No item of all this scene escaped the keen senses of Afer, who had varied his position in accordance with the circumstances. Every outspoken word he had heard, and whatever the furtive flash of the lanterns had revealed, he had duly observed.
Surprised with what he had witnessed, and still more puzzled to account for such an unexpected visitor, he lost no time in following up the path taken by the females and their escort.
‘I might have known that yon galley bore something [pg 142]strange about her,’ he murmured to himself as he went along, ‘but for the fair Plautia to skip ashore on the sly in Capreae, was a thing undreamt of. What brings her here? She comes in brave company, however, and she seems to know it; but whether she is here on Caesar’s account, or the Prefect’s, or her own, remains to be seen. The presence of the worthy Tigellinus seems to smack of Tiberius. Sejanus would hardly risk his billing and cooing with his royal sweetheart by such a presence. But, whatever be the reason, she seems to agree wonderfully with the arrangement. Time will soon show everything.’
Having climbed up to the level road above, a very few minutes brought them upon the verge of the little town of Capreae, when Tigellinus swerved to the left, which caused them to avoid the houses. This turn led them once more back to the south shore, or rather to the steep cliffs which formed the coast-line. Tigellinus proceeded to the extreme edge, where they came suddenly upon a low, flat-roofed house, flanked by fruit-trees and gardens, and nestling behind a face of the hill which rose up behind it.
After a sharp knock, the self-designated merchant entered the house, followed by the two females. The knight, who dogged their steps, waited, and when, after a lapse of a few minutes, Tigellinus came out alone, and went rapidly past him in the gloom, he also wended his way toward the town, where he had his lodging. ‘A very snug retreat, and now I suppose the jackal is off to the lion,’ he said.
CHAPTER III.
Afer’s idea with regard to the movements of the jackal, as he termed him, was shrewdly correct, for Tigellinus bent his steps without further delay towards the villa of Neptune. The path was far from being an easy one. There was the high mountain barrier towering above him and separating him from the table-land, which sloped towards the north-west, upon the furthest verge of which the villa of the Emperor rested. He, therefore, decided to shift part of the burden of his toil upon some other shoulders. For that purpose he passed through the town and descended to the Marina proper on the north side, where he commanded a boatman to row him to his destination. His word seemed to carry as much authority with the fisherman as with the coastguard, since he was obeyed, although with some amount of grumbling on account of the unseasonable darkness.
Within an hour’s row the boatman pulled into land and deposited his passenger on a small ledge chiselled out of the rock. Therefrom Tigellinus ascended a flight of steps to the level ground above, where, nigh at hand, loomed the walls of the villa Neptune.