DISAPPEARANCE
CHAPTER X
ESCAPE
At Tibur I put up at a clean little inn I had known of since boyhood, but which I had never before entered or even seen, so that I felt safe there and reasonably sure to pass as a traveller of no rank whatever. My knowledge of country ways, too, enabled me to behave like a landed proprietor of small means.
After a hearty lunch I pushed boldly on up the Valerian Highway and covered the twenty-two miles between Tibur and Carseoli without visibly tiring my mount. He was no more winded nor lathered than any traveller's horse should be at the end of a day on the road. At Carseoli I again knew of a clean, quiet inn, and there I dined and slept.
Thence I intended to follow the rough country roads along the Tolenus. Stream-side roads are always bad, so I allowed two days more in which to reach home, and I could hardly have done it quicker. The night after I left Carseoli I camped by a tributary of the Tolenus in a very pretty little grove. From Carseoli on the weather was fine.
About the third hour of the day, on the fifth day before the Kalends of September, of a fair, bright morning, I came to my own estate. On the road nearing it I had met no one. I met no one along the woodland tracks leading into my property from that side: on my estate I met no one save just as I was about to enter my villa. Then I encountered Ofatulenus, bailiff of the Villa Farm. He, of course, was amazed to see me. I bade him mention to no one, not even to his wife, that I had returned home.
"Be secret!" I enjoined.
He nodded.
I believed he would be dumb. Give me a Sabine to keep a secret; I'd back any Sabine against any other sort of human being.