His goat-skin water-bag was empty and lay, wrinkled and
collapsed, beside him.
Lucius, himself, was a strange sight in the midst of the luxurious
people of Rome. A peasant he was, dwelling in a cave far out on the
Roman Campagna, remote from the splendid villas and gardens lining the
wide ways leading out of the city to North and South and West. This
cave was in a mass of tufa rock rising abruptly from the flat, green
fields, and not far from the aqueduct, three tiers of brick arches,
one above the other, joined by massive masonry, through which fresh
water was brought in big leaden pipes to the city.
Hundreds of long-horned cattle, white and clean and strong, were
grazing in the fields. It was such as these that Cincinnatus guided,
ploughing the fields, when the messenger rode swiftly from Rome to
call him to come and save her by becoming Dictator.
Lucius was a tiller of the fields, but, also, a water-carrier. He was
resting now, after his labors in the scorching sunshine, half-asleep.
The Moor roused him into wide wakefulness, by giving him a sturdy
kick.
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