"Powerful sir, for I observe you are a man of great authority, my sister is too ill to converse. You rightly guessed this; permit us to take her to her destination."
The man whom he had thus balked, and to whom he now thus spoke, merits a word of description. He appeared to be more than fifty years old. The mask of his face and the frame of his head were large, but not fat. His complexion was vivid brick-red all over the cheeks, with a deeper flush in one spot on each side, just below the outer corners of the eyes. The eyes were bloodshot, large, rather prominent, and were closely set together. The nose was large, long, bony, somewhat aquiline. The forehead was not high, not low; it was much developed above the eyes, and it was broad. A deep and perpetual dint just over the nose reached half-way up the forehead. His hair was grizzled and close cut. His lips were full and fleshy, and the mouth was wide; the jaws were large and massive. His face was shaven of all hair. The chin was very handsome and large, and the whole head was set upon a thick, strong throat, not stunted, however, of its proper length. In person this man was far from ungainly, nor yet was he handsome. In carriage and bearing, without much majesty, he had nevertheless something steadfast, weighty, unshrinking, and commanding. His outer garment, not a toga, was all one color and material; it was a long, thick wadded silk mantle, of that purple dye which is nearly black—the hue, indeed, of clotted gore under a strong light. He wore gloves, and instead of the usual short sword of the Romans, had a long steel stylus[6] for writing on wax thrust into a black leathern belt. This instrument seemed to show that he lived much in Rome, where it was not the custom, when otherwise in civilian dress, to go armed.
As the reader will have guessed, this man was to be the next emperor of the Roman world.
"Permit you to take her to her destination?" he repeated slowly. "My Greek physician, I tell you, shall cure her. I will give directions about your destination." A slight pause; then, "Are you a Roman citizen?"
"I am a Roman knight as well as citizen," answered Paulus proudly; "and my family is not only equestrian, but patrician."
"What is your name?"
"Paulus Æmilius Lepidus."
The man in the black or gore-colored purple glanced at Sejanus, who, still unconcerned, stood with his splendid helmet in the left hand, while he smoothed his moustache with the right; otherwise perfectly still, his handsome face, cruel mouth, and intelligent eyes all alive with the keenest attention.
"And the destination to which you allude is—?" pursued the man in black purple.
"Formiæ," said Paulus.