m to inform the king that
he had been prevented by urgent business from appearing among his guests
that evening; then he threw on his cloak, put on his travelling-hat
which shaded his face, and proceeded on foot and without any servant to
the harbor, with his letter in one hand and a staff in the other.

The soldiers and civic guards which filled the courts of the palace,
taking him for a messenger, did not challenge him as he walked swiftly
and firmly on, and so, without being detained or recognized, he reached
the inn by the harbor, where he was forced to wait an hour before the
messenger came home from the gay strangers' quarter where he had gone to
amuse himself. He had a great deal to talk of with this man, who was to
set out next morning for Alexandria and Rome; but Publius hardly gave
himself the necessary time, for he meant to start for the meeting place
in the Necropolis indicated by Klea, and well-known to himself, a
full hour before midnight, although he knew that he could reach his
destination in a very much shorter time.

The sun seems to move too slowly to those who long and wait, and a
planet would be more likely to fail in punctuality than a lover when
called by love.

In order to avoid observation he did not take a chariot but a strong
mule which the host of the inn lent him with pleasure; for the Roman
was so full of happy excitement in the hope of meeting Klea that he
had slipped a gold piece into the small, lightly-closed fingers of the
innkeeper's pretty child, which lay asleep on a bench by the side of the
table, besides paying double as much for the country wine he had drunk
as if it had been fine Falernian and without asking for his reckoning.
The host looked at him in astonishment when, finally, he sprang with a
grand leap on to the back of the tall beast, without laying his hand on
it; and it seemed even to Publius himself as though he had never since
boyhood felt so fresh, so extravagantly happy as at this moment.

The road to the tombs from the harbor was a different one to that which
led thither from the king's palace, and which Klea had taken, nor did it
lead past the tavern in which she had seen the murderers. By day it was
much used by pilgrims, and the Roman could not miss it even by night,
for the mule he was riding knew it well. That he had learned, for in
answer to his question as to what the innkeeper kept the beast for he
had said that it was wanted every day to carry pilgrims ar