ulders.

As I fastened the last panels we heard the hunting-squall of a leopard at
no great distance. Vedia clung to me, shuddering.

"You have saved me, Caius," she said. "As you did on the terrace at
Nemestronia's."

Naturally, for a while, we exchanged kisses and caresses without any
intermingled words.

When, she spoke she said:

"How do you come to be alive?"

"That," I said, "is thanks to Agathemer and is a long tale. I am faint
with hunger and thirst, you yourself should be in need of nourishment and
might be the better for it. There should be food in those hampers and wine
in the kidskins."

"There is," she said, "and plenty. I am as hungry and thirsty as you, now
I am no longer terrified and am recovering from my panic. But I am
intensely eager to hear your story. Do begin at the beginning just as soon
as you can, and tell it while we eat."

Then she showed me how to dispose the hampers as they were designed to be
arranged while the occupants of the coach ate. They were very generously
filled with the most luxurious fare: hard-boiled eggs, ham, cold roast
pork, sliced thin; breast of roast goose, breast of roast duck, young
guinea-fowls, broiled whole and cut up, broiled chickens, broiled squabs;
half a. dozen kinds of bread, a quarter loaf and different sorts of rolls;
lettuce and radishes; bottles of oil, vinegar, garum sauce, and other
sauces; salt smoked fish; figs, both big green figs and small purple figs;
a jar of strained honey, several kinds of cakes, and plenty of salt,
pepper, other relishes, and a lavish provision of knives and of silver,
plates, spoons, cups and other utensils.

"Why all this profusion?" I queried. "You have enough here for a party of
ten."

"I always have a variety like this," she explained. "I generally have very
little appetite on a journey so I tell Lydia to put in all the things she
can get which she knows I like. Then something is likely to tempt me."

We feasted by moonlight, while I told my story from the moment when I had
received her warning letter.

"I knew that you mounted the horse in front of Plosurnia's Tavern," she
said, "but I have never heard of you after that. Tanno and I did all we
could to find out what had become of you; all we could without risking the
secret service getting an inkling that we had a hope that you were not
dead.

"In fact it was not only advertised from the Palace in due course, but
circumstantially reported to us privately, t