“Yes. They woke me up; I had been writing, and I dropped asleep.”
“Writing?” said the man contemptuously and with a deep grunt of scorn. “Enough to send anybody to sleep on a day like this. I say, lucky for you I came back!”
“Yes,” said Marcus, giving his face a final wipe; “I was getting the worst of it.”
“Course you were. That’s reading and writing, that is. Now, if you had been taught to be a soldier instead of a volumer, you’d have known that when the enemy’s many more than you, you ought to attack him in bits, not take him all at once and get yourself surrounded. Yes, it’s lucky for you I came.”
“Yes, and I hope you gave them something to remember it,” said the boy, with his eyes fixed upon the stout crook upon which the new-comer leaned.
“Oh yes, I made them feel this,” said the man, with a chuckle; “and old Lupus tickled them up a bit and made them squeak.”
“That’s right,” cried Marcus; “but where is he?”
“On guard,” said the man.
“On guard?”
“Yes,” said the man, with a chuckle. “We took the whole six of them prisoners.”