All within him was turbid, subject to evil thoughts.
A little before noon he made his first halt.

Amid the ruins of a spacious villa two or three peasant families had their miserable home, with a vineyard, a patch of tilled soil, and a flock of goats for their sustenance.

Here the travellers, sheltered from the fierce sun, ate of the provisions they carried, and lay resting for a couple of hours.
Marcian did not speak with the peasants, but he heard the voice of a woman loud in lamentation, and Sagaris told him that it was for the death of a child, who, straying yesterday at nightfall, had been killed by a wolf.

Many hours had the mother wept and wailed, only interrupting her grief to vilify and curse the saint to whose protection her little one was confided.
When he resumed his journey, Marcian kept glancing back until he again caught sight of the company of horsemen; they continued to follow him at the same distance.

On he rode, the Alban hills at his right hand, and before him, on its mountain side, the town for which he made.