Then Sextius Baculus himself replied, choking and hesitating, quailing before his lord: "We are your loyal soldiers from Britain; a deputation come afoot and afloat almost two thousand miles to warn you of what no man in Rome, for fear of you more than of your treacherous Prefect, dares to warn you. Perennis is no fit guardian of your safety; in fact he is of all men most unfit. For more than two years now he has been laying his plans to have you assassinated, and to make Emperor in your place his eldest son, the darling of the Illyrian legionaries. We have come to save you, foil him and see him and his dead." "Fellow-soldiers," the Emperor spoke at once, loudly and clearly, "I acclaim your purpose and welcome your good intentions. But I mean to prove to you that I am in fact as well as in title Tribune and Prince of the Republic, Emperor of its armies, Augustus and Caesar. Your solicitude I applaud, but I feel better able to take care of myself than can any other man save myself. I fear no man and appoint no man I distrust. I distrust few men after appointment. You lodge a grave charge against a man I have trusted, appointed and then trusted. I condemn few men unheard. As your Imperator I command you to camp where my legates indicate, to eat a hearty noon meal, to sleep, or at least rest in your tents, two full hours. About the tenth hour of the day I shall return, my trusty guards about me and Perennis himself in my retinue. From the platform of your camp, as a chief commander should, I will harangue you, and from that platform, after he has heard from me your accusation, my Prefect of the Praetorium shall make to you his defense. After he has spoken you shall hear me deliver just and impartial judgment, a judgment no man of you can but accept as fair and righteous. "And now farewell, until the tenth hour." At which word he had reined up, wheeled and spurred his mettlesome mount and thereupon vanished with his staff in a cloud of dust, at full gallop. According to the Emperor's behest we rested in our tents after the centurions had each harangued his men. But if any slept, it was a marvel. All were too excited to sleep and every tent, as far as I could learn, talked without cessation. By the tenth hour, when the sun was visibly declining and the warmth of the midday abating, we were all assembled in the camp-square, the men helmeted and with their swords at their sides, but without shields or spears.