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I heard nothing which led me to believe that they had any inkling of the location of the outlaws' camp, of their purposes, or of their intended coup. After a day of happy idling on my crag I visited Bulla. He was gay. "It promises well," he volunteered. "The procurator and his gold are well on this side of Ariminum and the propraetor and widow left Rome yesterday.
Anyhow their advices informed them that he had packed his bullion-chests with stones and old-iron and had parcelled out his packets of dust and nuggets among the wagons of a long train of arena-beasts. "We'll fool him!" Bulla boasted. "We'll nab him and hold him for a big ransom.
A flock of little children first appeared, all of whom went aside to the slaves' quarters except one, who came running up the path between the box- trees. He was the eldest grandson and namesake of the Senator, a dark-eyed, brown-haired boy of seven, with the golden bulla hanging round his neck.
"When first my timid steps lost the guardianship of the purple stripe, and the bulla of the boy was hung up for offering to the quaint household gods; when flattering comrades came about me, and I might cast my eyes without rebuke over the whole busy street under the shelter of the yet unsullied gown; in the days when the path is doubtful, and the wanderer knowing naught of life comes with bewildered soul to the many-branching roads then I made myself your adopted child.
There was a moment's silence, then Coburn's voice said: "We were just talking of you, Henri. The skipper wants to know " and the door closed. Hilliard was not long in slipping back to his former position at the porthole. "By Jove!" Bulla was saying. "And to think that two years ago I was working a little coaster at twenty quid a month!
When a boy was seventeen, there was a great family sacrifice to the Lares and the forefathers, his bulla was taken off, the toga was put on, and he was enrolled by his own prænomen, Caius or Lucius, or whatever it might be, for there was only a choice of fifteen. After this he was liable to be called out to fight. A certain number of men were chosen from each tribe by the tribune.
Then I told about my close shaves when I three several times barely escaped assassination at the hands of partizans of Bulla, about the kindness of the Villicus and procurator and why I had changed my name. "Why didn't you send at least a tiny note to Vedia and let her know you were alive after all?" he queried.
"All the better for us, isn't it?" Bulla queried. "So far as it goes, yes," the manager agreed, "and I've stuffed him with yarns about costs and about giving up the props and going in for paving blocks and so on which I think he swallowed. But why should he want to know what we are doing? What possible interest can the place have for him unless he suspects?"
"Not with any certainty," he said at last, then with a grimace he continued: "But I'm a little afraid that it's perhaps Madeleine." Bulla, the engineer, made a sudden gesture. "I thought so," he exclaimed. "Even in the little I saw of them this evening I thought there was something in the wind. I guess that accounts for the whole thing. What do you say, skipper?" The big man nodded.
Fortunately no one noticed the movement, and the talk continued uninterruptedly. The inspector could now see in. Five men were squeezed round the tiny table. Beamish and Bulla sat along one side, directly facing him. At the end was Fox. The remaining two had their backs to the window, and were, the inspector believed, Raymond and Henri.
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