Spartacus

South to Lucania
(i)
A LL that morning they rode, while the light paled
■^and grew and was touched with gold; and the
sun, unseen, crept up behind the bastion of the eastern
mountains. They passed down wild and deserted
valleys, skirted long necks of swamp, rode soft with
muffled bridles by villages and great farms. Ever the
sky brightened and presently the sun was on them,
and the white hoar under-hoof began to thaw. A thin
mist rolled over the Campanian land. The eunuch
hung wearied in his saddle, but the other two pressed
on untiring.
Still holding south, they held by the banks of a
river for many pace miles, on a ragged via terrena
fringed with rushes. Once or twice they sighted
boats: once, in a forest clearing a gang of slaves at
work. Still they rode undetected.
Sleep came and went before the eyes of Kleon.
Now and again he would jerk to a vague wakefulness:
once dreamt himself again at sea with the pirate
ships of Thoritos. In a clear moment he spoke to the
others.
‘We’ve surely missed the track. They cannot have
passed this way.’
The giant eased the pace of his horse, a great white
stallion. He turned his face. It was the Gladiator
Spartacus.
‘They passed this way.’ He rode for a little looking
at the track they followed. ‘See.’
Kleon for a moment saw something in the path
ere his horse was beyond it. Then weariness
fogged his eyes, sick of the jest and the plan he had
planned.
‘What was it ?’
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