"I personally should not be an eye-witness," Galen remarked. "I am a
doctor, whose certificate of death not even Commodus would doubt. In
the dark I might recognize Sextus' garments, even though I could not see
his features. And--" he added pointedly--"neither I nor any one can
tell a beast's blood from a man's."

"Daedalus!" said Pertinax with sudden resolution. "Get my purse. My
slave has it. Sextus shall not go empty-handed."




III. MATERNUS-LATRO



Sorbanus brought the skewbald stallion. Not far away a group of women
danced around a dozen drunken men, who sang uproariously. Seen against
the background of purple and dark-green gloom, with crimson torchlight
flaring on the quiet water and the moon descending behind trees beyond
them, they were mystically beautiful--seemed not to belong to earth, any
more than the pan-pipe music did.

"Ride into their midst!" Norbanus urged, pointing. "Tickle the stallion
thus."

The Cappadocian lashed out savagely.

"Here is a bottle of goat's blood. I will bring weapons, and I will