‘What is it? what lucky word have I said?’ said Afer curiously.
‘How came it to slip my mind, and I only received it this morning as I left my chamber,’ said Sejanus, drawing forth a crumpled paper and offering it to his friend. ‘Read!’
Afer took the paper, which contained a few crabbed words, as follows:—
‘I arrived last night, and the two females you know of are safely lodged in the house of one Tucca, under the Hill of Mars, a very safe place.’
There was no signature, but Afer needed none to tell him from whom the missive came.
‘It is very suggestive,’ said he, with an inscrutable countenance; ‘but, for the rest, I am still too much in the dark to say more.’
‘What then if I tell you that these damsels came from Rome—who would you say they were, or rather she—for one, as I apprehend, is only a slave?’
‘Rome is large and its females many,’ said Afer; ‘I would as lieve begin to count the stones on the Marina.’
‘Who but our lovely entertainer on many a pleasant afternoon—who but the queenly Plautia.’
‘What! Plautia here, and why?’ cried the knight, with a start of surprise which Roscius might have envied. ‘Ah, Prefect, what does this mean?’