Almost before she could grasp what had happened, Sergius was beside the fallen man, had resumed the priest's tunic, red with new blood stains, and was on his horse again. His brow lay in deep lines as he rode toward her.
"Come," he said. "The gods favouring us, we must pass their camp before the rest come up. Grant that those may linger by the corpse, and that we meet no check."
Again they were galloping toward the lines that lay about Casilinum. All had happened so quickly that even now they could scarcely see the plume in the distant dust cloud that told where the pursuers straggled on. They had turned into the new side-road without meeting a man. Then a small foraging party halted them, and Sergius showed the seal and spoke in Gallic to its Numidian leader. A little farther on was stationed another band, and here the delay was longer ere his halting Punic convinced the Spanish piquet, and they again rode forward unsuspected. All had bowed low to the horse and the palm tree, and no one dared question what weighty mission urged on the man in the torn and blood-stained tunic and the slender youth, his companion.
Now they were back again upon the pavement of the Appian; the last line was passed, and the beleaguered town with its stout-hearted garrison lay well behind. Perhaps that sudden uproar told of the arrival of their pursuers; perhaps those glittering points amid distant dust clouds meant a new pursuit. Surely none but Mercury had winged the feet of the Cappadocians! Unwearied, like springs of steel, the stout muscles drove them on—on over the marshland with the glint of the sea before them—on, up the rising ground.
Again and again Sergius turned in his saddle scanning the road behind, feeling the presence of pursuers whom he could not see. The good horses were weakening fast. No flesh and blood could stand that strain, and naught but the spirit of the breed kept them afoot. Marcia's was limping painfully; the one Sergius rode was wavering in its stride, like the Carthaginian captain when he came out of the guard-house by the gate.
"Gods! What were those shrill sounds—half whistle, half scream?"
Too well he remembered how the Numidians urged on their bridleless chargers. Yes, there they were now—scarce half a milestone behind and coming up like the wind that blew through their dishevelled manes—fifty at least. Death, then, was decreed, after all, and he glanced toward Marcia, measuring the time when he might kiss her and kill her ere he sold his own life to the javelins.
Suddenly he heard her cry out.
"Look!" she called, and, following her finger, he gazed eagerly ahead.
A clump of horsemen, heavy armed with helmet and corselet, crowned the knoll of rising ground over which the road led, and, above them, fluttering in the breeze, he saw the square vexillum of the cavalry of the legion.