ich gave Saguntum communication with the
towns by a branch which led to Saetatis and Denia. As he approached he
began to meet the refugees of whom the slave had told him.

They flooded the road like an inundation. The flocks and herds were
bleating and lowing under the lash, crowding in between the wagons;
women were running, carrying great bundles on their heads, and dragging
along the children clutching at the folds of their tunics; boys were
driving horses laden with furniture and clothing thrown together
haphazard in the precipitation of flight, and ewes leaped to the sides
of the road to escape the wheels which, catching their dragging fleece,
almost crushed them.

The Greek, riding into the stream of fugitives, opened passage with his
horse through the seething wave of wagons and animals, rustics and
slaves, in which people of different towns were confusedly mingled,
while members of scattered families were calling to one another
desperately through the clouds of dust.

The fleeing multitude was clearing away. Actaeon was beginning to meet
the stragglers; poor old women traveling with vacillating step, bearing
on their shoulders some lamb which constituted their entire fortune; old
men crushed by the weight of pots and clothing; sick people dragging
themselves along by the aid of a staff; abandoned animals wandering
among the olive trees near the highway, that suddenly darted forward at
full speed through the fields as if scenting their masters; children
seated on a stone weeping, abandoned by their kindred.

Soon the road was empty. The last of the refugees were left behind, and
Actaeon saw before him only the narrow tongue of red earth winding along
the mountain slopes, without a solitary being to break the monotony of
the road with his shadow.

The gallop of his horse resounded like distant thunder through the
profound silence. It seemed as if Nature had expired as she guessed the
approach of war. Even the ancient trees, the twisted olives which had
stood for centuries, the great fig trees which rose like green cupolas
against the mountain slopes, remained motionless, as if terrified at the
approach of that something which caused the people to abandon their
homes and to flee into the city.

Actaeon rode through a village. Closed doors! Silent streets! From the
interior of a cabin he thought he heard a faint groan--some sick person
forsaken by his kindred in their haste to escape. Then he passed a great
c