Nerva, who had been Trajan’s constant companion during the last few weeks, had nothing to add to this speech, and Cinna’s report was but a meagre one. “So long as we stick at the preparatory stage,” he said, discontentedly, “I am nobody. I have seen and observed many things. With all the precautions I could take, I have found out old connections and, as I will tell you presently, I have found a few persons of distinction, that are won over to our cause, and who may be of the greatest service to us. But with all this I fail to see how you propose to go on. Either one thing or the other.... All now depends on a hazard; it is a game in which everything hangs on a throw of the die.” “The die is cast,” said Caius Aurelius. Every face was turned in astonishment to gaze at the excited young man, who went on as follows in great agitation: "Yes, my dear friends and colleagues, if I am not greatly deceived, our cause is as good as won. How should I, an unknown nobody, have achieved so great a success? I can quite understand your being dumb with astonishment.--But the success is not mine, but yours--yours, generous Cinna; yours, noble Nerva, and, above all, yours, Ulpius Trajanus. Listen and perpend: After we parted on the coast of Narbonensis, I was crushed by the consciousness of being the least capable of all of doing anything to promote your prospects. All the circumstances were new to me; I had no connection with any great man; I had no glorious past in my own life. So for some weeks, accompanied by one of my galley-slaves, I wandered aimlessly about the province doing no good whatever. Then accident inspired me with a brilliant idea. I was at no great distance from the Rhodanus; I was tired with a long ride, and we had dismounted in the middle of a wood, tied the horses by their bridles to the trunk of a holm-oak, and had lain down ourselves a little way off, where a clear spot offered us a comfortable couch. Presently we heard voices--the Propraetor of Lugdunum,[120] as I subsequently discovered, who had a house in the neighborhood, and his eldest son. The two men, who had no servants with them, had been hunting, and were now resting awhile. We kept quiet, for silence and patience are the first virtues of a refugee. Thus I involuntarily overheard a conversation, which in a few minutes was of the greatest importance to our purpose and plans. I learnt, in short, that the Propraetor highly disapproves of the latest edicts from the Palatium, and is anything rather than blind to the crimes of the man, whose representative he is. I discovered that he esteems many of the proscribed, and you especially, my respected colleagues, as brave and upright men, and that he regards Trajan's hostility, especially to the present government, as a highly important feature--as a sign, that Caesar is treading a most dangerous road. The son, who is a military tribune, agreed with the father in every