“In time, in time. We move swifter to that end.”
“Swifter, swifter? But while we gather speed, he strikes like the lightning.”
“Defy him. Art thou not Ajax?”
“Ajax defied the gods. He had a quicker way with mortals.”
“What words, what example are these from a Regent? Is not the dagger alien to our policy? Hast qualified in the tables of our law to no better end than this?”
“Forgive me, Spartacus. I spoke in heat. But this man, he harasses us; drives us from point to point; forestalls our meetings with his devil’s wit, and rides the country like a scourge.”
“A faithful Prefect.”
“An Alva sunk in vice.”
“He shall be deposed. I say it: Cassandra hath prophesied it: Priam inclines our way. We’ll find a substitute anon more to our tastes. In the meanwhile, the sinews, the sinews, Ajax—they gather in strength—they—”
With the word he was gone—had dropped, slunk like a shadow behind a roadside boulder. The others, inured to all quick evasions and surprises, stood like voiceless statues, conning the moon. The next moment, a little company of horsemen, the hoofs of their beasts muffled, came picking their way out upon them from the black glooms of the stone-strewn hillocks. They drew up in the road, their leader foremost.