The decurion pointed down the road.
"Why waste your breath! There go the sheep."
The boy's dark eyes filled with tears. The decurion swung around him and went back to the horses that waited in the road. He knotted their bridles together and, leading one of the number, remounted and rode west after the receding cloud of dust which hid the flock.
The shepherd's head sank on his heaving breast and he stood still.
"Lord Jesus, I pray Thee, give me my sheep again!" he prayed.
A deep prolonged thunder that had been filling the hills with sound began to multiply as the nearest slopes caught it and tossed it from echo to echo. It was not loud but immensely prevalent. Those wayfarers who had fled came back to the brink of the hill and those who had stood their ground walked out into the grass to look back. Around the curve of a buttress of rock that stood out at the line of the road, the head of a column of Roman cavalry appeared. The superb color-bearer bore on his hip the staff supporting the Imperial standard.
At the forefront rode a young general; on either side a tribune. Behind came a detachment of six hundred horse.
The sheep huddling in the way were swept like a scurry of leaves out into the meadow alongside the road, and one of the tribunes and the general turned in their saddles to look at the confiscated flock. The second tribune observed their interest in this trivial incident with disgust. The young general, whose military cloak flaunted a purple border, called the decurion boyishly:
"Well done, Sergius! A samnos of wine for your company to-night for this."
The decurion saluted.