e should
not hear the other two plans also."

This utterance started a long discussion, from which Agathemer and I
learned nothing except that there was much insubordination among the men
following Maternus and that the scrawny objector was named Torix.

The upshot of the discussion was a general agreement that Maternus ought
to disclose all three plans.

Maternus then resumed:

"The second plan is already known to Cossedo and it need not be known to
anyone else, as he alone is concerned and he, if Caburus decides not to
make his attempt, will attempt his alone, without any assistance from
anyone and without endangering anyone else; in fact without endangering
himself. I myself thought of this plan, which is so ingenious that, if it
succeeds, no one will ever know how Commodus came to his death; it if
fails no one will ever suspect that it was tried at all.

"You have all been wondering how Cossedo came to be with us. Many of you
have jeered him; many of you have protested to me. But I know what I am
doing. Cossedo can do other things besides walk the tight-rope, juggle
five balls at once, and stand on his head on the back of a galloping
horse. He is just the right man to carry out my idea, which neither I nor
any other of us could put into effect. As Cossedo approves the plan; as he
is to try it alone, no one else need know it."

"Just so," cried the red-headed lout who had heralded the council, coming
forward into the fire-light. "I can try it and I may do it. If I do it,
Commodus will be a corpse. If I fail, no one will know I have tried. And
it is a jewel of a plan."

And he stood on his hands, feet waggling in the air, apparently from mere
exuberance of spirits. Standing up again, he threw three flip-flops
forward, then two backward, then turned a half a dozen cart wheels, during
which gyrations he passed out of our field of view.

Torix sulkily agreed that the second plan remain unknown except to
Maternus and Cossedo, the assemblage not supporting him when he pressed
for its disclosure. But he was insistent about the third plan.

"The third plan," said Maternus, "is merely the first plan over again,
except that I lead instead of Caburus and that we try after dark instead
of by day. From all I can hear the opportunity will be even better by
torchlight in the gardens about the temple than it will be by day in the
jammed streets. I mean to be as cautious as I expect Caburus to be: there
is no use making an