The Last Days of Pompeii by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (freda ebook reader .TXT) 📗

'Glaucus was my master; he purchased me from a cruel lord. He alone has been kind to me. He is to die. I shall never live happily if I cannot, in his hour of trial and doom, let him know that one heart is grateful to him. Sallust is his friend; he will convey my message.'

'I am sure he will do no such thing. Glaucus will have enough to think of between this and to-morrow without troubling his head about a blind girl.'

'Man,' said Nydia, rising, 'wilt thou become free? Thou hast the offer in thy power; to-morrow it will be too late. Never was freedom more cheaply purchased. Thou canst easily and unmissed leave home: less than half an hour will suffice for thine absence. And for such a trifle wilt thou refuse liberty?'

Sosia was greatly moved. It was true that the request was remarkably silly; but what was that to him? So much the better. He could lock the door on Nydia, and, if Arbaces should learn his absence, the offence was venial, and would merit but a reprimand. Yet, should Nydia's letter contain something more than what she had said—should it speak of her imprisonment, as he shrewdly conjectured it would do—what then! It need never be known to Arbaces that he had carried the letter. At the worst the bribe was enormous—the risk light—the temptation irresistible. He hesitated no longer—he assented to the proposal.

'Give me the trinkets, and I will take the letter. Yet stay—thou art a slave—thou hast no right to these ornaments—they are thy master's.'

'They were the gifts of Glaucus; he is my master. What chance hath he to claim them? Who else will know they are in my possession?'

'Enough—I will bring thee the papyrus.'

'No, not papyrus—a tablet of wax and a stilus.'

Nydia, as the reader will have seen, was born of gentle parents. They had done all to lighten her calamity, and her quick intellect seconded their exertions. Despite her blindness, she had therefore acquired in childhood, though imperfectly, the art to write with the sharp stilus upon waxen tablets, in which her exquisite sense of touch came to her aid. When the tablets were brought to her, she thus painfully traced some words in Greek, the language of her childhood, and which almost every Italian of the higher ranks was then supposed to know. She carefully wound round the epistle the thread, and covered its knot with wax; and ere she placed it in the hands of Sosia, she thus addressed him:

'Sosia, I am blind and in prison. Thou mayst think to deceive me—thou mayst pretend only to take the letter to Sallust—thou mayst not fulfill thy charge: but here I solemnly dedicate thy head to vengeance, thy soul to the infernal powers, if thou wrongest thy trust; and I call upon thee to place thy right hand of faith in mine, and repeat after me these words: "By the ground on which we stand—by the elements which contain life and can curse life—by Orcus, the all-avenging—by the Olympian Jupiter, the all-seeing—I swear that I will honestly discharge my trust, and faithfully deliver into the hands of Sallust this letter! And if I perjure myself in this oath, may the full curses of heaven and hell be wreaked upon me!" Enough!—I trust thee—take thy reward. It is already dark—depart at once.'

'Thou art a strange girl, and thou hast frightened me terribly; but it is all very natural: and if Sallust is to be found, I give him this letter as I have sworn. By my faith, I may have my little peccadilloes! but perjury—no! I leave that to my betters.'

With this Sosia withdrew, carefully passing the heavy bolt athwart Nydia's door—carefully locking its wards: and, hanging the key to his girdle, he retired to his own den, enveloped himself from head to foot in a huge disguising cloak, and slipped out by the back way undisturbed and unseen.

The streets were thin and empty. He soon gained the house of Sallust. The porter bade him leave his letter, and be gone; for Sallust was so grieved at the condemnation of Glaucus, that he could not on any account be disturbed.

'Nevertheless, I have sworn to give this letter into his own hands—do so I must!' And Sosia, well knowing by experience that Cerberus loves a sop, thrust some half a dozen sesterces into the hand of the porter.

'Well, well,' said the latter, relenting, 'you may enter if you will; but, to tell you the truth, Sallust is drinking himself out of his grief. It is his way when anything disturbs him. He orders a capital supper, the best wine, and does not give over till everything is out of his head—but the liquor.'

'An excellent plan—excellent! Ah, what it is to be rich! If I were Sallust, I would have some grief or another every day. But just say a kind word for me with the atriensis—I see him coming.'

Sallust was too sad to receive company; he was too sad, also, to drink alone; so, as was his wont, he admitted his favorite freedman to his entertainment, and a stranger banquet never was held. For ever and anon, the kind-hearted epicure sighed, whimpered, wept outright, and then turned with double zest to some new dish or his refilled goblet.

'My good fellow,' said he to his companion, it was a most awful judgment—heigho!—it is not bad that kid, eh? Poor, dear Glaucus!—what a jaw the lion has too! Ah, ah, ah!'

And Sallust sobbed loudly—the fit was stopped by a counteraction of hiccups.

'Take a cup of wine,' said the freedman.

'A thought too cold: but then how cold Glaucus must be! Shut up the house to-morrow—not a slave shall stir forth—none of my people shall honour that cursed arena—No, no!'

'Taste the Falernian—your grief distracts you. By the gods it does—a piece of that cheesecake.'

It was at this auspicious moment that Sosia was admitted to the presence of the disconsolate carouser.

'Ho—what art thou?'

'Merely a messenger to Sallust. I give him this billet from a young female. There is no answer that I know of. May I withdraw?'

Thus said the discreet Sosia, keeping his face muffled in his cloak, and speaking with a feigned voice, so that he might not hereafter be recognized.

'By the gods—a pimp! Unfeeling wretch!—do you not see my sorrows? Go! and the curses of Pandarus with you!'

Sosia lost not a moment in retiring.

'Will you read the letter, Sallust?' said the freedman.

'Letter!—which letter?' said the epicure, reeling, for he began to see double. 'A curse on these wenches, say I! Am I a man to think of—(hiccup)—pleasure, when—when—my friend is going to be eat up?'

'Eat another tartlet.'

'No, no! My grief chokes me!'

'Take him to bed said the freedman; and, Sallust's head now declining fairly on his breast, they bore him off to his cubiculum, still muttering lamentations for Glaucus, and imprecations on the unfeeling overtures of ladies of pleasure.