Without meeting any wayfarers, with little talk among ourselves, we had passed the entrance to Villa Satronia and were no great distance from the Salarian Highway, when, where the road traversed a dense bit of woodland, the trees of which met overhead, the underbrush on both sides of the road suddenly rang with yells and was alive with excited men. It was almost the duplicate of our experience in Vediamnum, save that our assailants were more numerous and shouted: "Xantha, Xantha, rescue Xantha!" "Satronius forever! Eat 'em alive, boys! Get Xantha! Get Xantha!" and such like calls. This time we had an infinitesimally longer warning, as the bushes to right and left of the road were further apart than had been the houses lining the streets of Vediamnum; also we reacted more quickly to the yells, having heard the like such a short time before. The fight was fully joined all along the line and was raging with no advantage for either side, when I missed a parry and knew no more. Afterwards I was told that I fell stunned from a blow on the head and lay, bleeding not only from a terrific scalp wound but also from a dozen other abrasions, until the fight was over, our assailants routed and completely put to flight, and Tanno with the rest of the pursuers returned to the travelling carriage and litter to find Marcia, pink and pretty and placid, seated as she had been when she left home, and me, weltering in a pool of blood. A dozen Satronians lay stunned. Tanno reckoned two of them dead men. I was the only man seriously hurt on our side. Agathemer was for convoying me home. Tanno hooted at the idea, expatiating on the distance from Reate and the improbability of such a town harboring a competent physician, on the number of excellent surgeons in Rome, on the advisability of getting me out of the locality afflicted with our Vedian-Satronian feud, and so on. He had me bandaged as best might be and composed in his litter. He took my horse.