Marcus: the Young Centurion

the Young Centurion, by George
Manville Fenn

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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.
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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.
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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