from which the team had been
loosed and removed: no longer drew off some yards beyond the cage and
wagon and stood ready for instant flight if my capture escaped me; they
now merely drew aside as I approached and opened a lane for me and my
charge, no more afraid than if I had been leading a calf.

As I drew near the cage, my mind intent on the leopard and my eyes on the
open cage door and its fastenings, a slave of one of the neighboring
farmers dashed at me, sheath-knife uplifted. He came from my left side,
from a little behind me. I whirled round to face him, pulling the leopard
round roughly, so that she snarled. I let her go. She was face to face
with my reckless assailant and they were close together. She gave one
joyful, gloating, triumphant squall and one mighty leap. Her claws sank
into his shoulders, her long white fangs met, horridly crunching, in his
throat, and she bore him to the earth where she crouched flat on him,
greedily gulping his blood.

The bystanders fairly fell over backwards in their panic as they
scattered. I stood by the leopard, and when she had exhausted the supply
of hot blood, succeeded in caging her; but dropped limp on the earth once
I had fastened her in her cage, for a beast of prey which had just tasted
human blood was a ward with which I had felt very uncertain of being able
to cope.

After that no one attempted to molest me while out catching the escaped
beasts. But the night before my last day of beast-catching, as I lay abed
very fast asleep at a villa fully ten miles from the Imperial villa where
I belonged, I became gradually aware of some noises, then slowly I
wakened. There was a fight going on at my door. Soon after I got out of
bed our host and my master, the _Villicus_, came with a light and three or
four slaves. The light revealed One of my fellow-slaves flat on his back
and another throttling him. A dagger lay on the floor. Evidently the one
had saved me from the other.

Late next afternoon, far up in the hills near Helvillum, I caught and
caged the last hyena. These, being smaller and more cowardly than the
nobler animals, were harder to locate. It was after sunset when we reached
the villa where we found the procurator in charge of the beast-train; and
along with, him and his men were welcomed and entertained.

After our bath and a lavish dinner the _Villicus_ exchanged a few
whispered words with our host and then he and I had a long conference
alone. He explaine