Spartacus

70
SP ART ACU S
The third rider, still muffled in abolla, answered
him:
^ ‘A slinger’s pellet.’
The speaker pushed back the hood of the abolla
then, for the day promised heat. It showed the
young-old face of Elpinice, weariness-pinched, her
gaze on the riding Gladiator.
The three rode south.
The slave-horde had passed that way. But at
legionary’s pace they must have passed, for there was
no sign of them. They had set out silently as soon as
night fell, under the leadership of Castus and Cannicus
and Crixus, with the little company of Eastern men
commanded by the Jew ben Sanballat. The three
had remained behind to patrol the watch-fires and
deceive the watching Romans.
Few of the slaves, stealing away in the darkness in
long files, realized that they left the Strategos himself
behind. Several of the leaders even did not know.
Some said two Italian shepherds, men well acquainted
with the country, remained. But Elpinice was the
second, and Kleon, moved by the plan of his humour,
the third. Riding now, he cursed that impulse.
Would they never halt ?
Yet this at last they did, at an open and deserted
horreum, away from the river track and with the
Lucanian mountains looming in view. Beyond the
horreum itself, through a fence of osiers, the steadings
of a farm loomed. Though no smoke arose and it
also seemed deserted, they did not approach. Instead,
Spartacus hobbled the horses in the shelter of the
overhanging eaves of the building; Elpinice dis¬
appeared. Kleon staggered inside.
The floor was thick with the chaff-winnowings of
many a harvest. In one corner mouldered a heap of
straw. To the Greek eunuch it seemed he would never