Felix the
Horse-wrangler of Umbria had gone to Rome as Felix the Beast-Tamer, then
the King of the Highwaymen would be able without difficulty to trace me
and set on me his ruthless agents until one of them assassinated me.

I felt that he was right. The danger to my former self as Andivius
Hedulio, implicated in a conspiracy against Caesar, appeared now far off
and unimportant, in spite of the fact that the secret service might still
be keen to catch me and the hue and cry out after me from the Alps to
Rhegium; the danger to my present self from the enmity of Bulla, of his
ruffians, of their partisans in Umbria, of their Chief, the King of the
Highwaymen, whoever he might be, appeared close and menacing. A change of
name would make it impossible for Tanno and Vedia to carry out her plan
for my manumission by the _fiscus_, my clandestine journey to Bruttium and
my comfortable and unsuspected seclusion there until some other prince
succeeded our present Emperor. I had grasped eagerly at the thought of
this plan and had built much on it. But I realized that Bulla's admirers
or the agents of the King of the Highwaymen would make an end of me long
before Vedia's influence could obtain my manumission; and that, if she did
accomplish all she expected, I could never hope to escape the vigilance of
the tenacious and expert pursuers who would inevitably dog my footsteps.

I thought the advice of the _Villicus_ good. I regretted that I was not to
say farewell to Septima; she deserved a most fervent expression of my
esteem, gratitude, regard and good wishes; but, after my encounter with
Vedia, Septima seemed of very little importance. I had my amulet-bag on
its thong about my neck and my coin-belt about my waist. I agreed to go
with the procurator and thanked the _Villicus_ for his solicitude for me,
for his good offices and for his advice.

He said that it would be best that he should not know what name I meant to
adopt. Also he said that, if I was to escape the vengeance of the King of
the Highwaymen, it would be imperative that I be thought dead; he would
give out that I had been killed by one of my fellow-slaves and everybody
would assume that I had perished at the hands of some partisan of the
outlaws; Bulla and the King of the Highwaymen would feel their animosity
satiated.

I reflected that whereas news of my supposed assassination would fill
Vedia with grief and would probably, after her grief abated, leave her
feeling