"Where do you set your course?" queried Sergius, with a vague hope of at least seeming to combine inclination with duty.
"Toward the enemy," replied the other, shortly. "Does not the direction please you?" and he turned to his horse.
Sergius' brow clouded. His blood was hot with the conflict just finished. Youth, courage—all combined to turn him from obedience; but obedience bade fair to conquer, when Marcia's laugh rang in his ears, and he could hear her gravely complimenting his prudence and discoursing on the rare value of docility in a husband. Besides, what did it all matter? Had he not said that he sought death? and, surely, the way it came soonest was the best.
Placing his hand upon his horse's withers, he vaulted upon its back, before the animal had time to kneel, and a moment later was beside Hostilius.
"By Hercules!" exclaimed the latter; "I am glad you are here. Even in these days of strange things, I would have found it difficult to imagine that a Sergian could be a coward."
"And now," cried Sergius, "you will only have to imagine him a fool. So be it, and let the cost of his life pay for his folly."
"Jupiter avert the omen!" exclaimed Hostilius, shuddering, and then, turning to his trumpeter, he bade him give the signal for the march.
It was a desolate country—the fair plains of Campania through which they rode. Here and there a cluster of blackened ruins, here and there things that were once men, fruit trees cut down, vines uprooted, corn-fields reaped with the sword; while far away upon the horizon smoky columns curled up to show that the work of devastation still went on.
"May Mavers curse him—curse him forever!" cried Hostilius, grinding his teeth in rage at each new manifestation of the enemy's handiwork. "Could the most disastrous battle be worse than this?"
Sergius was silent. In a way his feelings went out to meet those of his companion; but the dictator had trusted him, and he had disobeyed, and, for all his disobedience, his soldier's instinct told him that the dictator was right.