‘You are quite right, Afer; Sabinus has about reached the [pg 78]end of his tether: he must be looked after,’ said Sejanus, taking out his tablets and making a memorandum. ‘I am right glad he has, at last, given vent to his ideas, so plainly in the presence of such an one as yourself, my friend. So you stayed your journey to tell me this?—it was kind.’
‘Also to learn whether I can congratulate you on favourable news from Capreae.’
‘Hush! not so loud, Afer!’ replied the Prefect, raising his finger warningly; ‘it will be time enough to speak freely of a matter when success is assured; then there is the better chance of possible failure being buried in silence. I expect a courier any moment.’
‘Indeed!’
‘I have waited within doors until now for his arrival—what he will bring I cannot tell.’
‘I could guess,’ remarked Afer, with a courtly smile.
‘Humph!’ quoth the Prefect, shrugging his shoulders and smiling also.
At the same moment the sound of voices caught his ears, and he stepped to the curtain and looked into the ante-chamber. The courier he was so anxiously awaiting had just arrived, and the sentinel was advancing to announce the same.
‘Ha!’ exclaimed the Prefect, stepping into the ante-chamber, ‘I expected you before this—your despatches!’
The courier unbuckled a stout leathern girdle which he wore underneath his tunic, and took out of a pouch, attached thereto, a packet, which he delivered into the eager hand of Sejanus.