ofessional informer and a valued
member of the Imperial Secret Service. I never knew why he had a spite
against you, but he had and it was false information given by him that
caused your proscription and ruin and thrust you into your years of
misery. I always felt that you did not deserve what you have suffered, but
his grudges were none of my business.

"He is dead, as is Galvia, for she kept poison about her and gave a supply
to him and to me to use in case of capture. I was caught without mine, for
I was certain that no danger threatened me. He and she took the poison
when they saw capture inevitable, as it will be for most evil-doers all
over the Empire under the sway of such a man as Septimius Severus."

He paused and I meditated awhile, puzzling as to how I could have incurred
the vindictive rancor of any secret-service agent.

Presently I said:

"Tell me how you came to be King of the Highwaymen."

"My boy," he said, "my case is far different from yours. You had an
honorable origin and an honorable past. Nor were any of your adventures
discreditable to you, even if some situations you have been in were
distressing then and are humiliating to remember. You have nothing to be
ashamed of unless it be such a trifling peccadillo as impersonating
Salsonius Salinator.

"My origin I shall never disclose, not even to a brother in misfortune. My
life has been one long series of perjuries, murders, robberies,
debaucheries and ruthless cruelties. I have been deaf to all
considerations of decency, pity and mercy; as unmoved by such feelings as
will be the savage beasts which spared you but will rend me to shreds. I
am at the end of my crimes; let me hide them. My doom is at hand. Why
should I defile your ears with the tale of my atrocities? Let them remain
untold."

"You slander yourself," I demurred. "You cannot make me believe that a man
capable of condoning my balking of your great coup on the Flaminian
Highway, capable of guiding me to this bed of straw and of offering me a
share of his bit of stale bread can be all bad. There must be much in your
past life less dark than you indicate."

He ruminated.

"Frankly," he said, "I cannot recall anything I ever did at which a man
like you would not shudder. I have been a good sport, that is why I could
not but chuckle, after my first wrath cooled, at your spoiling my great
coup, as you call it. But, all my life, I have gloried in my treacheries
and cruelties. I have h