“That man is my only friend,” he said.  “Let me have word with him first.”

“Not one word!”

The centurion made a gesture with his head.  The guards took Sextus by the arms and marched him out into the night, he knowing better than to waste energy or arouse anger by resisting.

“Then I will go to the commander!  I go straight to him,” Narcissus stammered.  “Idiot!  Don’t you know that Marcia protects Maternus?  Otherwise, how should an outlaw whose face is so well known that you recognized him instantly—­how should he dare to approach the palace?”

The centurion touched his forehead.

“Mad, I daresay!  Go on in.  Get Marcia’s protection for him.  Bring me her command in writing!  Wait, though—­let me look at you.”

He made Narcissus throw his heavy cloak off, clean his legs and change into his other foot-gear.  Then he examined his costume.

“Even on a night like this they’d punish me for letting a man pass who wasn’t dressed right.  Let me see, you’re not free yet; you don’t have to wear a toga.  I spend half my days teaching clodhoppers how to fold hired togas properly behind the neck.  It’s the only way you can tell a slave from a citizen these days!  The praetorian guard ought to be recruited from the tailors’ shops!  Lace up your sandal properly.  Now—­ any weapons underneath that tunic?”

Sullenly Narcissus held his arms up and submitted to be searched.  He usually came and went unchallenged, being known as one of Caesar’s favorites, but the centurion’s suspicions were aroused.  They were almost confirmed a moment later.  The decurion returned and laid a long, lean dagger on the table.

“Taken from the prisoner,” he reported.  “It was hidden beneath his tunic.  He looks desperate enough to kill himself, so I left two men to keep an eye on him.”

The centurion scratched his chin again, his mouth half-open.

“Whom do you propose to visit in the palace?” he demanded.

“Marcia,” said Narcissus.

The centurion turned to the decurion.

“Go you with him.  Hand him over to the hall-attendants.  Bid them pass him from hand to hand into Marcia’s presence.  Don’t return until you have word he has reached her.”

To all intents and purposes a prisoner, Narcissus was marched along the mosaic pavement of a bronze-roofed colonnade, whose marble columns flanked the approach to the palace steps.  Drenched guards, posted near the eaves where water splashed on them clanged their shields in darkness as the decurion passed; there was not a square yard of the palace grounds unwatched.

There was a halt beside the little marble pavilion near the palace steps, where the decurion turned Narcissus over to an attendant in palace uniform, but no comment; the palace was too used to seeing favorites of one day in disgrace the next.

Within the palace there was draughtily lighted gloom, a sensation of dread and mysterious restlessness.  The bronze doors leading to the emperor’s apartments were shut and guards posted outside them who demanded extremely definite reasons for admitting any one; even when the centurion’s message was delivered some one had to be sent in first to find out whether Marcia was willing, and for nearly half an hour Narcissus waited, biting his lip with impatience.