oated into the shadowy room past the
bright bar of golden light which crossed the boy as he slept.

There was the uneasy, querulous bleating of a goat, answered by the
impatient cry of a kid, and now and again the satisfied grunting of
pigs, though in those days they called them swine, of which there were
several basking in the sunshine in the little farm attached to the
villa, the little herd having shortly before returned from a muddy pool,
dripping and thickly coated, after a satisfying wallow, to lay
themselves down to dry and sleep in peace, the mud having dried into a
crackling coat of armour which protected them from the flies.

All at once that fly sprang up from the grape, darted into the room, and
circled round, humming loudly, one moment invisible in the dark, velvety
shade, the next flashing bright and golden as it darted across the sunny
bar of light, till, all at once, it dropped suddenly upon the boy's
glistening nose, producing such a tickling sensation with its six
brush-armed feet, that Marcus started impatiently, perfectly wide awake,
and sent his disturber escaping from the window by an angry stroke
which, of course, missed, as he impatiently exclaimed in fine, old,
sonorous, classic Latin:

"Bother the flies!"

The boy closed his eyes again, opened them sharply, and picked up his
tablet and stylus, yawned, and carefully laid them down again, for his
head felt very heavy. As he listened to the soft grunting of the swine,
his eyelids dropped, and, in another moment, he would have been fast
asleep once more, when from somewhere near at hand, as it seemed, there
was a sharp crack as of the breaking of a piece of wood.

Marcus listened, fully awake once more, and, rising softly, he rose and
approached the window, to peer between the vine leaves that encroached
all down one side.

He was listening to a soft whispering which was followed by a laugh, a
tearing noise, and another crack.

The boy stole back and stood for a few moments in his loose, woollen,
open-fronted garment, not very much unlike a tweed Norfolk jacket
without pockets or buttons, very short in the sleeves. His eyes were
wandering about the room as if in search of something which was not
there, and, not finding it, he stretched out his hands before him,
looked at them with a satisfied smile, and doubled his fists. Then,
stealing further back into the shadow, he passed through a door, made
his way along a passage, across another r