was
possible only if they returned soon, for the superintendent was keen on
calling us over three times a day.

Through the activities of those inmates who arranged to get out and
return, and of their friends who entered and left, since the weighers of
the grain and flour were careless and their inspectors negligent, the
dictator and his friends drove a regular and profitable trade in stolen
flour, which they exchanged for wine, oil, dainties, stolen clothing and
such other articles as they desired; they even sold much of it for cash,
and not only the dictator but each of the six senators had a hoard of
coins, not merely coppers, but broad silver pieces.

In this traffic and its advantages I had no share. In fact, of all his
fellows, I think the dictator hated me most; certainly he bullied me, made
my lot harder in countless petty ways, and abused and insulted me
constantly.

After mid-winter I became aware of a traffic not only in dainties and
wine, but in implements and weapons. Many daggers and knives were smuggled
into the _ergastulum_, not a few files. The senators had a small arsenal
of old swords, regular infantry swords, rusty but dangerous. Gradually I
heard whispers of a plot. The conspirators were to file through the bars
of more than one window, plastering up the filed places with filth and
earth to conceal the filing, leaving a thread of metal to hold the filed
bars in place. Then, when all was ready, they planned to murder the
guards, overseers and superintendent, break out, sack the town-arsenal,
loot shops and mansions, and then, well-clad and fully armed, take to the
mountains and join the bands of the King of the Highwaymen. Two of the
senators claimed to have been men of his before their incarceration and
promised to lead the rest to the haunts of his brigands.

The date set for their attempt was the fourteenth day before the Kalends
of April, a few days before the Vernal Equinox. My gorge rose at the idea
of the burning and sacking of Nuceria, even at the slaughter of our cruel
guards, overseers and superintendent. The more I thought the matter over
the less I liked the prospect. I had every reason to hate the dictator and
senators. I saw no likelihood of betterment for myself if I were carried
off with these riffraff as one of a band of looters, murderers and
outlaws, loose in the forests.

I contrived to disclose the plot to the prison authorities. As a result
the _ergastulum_ was entered by t