While the band of Christians sat listening in absorbed silence to the words of Calenus, a troop of armed men were setting forth from the Esquiline--twenty stout fellows armed with spears and short swords. They were led by a stalwart veteran, who had won the rank of centurion on the battle-fields of Germany; on his left walked a torch-bearer, on his right a handsome, active stripling--Antinous, the steward's slave. They marched to the south-east along the Via Labicana, and their regular tramp marked time on the pavement. Now and again a sword rattled or a piece of mail; now and again the leader muttered a short, sharp question, which the slave hastily answered. The ruddy light, that fell on his pretty girlish face, lent a witch-like effect to his features. It was thus that the Greek myth represented the beguiling Sirens: beautiful but fateful. The centurion himself was not quite at ease in the company of the supple youth, and he betrayed it not merely by the roughness of his address, but, even more, by his lowering brow, and the expression of aversion and contempt that curled his lips. At the spot where, on a former occasion, Quintus had come upon the road with Eurymachus in his litter, the party halted. The centurion glanced keenly across the fields in the direction pointed out to him by Antinous, and he knew the country better than the Greek, whose only idea was to go in the same line as he had then come by, like a wild animal. After closely cross-questioning the slave, he made his men go forward by the road about five hundred paces farther, and thus reached a fairly-beaten bridle-path, nearly parallel to the line which Quintus had taken across hedge and ditch. They passed under the arches of the Aqua Marcia, again, soon after, under those of the Aqua Claudia, and then they were in view of the pine wood, which looked like a black, fantastically-shaped cloud against the sky. When the file of men were within a few paces of it, the torch was extinguished, as the uncovered light could not be carried through the brushwood, and a small horn lantern was lighted instead. The centurion doubted whether he had not better leave some of his men outside. However, as the wood extended for a considerable distance to the south-east, there were objections to this plan. It would have taken half a legion to guard every possible exit as far as the spurs of the Alban Hills, and besides, Antinous asserted positively that they could reach the entrance to the quarry without any fear of discovery, as it was so effectually screened by the thicket, that the Nazarenes believed themselves to be in perfect security. In fact, they never even set a watch; so that he had lately ventured fifteen paces or more into the wide cross-gallery, without being detected. One after the other, the armed men entered the wood. Antinous had taken the lantern; in three minutes they were at the laurel bushes which screened the opening of the quarry; Antinous triumphantly parted the boughs.