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 noble ladyship?”

“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 gods!  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 passed, and no one came to disturb her; and just as the shadows were falling Agias knocked at the garden gate.

“St!” were his words, “I have hired a gig which will carry us both.  Pratinas is loose and has been raising heaven and earth to get at us.  There is a crier going the rounds of the Forum offering a thousand sesterces for the return of Artemisia.  Pratinas has gone before the triumviri capitales[130] and obtained from them an order on the apparitores[131] to track down the runaway and her abettor.”