All this time the wily Barbillus had not been idle. He knew too well the whole meaning of a _wish_ of Domitian's, particularly when the wish was expressed in such a manner, as his desire to conquer Cornelia had been. Besides, the priest had only too much reason to fear the Emperor, in relation to his high pretensions to prophetic powers. More than once had Domitian shown his aversion to Chaldaeans, mathematicians, and seers generally, and had banished them from Rome by special edicts. These edicts might at any moment be turned against Barbillus, even though he also officiated as the priest of a tolerated faith, and hitherto had had no cause to dread his imperial patron, whom he had found means to amuse and manage. Again, and above all, his vanity was at stake; he felt the failure of the elaborately-contrived mummery as personally humiliating, and longed to purge himself of the charge of clumsiness in the Emperor’s eyes. On the following day, therefore, he set to work again, and began to reconnoitre the ground. His spies, under a variety of excuses, made their way into Cornelius' house, eavesdropping and bribing the slaves. Now as a Syrian yarn-seller, now as a shipwrecked sailor humbly praying the ostiarius to admit him to shelter, or as a dealer in Egyptian charms--one or another of the indefatigable Oriental’s tools contrived to see and hear something, without their presence being thought strange in a house where so many came and went. Thus Barbillus learned many details as to Cornelia’s habits and mode of life, which might possibly prove of use, though he did not as yet see the connection they would have with his schemes. However, the results of this system of espionage seemed more tangibly satisfactory when, on the second day after beginning operations, there was put into his hands the note which Caius Aurelius had written and left on the occasion of his nocturnal visit. The slave-girl, who had not parted with it for anything less than gold, declared that she had plainly seen and heard Cornelia, when she took it from the Batavian and promised to deliver it to her uncle. Since it could hardly be doubted that it was a precautionary warning from a fellow-conspirator, it would not be difficult to make it appear that Cornelia must be a party to the plot. To an unprejudiced judge, it was indeed self-evident that Cornelia had no suspicion of the importance of this bit of writing; otherwise she would have taken better care of it, and would not have been so foolish as to leave it lying by the lamp when she went to bed. But all that Barbillus wanted was some valid excuse for a hold over the young girl.