Marcus: the Young Centurion | Page 2

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 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