“My conditions,” he continued, “are simple enough. You perceive, Olbasanus, that we have discovered the true character of your incredible frauds, but we still lack the key to some of your criminal arts. This youth, who crossed your threshold for the sole purpose of seeing behind the curtain of the nonsensical conjurations with which you deluded people, requires a complete and truthful explanation of everything you did to deceive Hero and Rutilius. If you refuse or lie, our Germans shall drag you to prison this very day. You will also mention the person to whom you sold yourself for such reprehensible jugglery. The making of these confessions is my first condition. The second is--that you leave Rome before the end of the year. Go to Nicomedia or Alexandria, for aught I care; if these cities will tolerate your presence--and a man of your appearance doesn’t pass unobserved--that’s your affair. But here in Rome, where you have not only deluded a populace entrusted as it were to my charge, but my best friends, here I oppose to you my threatening sword--woe betide you, if you despise the menace! If you fulfil the task I impose, you shall be dismissed unharmed. Consider quickly and answer without circumlocution.” Olbasanus, with the keen penetration of the Oriental, had instantly perceived the whole situation. He felt that it was not hatred and revenge that roused these men against him, but on the part of one friendship for the basely deceived Lucius Rutilius, on that of the other feverish curiosity to learn the causes of the mysterious effects, which--he himself did not know how or in what way--had suddenly lost their supernatural character to Caius Bononius. So he thought that by the exercise of a little theatrical talent he could turn the conditions imposed to his own advantage. To leave the seven-hilled city did not seem too painful a sacrifice, for he had long been considering whether it might not be time to collect his riches and, by retiring to the seclusion of private life, escape the danger constantly threatening him from the ancient imperial edicts. Only he needed to remain unmolested until he could accomplish at his leisure this gathering of his means, especially the conversion into money of his considerable landed property, his estates and country houses. So he did not reflect long. “I’ll confess everything,” he said with a half sarcastic smile, “if you’ll all swear to keep my acknowledgment secret for six months. You may disclose it only to Lucius Rutilius and Heliodorus’s daughter, on condition that they, too, will promise to maintain silence. I will quit the seven-hilled city, too, as the centurion commands; but I beg as a favor an additional delay of a few months. If you refuse”--here his voice suddenly grew grave and threatening, like the roll of distant thunder,--“by all the horrors of death--I would rather give my neck to the lictor’s axe.” “Grant it to him!” said Bononius, who was burning with impatience.