Cestus, straining every nerve as he fled from the scene of his failure, expected each moment to feel the fingers of his rapidly gaining pursuer hooked into his collar. Doubling this way and that through the gloom, in imminent peril of smashing his skull, and experiencing all the terrors of a hunted hare, he gave a gasp of joy when he heard the crash of the trooper’s fall at his heels. A few more leaps took him out of sight and hearing; and then he doubled on his track. When he gained the edge of the grove, he dropped down at full length in a convenient shelter, with his heart throbbing well-nigh to bursting, and his eyes swimming. His slothful, indulgent habits rendered him totally unequal to such a terrible trial of exertion, and his horrible gasping for breath was so severe as to render him incapable of perceiving whether there were any signs of further pursuit. Burying his face in the grass, he smothered, as well as he could, his grievous pantings, until he recovered breath sufficiently to sit up and listen with more attention. All was as still as death, however, and, in another quarter of an hour, he felt emboldened to make the best of his way to the safe haunts of his native Subura. Going cautiously he quitted the Aventine and gained the Ostian road which ran to the heart of the city. As he progressed along the deserted streets he began to curse his ill-luck and speculate on the consequences. The promised reward, though further from his grasp than before, yet shed its glamour over his mind, and whetted it to ponder over renewed plans, on a less delicate and ingenious style, more peculiarly his own.

The vast exterior of the Circus Maximus towered on his left. Walking swiftly along its moonlit, porticoed base, full [pg 101]of caves of ill-repute, another figure appeared, so as to converge on to the track of Cestus.

Traversing that mighty circuit of masonry, the Suburan overlooked the approaching object, as one might have overlooked a small animal specked on the side of a mountain, until he found himself in close proximity, and then he quickened his pace. The result of this was that the stranger did the same, and the mind of Cestus began to wax uneasy. He finally started off at a smart trot, whereupon he was hailed by an angry voice.

‘Stop, you fool!’

Cestus recognised the tones of his patron and waited in as much dread as surprise.

‘I did not recognise you, patron,’ he said, as the knight came up.

‘So you have got away clear,’ said Afer sharply.

‘More by good luck than anything else—there was a swifter foot than mine behind me had it not slipped,’ replied Cestus, humbled and abashed by his failure. ‘You were too bold to be nigh—had you been caught, it had been fifty times worse.’

‘Rest yourself easy on that score—I am not such a bungler as yourself.’

‘Well, patron, the plan failed, but you can hardly blame me,’ began Cestus.

‘Whom then? if not you. It is the climax of your bragging worthlessness—idiot!’ said the knight wrathfully.

‘Well, but, patron—the soldiers! Who could be at both ends of the road at once? Another minute and I had done my work to perfection—I had finished it even now, but for that meddling fool, who chose to put in his word. Be reasonable, patron; I carried out your plans to the very letter and minute, but you made no provision for a troop of legionaries to interfere.’

‘Silence, blockhead! could I not see?’ fumed Afer. ‘Why, the old dotard, if they had left you to it, would have cracked your skull, thick as it is.’

‘No, never—if he outlived Saturn!’ retorted the Suburan, with rising voice, as well as choler, ‘nor fifty dotards from fifty Janiculums. Let me do the job in my own way, without [pg 102]the useless tomfoolery of a whining tale and a moonlight walk, and a cohort of asses lurking on one’s steps—leave it to me alone and you shall see.’

‘Yes, I should see you with thy neck in a noose and myself proclaimed,’ sneered Afer. ‘Leave it to you, indeed! If you cannot do better than this, with four stout fellows to back you, what would you do alone? Fool!’

‘I am no fool!’ returned Cestus fiercely; for the cutting contempt and epithets of his patron were more than he could bear.

‘A double fool—a swaggering, bragging, drunken fool, thick of sense and slow of hand—faugh!’

‘I tell thee, Afer, I am no fool!’ bawled Cestus; ‘it is thyself!’

‘I was, to trust your workmanship. Fabricius eats his postponed supper, and you are off to your foxholes, like a cur, with its tail between its legs. Begone and trouble me no more!’ thundered Afer, in uncontrollable passion.

‘You shall know that—clever as you think yourself, you are under my thumb. One word from me——’

‘Silence, you dog, when I bid you!’ hissed the knight, striding up to him and clutching his collar.

‘Not I, by Hercules!’ cried Cestus, thoroughly roused and reckless as he shook off the grasp. ‘You, a chicken-hearted, double-faced pauper, to be my master——’

‘Accipe——! Let that silence thee for ever!’

The knight threw up his arm as he spoke, and the Suburan, giving a sharp cry, fell heavily, stabbed in the breast.

Afer hastily wiped his poniard and replaced it in the folds of his cloak.

‘There is no bungling in this,’ he muttered; ‘dead men tell no tales.’

Only delaying to drag the fallen man by the heels more into the shadow of a wall, he hurried swiftly on; and, before morning dawned, he entered the yet sleeping town of Tibur, disappointed in mind, and yet not altogether without a feeling of satisfaction and relief at the course circumstances had taken.