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"Dare you hesitate? Do you wish to undo yourselves by defying me?" "Mercy, august lady," cried Alfidius, for the chief executioner was he, with a supplicatory gesture. "If our mistress knows that her commands are unexecuted, it is we, who are but slaves, that must suffer!" "Who is your mistress?" demanded Fabia. "Valeria, wife of Lucius Calatinus." "Livia's precious mother!" whispered Drusus.
But Calatinus feared, now that he was well out of the matter, to stir up an angry scene with his wife, by hinting that Agias had not been punished according to her orders. Alfidius, too, and the other slaves with him, imagined that his mistress would blame them if they admitted that Agias was alive.
The rude thongs cut the flesh cruelly, and the wretches laughed to see how the delicate boy writhed and faltered under the pain and the load. "Ah, ha! my fine Furcifer," cried Alfidius, when this work was completed. "How do you find yourself?" Furca-bearer, a coarse epithet.
Then, as if recollecting his faculties, he fell down at Fabia's feet, and kissed the hem of her robe. "The gods save us all now," muttered Alfidius. "Valeria will swear that we schemed to have the boy released. We shall never dare to face her again!" "Oh! do not send me back to that cruel woman!" moaned Agias. "Better die now, than go back to her and incur her anger again!
"My friend," he said calmly, "you can only lose your place by interfering; the boy is food for the crows already. Philosophy should teach you to regard little affairs like this unmoved." Before Pisander could remonstrate further Alfidius had caught up Agias as if he had been an infant, and carried him, while moaning and pleading, out of the room. Iasus was still trembling.
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.
Alfidius carried his victim out into the slaves' quarters in the rear of the house; there he bound his hands and called in the aid of an assistant to help him execute his mistress's stern mandate. Agias had been born for far better things than to be a slave. His father had been a cultured Alexandrine Greek, a banker, and had given his young son the beginnings of a good education.
Pratinas stood back with his imperturbable smile on his face; and if he felt the least pity for his fellow-countryman, he did not show it. "Alfidius awaits the mistress," announced Semiramis, with trembling lips. Into the room came a brutish, hard-featured, shock-headed man, with a large scar, caused by branding, on his forehead.
Make them let him go." Sulkily enough the executioners unbound the heavy furca. Agias staggered to his feet, too dazed really to know what deliverance had befallen him. "Why don't you thank the Vestal?" said Alfidius. "She has made us release you you ungrateful dog!" "Released? Saved?" gasped Agias, and he reeled as though his head were in a whirl.
What amounted to a frightful crime was committed in an instant. "Agias stumbled and dropped the vase," said Iasus, telling the truth, but not the whole truth. "Send for Alfidius the lorarius," raged Valeria, who, with the promptness that characterizes a certain class of women, jumped at a conclusion and remained henceforth obstinate. "This shall not happen again! Oh! my vase! my vase!
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