ence.

"Go on," I said. "I am consumed with curiosity to discover how their rage
at the Emperor could lead to a reconciliation between them."

"It is not obvious, I admit," he said, "but when I explain, you will see
how naturally, how inevitably a reconciliation might be expected to
result.

"You have seen, perhaps often, a peasant or laborer beating his wife?"

"Everybody has," I replied. "What has that to do with what you were
talking of?"

"Be patient!" he pleaded. "You have seen some bystander interfere in such
a domestic fracas?"

"Often," I agreed.

"You have also seen," he continued, "not only the husband turn on the
outsider, but the wife join her spouse in attacking her would-be rescuer,
have seen both trounce the interloper and in their mutual help forget
their late antagonism."

"Certainly," I agreed.

"Well," he pursued, "human nature, male or female, low-life or high-life,
is the same in essence. Vedius and Satronius are so incensed with Caesar
for balking their appetite for revenge on you that they are thirsting for
revenge on Caesar and ready to forget all their hereditary animosities and
join in abasing him. In fact, they have joined the league of patriots of
which I am the leader. And they are so bent on their new purpose that they
are ready to be hearty friends to anyone sworn as our confederate. I can
arrange to obliterate, even to annihilate forever, all trace of enmity
between you and either of them, if you will but agree to let your natural
inherent patriotism overcome all other feelings in your heart and aid us
to abolish the shame of our Republic and to safeguard the Commonwealth and
the Empire."

All this while I had been half listening to him, half occupied in trying
to recall where I had seen the man who had stepped through the postern. At
this instant, as Capito paused, I suddenly realized that he was the
immobile horseman whom we had twice passed in the rain by the roadside the
morning I had started from my villa for Rome. His hooked nose was
unmistakable.

Somehow this realization, along with the recollection of what Tanno had
said of the fellow, woke me to a sense of the danger to which I was
exposed by being with Capito and also to a sense of the craziness of his
ideas and plans.

I felt my face redden.

"You have said enough!" I cut him short. "I perfectly understand. You
think yourself the destined savior of Rome and the deviser of priceless
plans for Rome's future. Yo