mind, the old chief stroked his long white beard and did not answer at once. He seemed to be thinking, and he thought for a long time.

Before written histories, or pictured records, or even songs telling the history of a people, were in use, the memories of the old folk formed the only source of information that there was. As old men will, they told what they knew over and over again, and those who heard, even if they did not know they were remembering it, often remembered a story and told it over again, when their time came. The experiences and the wisdom that old Vitalos had gathered in the eighty years of his useful life were stored in his mind in layers, like silt in the bed of a river. Now he was digging down into his memory for something that had happened a long time ago.

When he had done thinking, he spoke.

“My son,” he said, “you tell me that you desire to go forth and make your home in another land.”

“I desire it not, my father,” said Colonus, “unless it is the will of the gods. I have thought that it may be best.”

He did not know it, but while the old man’s mind was busy with the past, his keen old eyes were busy with the strong, well-built figure, the stubborn chin and the fearless eye of this man of his own blood. Colonus walked with the long, sure step of the man who knows where he is going. The fingers of his hand were square-tipped and rugged, the kind that can work. He was Saturn’s own man, made to work the land and produce food for his people. He would not give up easily, nor would he be dismayed by difficulties.

“And where will you go?” was the chief’s next question.

“That I do not know,” said Colonus. “Yet something I do know. The mountain folk are not friends to us, and we should have to fight them. Their land is all one fortress, not easy to take. To the sea we will not go, for we know nothing of the ways of the sea-tamers. Perhaps our gods would not help us in those things, which are strange to our lives. There remains the plain beyond the marsh, where the river runs out of the valley. I have been there only once, but I remember it. Around it are mountains, and the plain itself is broken by low hills, as we have seen from our heights. In such a land we might live according to customs of our fore[pg 21]fathers. The little hills can be defended, and if enemies come we can see them from far off. Is this a good plan that we make, my father?”

The patriarch looked at the fire on the altar, which burned in his house as in every other house of the village; then he looked keenly at his grandson.

“There are two ways of living in a strange place, Marcus Colonus,” he said. “One is, to live after the manner of those who are born there, obey their gods, learn their law, eat their food, work as they do, join in their feasts and their games. The other is to fight them, and drive [pg 22]them away, or make them your servants. Which is your choice?”

Colonus hesitated. “My father,” he said, “to take the first path, I must change my nature and become another man, which I would not do even if I could. Here or in another country, or in the moon if men could go there, I should be Colonus, the farmer,—not a sailor, or a trader, or any other man. To take the second way I must be leader of many fighting men, and this is not possible, since if we go we must take our wives and children. It is in my mind, my father, that there may be a middle way. If we hold to our own customs and are faithful to our own gods and to one another, surely the gods should keep faith with us. If we hurt not the people of the land where we go, but stand ready to defend ourselves against any who try to attack us, they may allow us to live as we please. If not, then must we fight for the right to live.”

The old chief smiled. “My son,” he said, “you are wise with the wisdom of youth. Yet sometimes that is better than the unbelief of age. It is better to die fighting strangers than to die by starvation, or to fall upon one another, and I have had fear that one or the other might happen here, for truly the land is changed. It may be that this plan of yours shall end in new branching [pg 23]out of our people, the Ramnes, and in new power to our gods,—and if so, surely the gods will lead you.

“Now I have a story to tell you, and you will give careful heed to it, and not speak of it lightly, but store it away in the secret places of your mind. Sit down here, close to me, for I do not wish to be heard by any listener.

“Many years ago, before you were born, or ever the road was made over the marsh or the bridge across the river, our people were at war with a strange people from the north. My son, whom you resemble, went to fight against them and did not come back. Whether he died in battle and was left on some unknown field we did not know. We never knew, until in after years, one who was taken prisoner with him came back, his hair white as snow, and told what he had seen.

“In that country of which you have spoken, where a plain stretches away toward the sea, and is guarded with mountains and divided by a yellow river, there are people who speak a language like ours and are sons of Mars, as we are. Some live in the hills and some in the plain, and some on the Long White Mountain. Beyond the river the people are strange in every way and their gods are also strange and terrible.

“Now among the people of the Long White [pg 24]Mountain was a chief with two sons, and when he died the elder should have been ruler in his place. But the younger one, an evil man, stole into his brother’s place and killed his sons, and forbade his daughter to marry. Here my son was taken as a captive, and he became a servant to that chief.

“The daughter of the elder brother was a fair woman, and my son was a strong and comely man, and in secret they married. Then did my son escape, thinking to come back with an army and bring away his wife with their twin boys. But the wicked chief discovered what had been done, and killed the mother and the children, and sent a war party after my son to kill him also. He could have escaped even then, for he crossed a river in flood by swimming. But when they called to him that his wife and her two sons were dead, he returned across the river and fought his pursuers until they killed him. Then he went to find his beloved in that unknown country which is neither land nor water and is full of ghosts.

“Now it is in my mind that if that evil chief is dead, the people of his country may welcome you among them. Or if he is not dead, and the elder brother still lives, he may be your friend, since we are of one race and speak one language. [pg 25]In any case it is well for you to know what has happened there in other days, for before we plant a field we desire to know whether wheat, or lentils, or thistles, or salt was last sown there. I was told also that the evil man who killed the mother and the babes declared that the father of the children was the god Mars himself, not wishing that any kinswoman of his should be known to be a wife to a captive and a stranger. Now, my son, go, and peace go with you.”

Colonus rose and bowed to the old man, and went home.

Now the way was clear to prepare for the emigration, and from time to time others came to talk about it and join the company. Besides the four men who had made the plan in the first place, there were finally seven others,—Tullius, who knew all the ancient laws and customs well, Piscinus the fisherman, Pollio the leather worker, Cossus, an old and wary fighter, the two Nasos, quiet and able farmers (all of whose children had the big nose that marked the family), and Calvo, whose great-grandfather had bequeathed to his descendants a tendency to grow bald young. Calvo already had a little thin spot on the crown of his head, though he was not much over thirty. Among them they had all the most necessary trades and could supply most things they needed. [pg 26]But every one of them was also a good farmer; in fact, in such migrations the settlers were most generally known as coloni or farmers. They had to understand the care of the land in order to get through the first years without starving to death, for there were no cities where they went.

Muraena could make unusually fine weapons, and he took care that each of the party should be provided with the best that he could make. The grain was chosen with care, for when they found the place for their settlement they would want it for seed. The finest animals were chosen to stock the farms. The women who were not going made gifts of their best weaving to the housewives who were. The lads who were old enough to fight gave especial attention to their bows and their slings, and spent a good deal of time practicing.

All the men who had agreed to go had sons and daughters except Sylvius, and most of the children were old enough to do something to help. They were very much excited, and secretly most of them were rather scared.

There was no priest in the company; that is to say, there was no man who had nothing else to do, for that was not the custom among the Ramnes. They chose a man they all trusted for this office. Tullius was chosen priest by the [pg 27]coloni. It was due to his advice that the water jars and the leather bottles for water-carrying were well selected, strong and numerous. It was a hobby of his, the drinking of pure water, and he believed it had more to do with health than any other one thing. He also believed that the gods do not protect the careless and the lazy. For instance, if a man were to pray to Mars to keep his house from being destroyed by fire, and then burn brush on a windy day in summer, when the wind was blowing that way, and a spark happened to light on the thatch, Mars would not be likely to put it out. He would let it burn. If the gods went to the trouble of saving people from the consequences of not using common sense, they would show themselves to be fools, and not in the least god-like. Tullius prayed at all proper times, but when he was working he worked with his head as well as with his hands. He said that that was what heads were for.

[pg 28]

III

THE SACRED YEAR

In the month of spring when day and night are equal, and the young lambs frisk on new grass, a company of young men and girls went slowly out from a little town on the eastern side of a great mountain range. The long narrow country stretching out into the sea, which is now called Italy, is divided by this range lengthwise into two parts, and in the earliest days of the country the people on one side had hardly anything to do with those on the other. On the coast toward the sunrise were many harbors, and seafaring men from other countries came there sometimes to trade. On the other side, the young people who were now setting their faces westward did not at all know what they would find.

They were all of about the same age, and they looked grave and a little anxious; some of the girls had been crying. The day had come when they were to leave the place where they had been born and brought up and go into an unknown [pg 29]world, and it was not likely that they would ever come back.

They belonged to the Sabine people, who used to live on the banks of the rivers not far from the coast, and kept cattle and sheep and goats, and raised grain and different kinds of vegetables, and had vineyards. The land was so rich that they had more food and other things than they needed, and used to trade more or less with the strangers from other countries. So many strangers came there and settled in course of time that the first inhabitants were crowded back toward the mountains, away from the sea. Then war parties of Umbrians from the north came pushing their way into the country, and the peaceable farming folk were obliged to retreat still farther up the rivers into the mountain, and clear new land and settle it. This happened all a long time ago. It was not easy to live there, and they were poorer than they used to be, for so much of the land was rock and forest that they had to spend a great deal of their time getting it into a fit condition for either grain or cattle or anything else. But they learned to do most things for themselves, as mountain people do; they were not afraid of hard work or danger, and although they lived plainly they were comfortable.

But even here they were not let alone. About twenty years earlier, before any of these boys and girls were born, the Umbrian war parties came up into the higher valleys, and the Sabines had to fight for their very lives. They won the war and drove back the invaders in the end, but it began to seem that some day they would be wiped out altogether and forgotten.

After this war there were some hard years. Many of the men had been killed, and the fields had been neglected when the fighting was going on. Where the enemy came they trampled down and ruined the vineyards, and burned houses and barns, and drove off the flocks and herds for their own use. That one year of war almost ruined the work that had been done in half a lifetime. If they were to be obliged to spend half their time defending what land they had, every year would be worse than the last.

Finally Flamen the priest, the man most respected in the central and largest of the towns, spoke of an old custom called the “sacred spring.” It was a method of making sacrifice to the gods when things came to a very evil pass indeed. In a way it was a sacrifice, and in a way it was a chance of saving something from the general ruin. Flamen believed that if they kept a “sacred spring” their guardian god, [pg 31]Mars, would help them. All this happened a long time before the calamity that drove the emigrants to set out from the Mountain of Fire. There are all sorts of reasons why people change their place of living and begin new settlements in a strange country, but in those days it was a much more serious matter than it is now, and it took almost a life-and-death reason to make them do it.

When villages agreed to keep a sacred year, as these finally did, they gave to the gods everything that was born in that year. The cattle, sheep, goats and poultry were killed in sacrifice, when they were grown. But the children born that spring were not killed. They were taught that when they were old enough they were to go out and build homes for themselves in another land, trusting in the great and wise god Mars to show them where to go. If this was done, even though the Umbrians attacked the country again and again, and killed off the people or made them slaves, there would still be Sabine men and women living in the old ways, somewhere in the world. And now the time had come for them to set out to find their new home.

Flamen the priest gave a daughter in the year of the sacred spring; Maurs the smith gave a son. Almost every family in all the country [pg 32]round had a son or daughter or at least a near relative who was going. Some of the young people were married before the day came for them to go; in fact, there were a great many brides and grooms in the party. The parents had given their children plenty of seed grain and roots and plants, cuttings of shrubs and trees and vines, animals and fowls to stock their farms, provision for the journey, and whatever clothing and other goods they could carry without the risk of being delayed or tempting plunderers to kill them for their riches. Everything that could be done was done to make their great undertaking successful.

At daybreak on the day that had been decided upon, the farewell ceremonies began. Hymns were sung and a feast was held, prayers and sacrifices were made; there were all sorts of farewell wishes and loving hopes and instructions. Nothing, however, could make it anything but a very solemn occasion. The young people must go beyond the mountains, for on this side they could have no hope of finding any place to live. No one knew what awaited them. But whatever happened, no one would have dreamed of breaking the promise made to the gods. A pledge is a pledge, and not the shrewdest cheat can deceive the gods, for they know men’s hearts.

Flam’na, the wife of young Mauros the maker of swords, looked back just once as they lost sight of the village. Then she led in the singing of the last of the farewell songs. She had a beautiful voice, clear and strong and sweet; her husband’s deeper tones joined hers, and then all the young voices took up the song as streams run into a river. The fathers and mothers heard the wild music of their singing floating down from the mountain forest as they climbed the narrow trail. They were following a path which the young men knew from their hunting expeditions, which led around the shoulder of the mountain to a pass [pg 34]through which they could cross and go down the other side. Now that they were fairly on their way, the care of the young animals they were driving, all of them full of life and not at all used to keeping together in strange woods, took up most of the attention of the whole party.

On the western slopes, as far as the hunters had ever gone, there were no people living in villages—only scattered woodcutters and hunters, and here and there a poor ignorant family in a little clearing. If they went far enough down to reach the upper valleys of streams or rivers, they might find just the sort of place they wanted for their new home. Others must have done this in the past, or there would never have been the custom of the sacred spring, for the emigrant parties would have been all killed off or starved to death. The young men said that what others had done they could do, and they went valiantly on, chanting a marching song.

In these spring days, as time passed, the mornings were earlier and the twilights later. They lived well while their provisions lasted, and there was game in the forest and fish in the little streams. They always carried coals from their camp fires to light the next fires, and in the cool evenings the leaping flames were pleasant. [pg 35]They also kept wild beasts from coming too near.

There were three groups of the young people, from three different villages. At night they gathered in three camps; each “company” which ate bread together was made up of relatives and friends. After they had crossed the mountain pass and before they had gone very far on the other side, they halted for a day to talk matters over and decide what to do next. It was very important now to take the right course.

The youths gathered under a huge oak to hold a council while their wives and sisters and cousins busied themselves with affairs of their own. The men would have to do the fighting, and the girls were quite willing to leave the general plans to them. They were a sober and serious group of young fellows as they sat there in the dappling sunshine. It was enough to make any man serious. Mars had brought them so far without any serious mishap, and he might go on protecting them all the rest of the way; but the question was, how to discover what was best to do. All the ways down the mountain looked very much alike, and yet one might lead into a country inhabited by fierce and cruel enemies, and another into a barren rocky waste, and another to a fertile valley.

Mauros was their leader, so far as they had [pg 36]one, but he called on each man in turn to say what he thought. There seemed to be a good deal of doubt about the wisdom of so large a party traveling together. The chances were against their finding a valley large enough for all to live in. They were not likely to find so much cleared land or good pasture in any one place. If they were to separate, and each party took a different direction, one or another certainly ought to be able to find the right sort of place. Perhaps all of them would. Even one of the camps was strong enough to defend itself against any ordinary enemy. They were all young and strong, active and full of courage, and as time went on they would be traveling lighter and lighter, for the provisions would be eaten up and the spare animals killed for food. They decided to do this, to offer a sacrifice to Mars and pray to him to direct them. The next morning all were ready to go on and waited only for a sign.

Each of the gods had certain favorite animals, birds and plants. Mars had plenty of servants he could send to do his will, and surely he would show them what to do.

Flam’na stood with her cousins, watching Mauros as he stood in the center of the silent group under the great oak tree. The fires were [pg 37]flickering slowly down to red coals, and a little wind blew from the west. Suddenly their lead-ox, the wisest of the team, lifted his head and sniffed the breeze, pawed the earth, bellowed, and plunged down a grassy glade, followed more slowly by the other oxen and the whole party in that camp. The ox was one of the beasts of Mars. Nothing could be clearer than this. Mauros turned and waved a laughing farewell to the other camps, and raced on to make sure that the ox did not get out of sight. Before they had gone very far they came to a tiny brook, which went chuckling on as if it knew something interesting. They followed it downward and began to find more and more grass as the valley widened and the trees grew less thick. Finally they found a place where the water was good and the soil rich, and there was room for all their beasts to graze. They called the town they built there Bovianum, after the ox of Mars. They were sometimes called by their neighbors the Bovii, the cattlemen, for herds of cattle were not very common in that part of the country.

In the camp to the right of this, not long after the departure of the ox, one of the girls saw something red moving high up on the trunk of a tree, and pointed it out to her brother. His eyes followed hers, and soon all the company [pg 38]gathered in the edge of the woodlands, watching that scarlet dot among the thick leaves. Then, with a sudden rush of little wings, a green woodpecker flew down from the tree top and perched on a bough just over their heads. He looked down knowingly into the upturned, eager faces, and with a cheery call flew away down a ravine, and alighted again. Breathless, wide-eyed and silent, they ventured nearer. He beat his tiny tattoo on the bark as if he were sounding a drum, and flew on. Now scarlet was the color of Mars, the drum was his favorite instrument of music, and Picus the woodpecker was his own bird. Following their little feathered guide, they went farther and farther north until they found a home among the spurs of the Apennines. They called themselves the Picentes, the Woodpecker People, and their children all knew the story of the sacred spring and the bird of Mars.

The third company had no time to watch the others, for some wolves had winded their sheep, and the young men had to run to fight them off. Some of them chased the skulking gray thieves for some distance and came back with the news that the wolves had led them southward to a rocky height, where they could look over the tops of the trees below and see an uncommonly fine place for the colony. This was as plain a sign [pg 39]as one could ask for, and the whole party, in great satisfaction and relief, went on to the home that the wolves had found for them. The wolf was another of the beasts of Mars. This settlement took the name of the Herpini, the Wolf People.

All three of the Sabine colonies prospered and grew strong, and although they had little to do with each other they lived in peace with relatives and neighbors. There came to be many villages on the slopes of the Apennines in which the Sabine language was spoken. This was the last time that they were forced to keep a Sacred Year, for the Umbrian war parties left them alone, and perhaps did not even know where they were; and the mountain land was pleasant and fertile, out of the way of floods. There was no reason in the world why the brave young couples who founded their homes here, and worked and played and kept holiday, and loved the green earth as all their forefathers had loved it, should not be prosperous and happy, and they were, for many a long year.

[pg 40]

IV

THE BANDITTI

When the Sabines came to the western side of the mountain range, they did not try to plow much land at first. They had to find out what the land was like.

People who lived by pasturing their cattle and sheep wherever it was convenient hardly ever settled in the same place for good, because the pasture differs from year to year even in the same neighborhood. A hillside which is rich and green in a wet year may be barren and dry when there are long months with no rain. A valley that is rich in long juicy grass in spring may be under water later in the summer. Herdsmen need to range over a wide country, and especially they need this if they keep sheep. The sheep nibble the grass down to the roots, and when they have finished with a field there is nothing on it for any other animal that year. But the true farmer, who uses his land for a great many different purposes, can shift his crops and his pasturage [pg 41]around so that he can have a home, and this was what the Sabines wished to do.

For a farm of this kind, a place between mountain and plain is best, with a variety of soil and good water supply. In such a mountain valley as the Herpini chose, with wooded heights above it, the roots of the trees bind the earth together and keep the wet of the winter rains from drying up, so that there is not often either flood or drought, and almost always good grass is found somewhere in the neighborhood. The people began by raising beans and peas to dry for winter, and herbs for flavoring, and in the summer they had kale and other fresh vegetables. Now and then, for a holiday, they killed a sheep or a young goat or a calf and had a feast. The heart and inner organs were burned on the altar for an offering to the gods; the flesh was served out to the people, cooked with certain herbs used according to old rules. For vineyards and grain fields, which needed a certain kind of soil, they chose, after awhile, exactly the ground which suited them, and plowed their common land, and sowed their corn and planted their vines.

Most of the farm land was worked by all the people in common. This was a very old custom. There were good reasons for it. In farming, the work has to be done when the weather is suitable. [pg 42]The planting or haying or harvesting cannot be put off. By working in company the men saved time and labor, and if one happened to be ill the land was taken care of all the same, and nothing was lost. Also, in this way all of the land suitable for a certain crop was used for that crop. Nobody was wasting time and strength trying to make rocky or barren soil feed his family, while his strength and skill were needed on good ground. The third and perhaps the best reason was, that in this way the houses were not scattered, but close together, so that no enemy could attack any one in the village without fighting all. The village was clean and wholesome, because no animals were kept there except as pets. The flocks and herds were taken care of by men and boys trained to that work. Each man had for his own the land around his own house, and every year he was allowed a part of the common land for his especial use, but he did not own it as he owned his house and lot,—the heredium, as it was called.

Everything connected with the cultivation of the land was in the hands of twelve men chosen for it, called the Arval Brethren, or the Brethren of the Field. It was their work to see that all was done according to the well-proved rules and customs, that the gods received due respect, and [pg 43]that the festivals in their honor were held in proper form.

In a society where people have to depend upon each other in this way, there is no room for a person who will not fit in, and who expects to be taken care of without doing his share of the work. Here and there, in one village and another, a boy grew up who shirked his work, took more good things than his share and made trouble generally. Sometimes he got over it as he grew older, but sometimes he did not; and if he could not live peaceably at home, he had to be driven out to get his living where he could. There was no place in a village ruled by the gods for any one who did not respect and obey the laws.

These outlaws did not starve, for they could get a kind of living by fishing and hunting, and they stole from the ignorant country people and from travelers. They were known after awhile as banditti, the banished men, the men who had been driven out of civilized society. Some of them left their own country altogether and went down to the seashore, or into the strange land across the yellow river. The people in the villages did not know much about them. They were very busy with their own concerns.

There were two great festivals in the year, to [pg 44]do honor to the gods of the land. One was in the shortest days of the year, early in winter. This was the feast of Saturn. He was the god who filled the storehouses, who sent water to drench the earth and feed the crops, who looked after the silent world of the roots and underground growing things generally. When his feast was held, the harvest was all in, the wine was made, and it was time to choose the animals to be killed for food and not kept through the winter. For four or five days there was a general jollification. No work was done except what was necessary. There was feasting and singing and story telling, and some of the wilder youths usually dressed up in fantastic costumes like earth spirits, and wound up the holiday with dancing and songs and shouting and all sorts of antics. Sometimes a clever singer made new songs to the old tunes, with jokes and puns about well-known people of the place. These songs were always done in a certain style, and this style of verse came to be known later as Saturnian poetry, and the sly personal fun in them was called satirical. It was part of the joke that the singer should keep a perfectly grave face.

The people gathered in the public square.

The other festival came in the spring, when the grass was green and the leaves were fresh and bright, and flowers were wreathing shrubs [pg 47]and hillsides like dropped garlands. It was in honor of the beautiful open-handed goddess called Dea Dia, or sometimes Maia. One spring morning the children of the village could hear the blowing of the horn in the public square, and then they all understood that the priest was about to give out the announcement of the festival of Maia. They crowded up to hear, even more excited and joyous than the older people.

There were no books or written records; not even a written language was known to the villagers. The priest of the village, who kept account of the days when ceremonies were due, and the changes of the moon, gave out the news, each month, of the things which were to happen. The months were not all the same length, and no two villages had just the same calendar. The year was counted from the founding of the city, whenever that was, and naturally it was not the same in different places. The people gathered in the public square, waiting to hear what Emilius the priest had to tell them.

He was a tall and noble-looking man, generally beloved because he always tried to deal justly and kindly with his neighbors, and was so wise that he usually succeeded. The person who paid him the deepest and most reverent attention was little Emilia, his daughter, who believed [pg 48]him to be the wisest and best of men. She stood with her mother in a little group directly in front of him, looking up at him with her deep, serious blue eyes, in happy pride.

Emilia was six and a half years old. This would be her first May festival, to remember, for she had been ill the year before when it came, and one’s memory is not very good before one is five years old. Her bright gold-brown hair curled a little and looked like waves of sunshine all over her graceful small head. It was tied with a white fillet to keep it out of her eyes, and in the fillet, like a great purple jewel, was thrust an anemone from a wreath her mother had been making. Her mother dressed her in the finest and softest of undyed wool, bleached white as snow. She wore a little tunic with a braided girdle, and over her shoulders a square of the same soft cloth as a mantle; it looked like the wings of a white bird as it shone in the morning sun. On her feet were sandals of kidskin, and around her neck was a necklace of red beads that had come from far away. A trader brought them from the place by the seashore where such things were made. From this necklace hung a round ball of hammered copper, made to open in two halves, and inside it was a little charm to keep off bad spirits. The charm was made [pg 49]of the same red stone and looked like the head of a little goat.

Emilia had never in her life known what it was to be afraid of any one, or to see any one’s eyes rest upon her unkindly. The world was very interesting to her. It was filled with wonderful and beautiful things, especially just now. Each day she saw some new flower or bird or plant or animal she had never seen before. Spring in those mountains was very lovely. It hardly seemed as if it could be the real world.

The people were all rather fine-looking and strong and active. They worked and played in the open air and led healthy lives, and being well and full of spirits, there was really no reason why they should be ugly.

Emilius told them when the feast of Maia would take place. The moon, which was called the measurer, was all they had to go by in reckoning the year. The feast was to be the day after it changed. Emilius repeated the names of the Brethren of the Field, and mentioned things that should be done to prepare for the feast, and that was all.

Far up on the heights of the mountain above, in among the rocks where nothing grew except wind-stunted trees and patches of moss and fern, there was another settlement of which the vil[pg 50]lage people knew nothing. Two of its men happened to be farther down the mountain than usual, hunting, when this announcement was made. They got up on a rock overgrown with bushes, where they could look down into the village, and lay watching what went on. They were not beautiful or happy. They looked as they lay on the rock, spying over the edge with their hard, greedy eyes under shaggy unkempt locks, rather like wild beasts.

One was a runaway from this very place, and he knew it was nearly time for the May festival. His name was Gubbo, and he had been cast out of the village because he was cruel. He liked to torment animals and children; he liked to compel others to give him what he wanted. When finally he had been caught slashing at the favorite ox of a man he had had a quarrel with, he had been beaten and kicked out and told never to come back. He had wandered about for some years, and then joined the banditti on the mountain.

These banditti came from many towns; some were even of another race, of the strange people beyond the river. There were not very many of them, but there were enough to surprise and beat down a much larger number if circumstances favored. Their usual plan was not to fight in [pg 51]the open, but creep up near a place where stores or treasure happened to be kept, when the most skillful thieves would get in and carry off the plunder to the hiding-place of the others, who stood ready to fight or to act as porters, whichever might be necessary. If they were chased, the best runners drew off the pursuers after them and joined the rest of the band later.

They did not spend all or even very much of their time in their mountain den. They had picked this country as their headquarters because it was largely wilderness above the farming belt. The rocks held many caves and good strongholds. Often they went off and were gone for perhaps a month at a time, prowling about distant settlements, or haunting the roads the traders traveled. Many a luckless merchant had been knocked on the head from behind, or dragged out of his boat and drowned, by these thieves, with no one to tell the tale.

They had found the Sabines here when they came, and it had not seemed worth while—yet—to quarrel with them. The scattered country folk, who went in deadly fear of the robbers and did whatever they were told, said that the farmers could fight, and kept watch over what they had, and had very little but their animals and food stores. There was no use in provoking a war [pg 52]with them. The better plan would be to terrify them so thoroughly that they would give the bandits anything they asked, to keep the peace.

There was no use in upsetting these quiet folk so that they could not work. They could be told that unless they brought to a certain place, at certain times, grain, cattle and other provision, and left them for the outlaws, something terrible would happen to them. They certainly could not hunt the mountains over for the band, and they could not know how many or how few there were. This plan worked well in other places, and it would do very well here.

The leader, the oldest of the robbers, had once been a slave, and he knew all the things that are done to slaves who resist their masters. The others were afraid of him, and there were very few other things in the world of which they were afraid. He listened to the report of Gubbo and his companion, and sent them back to watch the village during the time of the festival, see who the chief men were, how well off the people seemed to be, how many fighting men they had, and where they kept their grain and other stores.

For five days one or the other of the bandits was always watching from the edge of the rock. If they had been the kind of men to understand beauty, they must have owned that the festival [pg 53]of Maia was a beautiful sight. But it only made them angry and bitter to think that they could not have all the comforts these people had. Often they did not have enough to eat, and then there would be a raid on some village, and all the men would eat far more than was comfortable, and drink more than was at all wise, and the feast usually ended in a fight. This festival in the village was not at all like that.

The young girls had a great part in the dancing and singing and processions of Maia. A tall pillar, decorated with garlands and strips of colored cloth, had been set up, and a circle of white-robed little maidens, with wreaths of flowers on their heads, danced around it. Little Emilia sat sedately in the center, wand in hand, and directed the dancing. There were stately processions, and marching and countermarching of white figures bearing garlands; the oxen appeared with their horns wreathed in flowers; blossoms were strewn all over the public square as the day passed. The blessing of Maia was asked upon the springing grain, now standing like a multitude of fairy sword blades above the brown soil; upon the bean and pea vines climbing as fast as ever they could up the poles set for them; upon the vineyards, every vine of which was tended like a child; and upon the orchards, [pg 54]all one drift of warm white petals blowing on the wind. The chestnut trees were a-bloom and looked like huge tents with great candelabra set here and there over them; and the steady hum of the bees was like the drone of a chanter.

When the day was over, and all the people were asleep, the spies went back to the den in the rocks and told what they had seen.

The chief decided that these people were to be let alone all through the summer and early fall, until all their stores of wine and grain and fat beasts were in, and they went afield to get nuts in the forest. That would be the time to strike. The child of the head priest could be carried off, perhaps, or the son of the chief man of the village. Then one of the country people would be sent to tell the villagers that unless they agreed to furnish provisions at certain times and places, the child would be killed. That would bring them to heel.

So the summer passed, and the unconscious, happy people prayed for a good harvest.

[pg 55]

V

THE WOLF CUB

The new moon was rising above a wet waste of marsh and tussock and tasseled reeds. A man and two boys climbed hastily up a hill. Before them they drove a bleating, cold, rain-wet, bewildered flock. As any shepherd will admit, sheep are among the silliest creatures in the world, and if there is any way for them to get themselves into trouble they will do it. Even so small a flock as this had proved it abundantly.

A dry time, when all the grass in the usual pastures was burned brown or eaten down to the roots, had been followed by a rainy fall and winter. The shepherd and his two foster sons—his wife had long been dead—left their hillside pastures by the river and went with their flock wherever they could find any grass. They meandered about for some time on the great plain that was usually too wet for sheep; that grass was rank and sometimes unwholesome, but it [pg 56]was better than nothing. When the wet weather began, they were on the other side, and they edged up among the foothills of the mountains that stood around it, wherever they could without getting into trouble with people who had cattle there. They would have had more difficulty than they did if it had not been for the wolf cub which the taller of the two boys had tamed. He was named Pincho, and he seemed to be everywhere at once. No sheep ever delayed for an instant in obeying him.

For hours they herded the tired flock up and down, among hills and gullies, until they came on a little hollow among bushes, out of the way of the water, where they could stop and get a little sleep. The man and the boys were all three wet, cold and hungry, even hungrier than the sheep were, for they could not eat grass; hungrier than Pincho, who now and then caught some sort of wild creature and ate it on the spot. They ate what little they had left, and then one kept watch while the others slept, by turns, in the driest place that could be found.

When it was light enough to see, they looked about to find out where they were. Farther down the slope and to one side of them was a village, and the people there kept sheep and also cattle. Nobody seemed to be doing much [pg 57]work, for half the men were standing about talking, and the shrill note of a flute player came up the hill as if it were a signal.

The boys did not know what this meant, for they had never been near a village on a holiday,—and not often at any time. But the shepherd knew; he knew that it must be a feast day, and he told the boys that if they wished to go to the village and see what was going on, he would look after the sheep. They must not try to go in unless they were asked, and they ought not to take Pincho; some one might see him and kill him for a wolf, not knowing that he was tame.

But Pincho had something to say about that. He had no intention of being left behind, and the shepherd had to cut a thong off his sheepskin cloak to tie up the determined beast. Then when the boys were about two-thirds of the way to the village, something came sniffing at their heels, and there was Pincho, with the thong trailing after him; he had gnawed it in two.

His young master only laughed. “Here, Pincho!” he said good-humoredly, and as the young wolf came and licked his hand he made a loop of the trailing end and thrust his strong brown fingers into it. And so they came up to the edge of the village where the people were making ready the feast,—two boys and a wolf.

The lads were both rather tall for their years, and moved with the wild grace of creatures that constantly use every muscle and never get stiff or lazy. They wore only the shepherd’s tunic of sheepskin with the wool outward, and a braided leather girdle to hold a knife and a leather pouch. In his left hand each held a crook, with a sharp flint point at the other end so that it could be used as a spear if a weapon were needed. The taller led the wolf, which fawned and licked his bare feet; the other, who was not quite so dark of hair and eye, was playing on a reed pipe, taking up the call of the pipers and weaving it into a simple melody. For a moment the people did not know who they could be. All the shepherd boys in that neighborhood were known. Surely only gods come out of the forest would be accompanied by a wolf.

They did not enter the village. They halted on the outside where they could look into the square and see what was going on, and they stared in silent wonder, like animals.

The fact was that they were so hungry that if they had dared, they would have rushed on the tables and seized the bread and meat and honey cakes, and run away into the forest to devour them as if they were wolves themselves. As it was, the intelligent nose of Pincho caught the [pg 61]maddening odor of meat, and it was all his master could do to hold him.

Whoever they were, it was proper at this time to offer food to strangers.

Whoever they were, it was proper at this time to offer food to strangers, and if they were gods or wood spirits this was the way to find it out. The wife of Emilius the priest, a tall and gracious woman, took up a flat basket-work tray and filled it with portions of the various good things on the nearest table. By the way they took the food and ate it, she saw that they were probably only hungry boys. Pincho got the bones, but only when it was certain they were not mutton bones. He had never been allowed to find out what the flesh of a sheep was like. This was a portion of a yearling calf.

The matron’s little daughter, a straight, slender, bright-haired child, came with her, and when Pincho sniffed curiously at her little sandalled feet she did not draw back, but stooped and patted his head. The boy with the reed pipe, when he had finished his share of the food, sidled away toward the musicians, but the other one stayed where he was, his arm round the shaggy neck of the young wolf, and they asked him questions. He explained, when they were able to make out what he said—for he spoke in a thick voice as the peasants did—that he and his brother lived with a shepherd on the other [pg 62]side of the great plain. The shepherd had told them to ask whether they might let their sheep graze here awhile, until the water had gone down so that they could get back. Emilius the priest and some of the other men were there by this time, and they said that this would be allowed.

“Why do you stay away from your own village on a holiday?” asked the child straightforwardly.

“We have no village,” the boy answered. “We live by ourselves.”

The little maiden knit her straight, dark, delicate brows. People who had no village and lived by themselves had never come to her knowledge before. She thought it must be very dull not to have any holidays, or playmates.

“Do the sheep and the wolves live together in your country?” she asked, watching Pincho’s wedge-shaped, savage head as he gnawed his bone.

“No; but Pincho is not really a wolf. He is my friend.”

“How can you be friends with a wolf?” persisted the small questioner. “Wolves are thieves and murderers. They kill sheep. If they killed only the old sheep, I would not care. The old ram with horns knocks people down. But they kill the little lambs.”

“Pincho has never killed a sheep.”

“Emilia, my child,” said her mother, “it is time for the dance of the children.” And she led her little daughter away.

The boys of the village were very curious about Pincho. He had been caught when he was a tiny cub and his mother had been killed. There were two cubs, but the other one died. This one slept at his master’s feet every night. The lad beckoned to his brother, who began to play a curious, jerky tune, and then the boy and the wolf danced together, to the wonder and entertainment of the villagers. Then in his turn the boy began to ask questions. What was a holiday and why did they keep it?

The boys explained that there were many holidays at different times. There was one in the later days of winter called the Lupercal, in honor of the god who protected the sheep. That was the shepherds’ festival, and when it took place, the young men ran about with thongs in their hands, striking everybody who came in the way. The day they were now keeping was Founder’s Day, in honor of the founder of their town.

This was puzzling. How could one man found a town? A town grew up where many people came to live in one place.

“Nay, my son,” said a white-haired old man, the oldest man in the village, who had sat down near the group. He spoke in the language the shepherd spoke, so that it was easy to understand him. “That is nothing more than a flock of crows or a herd of cattle that eat together where there is food. The man who founds a city determines first to make a home for the spirits of his people, as a man who builds a house makes a home for his family. His gods dwell in this place, and he himself will dwell there when he is dead, and his spirit is joined to theirs. Without the good will of the spirits there is no good fortune. How can men know what is wise to do, or what is right, if they do not ask help of the gods, as a child asks its father’s will? Have you never heard this? Has your father not told you?”

“We have neither father nor mother,” said the boy, but not shamefacedly,—even a little proudly. “We were found when we were little children by Faustulus the shepherd who is to us as a father, and we serve him.”

This did seem rather strange. Some of the village people drew back and whispered among themselves. Could the lads be gods or spirits indeed? They were strong and handsome—but who knew what things lived in the forest?

“Nay,” said Emilius, “they have eaten our salt.”

“The shepherd sometimes prays,” the lad was saying thoughtfully. “He prays when he has lost his way. I asked him once when I was very small what he was saying, and he said that he prayed to his god. He said the god was like a man, but had goat’s legs and little horns under curling hair, and played on a reed pipe. My brother said that he had seen him in the forest, but I never did. When the shepherd sees anything unlucky, he makes the sign of his god—thus.”

He held up his fist with all the fingers except the little finger doubled in; this, with the thumb, stuck straight up. “He calls it ‘making the horns.’ ”

“The people across the river have many gods,” he went on cheerfully. “Once I ran away and found a boat, and went over there, to see what it was like. The priests watch the flight of birds for signs; and the people give a great deal of time to fortune telling. An old witch told mine for love, and she said that I should rule over a great people. Then I laughed and came away, for I knew that she must think me a fool to be pleased with lies. She said that their laws were taught the priests by a little man no bigger [pg 66]than a child, who came up out of a field which a farmer was plowing.”

The priest Emilius smiled. “My son,” he said kindly, “these things are foolish and lead to nothing. If you will stay with us and help to tend our flocks, you shall learn of our gods, and live as we do, sharing our work and our play. But unless you obey our law we cannot let you stay. The gods are not pleased when strangers come into their sacred places.

“The founder of our city is as a kind father who watches us and sees what we do, whether it is good or whether it is evil. Our children are his children, and our fortunes are his care, as they were when he was alive and ruled his people wisely as a father. This is why we honor him. Will you stay with us and be our herd boy?”

The lad stood up, his staff in one hand, the other in the loop of the wolf’s collar. “We owe the shepherd our lives,” he said, with his proud young head erect. “We will go back to him and serve him until we are men. When I am a man, I think I will found a city of my own.”

His brother laughed. In a flash the lad turned on him and knocked him down. Emilius caught him by the shoulder.

“My boy,” he said sternly, “there must be no quarreling on a holiday. Go back to your [pg 67]own place, for you are right to cherish your foster father. In good or bad fortune, in all places and at all times, it is right to return kindness for kindness, to show reverence to the old who have cared for the young.”

The villagers, puzzled, curious and a little afraid, watched the two wild figures and their strange companion move away into the long shadows of the woodlands. They did not come back when any one could see them, but about a week later there was found at the door of the priest a basket woven roughly but not unskillfully of the bark of a tree, lined with fresh leaves and filled with wild honey and chestnuts.

[pg 68]

VI

BOUNDARY LINES

The boy with the pet wolf did not come again to the village where he had first seen a holiday feast and heard what religion was, but he saw a great deal of it for all that. His brother never cared to go back and seemed to take no interest in what he had seen.

Pero, one of the shepherds, while out looking for stray lambs on the hills, met the youngster and his wolf coming down with two of the woolly black-faced truants. They had been hunting, the boy said, and had come across these lambs far up on the heights where lambs had no business to be, and brought them back. When the shepherd asked the lad his name, he said the Cub was as good a name as any. The shepherd was an old man and had seen many queer things in his life and heard of queerer ones. He had found that most frightful stories, when one came to know the truth of them, were some quite nat[pg 69]ural incident made large in the eyes of a frightened man. This boy might, of course, be a wood demon, and his wolf might be another, servants of some evil power, but the shepherd had never seen any such beings and he did not know how they were supposed to look. When he offered the Cub a piece of his bannock, made with salt and water and meal and cooked on a hot stone, it was accepted and eaten, and Pincho the wolf ate some of it also. Pincho would eat almost anything. But that ought to prove that they were no devils, for if they were they would not have eaten the salt.

Pero was a little lame from a fall he had had several years ago, although he got about more nimbly than some younger men. He found the help of this wild youth and his wilder companion very convenient at times. After awhile he began to see that the Cub was very curious about the customs of the Sabine village. He did not ask many questions, but he would listen as long as Pero would talk. Many a long still hour the two spent, on the grass while the sheep grazed, or coming slowly down the slope toward the village at nightfall, but always, when they came near the village gate, Pero would look around presently and find that he was alone.

The first time that Pero noticed this curiosity [pg 70]was one day when they were high above the village so that they could look down on a level stretch of land where the men were marking out a new field. Boundary lines were very important with any people as soon as they stopped wandering from place to place and settled down to work the same land, year after year. Of course, it takes more than one season to make any plot of ground produce all it can, and no man cares to do a year’s work of which he gets none of the benefit; there must be a clear understanding on the subject of the boundary.

In the beginning there were no writings, or deeds, or public records to mark the line of a farm, and the only way to protect property rights was by ceremonies which would make people remember the boundary lines, and the landmarks which it was a horrible crime to move.

Pero began by explaining that every house of the village had to be separated from every other house by at least two and one half feet. As each house was a sort of family temple, the home of the spirits of the ancestors of that family; naturally nobody but these spirits had any right there. Two families could not occupy the same house any more than two persons could occupy the same place. On the same plan, each field was enclosed by a narrow strip of ground never [pg 71]touched by the plow or walked on or otherwise used. This was the property of the god of boundaries, Terminus.

The boundary line of each field was marked by a furrow, drawn at the time the field was marked out for the village or the individual owner. At certain times, this furrow would be plowed again, the owners chanting hymns and offering sacrifices. On this line the men were now placing the landmarks they called the termini. The terminus was a wooden pillar, or the trunk of a small tree, set up firmly in the soil. In its planting certain ceremonies were observed.

First a hole was dug, and the post was set up close by, wreathed with a garland of grasses and flowers. Then a sacrifice of some sort was offered—in this case a lamb—and the blood ran down into the hole. In the hole were placed also grain, cakes, fruits, a little honeycomb and some wine, and burned, live coals from the hearth fire of the home or the sacred fire of the village being ready for this. When it was all consumed the post was planted on the still warm ashes. If any man in plowing the field ran his furrow beyond the proper limit, his plowshare would be likely to strike one of these posts. If he went so far as to overturn it or move it, the penalty was death. There was really no excuse [pg 72]for him, for the line was plainly marked for all to see.

The Cub looked down at the solemnly marching group, the white oxen, and the setting of the posts with bright and interested eyes.

“I have seen something like this before,” he said. “Everywhere it is death to move a landmark. In some places not posts but stones are used. The dark people across the river say that he who moves his neighbor’s landmark is hated by the gods and his house shall disappear. His land shall not produce fruits, his sons and grandsons shall die without a roof above their heads, and in the end there shall be none left of his [pg 73]blood. Hail, rust and the dog-star shall destroy his harvests, and his limbs shall become sore and waste away.”

Pero stared in astonishment. “Where did you hear all that?” he asked.

“When I was younger I ran away and crossed the river,” said the Cub calmly. “They are strange people over there, not like your people. They go down to the sea in boats. I went in a boat also, but I did not like it. There was a fat trader on the boat, and when we were outside the long white waves along the shore, and the wind came up and rocked our boat, his face turned the color of sick grass. Perhaps my face did also; I do not know. We were both very sick. After that I came back to tend sheep again, for I do not like that place.

“They have a god called Turms there who is the god of traders, and of thieves, and of fortune tellers. They pray to him for good luck, for they believe very much in luck. He is sometimes seen in the shape of a beggar man with a dog and a staff that has snakes twisted about it, and a cap with a feather in it.”

The Cub stood up laughing and slipped away down under the rocks with his wolf; it almost seemed as if he had flown. As Pero stared after him, he remembered that the lad had an eagle [pg 74]feather in his pointed cap, and his staff had a twisted vine around it. But the next time they met the boy was so clearly only a boy in a sheepskin tunic that Pero called himself an old fool too ready to take fancies.

The Cub had spent time enough on the other side of the river to know something about the people, and he had interesting things to tell. They enjoyed bargaining and spent much time buying and selling. They could make fine gold work, bright-colored cloth, and brown vases with black pictures painted on them. Their walls were often painted with pictures. When a trader from that country, named Toto, came to the village, Pero remembered some of the things he had been told. The people bought some of his trinkets, but by what they said of them when the brightness was worn off and the color faded, he was not a very honest merchant. Pero remembered then that this people had the same god for trading and for stealing.

The Cub said that he had been to other villages along this mountain slope, and they seemed to be as separate as if they were islands on a sea of waste wilderness. They did not have their feasts on the same day, they did not measure time alike; in some ways they were almost as far apart in their ideas as if they had been [pg 75]different kinds of animals. And yet they all spoke nearly the same language and worshiped in much the same way. If they knew each other better and met oftener they would be all one people, strong enough to drive away their enemies. If he and Pero could meet in this friendly way, surely others could. But this was a new idea to the shepherd, and he was not used to thinking. When the Cub saw that he did not understand he began talking of something else. The invisible boundary lines were too strong to be crossed.

Often, late at night, after Pero had gone home, the Cub would lie on a high rock that overlooked the village, looking down at the twinkling circle of lights that meant altar fires in homes. Then he would look up at the twinkling points of light in the sky, and wonder if the gods lived there, and if the lights were the altar fires of their homes. If he had known that Pero once half believed him to be a god in disguise, he would have been very much surprised. He was only a boy, without father, mother or home, and he wished he knew what lay before him in the life he had to live.

He could keep sheep, he could hunt, he could fight, he could run and swim better than most boys of his age, and there was no beast, fowl, [pg 76]bird, reptile, fruit or tree in the wilderness that he did not know. But there seemed to be no place for him to live among men unless he was a sort of servant. This was not to his liking. He had never seen any man whose orders he would be willing to obey. He had seen some who were wiser, far wiser than he was, who could tell him a great deal that he wished to know. But he had never seen any to whom he would be a servant. A servant had to do what he was told and make himself over into the kind of person some one else thought he ought to be. The old woman who was a witch had told him that he was born to rule, but he did not see how he could, unless it was ruling to command animals. To rule men he must live where they were, and so far as he could see they had no place for him.

His brother never seemed to have such thoughts. Give him enough to eat and drink, a fire to warm him in winter and a stream to bathe in when the summer suns were hot, and his reed pipe to play, and that was enough. He would spend hours playing some tune over and over with first one change and variation and then another. Even the wolf, now grown large and powerful, with his gaunt muzzle and fierce eyes, was more of a companion than that. He was always ready for a wrestle or a race or a swim [pg 77]with his master. The two of them were feared wherever they went, and treated with unqualified respect.

One day the Cub lay on his favorite rock, hidden by a low-sweeping evergreen bough, when he heard shrieks and outcries. Peering over the edge, he saw that in the edge of the woods below, where some women and children were picking up nuts the men had shaken down for them, something was happening. Half a dozen fierce men had rushed upon them and caught up one of the children and run away, so quickly that by the time the fathers and brothers got there no one could say which way they had gone. They joined some others hidden in the woods, and came straight past the rock where the Cub was watching. They were going to keep the child until they got what they wanted. He could hear them talking. The biggest man had the child on his shoulder. Her little face, as he got a glimpse of it, was very white, but she did not cry out.

The boy rose and followed them with his wolf at his heels. He knew a spring some distance above, where he thought they would be likely to stop for a drink. They did. They were far enough away by this time not to fear pursuit, and they had passed a rocky place where they could hold the narrow trail against many times [pg 78]their number. But long before the men could get up there they would have gone on.

The Cub crept up, inch by inch, until he was within a few feet of the savage, careless group by the spring, and behind them, on a bank about six feet high. Only the child was facing him. He showed himself for an instant, and laid a finger on his lips, and beckoned. She struggled free from the man who was holding her, striking at him with her little hands, and he laughed and let her go. Even if she tried to run away, they would catch her. But she only staggered unsteadily toward the bank, as if to gather some bright berries there.

The instant she was clear of the group two figures hurled themselves through the air,—a man and a wolf, or so it seemed in the moment or so before the thing was over. There was a snarling, growling, breathless struggle, and then the two strange figures were gone, and so was the child, and the bandits were nursing half a dozen wolf bites and various cuts on their shoulders and arms. Some they had given each other in the confusion, and some were from the long, keen knife the Cub had ready when he leaped among them.

The lad went straight down the mountainside with his wolf at his heels and the child on his [pg 79]shoulder, and came out on the path that led upward just as the men from the village were coming up. He set down the child, and with a cry of delight she rushed into the arms of her father. A spear hurtled through the air from the hasty hand of one of the men, who had caught a glimpse of a brown shoulder and a sheepskin tunic. The Cub disappeared. He was rather disgusted. If that was the way that the villagers repaid a kindness—

From his rock he watched them returning with the child, all talking at once. It seemed to him a great deal of talk about what could not [pg 80]be helped by talking. He called Pincho, and only silence answered. He slid off the rock and retraced his steps. When he reached the place where he had set down little Emilia, he found the body of his pet, quite dead, with a spear wound straight through the heart. Then he remembered that in the flash of time when the spear was hurled, Pincho had sprung at the man. He had taken the death wound meant for his master.

Pero never saw the boy with the wolf again. When he heard Emilia’s story of her rescue, he was inclined to think that they were gods after all,—Mars himself, for all any one could say. But the Cub, feeling much older, was far away, and it was long before he returned to that countryside.

[pg 81]

VII

MASTERLESS MEN

The story the robbers had to tell, when they returned to their captain, was not a very likely one. It was so unlikely that they took time to talk the matter over thoroughly before attempting to face him. Perhaps it would be better to tell a lie, if they could concoct one that would do. The trouble was that they could not think of any explanation for their failure, that was likely to satisfy him any better than the plain facts.

Of course it seemed impossible that a man and a wolf should be traveling peaceably in company,—to say nothing of taking a child out of the hands of several strong and reckless men. But even so, where had they gone? One of the men had been quick enough to thrust with his spear at the wolf as he got it against the sky,—and it went through nothing. He forgot that the motion of an animal is usually quicker than the human eye, on such occasions. Moreover, though two of them went back down the path until they [pg 82]could hear the voices of the villagers, there was no sign of man, wolf or child. The conclusion they felt to be the only one possible was that the villagers’ gods had come and taken the child away from them, in the form of the wolf and the man. In that case they must be very powerful, so powerful that it would not be safe to attempt anything against that village in the future.

Gubbo, who came from that village, assured them that its gods were powerful indeed. He had not, when he and the other man were watching it, seen anything like this man and wolf apparition, and it was certainly remarkable enough to attract attention. Neither had the country people ever mentioned such a thing. Privately, Gubbo did not believe much in gods, but he was afraid of them for all that, because he was not sure. Gubbo’s father had impressed upon him very hard that if he did wrong, bad luck would surely overtake him. The patience of the gods was great, but they knew everything, and in the end no man could escape them. Gubbo, wincing at the pain where the wolf’s teeth had caught him, was uncomfortably wondering whether his bad luck had begun. There had never been any other failure to kidnap somebody, when men were sent to do it. Perhaps the bad luck in this case came from the fact that one of the party was attacking [pg 83]his own relatives and friends. There would be more bad luck when the chief of the bandits heard of this thing. Gubbo decided to dodge any further trouble if he could, and he lagged behind and quietly slipped away, to find some other way of making a living. He intended to go on traveling for a long time, to be out of the way of his former comrades.

It was just as well for him that he did this, for the men who returned to the den in the rocks and reported to the chief had a very bad time of it. The leader was executed, and so was the man who had had charge of the child. Of the other three, one died of the bite of the wolf and the others were very ill. After that, not a man of them could have been induced to join in an attack against that village. The chief wisely did not press the matter. After all, that was the nearest village of all those in their range, and it might not be altogether prudent to arouse the anger of the fighting men. It might lead to discovery.

The Cub, as he made his way back to the hut of Faustulus, was doing a great deal of thinking. When he was younger he had sometimes dreamed of being captain of a band of outlaws, because that seemed the only chance to be captain of anything, for a fatherless boy. But he had no taste [pg 84]for kidnaping children or being a nuisance to peaceable and kindly people. Merely to think of those scoundrels made him hot all over. He would have liked to follow their trail up to their very den, for he had an idea that he knew where it was. One day, when he and Pincho had been hunting together, he had seen a place where men evidently lived, and lived without any sort of peaceful farming or other business. If that were the den of the banditti, they could easily make themselves the pest of the countryside, and what they had done would be nothing to what they could do. Although he did not himself know it, this boy was the kind of person whose mind leaps ahead and sees possibilities for others as well as himself,—evil as well as good.

One day he asked his brother how he would like to gather the masterless men of all that neighborhood into a band of soldiery, to live by hunting and by fighting for any chief who would give them their living. They were growing too old to live much longer as they had lived. Perhaps if they could gather followers enough, they could go somewhere after awhile and make a place for themselves. First they might go to the Long White Mountain, where there was a rather large town, and see what the prospect was for such an undertaking. They had already [pg 85]taken part in one campaign, with some of the boys of the neighborhood, under the names of the Wolf and the Piper. All of the troop had some nickname or other. There was the Ram, whose head would crack an ordinary board in two; the Snake, who could wriggle out of any bonds ever tied—they had tried him time and again; Big Foot, Flop-Ear, Long Arm, and some others. They found the captain they had followed before glad to use them again and give them ordinary soldier rations. On the second night of their life in camp, a broad-shouldered and slightly bow-legged individual came and asked to see the head of the band. Gubbo did not recognize the young leader, but the latter knew him the moment he saw him. Gubbo explained that he had been a member of a company of banditti, had become disgusted with their ways, and left them. He would like to make an honest living.

“What can you do?” asked the youth consideringly.

Gubbo said that he could teach tricks in knife work to almost any man; also he could wrestle.

“Try me,” said the Wolf, slipping out of his heavy tunic. He enjoyed the rough-and-tumble that followed more than he had anything since he used to play with his wolf. This man really [pg 86]was a fair match for him. Gubbo was taken into the band.

“He is a brute,” said the Ram bluntly.

“He is,” said the leader. “But he can teach you fellows something.”

They learned a great deal from the villainous-looking newcomer, though if he had not been a little afraid of the young head of the troop, they might have paid a heavy price for their learning. The latter found out by judicious questioning that the den was where he had supposed it was. After a time he began to see that Gubbo was doing his men no good. The man was cruel, treacherous and base. Two or three times he had played tricks which others were blamed for. One day Gubbo heard that a merchant was coming along the road to the mountain villages, and at the same time he was sent on scout duty that way. He watched in the bushes until the man came along slowly, muffled in a long mantle, with a donkey loaded with panniers. He seemed to be old; his beard was white. Gubbo sprang on him; the man turned in that instant and met him with a knife thrust. Then the Wolf straightened up, dropped his white goat’s-hair beard and wig, and went back to camp. The bad luck that Gubbo feared had got him at last, and nobody mourned him at all.

Wolf and the Piper and their troop spent some seasons in fighting and adventure, and then they disappeared. It was said that they had separated.

This was true, but they had separated for a purpose. If the company went together to the lair of the banditti they might as well go blowing trumpets and beating drums; it would be known long before they came near. Their orders were to go by twos and threes, and when the moon was full to meet near a certain great rock that overlooked the valley where the river became a lake and then went on. One by one, as the young leader sat watching on this rock, dark forms came slipping through the shadows and joined him. Last of all came his brother, who had guided some of the party by a very roundabout way.

When all were there, and sentinels posted, he unfolded his plan. Above the place where they now sat, among the tumbled rocks of a narrow valley, was the headquarters of a most pestiferous company of robbers. For years they had terrified and despoiled the people of the villages, and if any resisted they were tormented almost beyond endurance in many different ways. The people were expected to turn over to them at certain times and places practically everything they produced, except just enough for a bare living. [pg 88]Whatever the banditti did not use themselves, they sold for things that could not be got in the villages. The villagers never knew what they were to be allowed to have at the end of the year, and often they suffered for food and warm clothing; but they stayed there because they knew nowhere else to go. It was a miserable state of things.

His plan was this. They were to steal upon this den of banditti and take it by surprise. Gubbo had said that it was not fortified to any extent, because the chief relied on the locality not being known. They were to kill the chief and such men as could not be trusted to behave themselves if they had a chance. Perhaps some would join the troop and abide by its rules. They would take the stronghold for their own, and keep it as a place to return to when they were not busy elsewhere. Then, instead of making enemies of the villagers or keeping them so terrified that they dared not refuse any request, let them make a friendly agreement. If the people who lived in these valleys gave them a certain tribute three or four times a year—a certain part of the crop, whatever it was—they would take care that there was no more plundering and kidnaping, and the farmers could attend to their own affairs in safety and comfort. If any enemy [pg 89]came against the people, too great for the Wolf and his soldiers to encounter successfully, the fighting men of the villages would be expected to help them, but they would undertake to keep the region clear of banditti. In return, if any one asked whether there was a band of outlaws hiding thereabouts, the villagers were to say that they did not know where there were any, and that would be the truth.

The plan was approved, as the young chief knew it would be. He had talked it over beforehand with each man separately. If the people were ungrateful enough, after the den of thieves was broken up, not to agree to the plan proposed, they could take their chance with other thieves, but he thought that after what they had been through in the last few years they would be willing to agree to almost anything.

As men are apt to do when they are much feared, the banditti in the rock-walled ravine were growing rather careless. The scouts of the Wolf’s troop were able to follow their movements closely. On the following night, when their destruction was to take place, the robbers were all in camp, having just returned from one of their expeditions to bring up supplies. The fat calf and the fowls and other provisions were sizzling and stewing over great fires. There was plenty [pg 90]of new wine. From a trader’s pack some of the younger men had got little ivory cubes with figures engraved on the sides, and were playing a game of chance. Their huts were furnished rather luxuriously, with fur robes, wool garments and gay hangings, but these, like their clothing, were stained and injured more or less by the fighting that usually took place over the plunder. The chief did not care what his men did in camp so long as they obeyed his orders. He did not wish them to do much thinking; he preferred to do all of that for them. He would have been surprised indeed if he had known that some of them did think and had almost made up their minds that they had had enough of him and of his methods and would go somewhere else.

As he grew older, the robber captain was fonder of eating and drinking, and now he sat on a handsome ivory stool near the fire—for the night was chilly—waiting for the meat to be done to a turn. The cook was a stout, short, bright-eyed man, a slave from across the river, and there was very little that he did not know about preparing rich dishes.

It was a windy night. The wind howled among the trees and down the ravine as if it were chasing something. It was like the howling of wolves, though there had been no wolves on that [pg 91]part of the mountain for a long time. Far to the right of the camp there was heard a noise like the cry of a child. Far to the left there was a bleating like a lamb. These were the signals arranged by the attacking force that was coming silently through the woods, and the sentinels went out a little way to see what a lamb and a child could be doing up here. They were knocked down, bound and carried off to a safe distance. By the time supper was ready in the ravine, the men in the woods were lying on the bank above, all around, looking down into the stronghold. The huts were ranged in two rows down the hollow, with a line of fires between and the fronts open. The entrance below was blocked by a log gate. But the men now ready to attack the place could climb like goats; they had all been brought up among the hills.

All of a sudden arrows came shooting down on the careless banditti, and almost every one found its mark. Down to the roofs of the huts and to the ground came leaping figures, well armed and fighting with the strength and skill of trained men. Whenever they could they disarmed and bound their men, but the leader of the banditti was an exception to this rule. He was killed without a chance to surrender.

When every man in the camp of the banditti [pg 92]had been cut down or captured—and about half of them surrendered,—the victors sat down and ate the feast prepared for the robbers.

Next day, when things had been cleared up and put in order, each prisoner’s case was taken up separately. A few, whose deeds were the terror of the countryside, were executed. The rest were glad enough to join the troop under the Wolf, on probation. If they did well, they should be full members in time.

The people of the villages were thankful to buy protection on the reasonable terms offered. They did not know exactly who these men were who had rid them of the banditti; some supposed they were a troop of soldiers from some chief. They almost never saw any of the band. The tax demanded was brought to a certain place and left there, and that was all. Emilius the priest often wondered why these men did not ask anything of his village, but they never did. Their village was the only one that had hardly ever suffered from the banditti. It was very odd. He never connected either of these facts with the long-ago visit of the shepherd youths and the tame wolf. So matters went on for a year or two. A guard was always left at the stronghold, but the men were often absent. Merchants and traders learned that they could get these men to [pg 93]protect them, at a price, when they were traveling through a strange country. They had really established a sort of patrol. The scattered hunters and fishermen had walked in desperate terror of the banditti, but they almost worshiped the troopers, and they would have died rather than reveal anything they had been told to keep secret. When Amulius, the hoary and evil chief of the people of the Long White Mountain, heard of these two youths who were such excellent fighters and whose men had so good a reputation, he tried to find out where they were, but he never could. For all the people of the country seemed to know, they might come out of the air and vanish into the clouds. It was very mysterious. When the young leader heard that Amulius had been trying to find him he smiled, and did not make any comment whatever.

[pg 94]

VIII

THE BEEHIVE TEMPLE

The preparations at the village on the Mountain of Fire were completed during the winter, and the little company of men, women and children made ready to go out into the unknown world as soon as a favorable day arrived. It was a more serious undertaking than any they had known or even heard of before. Even when their ancestors came to this place, so long ago that no one could remember when it was, it was after a lifetime of wandering; they were not used to anything else. This company was made up of people who had never in their lives been more than a day’s journey from the place where they were born, and what was more, hardly any of their forefathers had, for generations.

It was made still more difficult and doubtful by the fact that they were taking their women and children with them. There was no other way. There was not too much to eat in the vil[pg 95]lage, as it was, and there would be less, if the men went away for a year and left their families to be supported. Although the men would have preferred to go first and explore the land, the women were privately better pleased as it was. They felt that if their husbands were to be killed they wanted to die too. As for the children who were old enough to understand the situation, their feelings were mixed. It was exciting and delightful to be going to see new lands, and made them feel important and responsible, but when the time of leaving actually approached and they began to think of never seeing their old home again, they felt very sober indeed.

They left the mountain on the day that was later called the Ides of March, at the beginning of spring, and slowly they followed the shining river out into the valley. Two-wheeled carts drawn by the oxen were loaded with the stores and clothing they were able to take with them. The fighting men had their weapons all in order. The boys were helping drive the cattle and sheep, and the married women had the younger children with them. Every one who was able to walk, walked. The eldest girl in each of the families—none was over ten years old—had charge of one most important thing—the fire. The little maidens walked soberly together, feeling a [pg 96]great dignity laid upon them. Each carried a round, strong basket lined with clay and covered with a beehive-shaped lid of a peculiar shape. In this were live coals carefully covered with ashes, for the kindling of the next fire. No matter what happened, they must not let those coals go out.

“What-ever happened?” repeated a little yellow-haired girl, called Flavia because she was so fair. She was the daughter of Muraena the smith, and the youngest of the ten.

Ursula, the biggest girl, laughed. “If we were crossing a river and one of us got drowned, [pg 97]I suppose her fire would be lost,” she said teasingly. “But they wouldn’t excuse us for anything short of that.”

“But if it did go out—if all of the fires were put out?” persisted Flavia, walking a little closer to Marcia, whose word she felt that she could trust. She had visions of a dreadful anger of the gods,—another night of darkness and terror like the one they all remembered. “Should we never have a fire again, and have to eat things raw, and freeze to death, and let the wolves eat us up?”

“Certainly not,” answered Marcia reassuringly. “Father told me all about that when I was younger than you are. Don’t you remember how they kindled the fire in the new year?”

Flavia shook her yellow head. “I never noticed.” She had been so taken up with the chanting and the ceremonies that she had not seen how the fire actually blazed up on the altar.

“They do it with the terebra and the tabula. The tabula is a flat wooden block with a groove cut in it, and the terebra is a rubbing-stick that just fits the groove. They have some very fine chaff ready, and they move the stick very fast in the groove until it is quite hot. Don’t you know how warm your hands are after you rub them together? When there is a little spark it [pg 98]catches in the chaff, and then it is sheltered to keep it from going out, and fed with more chaff and dry splinters until the fire is kindled. They can always kindle a fire in that way.”

“What if the terebra and the tabula were lost?” asked Flavia.

“They would make others.”

“If I rubbed my hands together long enough, would they be on fire?” asked the child. She did not yet see how fire could be made just by rubbing bits of wood together. In fact, it was so much easier to keep the fire when it was once made that this was hardly ever done. It was only done regularly once a year, at the beginning of the month sacred to Mars. Then all the altar fires were put out and the priest kindled the sacred fire in this way afresh.

The girls all laughed, and Marcia answered,

“No, dear, it is only certain kinds of wood that will do that. I suppose the gods taught our people long ago which they were. The hearth god lives in the fire, you know. I always think it is like a living thing that will die without care. Father says that the fire keeps away the wicked fever spirits.”

“What’s fever?” asked Yaya, on the other side. “Did you ever have it?”

“No, never; but Father did once, when he was [pg 99]working on the road across the marsh, before I was born. It makes all your bones ache as if they were broken, and you cannot keep still because the spirits shake you all over. You grow hot and grow cold, and have bad dreams, and talk nonsense. Father woke up one day when he had the fever, and said that there were great rats coming to carry off my brother Marcs, who was a baby then, and he tried to get up and kill the rats, when there were none there. And when he was well he never remembered seeing the rats at all.”

Although the children did not know it, a blazing fire and wool clothing help to keep away the malarial fever of a wet wilderness. The people believed that their gods taught them to keep up a fire, to wear clean wool garments and to drink pure water, and it is certain that they were wise in doing all these things religiously, as they did. When they found a good spring on their journey they filled their water bottles and left a little gift there for the god of the waters. They kept near pure running water when they could, and away from standing water, even if they had to go a long way round to do it. In the sudden damps and chills of the lowlands through which they traveled the tunics and mantles of pure wool kept them from taking cold, and there [pg 100]was very little sickness on the journey. They kept to their own habits of eating, and the children were not allowed to experiment with strange and possibly unripe fruits.

It was a long time, however, before they came in sight of any place that could be thought of as a home. Most of the country they saw was not inhabited except by a stray hut dweller here and there, getting a miserable living as he could,—simply because the land was not fit to live in. They crossed a rolling plain, where the marshes were full of unpleasant looking water, and the air at night was full of singing, stinging insects that drove the cattle frantic. It was not quite so bad near the fires. The insects seemed to dislike the smoke, or perhaps their wings could not carry them through the strong currents of air that the flames made around them. As soon as possible they moved up toward the higher land, and here at last they came in sight of the river of the yellow waters, the great river that ran down to the sea. Beyond that they could not go without meeting strange people and the worship of strange and cruel gods.

Every night the beehive covers were taken off the baskets, and the fires were kindled, and in a round hut that was like a big basket lid, a bed of coals was made ready for the next day’s [pg 101]journey. It was the duty of the ten little girls, the guardians of the fire, to take care of this, and they spent a great deal of time around the miniature temple of the fire god. One or another was always there.