‘Only a youth,’ replied Cestus, ‘but with a serpent’s head. As I said, we had grown to be very confidential on account of some commissions I had quietly done for him, and he gradually began to sound me with a view to getting my help in his operations. He found me willing, and we soon came to terms. I was to kill the child, and he was to give me a very handsome sum. Where he raised it I don’t know, but that did not matter. It required no small amount of patience and skill to get the child away without notice, and weeks passed ere I was able to do it to my satisfaction. There was no use in doing the thing desperately so as to leave the least suspicion. A favourable time came at last, and I managed to take the child away without attracting the least attention; but I could never make up my mind to kill it, so I left it in secret and safe hands for a few weeks, and then begged leave of absence to make a visit. That visit was to you, and it was to bring the child here, where I never thought to see or hear of her again. I told a tale to my young master—how I drowned the child out of sight in a marsh, and he was satisfied; and remains so, as far as she is concerned, to this day. So far all was well. There was not the slightest suspicion attaching to us. Balbus went nearly out of his mind, and money, without end, was spent in searching after the lost brat. My young master was foremost in the hunt, of course, and I have heard the old man bless him many a time. Not a little of the wasted money went, as I know, into his purse at last; for it grew to be a common practice for cunning rogues to say they had found the whereabouts of the child, and then demand a price. It was freely given, and of course ended in nothing but disappointment. After some time my young master got this business transferred entirely into his own hands, and all such discoveries were left to him to deal with. I have reason to believe he invented a good many of them himself, and always took the best part of the money into his own fingers. And so he waited until the old man should die; and has waited until now, because he has not the pluck to finish the business promptly, and get the old man out of the way as well as the child. Had he had as much courage as cunning, he might have been rolling in the wealth of Balbus these ten years; but he cannot screw up his pluck, so he dallies on, and hopes for old Saturn and his scythe to help him—the fool! His prudent farming of the funds spent in searching for the lost one has considerably improved his stock of money; but the matter of late years has almost died out. Balbus went to dwell on his country estates, and took me with him. About six months ago I received a letter from my young master, begging me to repair to Rome to see him. I readily got leave and went to his house. He gave me a commission to execute, which he professed to be very secret. Whilst on my way one night late, in a lonely part of the