Scarcely had these litters or palanquins arrived and halted, when the general officer dismounted once more, and walked quickly toward the spot with his helmet in his hand. At a few yards' distance he stopped, and first bowed low to the elder of the two gentlemen who had accompanied the litters on foot, and then, almost entirely disregarding the other gentleman, made an obeisance not quite so long or so deep to the ladies. The man whom so splendid a personage as the legatus, wearing his flaming paludamentum, and at the head of his troops, thus treated with so obsequious a veneration, did not return the salute except by a slight nod and a momentary, absent-minded smile. His gaze had been riveted upon our travellers, and chiefly upon the youth and his young, suffering sister, upon both of whom, after it had quickly taken in Philip the freedman, the Thracian woman, and the Athenian lady, it rested long--longest and last upon Agatha. "Sejanus," said he finally, "who are these?" "I never saw them until just now, my commander and Cæsar; they were here when we halted, and while we waited for our master, the favorite of the gods, these travellers seemed to be resting where you behold them." "As those gods favor me," said the other, "this is a fine youth. Can we not _edit_[5] him? And yonder girl--have you ever seen, my Sejanus, such eyes? But she is deadly pale. Are you always thus pale, pretty one, or are you merely ill? If but ill, as I guess, Charicles, my Greek physician, shall cure you." Before this man had even spoken, the moment, indeed, when first his eyes fell upon her, Agatha had sidled close to her mother; and while he was expressing himself in that way to Sejanus, she returned his gaze with panic-stricken, dilated eyes, as the South American bird returns that of the reptile; but when he directly questioned her, she, reaching out her hand to Paulus, clutched his arm with a woman's grasp, and said in an affrighted voice, "My brother, let us go." Paulus, in a manner naturally easy, and marked by the elegance and grace which the athletic training of Athens had given to one so well endowed physically, first, merely saying to the stranger, "I crave your pardon," (_veniam posco_,) lifted Agatha with one arm, and placed her in the travelling carriage. Then, while the freedman and the Thracian slave mounted to their bench, he returned to where his mother stood, signed to her to follow Agatha, and, seeing her move calmly but quickly toward the vehicle, he took the broad-rimmed _petasus_ from his head, and bowing slowly and lowly to the stranger, said, "Powerful sir, for I observe you are a man of great authority, my sister is too ill to converse. You rightly guessed this; permit us to take her to her destination."