Spartacus

INSURRECTION
7i
reach that straw. Lying on it, it seemed he had slept
but a moment when a hand shook him.
‘Time to ride south again.’
(ii)
He rose and followed the Gladiator out of doors.
The sun was again low in the sky. The great white
stallion stood tail-switching, snuffling at the necks of
the other horses. Elpinice squatted near. In front
of her was a heap of olives and a goatmilk cheese, at
which she hacked with the dagger that had cut the
tribune’s throat. She pushed a handful of olives
towards the eunuch.
‘Where did you get the food ?’ he asked.
‘At the farm while you slept. It is deserted, so I
stole the cheese and olives.’
Kleon looked at her in cold puzzlement. ‘Didn’t
you also sleep ?’
‘Like the dead—after Spartacus awoke.’
The Gladiator stood unhelmeted by the open door,
staring into the sunset peace with his dark, blank
eyes. The wind moved the strands of hisjgreat beard.
The stallion ceased to snuffle at the necks^of the pother
horses and thrust its muzzle into the hand of its new
master. Spartacus did not move. And to the woman
who looked at him there came back again a memory
of those faces in stone on the terraces of the Violet
City. She ceased to eat, sitting still and clasping
her knees.
The eunuch glanced from one to the other—the
slave bedwoman of a lanista and the taciturn Thracian
savage. And for a moment a cold wonder held him.
How had these two come to free and lead the Gladiators,
to gather about them the beginnings of the slave-