It was fortunate that the army in which Virginius was a centurion had been obliged to retreat, and then lay not many miles from Rome. The messengers sent reached the camp that same evening, and told Virginius of the peril of his daughter. Appius had also sent messengers to his colleagues in command of the army, secretly instructing them not to let Virginius leave the camp on any pretence. But the messengers of right outstripped those of wrong, and when word came from the decemvirs in command to restrain Virginius he had already been given leave of absence, and was speeding on the road to Rome, spurred by love and indignation. Morning came, and Appius resumed his judgment-seat, under the delusion that his vile scheme was safe. To his surprise and dismay, he saw Virginius, whom he supposed detained in camp, dressed in mean attire, like a suppliant, and leading his daughter into the Forum. With him came a body of Roman matrons and a great troop of friends, for the affair had roused the people almost to the point of revolt. "This is not my cause only, but the cause of all," said Virginius, in moving accents, to the people. "If my daughter shall be robbed from me, what father and mother among you all is safe?" Icilius earnestly seconded this appeal, and the mothers who stood by wept with pity, their tears moving the people even more than the words of the father and lover. But Appius was not to be moved by tears or appeals. Bent on gaining his unholy ends, he did not even give Virginius time to address the tribunal, but before Claudius had done speaking he hastened to give sentence. The maiden, he said, should be considered a slave until proved to be free-born. In the mean time she should remain in the custody of her master Claudius. This monstrous decision, a perversion of all law, natural and civil, filled the people with astonishment. Could the maker of the laws of Rome thus himself set them at defiance? They stood as if stunned, until Claudius approached to lay hands on the maiden, when the women and her friends gathered around her and kept him off, while Virginius broke out in passionate threats that he would not tamely submit to so great a wrong. Appius had prepared for this. He had brought with him a body of armed patricians, and, supported by them, he bade his lictors to drive back the crowd. Before their threatening axes the unarmed people fell back, and the weeping maiden was left standing alone. Virginius looked on in despair. Was he to be robbed of his daughter in the face of Rome, and in defiance of all justice and honor? There was one way still to save her, and only one. With an aspect of humility he asked Appius to let him speak one word to the nurse in the maiden's hearing, that he might learn whether she were really his child or not. "If I am not indeed her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter," he said.