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 roundabout road home, for, according to the Centurion, several of the insurgent villagers had taken to flight and hidden themselves in out-of-the-way parts, and he thought to come up with some of them and despatch them. For though their swords had been made into long-toothed saws by the fighting and were covered with blood, though their spears were blunted with hard work, their Roman appetite still craved the fresh hot blood of further victims.

It was a sultry day, and the hottest hour of the day, just afternoon. The sky was cloudlessly and mercilessly bright. The fiery Dragon of the sky quivering with fury poured streams of fierce rage into the vast and tired emptiness. The withered grass held to the thirsting and parched earth, and grieved with her, and lay stifling under the hot dust.

Smoke of dust rose from the horses' feet and remained a cloud in the still air. The dust settled on the armour of the tired horsemen and gave a dull glimmer of velvet to their accoutrements. Through the clouds of their own dust the country through which they passed seemed portentous, gloomy, melancholy.

Earth herself, burned up by the fierce