Still, it is no safeguard
not to fight you; you take our substance anyhow. Be we peace-lovers or
not, there is warfare; if we do not fight we are fought against."
Titus thrust his helmet back from his full front of intensely black
curls and wiped his forehead.
"The sun is hot in these hills," he said disjointedly to the tribune
he had called Carus, "and the wind is cold. Uncomfortable climate."
Carus said nothing.
"Is it not?" Titus demanded irritably.
"Very," Carus observed hastily.
The little shepherd stood in the road and the six hundred were silent.
"Well," said Titus with a tone of finality, "you never remember the
wrongs the strong man endured--wrongs that the weak man did him
because of his weakness."
"It never hurts the strong man," Joseph said softly, "to give the weak
one another chance."
Titus closed his lips at that, and the tribune who had smiled
sarcastically looked with sudden intent at Carus. Carus silently moved
his horse to the sarcastic tribune's side with such threatening
expression on his face that the other discreetly held his peace.
"Perhaps," Titus said thoughtfully, but the boy failed to see more in
that word than the simple expression. In his search for some further
plea that would give him his sheep again, the presence of the young
Roman appealed to him with hope. Surely one so young and laughing, so
ready to stop an army to argue with a child, could not be beyond reach
of persuasion.
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