"I certainly won't interfere," I said, "to spoil any chance you think you see. If you see one, signal me and I'll let you use all your dexterity."
After that we rode evenly to Calcaria and even gaily from there to Marseilles, which we entered about two hours before sunset of a mild, fair, delightful afternoon.
The gate-guard took our questions as a matter of course and directed us to Couriers' Headquarters. There we found only one very stupid Gallic provincial in charge, with a few slaves.
"I," said he, "am Gaius Valerius Procillus."
And he fingered the package of despatches, eyeing us meditatively. I quaked, but kept my countenance.
He eyed us yet longer, but made no comment, wrote out a formal receipt for the despatches, handed it to Agathemer and said:
"Munatius will not be back here at Headquarters till tomorrow. So I cannot tell you whether you will have a day or more of rest, which you have earned, or must set off again at once. Nor can I tell you whether, when you do set off, it will be back to Rome, or onward with some of these same despatches to Spain or Britain or Germany.
"Make the most of your time for rest and refreshment. You are free till tomorrow at sunrise. Dromo will show you your quarters."
And he beckoned one of the slaves.
Headquarters was a low rectangle of two stories only, built of some stone like lime-stone, roofed with red tiles and set about a spacious courtyard. The ground floor seemed mostly stables; but, besides the office in which we had found Procillus, it had other office rooms, a common-room, and we glimpsed a bath and a kitchen. Dromo led us up the stone stair and along the colonnaded portico of the second floor to clean rooms, provided with comfortable cots, chests, stools, and not much else.