“The next night again the Romans kept too vigilant a watch for me to do anything, and I followed them all yesterday until I saw them enter the Roman camp. As soon as it was dark I entered, and, getting into the part of the camp occupied by the Massilians, whose Gaulish talk I could understand a little, I gathered that a Carthaginian prisoner who had been brought in was to be executed in the morning. So I set to work to find you; but the night was too dark to see where the sentries were placed, and I had to crawl round every tent to see if one stood at the entrance on guard, for I was sure that a sentry would be placed over you. I entered seven tents, at whose doors sentries were placed, before I found yours, but they were all those of Roman generals or persons of importance. I entered each time by cutting a slit in the back of the tent. At last when I was beginning to despair, I found your tent.
“It was the smallest of any that had been guarded, and this made me think I was right. When I crawled in I found feeling cautiously about, that two Roman soldiers were asleep on the ground and that you were lying between them. Then I went to the entrance. The sentry was standing with his back to it. I struck a blow on his neck from behind, and he died without knowing he was hurt. I caught him as I struck and lowered him gently down, for the crash of his arms as he fell would have roused everyone near. After that it was easy to stab the two guards sleeping by you, and then I woke you.”
“You have saved my life, Nessus, and I shall never forget it,” Malchus said gratefully.
“My life is my lord's,” the Arab replied simply. “Glad am I indeed that I have been able to do you a service.”
Just as he spoke they saw through the bushes a party of Roman horse ride at a gallop over the brow between them and the camp. They halted, however, on passing the crest, and an officer with them gazed long and searchingly over the country. For some minutes he sat without speaking, then he gave an order and the horsemen rode back again over the crest.
“I think we shall see no more of them,” Malchus said. “His orders were, no doubt, that if I was in sight they were to pursue, if not, it would be clearly useless hunting over miles of brushwood in the hope of finding me, especially as they must deem it likely that I am far away in the opposite direction.”
An hour later Nessus crept cautiously forward among the bushes, making a considerable detour until he reached the spot whence he could command a view of the Roman camp. It had gone, not a soul remained behind, but at some distance across the plain he could see the heavy column marching north. He rose to his feet and returned to the spot where he had left Malchus, and told him that the Romans had gone.
“The first thing, Nessus, is to get rid of these chains.”
“It is easy as to the chains,” Nessus said, “but the rings around your legs must remain until we rejoin the camp, it will need a file to free you from them.”
The soil was sandy, and Nessus could find no stone sufficiently large for his purpose. They, therefore, started in the direction which the Romans had taken until, after two hours' slow walking, they came upon the bed of a stream in which were some boulders sufficiently large for the purpose.