"Ah!" said Caligula, "you are the person, are you not, who are to be first thrown off that horse, next to be danced upon by him, and finally to have your head crunched between his grinders, and that fine wavy hair of yours will not protect your head?"
"That is a graphic description," said Paulus; "but I trust it will not be realized."
"Are you not very frightened? Do not you feel very unhappy?"
Paulus seemed to experience some repugnance to converse with this child; but guessing him to belong to the imperial family, he answered with a calm smile,
"Well, I do not feel the grinders yet."
"I will fix my eyes fast upon you," returned the child, "from the moment you mount."
"May they be blinded before they witness what they wish to behold!" muttered Philip.
During this short conversation, Lygdus noticed something white gleaming in a fold of Paulus's tunic at the side, and picked it, unperceived by any one, out of the species of pocket where it lay. Caligula, after scrutinizing Paulus's face, turned away, and ran rapidly up the stable, passing behind the horse.
He skipped and danced a few moments on the other side, gazing at the animal, and exclaiming, "Good horse! fine horse! beautiful horse!"
Lygdus immediately called out to him not to come back till he had closed the door of the box, the leaf of which was on the hither side, and could be flung to, and the slave proceeded to do this. But Caligula, with a sort of skipping run, still uttering his exclamations and looking sideways into the stall as he passed, had already begun to return, giving Sejanus's heels as wide an offing as the place allowed. A short, ferocious whinny, more like the cry of some wild beast than the neigh of a horse, was heard, and Sejanus lashed out his hind-legs.