back into his plundered
carriage. Gabinius drove his horse at topmost speed, and before
morning was saluted by the remainder of the banditti, near their
mountain stronghold. Dumnorix met him with news.

"It is rumoured in the country towns that Caesar is driving all before
him in the north, and will be down on Rome in less days than I have
fingers."

Gabinius clapped his hands.

"And we will be down on Rome, and away from it, before a legionary
shows himself at the gates!"

Chapter XVIII

How Pompeius Stamped with His Feet

I

A messenger to the consuls! He had ridden fast and furious, his horse
was flecked with foam and straining on his last burst of speed. On
over the Mulvian Bridge he thundered; on across the Campus Martius; on
to the Porta Ratumena--with all the hucksters and street rabble
howling and chasing at his heels.

"News! News for the consuls!"

"What news?" howled old Laeca, who was never backward in a street
press.

"Terrible!" shouted the messenger, drawing rein, "Caesar is sweeping
all before him! All Thermus's troops have deserted him at Iguvium.
Attius Varus has evacuated Auximum, and his troops too have dispersed,
or joined Caesar. All the towns are declaring for the enemy. _Vah!_ He
will be here in a few days at most! I am the last of the relay with
the news. I have hardly breathed from Eretum!"

And the courier plunged the spur into his hard-driven mount, and
forced his way into the city, through the mob. "Caesar advancing on
Rome!" The Jewish pedlers took up the tale, and carried it to the
remotest tenement houses of Janiculum. The lazy street-idlers shouted
it shrilly. Laeca, catching sight of Lucius Ahenobarbus, just back from
Baiae, and a little knot of kindred spirits about him, was in an
instant pouring it all in their ears. The news spread, flew, grew. The
bankers on the Via Sacra closed their credit books, raised their
shutters, and sent trusted clerks off to suburban villas, with due
orders how to bury and hide weighty money-bags. The news came to that
very noble lady Claudia, sister-in-law of the consul, just at the
moment when she was discussing the latest style of hairdressing with
the most excellent Herennia; and the cheeks of those patrician ladies
grew pale, and they forgot whether or not it was proper to wear ivory
pins or a jewel-set head-band, at the dinner-party of Lucius Piso that
evening. The news came to Lentulus Crus while he was wrangling with
Domit