“If any one should ask which way Maternus went, say I have gone home,” he commanded, and strode away into the gloom.

He wondered why he had chosen the name Maternus.  Not even his remotest ancestor had borne it, yet it came to his lips as naturally, instantly, as if it were his own by right.  But as he walked away it came to mind that ten, or possibly twelve, nights ago he and his friends had all been talking of a highwayman Maternus, who had robbed the caravans on the mountain road from Tarsus.  For the moment that thought scared him.  Should he change the name?  The slaves by the embers had stared; they showed him respect, but there was a distinct sensation mingled with it—­ hardly to be wondered at!  Where was it he heard—­who told him—­that Maternus had been caught?  He could not remember.

It dawned on him how difficult it is to decide what to do when the old familiar conditions and the expectations on which we habitually base decisions are all suddenly stripped away.  He understood now how a general in the field can fail when suddenly confronted with the unknown.  Shall he do this, or do that?  There was not a habit or a circumstance to guide him.  He must choose, the while the gods looked on and laughed!

Maternus.  It was a strange name to adopt, and yet he liked the sound of it, nor would it pass out of his mind.  He tried to think of other names, but either they had all been borne by slaves, and were distasteful, or else by famous men or by his friends, whom he did not propose to wrong; he only had to imagine his case reversed to realize how bitterly he would resent it if an outlawed man should take his own name and make it notorious.

Yet he perceived that notoriety would be his only refuge, paradox though that might be.  As a mere fugitive, anonymous and having no more object than to live and avoid recognition, he would soon reach the end of his tether; there was little mercy in the world for men without a home or means.  Whether recognized or not, he would become like a hunted animal —­might, in fact, end as a slave unless he should prefer to prove his identity and submit to Commodus’s executioners.  Suicide would be preferable to that; but it seemed almost as if the gods themselves had vetoed self-destruction by providing that roisterer’s corpse at the critical moment and putting the plan for its use into Galen’s wise old head.

He must take the field like Spartacus of old; but he must have a goal more definite and more attainable than Spartacus had had.  He must avoid the mistake that weakened Spartacus, of accepting for the sake of numbers any ally who might offer himself.  He would have nothing whatever to do with the rabble of runaway slaves, whose only guiding impulse would be loot and license, although he knew how easy it would be to raise such an army if he should choose to do it.  Out of any hundred outlaws in the records of a hundred years, some ninety-nine had come to grief through the increasing numbers of their following and lack of discipline; he could think of a dozen who had been betrayed by paid informers of the government, posing as friendly brigands.