Octavius was indignant that I said nothing. So he turned to me and said rather sharply, “My brother Mark, it’s not fitting for a good man like you desert a fellow man who is constantly at your side, living with you at home and traveling with you wherever you go. You have deserted him, you know, by leaving him to wander in blind ignorance. I’m shocked that you tolerate his worshiping stones in broad daylight. It makes no difference that the stones have been carved into the shape of a human and crowned with garlands. You know how wrong this is. Yet by saying nothing, you partake in his error.”
None of us said anything more, and we walked quietly down the road leading from the village to the sea. Soon we were shuffling through the sand along the shore. The gently breaking waves had leveled and packed the sand so smoothly that one would have thought it had been prepared for a parade. The breeze was mild, so the waves weren’t crashing with great fury or spewing foam from their crests, as I have often seem them do. Still, the sea always seems restless, and the waves were crisply breaking in gentle curls. Octavius and I were enjoying walking along the very edge of the water, letting the tide splash over our bare feet. We marveled at how each receding wave seemed to suck the water right back into itself before the the next wave surged over the wet sand.
So we ambled along the shore line, tracking the broken, crooked edge of the water. Octavius shared some interesting stories about navigation with us as we walked. After we had journeyed for a considerable distance, we decided to return along the way we had just come. So we began to walk slowly back, trying to retrace our footsteps in the wet sand.
We stopped for a moment at a spot where some boats were lying at rest. They had been hoisted out of the water onto oak frameworks to prevent them from rotting. From behind the boats, we heard the laughter of children, so we followed the sound to see what was amusing them. We discovered they were playing some sort of throwing game with shells. The game went something like this: The boys would scour the shore line trying to find shells that had been rubbed smooth by the waves. When each one had found a suitable shell, he would hold it horizontally in his fingers and cock his arm back. He would hurl his shell as low as possible, letting it skim along the tops of the waves, skipping up and down as it went. The boy whose shell went out farthest and leaped up most frequently was declared to be the winner.
Octavius and I were so engrossed in watching the boys’ game and sharing in their laughter that I momentarily forgot about Caecilius. Then I noticed that he was neither laughing with us nor paying any attention to the boys’ game. Instead, his face was cast down and sullen. It was obvious that he was upset about something, but I didn’t know what.
“Caecilius, what’s the matter?” I asked quietly. “You don’t seem your usual self at all. Normally you are the most jovial person around, even in matters that are serious.”
“I’m sorry, but I found your friend’s remarks rather offensive. He may have been addressing his comments to you, but it was really me that he was attacking. It was me he was accusing of being ignorant,” he said indignantly. The lifting his voice and glancing at Octavius, he said, “This is really a matter between Octavius and me. So I’ll tell you what. If he’s so sure of his position, lets have a debate-like the philosophers do. Although Octavius may be able to defend his beliefs to his friends, he’ll soon find they won’t hold up in a heated debate.”
