y, but stoutly denying that he had slept at his post on the
seventh day before the Kalends of July.

"I am of the opinion," said Corbulo, drily, "that you are lying."

Then to his apparitors he said:

"Strip him."

The court-slave, the charcoal-tender, stood up off his folded blanket and
shook it out. The janitor, stripped and bound, ankles lashed, hands
trussed behind him, was haled towards the brazier. The blanket was flung
round him and four apparitors lifted him as if he had been a log and held
him near the brazier, the enveloping blanket drawn tight over his left
thigh and its outer underside nearest the coals, tilting him sideways to
bring the soft thickness of the thigh closest to the heat. They watched
the tight blanket over his thigh and moved him a little away from the
brazier when the wool began to smoke.

I had never seen nor heard of this kind of torture, but it seemed
effectual. The fellow writhed, groaned, squalled and protested. After
Corbulo had him brought back before him he confessed that he had been
asleep in his cell from some time before Falco's murder until he was
aroused by Dromo, just before the arrival of Casperius and Vespronius.

One by one the other slaves were questioned. Three declared that they had
seen the janitor asleep not long before they heard the alarm.

Several more testified that the janitor had often been asleep. More than
half of them confirmed my story of the theft of the silver on the Nones of
May. Except the janitor not one was tortured, though Corbulo threatened
with torture several who hesitated in their testimony.

After the slaves Corbulo questioned Asellio and Lustralis.

Then, when they had stood aside, he gazed about at the spectators in the
nave, at the crowd behind them, interested in the next case or in others
to come up later, at the hangers-on in the side aisles; for a time, mute,
he stared at the glowing charcoal fire in the big brazier.

When he spoke he said:

"It is my opinion that Phorbas is innocent. I have inspected the house
where the murder took place. From the condition of the looted rooms it is
plain that more jewelry was stolen than any one man could carry off.
Manifestly two men participated in the robbery and murder and escaped
with their booty, very likely the same pair who robbed Falco's
_triclinium_ on the Nones of May. The janitor's confessed delinquency
explains how they entered and got away unhindered and unseen. The dead
man's heir