There was not much similarity in the two sounds, simply because the fly made his by the rapid motion of the wings, while Marcus produced his softly through his nose. In plain English, Marcus, the Roman boy, son of Cracis, the famous senator, tired out by the heat, had gone to sleep over his studies, snoring like an English lad of this year of grace, nearly two thousand years later on in the progress of the world.
So Marcus snored, not loudly and unpleasantly, but with a nice, soft, humming note; and the great, golden-green fly sat on the grape and seemed to watch him.
It was very still in the simple Roman villa on the steep slope of the hillside—a hill which looked like a young mountain, an offset of the beautiful spur that ran upward from the vineyard farms and villas of the campagna towards the purple shades of the great range far, far away.
But now and again other sounds floated into the shadowy room past the bright bar of golden light which crossed the boy as he slept.
There was the uneasy, querulous bleating of a goat, answered by the impatient cry of a kid, and now and again the satisfied grunting of pigs, though in those days they called them swine, of which there were several basking in the sunshine in the little farm attached to the villa, the little herd having shortly before returned from a muddy pool, dripping and thickly coated, after a satisfying wallow, to lay themselves down to dry and sleep in peace, the mud having dried into a crackling coat of armour which protected them from the flies.
All at once that fly sprang up from the grape, darted into the room, and circled round, humming loudly, one moment invisible in the dark, velvety shade, the next flashing bright and golden as it darted across the sunny bar of light, till, all at once, it dropped suddenly upon the boy’s glistening nose, producing such a tickling sensation with its six brush-armed feet, that Marcus started impatiently, perfectly wide awake, and sent his disturber escaping from the window by an angry stroke which, of course, missed, as he impatiently exclaimed in fine, old, sonorous, classic Latin:
“Bother the flies!”
The boy closed his eyes again, opened them sharply, and picked up his tablet and stylus, yawned, and carefully laid them down again, for his head felt very heavy. As he listened to the soft grunting of the swine, his eyelids dropped, and, in another moment, he would have been fast asleep once more, when from somewhere near at hand, as it seemed, there was a sharp crack as of the breaking of a piece of wood.
Marcus listened, fully awake once more, and, rising softly, he rose and approached the window, to peer between the vine leaves that encroached all down one side.
He was listening to a soft whispering which was followed by a laugh, a tearing noise, and another crack.