The festivities of the Saturnalia, which I had prepared for according to
Falco's orders with lavish prodigality, left me more than a little weary.
I spent some days mostly in resting and dozing, being drowsy all day, even
with long nights of sound sleep.
On the fatal last day of the year I did not go out, but read or dozed and went early to bed. I slept heavily, knowing nothing from composing myself in bed until I wakened suddenly in the almost complete darkness of the first hint of light at the dawn of a cloudy, windless winter day, I woke with a sense of having been roused, of something unusual; and, vaguely descrying a human figure by my bed asked, sleepily:
"Is that you, Dromo?"
"No," said Agathemer's voice, "it is I."
I raised myself on one elbow, shot through with foreboding. But my apprehensions were mastered by an idle curiosity. I knew he had some imperative reason for coming to me, yet I did not ask his errand, but queried:
"How on earth did you get in?"
"The house-door was open," he said simply.
"But," I marvelled, "I am surprised that the janitor was awake so early."
"He was not," said Agathemer with deliberate emphasis, "he was as fast asleep in his cell on the right of the vestibule as was the watch-dog in his on the left."
"And you walked past both unnoticed?" I hazarded.