“My good sirs,” interrupted Agias, “I am already like to be very late at my dear friend Cimber’s dinner party”—­he mentioned the name of the owner of a very large villa not far down the road; “I have with me only Midas, my mute valet.  If you detain me any longer I shall complain—­”

And here a denarius slipped into the hands of the officer with the lantern.

“I think it’s all right, Macer,” was his report to his comrade.  The latter left the heads of the mules.

“Mehercle! how handsome some of those Egyptians grow!” commented the first constable.

But the rest of his remarks were lost on Agias.  He was whizzing down the “Queen of Roads,” with a good team before him, Artemisia at his side, and a happy consciousness that two excellent officials had missed a chance to earn one thousand sesterces.

Hardly were they beyond earshot, when Artemisia burst out into an uncontrollable fit of giggling, which lasted a long time, only to be renewed and renewed, as often as a desperate effort seemed to have suppressed it.  Then she drew the robes of the carriage round her, laid her head on Agias’s shoulder, and with a confidence in her protector that would have inspired him to go through fire and water for her sake, shook out her dark locks and fell fast asleep, despite the fact that the mules were running their fastest.  Agias grasped the reins with one hand, and with the other pressed tight the sleeping girl.  He would not have exchanged his present position for all the wealth of Sardanapalus.

* * * * *

Five days later Agias was back in Rome.  He had succeeded in reaching Baiae, and introducing Artemisia into the familia of the villa of the Lentuli, as a new waiting-maid from Rome sent by Claudia to her daughter.  For the present at least there was practically no chance of Pratinas recovering his lost property.  And indeed, when Agias reached Rome once more, all fears in that direction were completely set at rest.  The fashionable circle in which Claudia and Herennia were enmeshed was in a flutter and a chatter over no ordinary scandal.  Valeria, wife of Calatinus, and Pratinas, the “charming” Epicurean philosopher, had both fled Rome two days before, and rumour had it that they had embarked together at Ostia on a ship leaving direct for Egypt.  Of course Calatinus was receiving all the sympathy, and was a much abused man; and so the tongues ran on.

To Agias this great event brought a considerable gain in peace of mind, and some little loss.  Valeria had taken with her her two maids, Agias’s good friends, and also Iasus.  Pisander ignominiously had been left behind.  Calatinus had no use for the man of learning, and Agias was fain to take him before Drusus, who had returned from Ravenna, and induce his patron to give Pisander sufficient capital to start afresh a public school of philosophy, although the chances of acquiring opulence in that profession were sufficiently meagre.