r newly-elected Umbrian sergeant
that camp-cookery called for any needed number of assistant helpers to the
chief cook if the men were to be fed properly and promptly.

The town officials had sent out to the camp a generous provision of wheat,
barley, lentils, pulse, sheep, goats, fowls, cheese, oil, salt and wine. I
did not learn how the volunteer cooks fared, but the barley-stew, seasoned
with minced fowls, which Agathemer concocted, was acclaimed by our
century.

That night, in our tent, Agathemer and I, talking Greek and whispering,
discussed our situation. After two fulfillments, the prophesy of the
Aemilian Sibyl seemed in a fair way to be fulfilled a third time; we were
headed for Rome.

To Rome we went. We had, in that first consultation, in many similar
consultations later, planned to escape and hoped to escape. But we were
too carefully watched. Whether we were suspected because of our scourge-
marks and brand-marks, or were prized as cooks, or whether there was some
other reason, we could not conjecture. Certainly we were sedulously
guarded on all marches, and kept strictly within, each camp, though we
were free to wander about each camp as we pleased.

We had planned to escape in or near Parma, Mutina, Bononia, or Faventia,
any of which towns Agathemer judged a favorable locality for marketing a
gem from our amulet-bags. But in these, as everywhere else, our guards
gave us no chance of escape.

When not busy cooking I found myself greatly interested in the amazing
company among which I was cast. In my rambles about our camp, when all
were full-fed and groups sat or lay chatting about the slackening camp-
fires, I became acquainted with most of the eighteen centurions from
the legions quartered in Britain, and had talks, sometimes even long
talks, with more than half of them. These bluff, burly frontier sergeants,
like their corporals and men, treated all their volunteer associates as
welcome comrades, even welted and branded runaway slaves acting as cooks.
From them I heard again and again the story of discontent, conspiracy,
mutiny, insurrection and attempt at protest about rectification of the
evils they believed to exist, which tale we had all heard outlined by the
sergeant-orator in the Forum of Placentia.

Among the eighteen centurions there was no sergeant-major nor any
centurion of the upper rank. The highest in army rank was Sextius Baculus
of Isca, a native of Britain and lineally descended, t