United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Agias, ever resourceful, ever anxious to anticipate the slightest wish on the part of the Roman ladies, actually began to bethink himself of the ways and means for a flight. When finally it was announced in the camp and city that Pompeius was to be received as a guest of the king, Cornelia was on the point of demanding of Agias immediate action toward escape.
So they came to Alexandria, but on the way called at the Nile villa where was Artemisia, and, to the great satisfaction of that young lady and of Agias, carried her along with them to the house of Cleomenes, where that affable host and Berenice and Monime received them with open arms. Their pleasure at this reunion, however, began to abate when they realized the disturbed state of the city.
The Magnus, flushed and embarrassed, turned to Septimius. "I was not mistaken in understanding that you were my fellow-soldier in years past?" His answer was a surly nod. Pompeius, however, reined his rising feelings, and took up and began to re-read some tablets on which he had written an address in Greek, to be delivered before the king. Agias rowed on with the energy of helpless desperation.
The great fire tossed its red, flickering glow out into the apartment and cast a rosy halo over the hard brown marble pavement of the floor. Upon the dingy walls and rafters hung from pegs flitches of bacon, sausages, and nets of vegetables. Agias stopped in the doorway and waited till his eyes were fairly accustomed to the fire-light.
Again the pirates shouted, then at the order of their commander the cables creaked, the anchors rose, hundreds of long oars flashed in the lurid glare, and the three vessels slipped over the dark waves. Demetrius remained on the poop of his ship; Agias was below in the cabin, bending over Artemisia, who was already smiling in her sleep.
Agias comforted himself by reflecting that things would hardly go to that terrible extremity; but it was not reassuring to hear Ligus, the crabbed old cellarer, urge that he be made to confess then and there under the cat. Falto overruled the proposition. "It was late, and Mamercus was the man to extort confession."
"Perhaps ten, perhaps twenty!" gasped Agias. "A very pretty number! Some little credit to throttle them," was his answer; and Demetrius plunged on. The night was cloudy, there was no moonlight. The cold, chill wind swept down the Tiber valley, and howled mournfully among the tall, silent basilicas and temples of the Forum.
Phaon had a dim consciousness that he was getting very drunk, that he ought to start at once for Præneste, and that it was absolutely needful for him to have some money for bribes and gratuities if he was not to jeopardize seriously the success of his undertaking. But Agias stood before him exultant and provoking.
Thanks to due warnings and precautions, Agias never stumbled on Pratinas, when the latter was at his lodgings. The time he dared to stay was all too short for Artemisia. She was always telling how lonesome she was with only old Sesostris for company, before she knew Agias.
"Agias," he said, making himself heard despite the clamour, "do you believe the charge of that man?" "No villain ever would avenge himself more basely." "Then at all costs we must save the lady." It was time. A fat butcher, flourishing a heavy cleaver, had leaped forward; Fabia saw him with glassy, frightened eyes, but neither shrieked nor drew back.
Word Of The Day