With all his energies concentrated on his headlong race, there was left no opportunity for the consideration of any special plan or method, by which to attain his object. One supreme hope panted in his breast, that they, who had carried off his beloved, might have loitered on the way, and that thus he might have time to close with them ere they reached their journey’s end. Oh, that he might have that satisfaction! He chuckled savagely at the thought—his brain was on fire! The fatigue of a long day’s incessant galloping, league after league, was unfelt and forgotten. Excitement strung his nerves to an intense pitch, and he scarcely knew the pitiless use he made of whip and spur on his flying horse’s sides. He raced along, with his eyes fixed and strained ahead to catch the welcome sight of the group he burned to see, but he was fated to bitter disappointment. The building which terminated his ride rose before him, and nothing more to gladden his eyes. An involuntary groan broke from his lips. Confidence and hope died away, and blind desperation and doggedness took root. Half a score—half a hundred menials of Caesar, beyond the immediate beck of the tyrant’s finger, he heeded not; but in the vast palace yonder, with its thronging guards and slaves, what then? There was still a faint hope left. There yet remained a league of sea to cover before gaining those accursed rocks, which lay far out in dim outline. He leaped to the ground, and the grooms glanced in astonishment at the foam‐covered animal he quitted to their care, with its drooping head and trembling limbs, its flanks dropping blood. ‘The Centurion must have serious business to have ridden so fast. Yes; some of Caesar’s slaves had taken boat for the island, but they must have landed ere this.’ A meaning laugh accompanied the information. With distraction in his brain Martialis hastened forward to the landing‐place, where a boat for courier service was ever kept at hand for immediate use. It happened, however, that the crew, probably tempted by the brilliant night, were not all on the spot, as they ought to have been, but had rambled off here and there in the moonlight. A very few minutes would, doubtless, have sufficed to bring them all together, but to the Pretorian’s fevered mind the delay was unbearable. Sweeping his glance around, he perceived a light skiff drawn up on the shore at a little distance. There were oars in it; and without a second thought he sprang to it, and putting forth his strength pushed it down into the water. The next moment he was pulling the frail vessel over the calm sea at a rate it had surely never travelled before.