The Childhood of Rome :: MASTERLESS MEN

MASTERLESS MEN

The story the robbers had to tell, when they returned to their captain, was not a very likely one. It was so unlikely that they took time to talk the matter over thoroughly before attempting to face him. Perhaps it would be better to tell a lie, if they could concoct one that would do. The trouble was that they could not think of any explanation for their failure, that was likely to satisfy him any better than the plain facts.

Of course it seemed impossible that a man and a wolf should be traveling peaceably in company,—to say nothing of taking a child out of the hands of several strong and reckless men. But even so, where had they gone? One of the men had been quick enough to thrust with his spear at the wolf as he got it against the sky,—and it went through nothing. He forgot that the motion of an animal is usually quicker than the human eye, on such occasions. Moreover, though two of them went back down the path until they [pg 82]could hear the voices of the villagers, there was no sign of man, wolf or child. The conclusion they felt to be the only one possible was that the villagers’ gods had come and taken the child away from them, in the form of the wolf and the man. In that case they must be very powerful, so powerful that it would not be safe to attempt anything against that village in the future.

Gubbo, who came from that village, assured them that its gods were powerful indeed. He had not, when he and the other man were watching it, seen anything like this man and wolf apparition, and it was certainly remarkable enough to attract attention. Neither had the country people ever mentioned such a thing. Privately, Gubbo did not believe much in gods, but he was afraid of them for all that, because he was not sure. Gubbo’s father had impressed upon him very hard that if he did wrong, bad luck would surely overtake him. The patience of the gods was great, but they knew everything, and in the end no man could escape them. Gubbo, wincing at the pain where the wolf’s teeth had caught him, was uncomfortably wondering whether his bad luck had begun. There had never been any other failure to kidnap somebody, when men were sent to do it. Perhaps the bad luck in this case came from the fact that one of the party was attacking [pg 83]his own relatives and friends. There would be more bad luck when the chief of the bandits heard of this thing. Gubbo decided to dodge any further trouble if he could, and he lagged behind and quietly slipped away, to find some other way of making a living. He intended to go on traveling for a long time, to be out of the way of his former comrades.

It was just as well for him that he did this, for the men who returned to the den in the rocks and reported to the chief had a very bad time of it. The leader was executed, and so was the man who had had charge of the child. Of the other three, one died of the bite of the wolf and the others were very ill. After that, not a man of them could have been induced to join in an attack against that village. The chief wisely did not press the matter. After all, that was the nearest village of all those in their range, and it might not be altogether prudent to arouse the anger of the fighting men. It might lead to discovery.

The Cub, as he made his way back to the hut of Faustulus, was doing a great deal of thinking. When he was younger he had sometimes dreamed of being captain of a band of outlaws, because that seemed the only chance to be captain of anything, for a fatherless boy. But he had no taste [pg 84]for kidnaping children or being a nuisance to peaceable and kindly people. Merely to think of those scoundrels made him hot all over. He would have liked to follow their trail up to their very den, for he had an idea that he knew where it was. One day, when he and Pincho had been hunting together, he had seen a place where men evidently lived, and lived without any sort of peaceful farming or other business. If that were the den of the banditti, they could easily make themselves the pest of the countryside, and what they had done would be nothing to what they could do. Although he did not himself know it, this boy was the kind of person whose mind leaps ahead and sees possibilities for others as well as himself,—evil as well as good.

One day he asked his brother how he would like to gather the masterless men of all that neighborhood into a band of soldiery, to live by hunting and by fighting for any chief who would give them their living. They were growing too old to live much longer as they had lived. Perhaps if they could gather followers enough, they could go somewhere after awhile and make a place for themselves. First they might go to the Long White Mountain, where there was a rather large town, and see what the prospect was for such an undertaking. They had already [pg 85]taken part in one campaign, with some of the boys of the neighborhood, under the names of the Wolf and the Piper. All of the troop had some nickname or other. There was the Ram, whose head would crack an ordinary board in two; the Snake, who could wriggle out of any bonds ever tied—they had tried him time and again; Big Foot, Flop-Ear, Long Arm, and some others. They found the captain they had followed before glad to use them again and give them ordinary soldier rations. On the second night of their life in camp, a broad-shouldered and slightly bow-legged individual came and asked to see the head of the band. Gubbo did not recognize the young leader, but the latter knew him the moment he saw him. Gubbo explained that he had been a member of a company of banditti, had become disgusted with their ways, and left them. He would like to make an honest living.

“What can you do?” asked the youth consideringly.

Gubbo said that he could teach tricks in knife work to almost any man; also he could wrestle.

“Try me,” said the Wolf, slipping out of his heavy tunic. He enjoyed the rough-and-tumble that followed more than he had anything since he used to play with his wolf. This man really [pg 86]was a fair match for him. Gubbo was taken into the band.

“He is a brute,” said the Ram bluntly.

“He is,” said the leader. “But he can teach you fellows something.”

They learned a great deal from the villainous-looking newcomer, though if he had not been a little afraid of the young head of the troop, they might have paid a heavy price for their learning. The latter found out by judicious questioning that the den was where he had supposed it was. After a time he began to see that Gubbo was doing his men no good. The man was cruel, treacherous and base. Two or three times he had played tricks which others were blamed for. One day Gubbo heard that a merchant was coming along the road to the mountain villages, and at the same time he was sent on scout duty that way. He watched in the bushes until the man came along slowly, muffled in a long mantle, with a donkey loaded with panniers. He seemed to be old; his beard was white. Gubbo sprang on him; the man turned in that instant and met him with a knife thrust. Then the Wolf straightened up, dropped his white goat’s-hair beard and wig, and went back to camp. The bad luck that Gubbo feared had got him at last, and nobody mourned him at all.

[pg 87]

Wolf and the Piper and their troop spent some seasons in fighting and adventure, and then they disappeared. It was said that they had separated.

This was true, but they had separated for a purpose. If the company went together to the lair of the banditti they might as well go blowing trumpets and beating drums; it would be known long before they came near. Their orders were to go by twos and threes, and when the moon was full to meet near a certain great rock that overlooked the valley where the river became a lake and then went on. One by one, as the young leader sat watching on this rock, dark forms came slipping through the shadows and joined him. Last of all came his brother, who had guided some of the party by a very roundabout way.

When all were there, and sentinels posted, he unfolded his plan. Above the place where they now sat, among the tumbled rocks of a narrow valley, was the headquarters of a most pestiferous company of robbers. For years they had terrified and despoiled the people of the villages, and if any resisted they were tormented almost beyond endurance in many different ways. The people were expected to turn over to them at certain times and places practically everything they produced, except just enough for a bare living. [pg 88]Whatever the banditti did not use themselves, they sold for things that could not be got in the villages. The villagers never knew what they were to be allowed to have at the end of the year, and often they suffered for food and warm clothing; but they stayed there because they knew nowhere else to go. It was a miserable state of things.

His plan was this. They were to steal upon this den of banditti and take it by surprise. Gubbo had said that it was not fortified to any extent, because the chief relied on the locality not being known. They were to kill the chief and such men as could not be trusted to behave themselves if they had a chance. Perhaps some would join the troop and abide by its rules. They would take the stronghold for their own, and keep it as a place to return to when they were not busy elsewhere. Then, instead of making enemies of the villagers or keeping them so terrified that they dared not refuse any request, let them make a friendly agreement. If the people who lived in these valleys gave them a certain tribute three or four times a year—a certain part of the crop, whatever it was—they would take care that there was no more plundering and kidnaping, and the farmers could attend to their own affairs in safety and comfort. If any enemy [pg 89]came against the people, too great for the Wolf and his soldiers to encounter successfully, the fighting men of the villages would be expected to help them, but they would undertake to keep the region clear of banditti. In return, if any one asked whether there was a band of outlaws hiding thereabouts, the villagers were to say that they did not know where there were any, and that would be the truth.

The plan was approved, as the young chief knew it would be. He had talked it over beforehand with each man separately. If the people were ungrateful enough, after the den of thieves was broken up, not to agree to the plan proposed, they could take their chance with other thieves, but he thought that after what they had been through in the last few years they would be willing to agree to almost anything.

As men are apt to do when they are much feared, the banditti in the rock-walled ravine were growing rather careless. The scouts of the Wolf’s troop were able to follow their movements closely. On the following night, when their destruction was to take place, the robbers were all in camp, having just returned from one of their expeditions to bring up supplies. The fat calf and the fowls and other provisions were sizzling and stewing over great fires. There was plenty [pg 90]of new wine. From a trader’s pack some of the younger men had got little ivory cubes with figures engraved on the sides, and were playing a game of chance. Their huts were furnished rather luxuriously, with fur robes, wool garments and gay hangings, but these, like their clothing, were stained and injured more or less by the fighting that usually took place over the plunder. The chief did not care what his men did in camp so long as they obeyed his orders. He did not wish them to do much thinking; he preferred to do all of that for them. He would have been surprised indeed if he had known that some of them did think and had almost made up their minds that they had had enough of him and of his methods and would go somewhere else.

As he grew older, the robber captain was fonder of eating and drinking, and now he sat on a handsome ivory stool near the fire—for the night was chilly—waiting for the meat to be done to a turn. The cook was a stout, short, bright-eyed man, a slave from across the river, and there was very little that he did not know about preparing rich dishes.

It was a windy night. The wind howled among the trees and down the ravine as if it were chasing something. It was like the howling of wolves, though there had been no wolves on that [pg 91]part of the mountain for a long time. Far to the right of the camp there was heard a noise like the cry of a child. Far to the left there was a bleating like a lamb. These were the signals arranged by the attacking force that was coming silently through the woods, and the sentinels went out a little way to see what a lamb and a child could be doing up here. They were knocked down, bound and carried off to a safe distance. By the time supper was ready in the ravine, the men in the woods were lying on the bank above, all around, looking down into the stronghold. The huts were ranged in two rows down the hollow, with a line of fires between and the fronts open. The entrance below was blocked by a log gate. But the men now ready to attack the place could climb like goats; they had all been brought up among the hills.

All of a sudden arrows came shooting down on the careless banditti, and almost every one found its mark. Down to the roofs of the huts and to the ground came leaping figures, well armed and fighting with the strength and skill of trained men. Whenever they could they disarmed and bound their men, but the leader of the banditti was an exception to this rule. He was killed without a chance to surrender.

When every man in the camp of the banditti [pg 92]had been cut down or captured—and about half of them surrendered,—the victors sat down and ate the feast prepared for the robbers.

Next day, when things had been cleared up and put in order, each prisoner’s case was taken up separately. A few, whose deeds were the terror of the countryside, were executed. The rest were glad enough to join the troop under the Wolf, on probation. If they did well, they should be full members in time.

The people of the villages were thankful to buy protection on the reasonable terms offered. They did not know exactly who these men were who had rid them of the banditti; some supposed they were a troop of soldiers from some chief. They almost never saw any of the band. The tax demanded was brought to a certain place and left there, and that was all. Emilius the priest often wondered why these men did not ask anything of his village, but they never did. Their village was the only one that had hardly ever suffered from the banditti. It was very odd. He never connected either of these facts with the long-ago visit of the shepherd youths and the tame wolf. So matters went on for a year or two. A guard was always left at the stronghold, but the men were often absent. Merchants and traders learned that they could get these men to [pg 93]protect them, at a price, when they were traveling through a strange country. They had really established a sort of patrol. The scattered hunters and fishermen had walked in desperate terror of the banditti, but they almost worshiped the troopers, and they would have died rather than reveal anything they had been told to keep secret. When Amulius, the hoary and evil chief of the people of the Long White Mountain, heard of these two youths who were such excellent fighters and whose men had so good a reputation, he tried to find out where they were, but he never could. For all the people of the country seemed to know, they might come out of the air and vanish into the clouds. It was very mysterious. When the young leader heard that Amulius had been trying to find him he smiled, and did not make any comment whatever.

[pg 94]

Clyx.com