Part 30 (1/2)

”Dear Artemisia,” he said, ”we can't do anything for Sesostris. I will explain to you by and by about him. He is not feeling cold now at all.

You must come at once with me. I will take you where Pratinas will never touch you.”

III

If Agias had been a trifle more reckless he would have cut short Pratinas's thread of life then and there, and greatly diminished the chance of unpleasant consequences. But he had not sunk so low as that.

Besides, he had already worked out in his versatile head a plan that seemed practicable, albeit utterly audacious. Cornelia was at Baiae.

Cornelia owed him a great debt of grat.i.tude for saving Drusus.

Cornelia might harbour Artemisia as a new maid, if he could contrive to get his charge over the hundred long miles that lay between Rome and Baiae.

In the street he made Artemisia draw her mantle over her pretty face, and pressed through the crowds as fast as he could drag her onward.

Quickly as he might he left the noisy Subura behind, and led on toward the Palatine. At length he turned in toward a large house, and by a narrow alley reached a garden gate, and gained admission to the rear.

By his confident movements he showed himself familiar with the spot.

The dwelling, as a matter of fact, was that of Calatinus.

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 gra.s.s plot, and indulging in a solitary game of backgammon.[129]

[129] _Duodecim scripta_.

”_Hem!_ Iasus,” was Agias's salutation, ”can you do an old friend a favour?”

Iasus sprang to his feet, with eyes, nose, and mouth wide open. He turned red, turned white, turned red once more.

”_Phy!_” cried the other; ”you aren't so silly as to take me for a shade from Hades? I've as much strength and muscle as you.”

”Agias!” blurted out Iasus, ”are you alive? Really alive? They didn't beat you to death! I am so glad! You know--”

”_St!_” interrupted Agias. ”You did, indeed, serve me an awkward trick some time since; but who can blame you for wanting to save your own skin. Pisander and Arsinoe and Semiramis have kept the secret that I'm alive very well, for in some ways it shouldn't come to Valeria's ears.

My story later. Where's her most n.o.ble ladys.h.i.+p?”

”The domina,” replied Iasus, with a sniff, ”has just gone out on a visit to a friend who has a country-house near Fidenae, up the Tiber.”

”Praise the G.o.ds! Far enough to be abroad for the day, and perhaps over night! This suits my purpose wonderfully. Is Pisander at home, and Arsinoe?”

”I will fetch them,” replied Iasus; and in a minute the philosopher and the waiting-maid were in the garden.

A very few words explained to these two sympathetic souls the whole situation.

Artemisia shrank back at sight of Pisander.

”I am afraid of that man. He wears a great beard like Pratinas, and I don't love Pratinas any longer.”

”Oh, don't say that, my little swallow,” said the worthy man of books, looking very sheepish. ”I should be sorry to think that your bright eyes were vexed to see me.”

”_Phui!_ Pisander,” laughed Arsinoe, ”what have Zeno and Diogenes to do with 'bright eyes'?”

But for once Pisander's heart was wiser than his head, and he only tossed Artemisia an enormous Persian peach, at which, when she sampled the gift, she made peace at once, and forever after held Pisander in her toils as a devoted servant.

But Agias was soon gone; and Artemisia spent the rest of the morning and the whole of the afternoon in that very satisfactory Elysium of Syrian pears and honey-apples which Semiramis and Arsinoe supplied in full measure, with Pisander to sit by, and stare, boylike, at her clear, fair profile, and cast jealous glances at Iasus when that young man ventured to utilize his opportunity for a like advantage. Many of the servants had gone with Valeria, and the others readily agreed to preserve secrecy in a matter in which their former fellow-slave and favourite had so much at stake. So the day pa.s.sed, and no one came to disturb her; and just as the shadows were falling Agias knocked at the garden gate.