As he left the boat its crew saluted him. Returning the courtesy, he flung the perspiring slaves some pieces of money, and walked rapidly up the shore towards a group of buildings, comprising the posting establishment, which had newly sprung into existence, as a necessary adjunct to the Emperor’s abode. A signal had been waved from the despatch‐boat before reaching the shore, and when he arrived at the door of the stables he found the ostlers awaiting him with a horse ready caparisoned for the road. ‘Back to Rome, Centurion?’ said one, saluting him. ‘Back to Rome,’ replied he, girding his cloak close around him. ‘A good journey!’ chorused the stablemen. Two or three coins rattled on the gravel for answer, and the Pretorian vaulted on to the horse’s back, and galloped away. Riding as rapidly as the path would permit, and without drawing rein, it was not long before the lovely plain of Surrentum broke on his view, embosomed in the circling vine and olive‐clad mountains, edged by the blue waters of the sea, clothed with luxuriant fruit‐groves, and studded with the villas of the noble and wealthy, who had retired hither to revel in the soft, salubrious air of this most lovely spot of a lovely land. But our horseman paid little attention to the exquisite scene. His thoughts were otherwise absorbed. He passed the girdling hills, and closed with the town of Surrentum itself. At the posting station, in the midst, he changed horses and went on, scarcely giving time for an idle crowd to gather round. He did not, however, go very many hundred yards on his second stage, before he suddenly drew rein on the very outskirts of the town, where the last houses straggled out amid garden‐plots and fields. It was at a point where a by‐road debouched upon his own, almost at right angles. It seemed to lead back to the town by a roundabout course, and was lined on either side, in a straggling, intermittent way, by gardens and cottage‐houses, in the manner of a country village street. The dwelling nearest to where he stood, at the end of the lane, was about a hundred yards distant. It was a small, humble house, like the majority of its neighbours, and was the outpost habitation of the town in that direction. It was detached and flanked on the town side by a small olive‐grove. In the rear of the premises was an outbuilding; a workshop, to judge by its black, smoking chimney. The house itself was open‐fronted as a shop. The Centurion turned down this lane, and, when within a few yards of the house, dismounted and led his horse through a gap in a ruinous wall to the inside of the enclosure, where he tethered him amid some trees. Thence he walked up to the house, and looked inside the open shop, pausing with a fixed gaze.