"If you feel sleepy," said Chryseros, "roll over, cover yourself and go to sleep; we can talk tomorrow."
"I do not feel sleepy," I declared, "and I feel very much like asking questions."
"Then we'll talk at once," he said, "we'll take all the time needed for your recovery; but once you are recovered, we'll waste no time in getting you out of Sabinum."
The morning was fair and warm, with a light breeze. I was on my bed of leaves inside my nook of rock. Agathemer was squatted by my head, his back against that edge of the niche; by my feet, leaning against the opposite edge of the niche, facing Agathemer, and therefore where I could best see and hear him sat Chryseros.
He began by telling me that I must remain where I was until he judged me fit to travel, even if I remained ten days more; but that he thought I might be able to start to-morrow night and would make his preparations accordingly. His first idea, he said, had been to set off on horseback for Spolitum, near, which he had a sister married to a prosperous farmer, to whom he had paid visits at intervals of about five years. He had thought that it would be easy and safe to take me and Agathemer with him on foot, disguised as slaves. This idea, however, Agathemer had antagonized, pointing out that any convoy from my estate would be severely scrutinized and every man examined and searched; that there was no chance of our escaping by such a plan.
At this point of his discourse he told me that the Praetorians had already departed from Villa Andivia leaving in charge Gratillus, a treasury officer of the confiscation department, a man whom I knew too well as also a member of the secret service, an articled Imperial spy and an active professional informer, moreover a man who had always hated my uncle, and who had hated me from my boyhood.
According to Chryseros, Gratillus had made no great effort to find me, since, in fact, neither he nor anyone connected with the government had had any suspicion that I had returned home. He had merely made a perfunctory investigation to assure himself, as he thought, that I had not so returned. He had examined all the tenantry and slaves, had asked questions, but had tortured no one and had been quite satisfied with the answers he had received. Oddly enough, while he had closely questioned himself and my other eight tenants as to the date of my departure for Rome and as to whether they had seen me since they last saw me in Rome, and while he had questioned Uturia and Ofatulena as to whether they had seen me since I set off for Rome, he had somehow omitted or forgotten to ask Ofatulenus the same questions, so that he had been able to answer truthfully the only questions asked of him. Agathemer, I found, had told Chryseros that only he and Ofatulenus had seen me between my return and escape.
Gratillus had especially questioned the wives of my eight tenants, and as Chryseros was a widower, his widowed daughter, who lived with him. Each of these he had summoned before him separately and had interrogated alone and at length. This was like Gratillus.
He had made but one arrest, and this dumbfounded me. Ducconius Furfur had been interrogated, like all my neighbors, but, while the rest had been dismissed after answering what questions were put to them, Furfur, with two servants, had accompanied to Rome the Praetorians when they went away.
The more I reflected on this the stranger it seemed.