"It was I who learned you spy on Marcia. I know, too, that you keep a
spy in Britain,--one in Gaul, another in Severus' camp. I read the last
nine letters they sent you. I showed them to Marcia."

"I kept one," Marcia added. "It came yesterday. It compromises you
beyond--"

"I yield!" said Livius, his knees beginning to look weak.

"To whom? To me?" asked Sextus, standing up abruptly and confronting
him with folded arms. "Who stole the list I sent to Pertinax, of names
of the important men who are intriguing for Severus, and for Pescennius
Niger, and for Clodius Albinus?"

"Who knows?" Livius shrugged his shoulders.

"None knew of that list but you!" said Sextus. "You heard me speak of
it to Pertinax. You heard me promise I would send it to him. None but
you and he and I knew who the messenger would be. Where is the
messenger?"

"In the sewers probably!" said Marcia. "The list is more important."

"If it isn't in the sewers, too," said Livius, snatching at a straw.
"By Hercules, I know nothing of a list."

"Then you shall drown with Sextus' slave in the Cloaca Maxima, the great
sewer of Rome," said Marcia. "Not that I need the list. I know what
names are written on it. But if it should have fallen into Caesar's