"Now for the scissors!" and he sharpened them on his whetstone until he felt satisfied that he could get them no sharper, then he clipped my hair and beard, as closely as those scissors could. Then I sat up and clipped him, awkwardly and unevenly, but effectively.
Hardly were we shorn when drops of rain began to patter on the leaves above us. Agathemer wrapped his bread in the rags, put it between the two hats and tucked it under the leaves in one inner corner of the little grotto; bestowed the other things on it, or by it or in the other corner; and then lay down by me and pulled his quilt over him, then managing to cover both of us with leaves so that no trace of our presence would be visible to any passer-by, yet we could breathe comfortably behind or under our screen of leaves.
It rained all day, a sluggish drizzle, soaking the earth, but not accumulating enough water on it to produce visible trickles flowing on the surface. The air was perfectly windless, so that no rain blew in on us as we lay; we were damp, but not wet.
Before dusk the rain ceased and a brisk, warm wind shook the drops from the trees. We ate and Agathemer declared his intention of going on another raid about an hour after dark.
"What are you after this time?" I queried.
"More food," he said, "all I dare steal. I must not steal too much from any one place. I'll wager my pilferings of last night will pass, not merely unheeded, but entirely unnoticed. Ofatulena herself is so scatter- brained that she will never be sure that two loaves vanished from her oven; I doubt if she will so much as suspect any loss. But I cannot repeat that depletion of her baking tonight; she might talk. She is not quick- witted enough to conjecture the truth, if she did her utter loyalty would keep her mute; she'd impute the theft to some slave and likely as not have an investigation and advertise her loss. If there happened to be a crafty inspector with the Praetorians and if they have lingered, they might suspect the truth, beat the woods for us and capture us. So I must take a little here and a little there.
"Then I want another quilt for myself, and shoes for both of us. Is there anything else you can think of?"
"Manifestly!" I said, "we need a slave-scourge, a branding-iron with the long F for 'runaway', [Footnote: Fugitivus. The short F stood for fur, "thief.">[ a brazier big enough to heat the branding iron and enough charcoal to fire it once."
"What, in the name of Mercury," he whispered amazedly, "do you want of a branding-iron and a scourge?"
"We are to pass as runaway slaves, if caught, according to your outline of a plan," I said, "we had best do all we can to be sure of being thought ordinary runaway slaves. Few slaves travel far from their owners' land when they first venture to run away. We should be branded, to seem old offenders.