between the stone arches
of the bridge. The swarms of peasants and countrymen driving herds of
lowing kine and bleating sheep toward the adjacent Forum Boarium
seemed unsuspicious and inoffensive. A moment more and all Drusus's
tremors and anxieties would have passed as harmless fantasy.

[148] _Horreae_.

Their feet were on the bridge. They could notice the wind sweeping
through the tall cypresses in the gardens where waited the steeds that
were to take them to safety. The friends quickened their pace. A cloud
had drifted across the sun; there was a moment's gloom. When the light
danced back, Drusus caught Curio's arm with a start.

"Look!" The new sunbeams had glanced on the polished helmet of a
soldier standing guard at the farther end of the bridge.

There was only an instant for hesitation.

"Lentulus has foreseen that we must try to escape by this way," said
Curio, seriously, but without panic. "We must go back at once, and try
to cross by the wooden bridge below or by some other means."

But a great herd of dirty silver-grey Etruscan cattle came over the
causeway, and to get ahead of them would have been impracticable
without attracting the most unusual attention. It was now evident
enough that there was a considerable guard at the head of the bridge,
and to make a rush and overpower it was impossible. The heavy-uddered
cows and snorting, bellowing bulls dragged by with a slow plodding
that almost drove Drusus frantic. They were over at last, and the
friends hastened after them, far more anxious to leave the bridge than
they had been an instant before to set foot upon it. On they pressed,
until as if by magic there stood across their path the twelve lictors
of one of the consuls, with upraised fasces. Behind the lictors was a
half-century of soldiers in full armour led by their _optio_.[149]

[149] Adjutant, subordinate to a centurion.

"Sirs," announced the head lictor, "I am commanded by the consul,
Lucius Lentulus Crus, to put you all under arrest for treason against
the Republic. Spare yourselves the indignity of personal violence, by
offering no resistance."

To resist would indeed have been suicide. The friends had worn their
short swords under their cloaks, but counting Agias they were only
six, and the lictors were twelve, to say nothing of the soldiers, of
whom there were thirty or more.

The ground seemed swaying before Drusus's eyes; in his ears was a
buzzing; his thoughts came to him,