"He had enough sense to tell us the name of the village," Tanno retorted, "and I had to acknowledge to Dromanus he was right, and so we turned round. When we were hardly more than out of sight of Vediamnum we met another party, a respectable-looking man, much like a farm bailiff, on horseback, and two slaves afoot. I had not seen them before, and they, apparently, had not previously seen us. The rider asked, very decently, whose was the party. I treated them as I had the others.
"'My master is asleep,' I said again. (It was not such an improbable lie that time, for the road by Vediamnum is pretty good.) 'I have the honor to escort Mamercus Satronius Sabinus.'
"I had guessed that they were Vedians and I was sure of it when I said that. The slaves scowled and the bailiff saluted very stiffly.
"Just after we turned into your road, I stopped the escort and told Dromanus to take his horse. He had relieved me of his hat and poncho and I had one hand on the litter, ready to climb in, when I heard hoofs behind us on the road. I looked back. There was a rider on a beautiful bay mare coming up at a smartish lope. Just as he came abreast of us she shied at the litter and reared and began to prance about. I give you my word I never had such a fright in my life. If you can imagine Commodus in an old weather-beaten, broad-brimmed hat of soft, undyed felt and a mean, cheap, shaggy poncho of undyed wool, and worse than the hat, that was the man on the mare. He was left-handed, too."
"How did you know that?" I asked.
"By the way he handled his reins, of course," said Tanno.
"The mare was a magnificent beast, vicious as a fury, with a mouth as hard as an eighty-pound tunny. He sat her like Castor himself. She pirouetted back and forth across the road and my fellows scampered from under her hoofs. The mare was such a beauty I could not take my eyes off her."
"Yes," I put in, "Ducconius has a splendid stud."
"Was he Ducconius?" Tanno exclaimed. "Your adversary in your old law- suit?"
"His son Marcus, from your description," I amplified. "He is proprietor of the property now. His father died last year."