"Happy and unhappy," reëchoed the latter, "fortunate and unfortunate! What means this jargon? You could use that language of every mortal. What you say you unsay."
While thus replying, he endeavored to discern the dim features of his new companion.
"Think you so?" said the man. "Then, pray, would it be the same if I were to say, for example, unhappy and happy, unfortunate and fortunate?"
"Yes."
"Alas! no."
"What!" said Sejanus. "The happiness is present, the good fortune is present, but the misfortune and unhappiness are to come. Is this your meaning?"
"As I always say what I mean," rejoined the other, "so I never explain what I say."
"Then at least," observed Sejanus, with great haughtiness of tone and manner, "you will be good enough to say who you are. As the Prætor Peregrinus,[26] especially charged to look after foreigners, I demand your name. Remember, friend, that six lictors, as well as twenty thousand soldiers, obey Sejanus."
"I am the god Hermes," replied the other, riding suddenly ahead, followed by both his attendants.
The movement was so unexpected that the figure of the stranger had become almost indistinguishable in the obscurity, before Sejanus urged his fleet Numidian steed forward at a bound in pursuit.