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Then he told me that the procurator of the beast-train had sent to Rome by an Imperial courier, whom he had managed to intercept at a change-station, a letter setting forth my powers over fierce animals and asking that an order be sent for my transfer from the horse-breeding estate to the Beast Barracks attached to the Colosseum, where the animals are housed from their arrival in Rome, until their display in the arena; that this letter had come into the hands of the same officials who already had under consideration the requisition for me made by the procurator in charge of the Beast Barracks; that somehow these same officials appeared to know nothing of my identity with the slave who had foiled the conspirators who were fomenting a mutiny in the ergastulum at Nuceria, and for whose manumission a request had been made by the aldermen of that town, and indeed appeared to know nothing of any such request for manumission; that a requisition for my transfer from the horse-breeding estate to the Beast- Barracks at Rome had been made out, approved by the higher officials, sealed, stamped and sent out by an Imperial courier and received that very afternoon by the procurator of the beast-train, who consequently had authority to take me to Rome with him as one of the attendants on the animals of his train, which was now again in order, I having recaged all the four hundred escaped beasts, except five hyenas, one panther and one lion which had been killed by stock-owners and their slaves while attacking stock.
That so much time had elapsed since the authorities must have been warned of our approach, that we should have advanced so near Rome and yet that this should be the first visible indication of espionage upon us, amazed both me and Agathemer. Next day, a cloudy but rainless day, we marched only to Rubrae, the change-station nearest Rome.
So that we left Ocriculum on the tenth day before the Kalends of August and stopped overnight at each change-station. We had had fair weather all the way from Placentia, except a heavy rain at Ariminum and showers in the mountains between Forum Sempronii and Nuceria. When day dawned on us at Rostrata Villa, on the eighth day before the Kalends of August, it dawned cloudy, but not threatening.
Osdarus will manage to get me horses from the nearest change-station or somewhere else, somehow. Once at an inn I can get fresh horses. I can buy a team at Nuceria." "Can you pay for a team?" I interrupted. "Have you the cash?" "My gold and silver," she laughed, "are in the other secret compartment. The outlaws did not get my coin any more than my jewelry. Why look!
At Cosa, at Vada, at Luna we had waked dreading to find the avengers up with us and ourselves prisoners; at Rosellae, at Pisa, at Bodetia, we had eaten with one eye on the door, expecting every instant to see our pursuers enter; so at every change-station, while our trappings were taken from our weary cattle and girthed on fresh mounts. So we were for the coast road as shortest.
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