had gone from his
face, and he was very pale, while his voice sounded as if from far
away. "By so doing I shall journey by easier stages, and shall avoid
accompanying the consul; nor will he reach the camp before me."

"There is talk of new levies," said Torquatus, vaguely.

"Yes, and there will be fighting soon."

"Flaminius fought."

"May Jupiter avert the omen! and you will forgive me, my father, if I
bid you a too hasty farewell? I had not determined to go so soon--but
it is best. And there is preparation to be made."

Torquatus followed him silently to the door, and watched the light of
his torches till it died out below the hill; then he shook his head
with a puzzled, sad expression.

"Yes, truly," he said; "let the omen be lacking."

XIII.

THE RED FLAG.

The red flag fluttered in the breeze above the tent of Varro.

Months had come and gone since the plebeians had triumphed in the Field
of Mars; months of weary lying in camp, months of anxious watching,
months of marches and countermarches. Contrary to the expectations of
Sergius, neither of the new consuls had gone straight to the legions,
and the pro-consuls, Servilius and Regulus, remained in command.
Paullus had busied himself in preparing for the coming spring, levying
new men and new legions, and directing from the city a policy not
unlike that of Fabius; while Varro, on the other hand, as if maddened
by his sudden elevation, rushed from Senate House to Forum and from
Forum to every corner where a mob could congregate; everywhere rolling
his eyes and waving his hands, now shrieking frantic denunciations
against the selfish, the criminal, the traitorous nobles who had
brought the war to Italy and sustained it there by their wicked
machinations and contemptible cowardice; now congratulating his hearers
that the people had at last taken the conspirators by the throat and
had elected a fearless consul, an incorruptible consul, an able consul,
one who would soon show the world that there were men outside of the
three tribes. Then he would fall to mapping out his campaign--a
different plan for each cluster of gaping listeners, but each ending in
such a slaughter of invaders as Italy had never seen, and a picture of
the long triumph winding up the Sacred Way, of Hannibal disappearing
forever within the yawning jaws of the Tullianum. At times, when his
imagination ran riot most, he went so far as to depict with what
luxuriance the corn wo