"It is well," said Sejanus, after a moment's reflection. "This is not the sort of lad who will break his word. Carthaginians, and rubbish like them, knew long ago how to believe a Roman knight and patrician, and this lad seems to be of the Regulus breed. Does the Cæsar himself, however, know of this?"
"I had no orders to tell him," answered the centurion; "and if I had had, it would have been difficult; he passed at full gallop a quarter of an hour ago, his head down, not so much as looking aside."
Sejanus then put the following question with a sneer,
"Has a god, or a stranger, with two attendants on horseback, passed this way?"
"No god, unless he be a god, and he had no attendants," said the astonished centurion.
"You have not seen three figures on horseback, nor a flash of bluish light?"
"I certainly thought I saw three figures on horseback, but I could not be sure. It was on the farther side of the way, general, which is broad," continued the man apologetically, "and there was no sound of hoofs; my impression, too, was gone in a moment. As to a flash of bluish light, there are several flashes of red and white light inside the inn kitchen, and they make the road outside all the darker; but there has been no flash in the road."
"Good! now follow me."
And Sejanus rode on in the direction of Formiæ, the centurion and the soldier behind him.