Marcus: the Young Centurion

⋐
the Young Centurion, by George Manville Fenn

Project Gutenberg's Marcus: the Young Centurion, by George Manville Fenn This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Marcus: the Young Centurion
Author: George Manville Fenn
Release Date: May 8, 2007 [EBook #21379]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCUS: THE YOUNG CENTURION ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

Marcus, The Young Centurion, by George Manville Fenn.
_______________________________________________________________________
Marcus is eighteen, and his father had been a great Roman General, Cracis, who had fallen from grace some years before and was living quietly, farming in a small way in southern Italy. An old ex-soldier, Serge, works on the farm, and is helping to bring Marcus up. Marcus would like to be a soldier, and is encouraged in this by Serge, but his father has forbidden any discussion of the topic.
One day a stranger comes to the door. This turns out to be none other than Caius Julius, later Caesar, who begs Marcus' father to join him in a war against the Gauls. He agrees, and goes, having made Marcus and Serge promise that they would not try to follow him.
But they do, independently, and then meet accidentally. Serge was being attacked by bandits, and Marcus sees this happening and rushes to the rescue, so they are reunited, later to be joined also by the household dog, Lupe, who has tracked them across Italy. On reaching Rome they are just in time to join the last unit of the Roman army as it leaves for the war. They make their way across the mountains and into Gaul (France), where battles ensue, in which they distinguish themselves, and are brought to the notice of the Generals, whom they had rescued from personal disaster during the battle. So Marcus' military career is assured.
______________________________________________________________________
MARCUS, THE YOUNG CENTURION, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
FLIES AND BOYS.
Hot as hot. Through the open window, where a couple of long shoots of one of the grapevines hung down, partially shading the room within, a broad, glowing ray of light, which made the shadows near look purply black, streamed right across the head of Marcus, a Roman lad of about eighteen, making his close, curly, brown hair glisten as if some of the threads were of gold, while the light twinkled on the tiny dew-like drops that stood out on the boy's brown forehead and by the sides of his slightly aquiline nose.
The side of his head was down upon the table and his hands outspread upon either side; a wax-covered tablet had escaped from his left, and a pointed stylus, with which he had been making a line of characters upon the wax, had slipped from his right fingers, for he was sleeping like a top.
All was wonderfully still in the Roman villa, and, from time to time, a slight puff of air which came cool from the mountains, but grew hot before it reached the house, sent one of the vine strands swinging to and fro like a pendulum, while the other, having secured itself to an outer shutter by one of its tendrils, remained motionless.
The one that swung to and fro kept up its motion the more easily from the fact that it was weighted by a closely-set bunch of grapes of a pearly green on one side, but on the other, facing the sun, beginning to be tinged with a soft purple hue. Upon one of these berries a great fly, which seemed to be clad in a coat of golden armour, sat with its face away from the sun as if listening to the sleeping boy, who every now and then uttered a low, buzzing sound which seemed to have attracted the fly from the outer sunshine to dart to the window with a similar kind of hum, buzz round for a few moments, and then settle upon the grape.
There was not much similarity in the two sounds, simply because the fly made his by the rapid motion of the wings, while Marcus produced his softly through his nose. In plain English, Marcus, the Roman boy, son of Cracis, the famous senator, tired out by the heat, had gone to sleep over his studies, snoring like an English lad of this year of grace, nearly two thousand years later on in the progress of the world.
So Marcus snored, not loudly and unpleasantly, but with a nice, soft, humming note; and the great, golden-green fly sat on the grape and seemed to watch him.
It was very still in the simple Roman villa on the steep slope of the hillside--a hill which looked like a