Then, when the slave had withdrawn, Perpetua hastily arranged her ruffled hair, extended her arms, and turning to the east, invoked the protection of the God who had promised, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
On descending to the atrium, Perpetua knelt by the water-tank and bathed her face and neck. Then she mounted the litter that awaited her outside the house. The bearers at once started at a run, nor did they desist till they had passed through the city gate on the road that led to the mountain range of the Cebennæ. This was no military way, but it led into the pleasant country where the citizens of Nemausus and some of the rich merchants of Narbo had their summer quarters.
The gray dawn had appeared. Market people from the country were coming into the town with their produce in baskets and carts.
The bearers jogged along till the road ascended [pg 150]with sufficient rapidity to make them short of breath. The morning was cold. A streak of light lay in the east, and the wind blew fresh from the same quarter. The colorless white dawn overflowed the plain of the Rhodanus, thickly strewn with olives, whose gray foliage was much of the same tint as the sky overhead. To the south and southeast the olive plantations were broken by tracts of water, some permanent lagoons, others due to recent inundations. To the right, straight as an arrow, white as snow, ran the high road from Italy to Spain, that crossed the Rhodanus at Ugernum, the modern Beaucaire, and came from Italy by Tegulata, the scene of the victory of Marius over the Cimbri, and by Aquæ Sextiæ and its hot springs.
The journey was long; the light grew. Presently the sun rose and flushed all with light and heat. The chill that had penetrated to the marrow of the drowsy girl gave way. She had refused food before starting; now, when the bearers halted at a little wayside tavern for refreshment and rest, she accepted some cakes and spiced wine from the fresh open-faced hostess with kindly eyes and a pleasant smile, and felt her spirits revive. Was she not to rejoin her dear mother? Had she not escaped with [pg 151]her life from extreme peril? Was she not going to a place where she would be free from pursuit?
She continued her journey with a less anxious heart. The scenery improved, the heights were wooded, there were juniper bushes, here and there tufts of pale helebore.
Then the litter was borne on to a terrace before a mass of limestone crag and forest that rose in the rear. A slave came to the side of the palanquin and drew back the curtain. Perpetua saw a bright pretty villa, with pillars before it forming a peristyle. On the terrace was a fountain plashing in a basin.
“Lady,” said the slave, “this is Ad Fines. The master salutes you humbly, and requests that you will enter.”
“The master? What master?”
“Æmilius Lentulus Varo.”