Nervously the Emperor arose and paced to and fro, the eyes of the others watching him narrowly; those of Fulvus Fupus narrowed with malign anticipation.
Presently Validus halted and turned toward one of his courtiers. 'May Hercules strike me dead,' he cried, 'if there be not some truth in what Fulvus Fupus suggests!' and to Fupus, 'What is this stranger like?'
'He is a man of white skin, yet of slightly different complexion and appearance than the usual patrician. He feigns to speak our language with a certain practiced stiltedness that is intended to suggest lack of familiarity. This, I think, is merely a part of the ruse to deceive.'
'How did he come into Castrum Mare and none of my officers report the matter to me?' asked Validus.
'That you may learn from Mallius Lepus,' said Fulvus Fupus, 'for Mallius Lepus was in command of the Porta Decumana when some of the barbarians of the lake villages brought him there, presumably a prisoner, yet Caesar knows how easy it would have been to bribe these creatures to play such a part.'
'You explain it so well, Fulvus Fupus,' said the Emperor, 'that one might even suspect you to have been the instigator of the plot, or at least to have given much thought to similar schemes.'
'Caesar's ever brilliant wit never deserts him,' said Fupus, forcing a smile, though his face paled.
'We shall see,' snapped Validus, and turning to one of his officers, 'Order the arrest of Septimus Favonius, and Mallius Lepus and this stranger at once.'
As he ceased speaking a chamberlain entered the garden and approached the Emperor. 'Septimus Favonius requests an audience,' he announced. 'Mallius Lepus, his nephew, and a stranger are with him.'
'Fetch them,' said Validus, and to the officer who was about to depart to arrest them, 'Wait here. We shall see what Septimus Favonius has to say.'
A moment later the three entered and approached the Emperor. Favonius and Lepus saluted Validus and then the former presented von Harben as a barbarian chief from Ger-mania.
'We have already heard of this barbarian chief,' said Validus with a sneer. Favonius and Lepus glanced at Fupus. 'Why was I not immediately notified of the capture of this prisoner?' This time the Emperor directed his remarks to Mallius Lepus.
'There has been little delay, Caesar,' replied the young officer. 'It was necessary that he be bathed and properly clothed before he was brought here.'
'It was not necessary that he be brought here,' said Validus. 'There are dungeons in Castrum Mare for prisoners from Castra Sanguinarius.'
'He is not from Castra Sanguinarius,' said Septimus Favonius.
'Where are you from and what are you doing in my country?' demanded Validus, turning upon von Harben.
'I am from a country that your historians knew as Germania ,' replied Erich.
'And I suppose you learned to speak our language in Germania ,' sneered Validus.
'Yes,' replied von Harben, 'I did.'
'And you have never been to Castra Sanguinarius?'
'Never.'
'I presume you have been to Rome ,' laughed Validus.
'Yes, many times,' replied von Harben.
'And who is Emperor there now?'
'There is no Roman Emperor,' said von Harben.
'No Roman Emperor!' exclaimed Validus. 'If you are not a spy from Castra Sanguinarius, you are a lunatic. Perhaps you are both, for no one but a lunatic would expect me to believe such a story. No Roman Emperor, indeed!'
'There is no Roman Emperor,' said von Harben, 'because there is no Roman Empire . Mallius Lepus tells me that your country has had no intercourse with the outside world for more than eighteen hundred years. Much can happen in that time—much has happened. Rome fell, over a thousand years ago. No nation speaks its language today, which is understood by priests and scholars only. The barbarians of Germania, of Gallia, and of Britannia have built empires and civilizations of tremendous power, and Rome is only a city in Italia.'
Mallius Lepus was beaming delightedly. 'I told you,' he whispered to Favonius, 'that you would love him. By Jupiter, I wish he would tell Validus the story of the litters that travel fifty thousand paces an hour!'
There was that in the tone and manner of von Harben that compelled confidence and belief, so that even the suspicious Validus gave credence to the seemingly wild tales of the stranger and presently found himself asking questions of the barbarian.
Finally the Emperor turned to Fulvus Fupus. 'Upon what proof did you accuse this man of being a spy from Castra Sanguinarius?' he demanded.
'Where else may he be from?' asked Fulvus Fupus. 'We know he is not from Castrum Mare, so he must be from Castra Sanguinarius.'
'You have no evidence then to substantiate your accusations?'
Fupus hesitated.
'Get out,' ordered Validus, angrily. 'I shall attend to you later.'
Overcome by mortification, Fupus left the garden, but the malevolent glances that he shot at Favonius, Lepus, and Erich boded them no good. Validus looked long and searchingly at von Harben for several minutes after Fupus quit the garden as though attempting to read the soul of the stranger standing before him.
'So there is no Emperor at Rome ,' he mused, half aloud. 'When Sanguinarius led his cohort out of Egyptus, Nerva was Emperor. That was upon the sixth day before the calends of February in the 848th year of the city in the second year of Nerva's reign. Since that day no word of Rome has reached the descendants of Sanguinarius and his cohort.'
Von Harben figured rapidly, searching his memory for the historical dates and data of ancient history that were as fresh in his mind as those of his own day. 'The sixth day before the calends of February,' he repeated; 'that would be the twenty-seventh day of January in the 848th year of the city—why, January twenty-seventh, A.D. 98, is the date of Nerva's death,' he said.
'Ah, if Sanguinarius had but known,' said Validus, 'but AEgyptus is a long way from Rome and Sanguinarius was far to the south up the Nilus before word could have reached his post by ancient Thebae that his enemy was dead. And who became Emperor after Nerva? Do you know that?'
'Trajan,' replied von Harben.
'Why do you, a barbarian, know so much concerning the history of Rome ?' asked the Emperor.
'I am a student of such things,' replied von Harben. 'It has been my ambition to become an authority on the subject.'
'Could you write down these happenings since the death of Nerva?'
'I could put down all that I could recall, or all that I have read,' said von Harben, 'but it would take a long time.'
'You shall do it,' said Validus, 'and you shall have the time.'
'But I had not planned remaining on in your country,' dissented von Harben.
'You shall remain,' said Validus. 'You shall also write a history of the reign of Validus Augustus, Emperor of the East.'
'But—' interjected von Harben,
'Enough!' snapped Validus. 'I am Caesar. It is a command.'
Von Harben shrugged and smiled. Rome and the Caesars, he realized, had never seemed other than musty parchment and weather-worn inscriptions cut in crumbling stone, until now.
Here, indeed, was a real Caesar. What matter it that his empire was naught but a few square miles of marsh, an island and swampy shore-land in the bottom of an unknown canyon, or that his subjects numbered less than fifty thousand souls—the first Augustus himself was no more a Caesar than was his namesake, Validus.
'Come,' said Validus, 'I shall take you to the library myself, for that will be the scene of your labors.'
In the library, which was a vault-like room at the end of a long corridor, Validus displayed with pride several hundred parchment rolls neatly arranged upon shelves.
'Here,' said Validus, selecting one of the rolls, 'is the story of Sanguinarius and the history of our country up to the founding of Castrum Mare. Take it with you and read it at your leisure, for while you shall remain with Septimus Favonius, whom with Mallius Lepus I shall hold responsible for you, every day you shall come to the
