"Well," returned Paulus, "my mother and sister have such need of my protection that I feel no levity about it myself. I confess that it is a grave business."
They now walked up and down the laurel alley a few turns, absorbed in thought.
Suddenly two men approached them along two different gravel-walks in the garden, one dressed as a slave, the other in the uniform of a decurion, a legionary officer, slightly more important than a modern sergeant of the line in the English army.
The slave had one of the worst countenances, and the decurion one of the most honest, that Paulus in his very limited or Thellus in his immense experience had ever beheld. Paulus recognized the slave at once; it was that Lygdus who had endeavored to bring him to the ground by a side-sweep of Cneius Piso's sword, which this man, as the reader will remember, was carrying at the time.
The decurion gave Paulus a letter, directed in the same handwriting, folded in the same style, and its silk thread sealed with the same device of a frog, as a certain communication which he had once before received.
The moon shone high, and so calm was the night that it proved easy to read the bold characters.
They ran thus:
"Velleius Paterculus, military tribune, salutes Paulus Lepidus Æmilius. Renounce this absurd engagement, which cannot concern you. It is yet possible, but will be too late to-morrow, to plead ignorance of what you were undertaking. Leave wretched slaves to their fate!—Vale."
Paulus, after reading this note, begged the decurion to wait, and, turning to Lygdus, asked his business.
The slave stated his name, and said he was appointed to receive, dating from the day after the next, the provender which he understood Paulus to be desirous of furnishing for the use of the Sejan horse.