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But this enlightenment did not make Agias's task any the easier. He knew perfectly well that he could never raise a tithe 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.
He cursed the suspicious porter, cursed Falto, cursed every slave and freedman on the estate, cursed Mamercus for not leaving some word about the possibility of his coming from Rome. Agias's imprecations spent themselves in air; and he was none the happier. Would Drusus never come? The time was drifting on. The sun had been up three or more hours. At any instant the gladiators might arrive.
The peril which yawned before the unfortunate Drusus menaced at the same time the happiness of his mistress and his own welfare, for if Lucius Ahenobarbus had his way, Agias himself would become the slave of that not very gentle patrician. Cornelia and Drusus had had troubles enough before; but in the present crisis, actual destruction stared Agias's saviour in the face.
Drusus could hardly recognize in the supple-limbed, fair-complexioned, vivacious lad before him, the wretched creature whom Alfidius had driven through the streets. Agias's message was short, but quite long enough to make Drusus's pale cheeks flush with new life, his sunken eyes rekindle, and his languor vanish into energy.
And with a natural rebound of spirits, Agias's eyes glittered with expectation and excitement, his cheeks flushed, his form expanded to a manly height. "Euge! Well done, old friend!" he cried, with the merriment of intense excitement. "No matter if you say you were only able to hear a small part of what our dear fellow-Hellene, Pratinas, told Valeria. I have gathered enough to defeat the plotters.
Call out everything, your Zeno, or Parmenides, or Heraclitus, or others of the thousand nobodies I've heard you praise to Valeria, and make thereby my heart a jot the less sore, or Agias's death the less bitter! Don't sit there and snap at your beard, if your philosophy is good for anything! People used to pray to the gods in trouble, but you philosophers turn the gods into mists or thin air.
As Agias pushed open the gate, and led Artemisia into a little garden enclosed with a high stone wall, he surprised a dapper-appearing young slave-lad of about his age, who was lying idly on the tiny grass plot, and indulging in a solitary game of backgammon. Duodecim scripta. "Hem! Iasus," was Agias's salutation, "can you do an old friend a favour?"
"This is hardly a basilica for a trial," he replied, "but 'inter arma silent leges. Tell the centurions on guard to bring him here. I imagine we must grant him the form of an examination." Drusus went out to give the necessary orders. "You did not see Agias's prisoner?" asked Cornelia of Demetrius, who was now an old friend.
A shock-headed boy with a lantern took Agias's bridle, and the Greek alighted; almost under his eyes the dim light fell on a handsome, two-horse gig, standing beside the entrance to the court. Agias gave the vehicle close attention. "It belongs to a gentleman from Rome, now inside," explained the boy, "one horse went lame, and the veterinary is coming."
The day of Agias's misfortune, Pisander sat in his corner of the boudoir, after Valeria had left it, in a very unphilosophical rage, gnawing his beard and cursing inwardly his mistress, Pratinas, and the world in general. Arsinoë with a pale, strained face was moving about, replacing the bottles of cosmetics and perfumery in cabinets and caskets.
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