I am obedient to the laws of our people." "You would have been in less peril to have ridden alone," Laodice sighed.

"Our company has been no help to you." "We can not say that confidently.

There are worse things than pestilence in the wilderness," the woman replied.
Momus seemed to observe more confidence than was natural in the ready answers of this professed servant, and before he would leave Laodice to pitch camp, he helped her to alight and drew her with him.

The woman remained on her mount.
Gathering up sticks, dead needles of cedar and last year's leaves, he made a fire upon which he heaped fuel till it lighted up the near-by slopes of the hills and roared jovially in the broad wind.
It was a pocket in the heart of high hills into which they had fled.
The bold, sure line of a Roman road divided it, cutting tyrannically through the cowed hovels of the town as an arrow drives through a flock of pigeons.

On either side were the dim shapes of great rocks and semi-recumbent cedars.