The hostess looked surprised.
"I think it could not be because a slave's name was Claudius," she said; "nor do I understand it."
"Is that your demon-seeing dame, Agatha?" asked Paulus, stretching himself; "for I have a notion that when I parried the fellow's blow who wanted to cut me down in so cowardly a fashion, you know—"
"Yes."
"There was a female scream; do you remember it?"
"Yes."
"Well, I have been thinking the woman who screamed was a woman whom your description of that fierce dame in the arbor exactly fits. If so, she was in the train of Tiberius, and of those ladies of whom our good hostess has just given us such an interesting genealogical and matrimonial account."
"Then perhaps the commands for Plancina were from Tiberius Cæsar," quoth Agatha.
Crispina shook her head, but appeared a little serious. A short silence followed. Paulus broke it by asking the landlady to get a letter forwarded for him to the military tribune, Velleius Paterculus, at Formiæ. "I wish," he said, "to take advantage of the delay in the emperor's visit, and to see the country, to fish in the river, to move about far and near; provided Paterculus, to whom I have given a promise to report myself, has no objection."
The hostess brought him some liviana, or second-class paper, the best she had, some cuttle-fish ink, and a reed pen, told him to write his letter, and undertook to transmit it at once by a runner belonging to the hostelry. She then left the room.