The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-02-22

- relay houses where the imperial couriers, q
well as all who could produce q special wal
rant for the purpose, from the consul, or
prStor, or even qusstor, were allowed t.
obtain change of horses still less was j
one of the low canal-town taverns, who's
keepers Horace abused but it was regula
country inn, where man and beast fount
shelter for the apparently infnitesimal charg
of one as, Tor not quito q penny,) and goot
cheer at proportionably moderate COST I
was well supplied from it's own farm yards
olive groves, orchards, vineyards, pastures
and titled fields, with veget tables, beef, mutton
poultry, geese, ducks, attagens, and othel
meats; eggs, wine, butter, cheese, milk, honey
bread, and fruit delicious plate of fish oc
| casonally, an equally delicious array of quail
produced upon table in state aromatic and
frothy with their own fat juices
! This excellent and celebrated house of en-
tertainment for belated or way worn travellers,
| as well as for all who desired n change from
| the monotony of their usual life was kept by
a remarkably worthy old couple, formerly
| slaves, q freedman and freed oman of the
illustrious Kmilian family. The reader will
have noticed that the youth whom it is necessa
ry, we suppose, to acknowledge in the capacity
, JUL uoio, Has Decu Calcu fauluS fsmlllue
Lepidus; that his father had borne the same
style and likewise that his father'n brother,
the former sovereign magistrate or triumvir in
| the second and great triumvirate, was named
Marcus Emilius Lepidus. In all these names
that of Emilius occurs and Emilius was the
noblest of the patronymics which once this
great family boosted. Now, theirs had been
the house in which Crispus and Crspina the
good innkeeper and his wife, at present free
and prosperous. had been boy and girl slaves
The wife, indeed. had been nurse to a son of
Marcus Lepdus, the trumvir.
That son, some years before the date of our
narrative, had been engaged in a conspiracy
against Augustus ; and the conspiracy having
been discovered by MTcenas the youth had
been put to death. Marcus Hmlius Lepidus,
the father, was exculpated from all kno wledgc
of this attempt on the part Of his son, but had
ever since lived in profound retirement at a
lonely sea ashore castle some twenty or thirty
miles from Crispuss inn, near Monte Circello:
silent, brooding, timid man, no longer very
wealthy, entirely without weight in the society
which he had abandoned and without anv
visible influence in the political world. from
which he had fled in some terror and immense
disgust
AS Sejanus rode slowly up to the inn door, a
centurian came out of the porch with the air
of one who had been waiting for him Salut-
ing the general, this officer said that he had
been left behind by Nelloius Paterculus to saw
that the sister of the youth whom Tiberius
had placed under the charge OF Paterculus had
tainted on the road ; that being unable to pro-
coed, she and her brother had taken lodging
in inn, tI,,tt = 4.
Paterculns to allow him to remain instead of
proceeding to Form;e, in order that he might
attend to his poor sister, for whose life he was
alarmed, giving his >promise that he would
faithfully report himself, and not attempt to
escape; that Paterculus considered himself
justified, under the circumstances, in accedinc
to so natural request consequently, that
the young man was now in the inn, along with
his IN other and sister and that he the centu.
rion, had been ordered to await Seianus's ar.
rival, and inform him of what had occurred. 40
that he might either confirm his subordnate's
decision, or repair the mistake, if it was one,
and cause the youth to go forward at once to
Formim according to the letter of Tiberus's
original command.
" 1t is WE'LL" said Sejanus, after q moments
reflection. This is not the sort of lad who
Will break his word. Carthaginians, and
rubbish like them, knew long ago how to be-
leve Roman knight and patrcan, and this
lad seems to DO of the Regulas breed Does
the Caesar himself, however know of thisY :"
had no orders to tell him." answered the |
centurion and if had had it would have |
been difficult he passed at full gallon !
quarter of an hour ago, his head down, not 30
much looking asiden
Sejanus then put the following question
with sneer
{" Has a god, or a stranger, with two at
tendants on horseback, passed this way ?"
" No god, unless he be a god, and he had no
attendants" said the astonished centurion.
" You have not seen three figures on horse
back, nor a flash of BLUSH lightw
certainly thought saw three figures on
horseback, but could not be sure 1t was on
the farther side of the way, general, which is
broad, continued the man apologctically, "and
there was no sound of hoofs my impression.
too, was gone in moment As to a flash of
blush light, there are several flashes of red
and white light inside the inn kitchen. and
they make the road outside all the darker
but there has been flash in the road.n