Round the turn of the road, after passing the idiot and his goats, with the brawling stream of the Bran Brook, now swollen to a respectable little river, on our left, with the wooded hills rising on our right, we entered the long, narrow winding single street of Vediamnum, a paved lane along the close-crowded tall stone houses built against the hillside on the northeast, with the stream along it to the southwest, and houses wedged between the street and the stream, brokenly, for about half of its length, with open intervals between. As we entered the village I saw ahead on the street not a human form, saw no face at any door of any house. I wondered over this, wondered uncomprehendingly. I had never seen the street of Vediamnum. wholly deserted, not even in rains much harder than that which descended on us. Still wondering, still uncomprehending, when we were far enough into the village for the travelling carriage to be already between the first houses, I saw fall across the roadway, in front of me, two stout trunks of trimmed trees, straight like pine trees; I heard the crash as they jarred on the stones of the stream-side wall, I saw them quiver as they settled; breast high and shoulder high from house-wall to house-wall, effectually blocking the highway. At the same instant there sounded a chorus of yells, shouts, calls, cheers and commands; and men poured out of the house doors, out of the alleys between the houses, up the river bank in the unbuilt intervals; men hatless and cloakless, clad only in their tunics, men with clubs, with staffs, with staves, with bludgeons, with cudgels, men yelling: "Greia! Greia! Rescue Greia! Club 'em! Brain 'em! Chase 'em! Vedius forever! At 'em boys! Mustard's the word! Make 'em run! Rescue Posis!" They clubbed us. They clubbed the horses, they clubbed the mules, they clubbed the bearers and their reliefs. They gave us no time to explain, and though I yelled out who I was and who was with me, though Hirnio and Tanno and Martius yelled similarly, their explanations were unheard in the hubbub or unheeded. Also our effort to explain was brief. Swathed as we were in our cloaks the hot gush of rage that flamed up in us drove us instinctively to free our arms and fight. Now anyone might suppose that it would be an easy matter for some eighteen horsemen to ride down and scatter a mob of varlets afoot. So it would be in the open, when the riders were aware of the attack and ready to meet it. We were taken wholly by surprise whereas our assailants were ready and agreed. For a moment it looked like a rout for us, our horses and mules rearing and kicking, our whole caravan in confusion, jammed together higgledy-piggledy, with all our attackers headed for the carriage, mistaking Marcia for Greia. Marcia never screamed, never moved, sat still and silent, apparently calm and placid. They all but dragged her out of the carriage.