"Not enough to tell any of us about it," he soothed me. "Anyhow, you are mending now and will soon be yourself." I was indifferent. My mind was not yet half awake. "Did I fight as well as you say?" I asked, "or are you flattering me?" "No flattery, my boy," he said. "You are a portent." Then he told me of the result of the fight with the Satronians, of their complete discomfiture and rout, of how he had brought me to Rome, seen me properly attended and looked after my tenants. "They are having the best time," he said, "they ever had in all their lives." And he told me where he had them lodged and which sights of Rome they had seen from day to day. "Just as soon as I had seen to you and them," he said, "I called on dear old Nemestronia and told her of your condition. She is full of solicitude for you and will overwhelm you with dainties as soon as you are well enough to relish any." He did not mention Vedia and I was still too dazed, too numb, too weak, too acquiescent to ask after her, or even to think of asking after her or to notice that he had not mentioned her. "While I was talking to Nemestronia," Tanno said, "I took care to warn her about that cursed leopard. She would not agree to cage it, at least not permanently. She did agree to cage it at night and said she would not let it have the run of her palace even by day, as it has since she first got it, but would keep it shut up in the shrubbery garden, as she calls it, where they usually feed it and where you and I have seen it crawl up on its victims and pounce on them." I could not be interested in leopards, or Nemestronia or even in Vedia, if he had mentioned Vedia. I fell into a half doze. Just on the point of going fast asleep I half roused, queerly enough. "Caius!" I asked, "do you remember that man on horseback we passed in the rain between my road entrance and Vediamnum?" "You can wager your estate I remember him!" Tanno replied. "What sort of man was he?" I queried, struggling with my tendency to sleep. "You said you knew." "I do know," Tanno asserted, "I cannot identify him, though I have questioned those who should know and who are safe. I should know his name, but I cannot recall it or place him. But I know his occupation. He is a professional informer in the employ of the palace secret service, an Imperial spy. "Now what in the name of Mercury was he doing in the rain, on a Sabine roadside? I cannot conjecture." This should have roused me staring wide awake. But I was too exhausted to take any normal interest in anything. "I can't conjecture either," I drawled thickly. CHAPTER VI A RATHER BAD DAY Next morning, strangely enough, I wakened at my normal, habitual time for wakening when in town, and wakened feeling weak indeed and still sore in places, but entirely myself in general and filled with a sort of sham energy and spurious vigor.