Before the messenger had returned to the tribune, Marsyas was on the road to Misenum.
A day later, he passed the picket thrown out a hundred paces from the actual precincts of the villa of Lucullus, but when he offered his tessera to the prætorian posted at its inner walls, the soldier did not lower his short sword. Marsyas, who had come to know many of the prætorians, looked in surprise at the man.
"Turn back, good sir," the man said. "None enters the lines to-day."
While he knew that it was useless to ask the sentinel why the arbitrary order was in force, the question leaped to his lips before he could stop it. His voice was eager.
"What passeth within?"
The soldier shook his head. Marsyas drew away a space and thought. He knew that the little Tiberius was an exception to every law laid down by Cæsar; Classicus could not have armed himself with a more potent name. Caligula's friends, even Macro's friends, might be barred, not the friends of the little beloved Tiberius.
The obstruction was dangerous.
He knew that he had to deal with Classicus.
The bitterness in his heart rose up and smothered his distress: for the moment he lost sight of Agrippa's peril, his hope against Saul of Tarsus and his fear for Lydia, in the all-overwhelming rancor against the man who was setting foot upon all the purposes in the young Essene's life.
While he stood wrestling with a mighty impulse to kill Classicus, a courier in a well-known livery bowed beside him.