with his gorgeous hues, charming the ear with his blithesome song—­thus suddenly to be arrested—­caged in darkness—­a victim and a prey—­his gay flights for ever over—­his hymns of gladness for ever stilled!  The poor Athenian! his very faults the exuberance of a gentle and joyous nature, how little had his past career fitted him for the trials he was destined to undergo!  The hoots of the mob, amidst whose plaudits he had so often guided his graceful car and bounding steeds, still rang gratingly in his ear.  The cold and stony faces of former friends (the co-mates of merry revels) still rose before his eye.  None now were by to soothe, to sustain, the admired, the adulated stranger.  These walls opened but on the dread arena of a violent and shameful death.  And Ione! of her, too, he had heard naught; no encouraging word, no pitying message; she, too, had forsaken him; she believed him guilty—­and of what crime?—­the murder of a brother!  He ground his teeth—­he groaned aloud—­and ever and anon a sharp fear shot across him.  In that fell and fierce delirium which had so unaccountably seized his soul, which had so ravaged the disordered brain, might he not, indeed, unknowing to himself, have committed the crime of which he was accused?  Yet, as the thought flashed upon him, it was as suddenly checked; for, amidst all the darkness of the past, he thought distinctly to recall the dim grove of Cybele, the upward face of the pale dead, the pause that he had made beside the corpse, and the sudden shock that felled him to the earth.  He felt convinced of his innocence; and yet who, to the latest time, long after his mangled remains were mingled with the elements, would believe him guiltless, or uphold his fame?  As he recalled his interview with Arbaces, and the causes of revenge which had been excited in the heart of that dark and fearful man, he could not but believe that he was the victim of some deep-laid and mysterious snare—­the clue and train of which he was lost in attempting to discover:  and Ione—­Arbaces loved her—­might his rival’s success be founded upon his ruin?  That thought cut him more deeply than all; and his noble heart was more stung by jealousy than appalled by fear.  Again he groaned aloud.

A voice from the recess of the darkness answered that burst of anguish.  ’Who (it said) is my companion in this awful hour?  Athenian Glaucus, it is thou?’

’So, indeed, they called me in mine hour of fortune:  they may have other names for me now.  And thy name, stranger?’

‘Is Olinthus, thy co-mate in the prison as the trial.’

’What! he whom they call the Atheist?  Is it the injustice of men that hath taught thee to deny the providence of the gods?’

‘Alas!’ answered Olinthus:  ’thou, not I, art the true Atheist, for thou deniest the sole true God—­the Unknown One—­to whom thy Athenian fathers erected an altar.  It is in this hour that I know my God.  He is with me in the dungeon; His smile penetrates the darkness; on the eve of death my heart whispers immortality, and earth recedes from me but to bring the weary soul nearer unto heaven.’