was beneath the dignity of any of
those Roman generals who owed their rank to Commodus. For them, as for
himself, the pettiness of brigandry led nowhither. Only one object
appealed to them--fame and its perquisites. Only one object appealed to
himself: to redeem his estates and to avenge his father. That could be
accomplished only by the death of Commodus: He laughed, as he thought
of himself pitted alone against Commodus the deified, mad monster who
could marshal the resources of the Roman empire!

Such thoughts filled his mind until he reached the lonely cross-road,
where the narrower, tree-lined road to Daphne met the great main highway
leading northward over the mountains. There was the usual row of
gibbets reared on rising ground against the sky by way of grim reminder
to slaves and other would-be outlaws that the arm of Rome was long, not
merciful. Five of the gibbets were vacant, except for an arm on one of
them, that swayed in the wind as it hung by a cord from the wrist. The
sixth had a man on it--dead.

Scylax, who was waiting for him, rode out of the gloom on the mare,
leading the Cappadocian, and reined in near the gibbet, not quite sure
yet who it was who strode toward him. Scared by the stench, the horses
became difficult to manage. The leading-rein passed around one of the
gibbets. Sextus ran forward to help. The Cappadocian broke the rein and
Scylax galloped after him.

So Sextus stood alone beside the rough-hewn tree-trunk, to which was
tied the body of a man who had been dead, perhaps, since sunset. He had
not been torn yet by the vultures. Morbid curiosity--a fellow feeling
for a victim, as the man might well be, of the same injustice that had
made an outlaw of himself--impelled Sextus to step closer. He could not
see the face, which was drooped forward; but there was a parchment,
held spread on a stick, like a sail on a spar, suspended from the man's
neck by a string. He snatched it off and held it toward the moon, now
low on the horizon. There were only two words, smeared with red paint
by a forefinger, underneath the official letters S.P.Q.R.:

"Maternus-Latro."

He began to wonder who Maternus might have been, and how he took the
first step that had led to crucifixion. It was hard to believe that any
man would run that risk unless impelled to it by some injustice that had
changed pride into savagery or else shot off all opportunity for decent
living. The cruelty of the fo