You
do not know these men. Therefore they are passing under false names. They
are not Imperial couriers, but some of the scoundrels who have been posing
as Imperial couriers and using the post-roads for their own private ends.
I thank you for assisting me to expose them. It now remains to arrest
them!"
I had thought when the two entered first and saluted us that their
expression of face was queer; now it was queerer: they looked like some of
the deer we had seen in the net-pocket at Spinella, frantic to escape and
seeing no way out.
One mumbled something about having barely seen Bruttius Asper and Sabinus
Felix and not being sure that we were not they. But Donnotaurus neither
heard nor heeded.
"Here, Tectosax!" he called to the host, "come help us arrest these men!
They are bogus! They are shams! They are not couriers!"
"One man arrest two!" the host demurred.
"I only want your help," Donnotaurus bawled. "Call Arecomus and the
ostlers. They can make short work of it."
At this point Agathemer found his voice, and he spoke steadily, coolly and
firmly, even with a bit of a drawl.
"Don't do anything you will have to be sorry for," he said. "Better not
make any mistake."
At his utterance the two couriers were manifestly even more uncomfortable
than before.
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