Then I heard the voices of the animal-tenders essaying, with their long-
handled tridents, to chase back into their cages the beasts loose about
me.
Soon someone cut my ankle-thongs and the cords about the quilt, also my
arm-thongs. The quilt was twitched from my face and I was assisted to my
feet. The amphitheater was full of the yells of the populace, affirming my
innocence and the manifest intervention of the gods in my behalf. I rolled
my gaze around the audience and sought to interpret the demeanor of the
Imperial retinue.
Then, as I gazed at the Emperor, too far off for me to make out his
expression, the yells altered their quality.
I turned round.
I saw, running towards me across the sand, Agathemer!
Behind him was an official in the robes of a magistrate!
Behind him six more human shapes, four lictors convoying two bound
prisoners.
Agathemer embraced me and I him.
"Saved," he breathed, "we've got 'em and most of the loot. Enough to
convict 'em and clear you!"
As we loosed our embrace I looked at the approaching magistrate.
He was Flavius Clemens!
Before the shock of recognizing him had passed I forgot him entirely.
For I had recognized the two prisoners.
Though I had seen them but once and that by moonlight, and that eight
years before, I recognized the two drunken robbers who had helped us to
our couriers' equipment and sent us off galloping to Marseilles.
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