Marcus: the Young Centurion | Page 2

young mountain, an offset of the beautiful spur that ran upward from the vineyard farms and villas of the campagna towards the purple shades of the great range far, far away.
But now and again other sounds floated into the shadowy room past the bright bar of golden light which crossed the boy as he slept.
There was the uneasy, querulous bleating of a goat, answered by the impatient cry of a kid, and now and again the satisfied grunting of pigs, though in those days they called them swine, of which there were several basking in the sunshine in the little farm attached to the villa, the little herd having shortly before returned from a muddy pool, dripping and thickly coated, after a satisfying wallow, to lay themselves down to dry and sleep in peace, the mud having dried into a crackling coat of armour which protected them from the flies.
All at once that fly sprang up from the grape, darted into the room, and circled round, humming loudly, one moment invisible in the dark, velvety shade, the next flashing bright and golden as it darted across the sunny bar of light, till, all at once, it dropped suddenly upon the boy's glistening nose, producing such a tickling sensation with its six brush-armed feet, that Marcus started impatiently, perfectly wide awake, and sent his disturber escaping from the window by an angry stroke which, of course, missed, as he impatiently exclaimed in fine, old, sonorous, classic Latin:
"Bother the flies!"
The boy closed his eyes again, opened them sharply, and picked up his tablet and stylus, yawned, and carefully laid them down again, for his head felt very heavy. As he listened to the soft grunting of the swine, his eyelids dropped, and, in another moment, he would have been fast asleep once more, when from somewhere near at hand, as it seemed, there was a sharp crack as of the breaking of a piece of wood.
Marcus listened, fully awake once more, and, rising softly, he rose and approached the window, to peer between the vine leaves that encroached all down one side.
He was listening to a soft whispering which was followed by a laugh, a tearing noise, and another crack.
The boy stole back and stood for a few moments in his loose, woollen, open-fronted garment, not very much unlike a tweed Norfolk jacket without pockets or buttons, very short in the sleeves. His eyes were wandering about the room as if in search of something which was not there, and, not finding it, he stretched out his hands before him, looked at them with a satisfied smile, and doubled his fists. Then, stealing further back into the shadow, he passed through a door, made his way along a passage, across another room, and out into the open atrium, a simply-made, shady court with a central basin where a little jet of water played up, sparkling, and fell back in glistening drops.
The next minute the boy was out in a fairly extensive garden, stooping low as he glided among the trees towards the little trellised vineyard on the sunny slope, where, from the continued sounds, it was evident that a party of marauders were making a foray amongst the unripened grapes, which, trained to fir-poles secured to posts, formed an attractive pergola overhead.
Marcus approached as near as he could unseen, and then paused to reconnoitre, to find that the sounds proceeded from a party of six boys of somewhere about his own age, two of whom had destructively climbed up a couple of the poles to be seated astride amongst the spreading vines, where, after throwing down bunches to their four companions below, they were setting their glistening white teeth on edge with the sour grapes they had torn from the clinging strands.
They were talking in whispers, but that was the only sign of fear they displayed, for the villa stood alone, the nearest domicile, another villa farm, being a couple of hundred yards away lower down the slope, and, apparently perfectly convinced that the occupants of the place were right away, they feasted in perfect security and content.
A grim smile came upon the handsome young face of Marcus as he watched the destruction going on. His eyes sparkled, his sun-browned cheek grew deeper in its tint, and he looked round again for the something that was not to hand, that something being a good stout stick. Then, clenching his fists more tightly--nature's own weapons--and without a sound, he suddenly made a dash for two of the boys who were standing with their backs towards him, and with a couple of springs came down upon them like fate, gripping them by the backs of their necks and sending them face downwards amongst the vine leaves and damaged bunches that had been torn from