A Friend of Caesar Part 29

"By Zeus, speak faster and to the point!" cried Agias.

"Oh, there wasn't very much to it all! Why, how excited you are!

Pratinas came into the atrium, and Calatinus was already there. I heard the latter say, 'So I am to give you forty thousand sesterces for the little girl you had with you at the circus yesterday?' And Pratinas replied, 'Yes, if she pleases you. I told you her name was Artemisia, and that I always taught her to believe that she was my niece.'"

"_Hei! Hei!_" groaned Agias, rushing up and down the room, half frantic. "Don't tell any more, I've heard enough! Fool, fool I have been, to sit in the sunshine, and never think of preparing to carry out my promise to Sesostris. No, you must tell me--you must tell me if you have learned any more. Did Calatinus fix on any time at which he was to take possession of the poor girl?"

"No," replied the still amazed Pisander. "I did not hear the whole conversation. There was something about 'a very few days,' and then Pratinas began to condole with Calatinus over being beaten for the tribunate after having spent so much money for the canva.s.s. But why are you so stirred up? As Plato very admirably observes in his 'Philebus'--"

"The Furies seize upon your 'Philebus'!" thundered Agias. "Keep quiet, if you've nothing good to tell! Oh, Agias, Agias! where are your wits, where is your cunning? What in the world can I do?"

And so he poured out his distress and anger. But, after all, there was nothing to be done that night. Pisander, who at last began to realize the dilemma of his friend, ventured on a sort of sympathy which was worse than no sympathy at all, for philosophical plat.i.tudes are ever the worst of consolations. Agias invited the good man to spend the night with him, and not risk a second time the robbers of the streets.

The young Greek himself finally went to bed, with no definite purpose in his mind except to rescue Artemisia, at any and every hazard, from falling into the clutches of Calatinus, who was perhaps the one man in the world Agias detested the most heartily.

II

Early in the morning Agias was awake. He had slept very little. The face of Artemisia was ever before him, and he saw it bathed in tears, and clouded with anguish and terror. But, early as he arose, it was none too early. Dromo, one of his slaves, came to announce to his dread lord that an aged Ethiop was waiting to see him, and Agias did not need to be told that this was Sesostris.

That faithful servant of an unworthy master was indeed in a pitiable condition. His ordinarily neat and clean dress was crumpled and disarranged, as though he had not changed it during the night, but had rather been tossing and wakeful. His eyes were swollen, and tears were trickling down his cheeks. His voice had sunk to a husky choking, and when he stood before Agias he was unable to get out a word, but, after a few vain attempts which ended in prolonged sniffles, thrust into his young friend's hand a tablet.

It was in Greek, in the childish, awkward hand of Artemisia, and ran as follows:--

"Artemisia to her dear, dear Agias. I never wrote a letter before, and you must excuse the blunders in this. I don't know how to begin to tell you the dreadful thing that may happen to me. I will try and stop crying, and write it out just as it all happened. The day before yesterday Pratinas took me to the circus, where I enjoyed the racing very much. While we were sitting there, a very fine gentleman--at least he had purple stripes on his tunic and ever so many rings--came and sat down beside us. Pratinas told me that this gentleman was Lucius Calatinus, who was a great lord, but a friend of his. I tried to say something polite to Calatinus, but I didn't like him. He seemed coa.r.s.e, and looked as though he might be cruel at times. He talked to me something the way you have talked--said I was pretty and my voice sounded very sweet. But I didn't enjoy these things from him, I can hardly tell why--though I'm delighted to hear you say them. Well, after quite a while he went away, and I didn't think anything more about him for a time, and yesterday you know how happy I was when you visited me. Only a little while after you left, Pratinas came back. I could see that he had something on his mind, although he said nothing.

He seemed uneasy, and kept casting sidelong glances at me, which made me feel uncomfortable. I went up to him, and put my arms around his neck. 'Dear uncle,' I said, 'what is troubling you to-night?'

'Nothing,' he answered, and he half tried to take my arms away. Then he said, 'I was thinking how soon I was to go back to Alexandria.' 'To Alexandria!' I cried, and I was just going to clap my hands when I thought that, although Alexandria was a far nicer place than Rome, you could not go with us, and so I felt very sorry. Then Pratinas spoke again in a hard, cold voice he has never used to me before.

'Artemisia, I must tell you now the truth about yourself. I have let you call me uncle, and have tried to be kind to you. But you cannot come back to Alexandria with me. The day after to-morrow Calatinus, the gentleman you met at the circus yesterday, will come and take you away. He is a very rich man, and if you please him will give you everything you desire.' I couldn't understand at all what he meant, and cried out, 'But, uncle, I don't like Calatinus, and you--you don't really mean to leave me behind?' 'You little donkey,' said Pratinas, laughing, oh! so heartlessly, 'I'm not your uncle. You've been my slave, and I've sold you to Calatinus; so don't quarrel with him, but learn to like him quickly.' I don't remember what he said or I said next. I was so frightened and grieved that I don't know what I did. I know Pratinas finally whipped me, something he never did before. I went to bed feeling so sore, that I could not get really to sleep, but dreadful visions of Calatinus kept frightening me. I don't know which grieves me most, to know I am a slave, to know that Pratinas is not my uncle and does not love me, or to be about to be sold to Calatinus.

Dear Sesostris has done all he can to console me, but that's very little; and so, very early this morning, I've written to you, Agias, just as soon as Pratinas left the house, for I am sure that you, who are so clever and wise, can see some way to get me out of my dreadful trouble."

It would be hardly necessary to say that, after reading this appeal, Agias hurried away to do all that lay in his power to console Artemisia, and deliver her from her danger. When he reached Pratinas's tenement, Artemisia ran to meet him, and kissed him again and again, and cuddled down in his strong, young arms, quite content to believe that she had found a protector on whom she could cast all her burdens.

And Agias? He laughed and bade her wipe away her tears, and swore a great oath that, so long as he breathed, Calatinus should not lay a finger upon her.

Artemisia had practically told all her story in her letter. It was clear that Calatinus had caught sight of her several times,--though she had remained in blissful ignorance,--and Pratinas had deliberately planned to waylay him as a customer who would pay a good price for the girl, whom it would be manifestly inconvenient for him to take with Valeria on his premeditated flight to Egypt. But this enlightenment did not make Agias's task any the easier. He knew perfectly well that he could never raise a t.i.the of the forty thousand sesterces that Pratinas was to receive from Calatinus, and so redeem Artemisia. He had no right to expect the gift of such a sum from Drusus. If Pratinas really owned the poor girl as a slave, he could do anything he listed with her, and no law could be invoked to say him nay. There was only one recourse left to Agias, and that was fairly desperate--to carry off Artemisia and keep her in hiding until Pratinas should give up the quest and depart for Egypt. That there was peril in such a step he was well aware. Not merely could Artemisia, if recaptured, receive any form whatsoever of brutal punishment, but he, as the abettor of her flight, would be liable to a heavy penalty. Slave property was necessarily very precarious property, and to aid a slave to escape was an extremely heinous crime. "So many slaves, so many enemies," ran the harsh maxim; and it was almost treason to society for a freedman to aid a servant to run away.

But Agias had no time to count the cost, no time to evolve a plan of escape that admitted no form of disaster. Artemisia besought him not to leave her for a moment, and accordingly he remained by her, laughing, poking fun, and making reckless gibes at her fears.

Sesostris went about his simple household duties with a long face, and now and then a tear trickled down his cheek. Whatever came of the matter, Artemisia would have to be separated from him. He might never see her again, and the old Ethiopian loved her more than he did life itself.

"You will not wrong the girl when she is with you?" he whispered dolefully to Agias.

"I swear by Zeus she shall be treated as if she were my own dear sister," was his reply.

"It is well. I can trust you; but _mu! mu!_ it is hard, it is hard! I love her like my own eyes! Isis preserve her dear life!"

And so at last Artemisia, having cried out all her first burst of grief, was beginning to smile once more.

"And now, oh! makaira,"[128] said Agias, "I must go away for just a little while. I have ever so many things to attend to; and you must be a good, brave girl, and wait until I come back."

[128] Blessed dear.

"_St!"_ broke in Sesostris, "there's a step on the stairs. Pratinas is coming!"

"Hide me!" cried Agias, as the approaching feet grew nearer. There was no time to take refuge in one of the farther rooms.

"Here;" and Sesostris threw open the same iron clamped chest in which some time ago we saw Pratinas inspecting his treasure. "The money was taken out yesterday."

Agias bounded into the box, and Sesostris pushed down the cover. The luckless occupant had only a chance to push out a corner of his tunic through the slit to admit a little air, when Pratinas entered the room. Agias longed to spring forth and throttle him, but such an act would have been folly.

The young Greek's prison was sufficiently cramped and stuffy; but for a moment Agias tried to persuade himself that he had only to wait with patience until Pratinas should be gone, and no one would be the worse.

An exclamation from the room without dispelled this comforting illusion.

"By Zeus!" cried Pratinas, "what is this? Whence came this new toga?"

Agias writhed in his confinement. In the plent.i.tude of the glory of his newly acquired freedom, he had come abroad in an elegant new toga; but he had laid it on a chair when he entered the room.

There was an awkward pause outside; then Pratinas burst out, "You worthless Ethiopian, you, where did this toga come from? It hasn't wings or feet! How came it here? Who's been here? Speak, speak, you fool, or I will teach you a lesson!"

Agias gathered himself for a spring; for he expected to hear Sesostris whimper out a confession, and see Pratinas's wickedly handsome face peering into the chest. "He shan't cut my throat without a struggle!"

was his vow.

But, to his surprise, Sesostris answered with a tone of unlooked-for firmness, "Master, I cannot tell you where the toga came from."

The tone of Pratinas, in reply, indicated his pa.s.sion. "Sheep! Dog!

Have I had you all these years that you should need a thrashing for impertinence! What rascal has been here to ogle at this wretched girl?" He might have thundered his commands to Artemisia, who was sobbing in evident distress; but his anger was concentrated on Sesostris. "Will you not speak?"

"Master," came the same firm reply, "I will not tell you, though you take my life for refusing."

What followed was, as Agias heard it, a volley of curses, blows, groans, and scuffling; then a heavy fall; an extremely fierce execration from Pratinas, and a loud shrill scream from Artemisia, "O Sesostris; dear Sesostris! He doesn't speak! He doesn't move! You've killed him!"

"And I will kill you too if you won't tell the truth!" thundered Pratinas, in an ungovernable pa.s.sion. Agias heard a blow as of a clinched fist, and a low moan. It was enough. One spring, and the ponderous cover flew back. The toga, the innocent cause of the catastrophe, lay on the chair close at hand. Agias grasped the whole picture in a twinkling: Sesostris lying beside a heavy wooden bench, with blood flowing from a great wound in his head which had struck in falling on a sharp corner; Artemisia crying in unspeakable dread on a divan; Pratinas, his face black as night, with uplifted hand prepared to strike a second time. Agias saw; and while he saw acted. Down over Pratinas's head dashed the broad linen folds of the toga, and two muscular arms drew it tight around the neck. Then began the struggle.

Pratinas was of powerful physique, and resisted like a madman. The carpet was torn to shreds, the chairs shivered. But Agias, too, battled for grim life. He kept the hood over his opponent's eyes and never gave Pratinas a glimpse of the ident.i.ty of his a.s.sailant. And at last a life of debauches and late dinners and unhealthy excitement began to tell against even so powerful a const.i.tution as that of Pratinas. Tighter and tighter grew the pressure around his neck. And now Artemisia sprang up, and flew like a tiny tigress to her lover's a.s.sistance, and caught at her tormentor's hands, tearing them with her white little teeth, and pulling the enveloping mantle closer and closer. The contest could only have one end. Ere long, Pratinas was lying on the floor, bound hand and foot with strings of torn clothing, and his head still m.u.f.fled in the toga. Agias, victorious, but with not a whole rag on his back, rose from his contest.

"Sesostris! help him!" cried Artemisia, trying in vain to get some response from the motionless form by the bench. Agias looked at the Ethiop. The hard wood had struck the top of his skull, and death must have been instantaneous.

"He does not feel any pain," explained the young Greek, who realized that this was no moment to indulge in emotions of any sort. "Now, Artemisia, you must hurry and put on a clean dress yourself; and give me at least a new tunic, for I cannot show this on the streets. Put into a basket all the bread you have, and some oil, and some olives, and some slices of salt fish."

Artemisia disappeared in the next room. Agias returned to his prisoner. Pratinas was coughing and twisting, and trying to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e oaths.

"My good sir," said Agias, "I am not a bloodthirsty man, otherwise I would cut your throat, and so let you forget a predicament which doubtless embarra.s.ses you not a little. But, since that is not to be, do not blame me if I arrange so that it will be unlikely that two such cold friends as you and myself will ever meet again. First of all, that purse which is at your side, and which, by its weight, shows that it contains a fair night's winnings, must go with me to speed me on my way. I have never stolen very much before. But I believe you, sir, are an Epicurean, who teach that pleasure is the highest good, and that all things are the result of chance. Now," and here he detached the purse, and counted over a very considerable sum, "you will observe that Fortune has thrown this money in my way, and it is my pleasure to take it. Therefore I am fulfilling the highest good. And you, as a philosopher, should be quite reconciled."

Artemisia came back into the room, having completed the few simple preparations.

"Now, my excellent sir," continued Agias, suiting his actions to his words, "I will stand you on your feet--so. I will push you, still bound, into this closet--so. I will pile furniture against the door, so that, when you have worked clear of your bonds, as I imagine you will in a few hours, even then you will not get out too quickly. And now, as your dear Roman friends say, _Vale!_ We are off!"

Artemisia flung herself on the form of Sesostris, and covered the black, ugly face with kisses.

"He's growing cold," she lamented. "What is the matter? I can't leave him this way!"

But Agias did not dare to admit the least delaying.