Not many hours later, I, sleeping soundly in the straw, was wakened by the raising of the trap-door. Again a rope was let down. This time two of the Executioner's helpers slid down the dangling rope. They addressed me most deferentially and asked permission to prepare me to be hauled up, thereupon adjusting the ropes about me.

In the upper chamber of the prison I was rubbed down and clothed in the best sort of tunic, shod with the ceremonial boots of a nobleman and wrapped in a nobleman's outer garments. Then I was led off to the nearest point to which a litter may approach the Mamertine Prison. The brilliant sunrays blinded me and the sight of Rome in the glory of a mellow July afternoon brought the tears to my eyes and made me gulp and swallow. But the tears did not blind me too much to recognize Imperial liveries on the litter-bearers and runners and intendant. I was obsequiously invited to enter the litter, the panels were slid, the curtains drawn, and the bearers set off. They carried me to the Palace!

There I was received by the new Chamberlain in person, to be sure with four armed guardsmen accompanying him, but himself as deferential as possible. By him I was conducted to a luxurious apartment, consisting of a large anteroom, a private library, a private triclinium, a private bathroom, and two bedrooms, all furnished with the most lavish abundance and in perfect taste.

I found a small regiment of servants to minister to my wants: a valet, a masseur, a cook, waiters, errand-pages, a reader and yet others. I could have anything I asked for in that apartment, but a guard at its outer door saw to it that I remained in it.

There I was bathed, massaged, obsequiously asked what dainties and wines I preferred, supplied with all I suggested and clothed in garments to my liking; huge heaps of togas, mantles, wraps, tunics and shoes being brought in for me to choose from. There I spent some comfortable days, sleeping much, having myself read to, mostly from the private letters of the Emperors, and from the Anticatones of the Divine Julius; and, from the balcony of the ante-room enjoying the splendid view southwestwards, over the Circus Maximus, the lower reaches of the Tiber and the Campagna, for my apartment was on that side of the Palace and high up.

When I asked if I might despatch letters to my friends I was told that the Emperor had given orders that I was to communicate with no one and no one with me. I worried over Vedia's anxiety and almost as much over the probable disquiet of Agathemer, Tanno and even of Galen. But I was helpless and endeavored to be calm. I was certainly comfortable and hopeful, though impatient.

At last, after six days of this luxurious imprisonment, on the day before the Ides of July, sometime before noon, my apartment was entered by Juvenalis himself in the full regalia of Prefect of the Palace. He greeted me deferentially and was most respectful. He informed me that the Emperor desired an interview with me and through him conveyed to me his regrets that it had had to be postponed so long and that I had been so long kept in confinement and seclusion. He had now come to conduct me to the Emperor, who was at last free to spend with me an hour or more. When my valet had made me comfortable and had prepared me for my private audience, Juvenalis escorted me to the upper private audience-hall, a chamber spacious and magnificent, though somewhat smaller than the lower private audience-hall and far smaller than the great hall for public audiences or the vast throne-room.

I followed Juvenalis along the corridors, elated by my nobleman's attire, but nervous at the prospect of coming face to face with the master of Rome and Italy, with the prospective (as he turned out to be in fact) master of the world.

I was ushered in and Juvenalis withdrew, shutting the door and leaving me alone with the great man. He rose from his chair, for it could not be called a throne, took a step or two towards me and greeted me affably, as one nobleman another. He bade me be seated, did not sit down himself until I had taken the chair he indicated; then he settled himself deliberately.

We eyed each other, in silence. I cannot conjecture what he thought of me, but I can never forget the impression made on me by him.

He wore the Imperial robes consciously. I had often noted how Commodus wore his without thought, as any fisherman wears his rags. Severus was aware of his regalia, and especially of the sky-blue shoes with the Imperial Eagles embroidered on them in gold thread. He looked a man in the best of health, completely fit for a frontier command, for open campaigning, full of surplus energy, hard-muscled, spare and enduring. Also he looked as competent, discerning, clear-headed and ruthless as a man could be. Most of all I diagnosed him as economical of himself, of his men and of his possessions, especially of cash; as swayed by self-interest alone, as flinty-hearted; yet as capable of kindliness when it did not interfere with his plans and was not too expensive.

I waited in silence for him to speak. He said:

"I am a very busy man, even far too busy. Commodus left the treasury empty and every department of the government inefficient. Pertinax refilled the treasury, but his attempts at reorganization merely disorganized everything and prepared for the general confusion which came about under Julianus. With insufficient funds I must fill the Treasury, reorganize the whole governmental machinery, get it to working dependably and smoothly, and at the same time prepare for a civil war which I hope to win, but of which I can foretell the outcome no better than could the Divine Julius be sure of the outcome of his when he crossed the Rubicon. Amid all these cares and occupations I must keep fit and must do all I can to win the confidence and respect of all classes by rectifying, as far as I may, the consequences of the inattention of my predecessors and of the knavery and venality of their subordinates. And I must hurry off to deal with Pescennius Niger, who is no mean antagonist. Altogether I have no time for trifles.

"But I do not reckon your case as a trifle, though the safety of the Republic by no means hinges on it. And I am more interested in you than in any one individual outside of my family and connections. I have never heard of a man brought so near death, so ruined, but for the singular favor of the gods so utterly and so hopelessly ruined, subjected to such dangers and miseries, so baselessly, by such malevolent misrepresentations and fabrications. You deserve to be recompensed. You shall be. And besides the merits of your case I am curious about you.

"You must be curious yourself.

"When I foresaw that I was likely to be acclaimed Emperor by my soldiers and welcomed by the Senate as Prince of the Republic, I set on foot various measures certain to benefit the Commonwealth and the Empire. Especially I made an effort to abolish or at least curb the banditry, brigandage and outlawry which corrupts the entire rural population of Italy and is a national disgrace. I was successful in so far as that my emissaries broke up most of the bands of outlaws and captured many of them, particularly the most famous of all, known as the King of the Highwaymen.

"I had made sure to have secret agents watching all my emissaries, on whatever errand I had sent them. These secret agents reported that powerful influences were at work to bring about the escape of this arch- criminal. I set reliable men to find out what those influences were. Their investigations led straight to Marcus Galvius Crispinillus, a life-long member of the Imperial secret service, universally known as a professional informer, yet considered second to no man in the secret service as to usefulness and reliability, the only man among the spies of Commodus who had been trusted and retained by Pertinax and Julianus, the very man whom my relations in Rome, who had kept me posted as to conditions here, had represented as most likely to be dependable and serviceable. I ordered him apprehended but he and his despicable sister, Galvia Crispinilla, escaped arrest by taking some of her poison. Their papers were seized, but so huge was the mass of them and so great their confusion that they could not be put in order and their secrets utilized at once. So sluggishly did their unravelling proceed that, although it was manifest at once that the precious pair had been agents in Rome for the King of the Highwaymen, had marketed for him his booty, had kept up an almost daily correspondence with him, had warned him of all facts and rumors likely to affect him, had maintained a highly organized and cleverly concealed system of secret agents and road-messengers for his benefit and theirs; yet, until his voluntary confession, neither I nor anyone else concerned had the slightest inkling that the King of the Highwaymen was named Caius Galvius Crispinillus and was a full brother to the procuress and poisoner and the professional spy, who had committed suicide to escape retribution for their villainies. Until his confession was brought to my attention I had equally no inkling that all relevant aspersions upon you had originated with or been transmitted by Marcus Galvius Crispinillus.

"The case against you, on the basis of the papers filed at Secret Service Headquarters, was most damnatory. You were represented to have been the man who had suggested to Egnatius Capito the formation of his conspiracy against Commodus; and to have planned for him the inclusion in it of all undetected survivors of the members of Lucilla's abortive conspiracy of the year before; to have offered yourself as the most likely man to succeed in assassinating Commodus, as he held you in high regard for some exploit in some roadside affray in Sabinum; to have pretended illness as a cloak for your machinations. Then it was represented, circumstantially, that, after the detection and foiling of Capito's conspiracy, you had taken ship for Spain, made your way to the camp of the rebel, Maternus, won his confidence, suggested to him the idea of a secret march on Rome, of the assassination of Commodus during the Festival of Cybele, planned for him the details of that secret march, managed it for him and come all the way from Spain to Rome with him.

"When his attempt failed, you, alone among his henchmen, escaped. You then, according to the reports, went straight to Britain, visited every important camp, infused into the garrisons the spirit of discontent, engineered their mutiny, suggested to them the sending of a dangerously large deputation to Rome, led that deputation and were its controlling spirit all the way to Rome, vanishing successfully when the mutineers were induced by Oleander to return to Britain and their associates, by his device, were massacred or consigned to ergastula.

"With such reports in my hands, with additions declaring that while neither your presence nor your influence could be proved, you were probably the guiding spirit in the assassination of Pertinax, it is no wonder that I, crediting these apparently sincere and trustworthy statements, considered you the most dangerous among all the survivors of conspiracies against my predecessors, which conspirators, on principle, I meant to exterminate as an obvious measure of mere sensible precaution.

"No one seems to have recognized you as Andivius Hedulio while you were in the service of Pompeianus Falco under the name of Phorbas, except only Galen, who has explained and justified to me his reasons for protecting you, of which I entirely approve. He did well. As Phorbas I heard of you first, when it was represented to me that you had murdered your late master and been cleared by that indulgent humanitarian, Lollius Corbulo; that the case was a most flagrant miscarriage of justice and that such slackness would breed a crop of such murders unless temptation was counteracted by severity. I then directed Cassius Ravillanus to deal with you, for I trusted him.

"When, in the arena of the Colosseum, I saw the savage, ravening beasts not only spare you but fawn on you, I felt sure that you had been falsely convicted, that you were innocent and that the gods had intervened to save you. Later, when I heard the cries of 'Festus' and they were explained to me, I was doubly incensed against you. That no beast would touch you, even when bound and your face covered, convinced me of your complete innocence.

"Thereupon, after I had ordered you released, I had turned my attention again to the spectacle of the games in the arena, promising myself an interview with you later, for I was intensely curious about you. But, that very day, before dark, Flavius Clemens craved a brief private audience with me and informed me that he had recognized you as Andivius Hedulio and that you had confessed your identity. I ordered you at once into the Tullianum, pending my decision as to how to wring from you a complete disclosure of your villainies and accomplices before putting you to death.

"Then, to my amazement, the confession of the King of the Highwaymen represented you as a wholly innocent man, incredibly slandered and calumniated, and all by Marcus Galvius Crispinillus, why and for what end was unknown.

"I at once ordered you released and brought to the Palace. Here I have kept you in unmerited confinement until the papers of your traducer could be sifted and I could go over those relevant to your case. Manifestly you never had anything to do with inciting any conspiracy or any march on Rome. All aspersions on you were invented by Crispinillus. I am inexpressibly curious about you. I want you to tell me your story in your own way, in detail, taking your time. In particular I want to learn how you came to be with Maternus and later with the mutineers from Britain. I am at leisure to harken."

He had put me entirely at my ease. Manifestly he wanted to hear my story, was in the mood to listen, and rather enjoyed the respite from care which this carefully arranged interval of leisure gave him. I felt emboldened and began with an explanation of the feud between the Satronians and the Vedians, of the lawsuit between Ducconius Furfur and my uncle, and of his purchase of Marcia from Ummidius Quadratus and his manumission of her.

After these preliminaries I launched into my story. He listened attentively and with every indication of lively interest, with few interruptions. Once he clapped for his pages and had in snow-cooled wine to refresh me and soothe my throat. Upon my account of my wrestle with Nemestronia's leopard he cut in with a series of questions as to my power over animals. When I came to my encounter with Pescennius Niger he was keenly interested, as in my report of his reputation in Marseilles, according to Doris, and uttered one or two remarks. Otherwise he was apparently absorbed in my narrative.

When it was over he said:

"I believe you, your story sounds true; all of it. You have had amazing adventures and have escaped alive manifestly by the special favor of the immortal gods, particularly of Mercury. Like you, I pay special attention to winning and keeping the favor of Mercury, though, of course, for me, as for all soldiers, Mithras is the most important god.

"You may be very sure that I shall, as far as may be, provide that no informer or secret-service agent can ever again succeed in gaining credence for baseless fabrications, such as those from which you have suffered. I shall endeavor to have it arranged that reports of any one agent be checked up by reports of another, the two being wholly unknown to each other. Thus no man shall, if I can prevent it, again be persecuted as you have been. I am shocked at such laxity and I shudder at the power wielded by Marcus Galvius Crispinillus, and at his misuse of it. I can find no trace of any reasonable motive; he seems to have slandered you from mere whim or the mere love of causing misery, or some spite or perhaps to increase the impression of his own importance.

"Now there looms before me the duty of seeing you restored to your rights, as to both rank and property.

"In respect to your standing as a Roman nobleman there has been, is and will be no difficulty. I have had everything attended to and all necessary formalities have been gone through, all official, public records made. You are a Roman nobleman in good standing with every right which your birth assured you.

"As to your property matters are not so simple. I find that you will be very wealthy, anyhow, as the heir of one-fourth of the estate of your late master, Pompeianus Falco, and also as inheritor of his marvellous collection of gems and curios, therefore, even without anything of your confiscated property, you will be affluent.

"But that does not absolve me from the duty of seeing justice done you; of putting you in possession of your house here in Rome and of your estates in Sabinum, and in Bruttium. I find that all these were held by the fiscus until after the death of Cleander. Owing to the destruction of a large part of the Palace records in the great fire I cannot make sure whether what I am told is true. I am told that your town house and country estates were granted by the fiscus, under proper seal, ostensibly by the command of Commodus, to the present owner. That present owner is in possession of the official transfer deeds and they are properly made out. Yet neither from the present owner nor from the deeds can it be ascertained which Prefect of the Palace authorized the transfer. Between Cleander and Aemilius Laetus, Commodus had thirty different Prefects of the Palace, most of them for very brief terms, one for less than a full day, for he was appointed after noon one day and put to death before noon of the day following. To a certainty, I cannot ever get legal proof that the grant was gotten by bribery or was in any way illegal.

"Therefore I cannot command the present holder to return your former property to the fiscus, in order that the fiscus may turn it over to you. Nor is there any precedent for one Prince revoking a grant made under a predecessor. Nor is there anything in our law or customs enabling me to bid the present holder to sell back to the fiscus your entire former property, even at a high valuation.

"Moreover I do not feel that I ought, unless I must, take from the treasury the cash necessary to repurchase your house and estates, so as to be able to restore you to full possession of them; or to hand you a sum in cash sufficient to recompense you for the confiscation of your heritage.

"Yet, whatever straits the treasury may be in, I pledge you my word that, if you cannot recover full possession of your estates in any other way, I shall compel the present holder to release them to the fiscus and shall order the fiscus to restore them to you, I, out of our depleted treasury, paying the present holder, but I do not want to resort to this unless all other means fail.

"Hoping that the matter may be adjusted in another way, easier for all three of us, I have arranged to have the present holder of your former estates here in the Palace.

"When this interview between you and me terminates, I shall have you escorted to a room where you will find awaiting you the present holder of your former estates. If you two cannot come to some agreement by which, with full satisfaction to both of you, you become again possessed of your patrimony, I shall then take the measures to which I have pledged myself.

"To that end I have given orders that, if you formally make request for a second private audience with me, you shall have it, although I must leave Rome for the East within eight days and cannot despatch the imperative business awaiting me, even if I could go without food, rest or sleep. I mean what I say, you are to ask for a second audience if you really want one and if you ask for one you shall have it. But do not ask for it unless you must.

"And now, is there anything else you desire to say, or to request or any query you wish to put to me? If so, I authorize and command you to speak."

Choking, I muttered that I had nothing further to say.

"In that case," said the Emperor, standing up, "this interview is at an end. You shall be conducted to your conference with the present owner of your former estates, which I hope may turn out to your full satisfaction."

And he clapped his hands for a page.

The page conducted me through endless corridors, twisting and turning. During that brief interval I did a great deal of very confused thinking. I was dazed and puzzled. I had realized as he ended his harangue that it would have been ridiculous to ask that man to change his mind or even modify a decision. He was not that sort of Emperor. Yet he had pledged himself to restore to me my estates or recompense me in cash. I felt that he meant it; yet I knew that he would never have uttered that pledge if he had felt that there was the remotest chance of his ever being called on to fulfill it. He was too parsimonious to promise such generosity unless absolutely certain that the occasion for it would never confront him. Yet how could he escape it and why did he feel so sure? How could any beneficiary from such a grant of confiscated property be induced to disgorge except by Imperial order and that with full compensation? Why had Severus so sedulously, yet so obviously, avoided naming the present holder of my former property? The Emperor was an austere man, stern by habit, almost grim by nature, certainly serious. He had spoken seriously. Yet I sensed a jest somewhere in the background of his thoughts. I almost believed I had caught the glint of a twinkle in his hard, gray eyes. Could I be wrong? Could I be right?

It seemed like a jest to send me to an interview with a beneficiary of a grant of confiscated property, enriched thereby, and to imply, even to suggest, that he might be induced to restore to me his acquisitions, without pressure, merely by amicable converse. I conjured up before me the probable appearance of the man I was to meet; perhaps gross and greedy like Satronius Satro, perhaps dwarfish and mean like Vedius Vedianus, probably like anyone of the avaricious magnates, associated with Pullanius, whom I had met while impersonating Salsonius Salinator.

I resented the possibility of an Imperial jest. I was more and more dazed and puzzled the nearer I approached the inevitable interview and the nearer I approached it the more futile and hopeless it seemed and the more despondent I grew.

The page paused at a door, opened it, waved me in and shut it.

I was in a small parlor, and there was no other man in it; I saw only one seated human figure, a woman, a lady, a graceful young woman, a charming young woman.

Then, suddenly, I saw through it all.

My troubles were indeed at an end.

I recognized Vedia!