The sergeant laughed genially.
"Mark 'em 'unidentified'," he ordered.
They clothed us in tunics innocent of any blood-stains, but which, we felt sure, had been taken from the corpses of our late associates.
"Put 'em with the rest," the sergeant ordered.
With the rest, some three hundred survivors out of more than three thousand tumultuaries, we were herded inside a convoy of constabulary and marched in the dusk and dark to our former camp at Rubrae. There we were liberally fed on what was, apparently, the leavings from the entertainment afforded the mutineers there on their down-march.
Next morning we were lined up and inspected by a superior officer with two orderlies and two secretaries. As he passed down the rank in which Agathemer and I stood he eyed us keenly. After a time he returned and said:
"These two rascals are trying to keep together. Separate them!"
Thereafter I saw no more of Agathemer for over four years.
I do not wish to dwell on my wretchedness, after we were parted. Alone among riffraff, I was very miserable. I mourned for the faithful fellow and knew he mourned for me. I longed for him as keenly as if he had been my twin-brother.
I and my fellows were marched on under close convoy, up the Flaminian
Highway and the batch among which I was, was cast into the ergastulum at
Nuceria.