“You think that these are the impossible wishes of one who has himself been a slave, or that it is the remembrance of past suffering and unutterable wrong which speaks in me?  For what right-minded man would not desire to preserve others from the misery which once crushed him to earth with its bitter burden?—­But you are mistaken.  Thousands of free-born men and women think as I do, for to them, too, a higher Power has revealed that the fullness of time is now come.  He, the Greatest and Best, who made all the woes of the world His own, has chosen the poor rather than the rich, the suffering rather than the happy, the babes rather than the wise and prudent; and in his kingdom the last shall be first—­yea, the least of the last, the poorest of the poor; and they, child, are the slaves.”

He ended his diatribe with a deep sigh, but Melissa pressed the hand which held hers as they walked along the raised pathway, and said:  “Poor Andreas!  How much you must have gone through before Polybius set you free!”

He only nodded, and they both remained silent till they found themselves in a quiet side street.  Then the girl looked up at him inquiringly, and began again: 

“And now you hope for a second Spartacus?  Or will you yourself lead a rebellion of the slaves?  You are the man for it, and I can be secret.”

“If it has to be, why not?” he replied, and his eyes sparkled with a strange fire.  But seeing that she shrank from him, a smile passed over his countenance, and he added in a soothing tone:  “Do not be alarmed, my child; what must come will come, without another Spartacus, or bloodshed, or turmoil.  And you, with your clear eyes and your kind heart, would you find it difficult to distinguish right from wrong, and to feel for the sorrows of others—?  Yes, perhaps!  For what will not custom excuse and sanctify?  You can pity the bird which is shut into a cage too small for it, or the mule which breaks down under too heavy a load, and the cruelty which hurts them rouses your indignation.  But for the man whom a terrible fate has robbed of his freedom, often through the fault of another, whose soul endures even greater torments than his despised body, you have no better comfort than the advice which might indeed serve a philosopher, but which to him is bitter mockery:  to bear his woes with patience.  He is only a slave, bought, or perhaps inherited.  Which of you ever thinks of asking who gave you, who are free, the right to enslave half of all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, and to rob them of the highest prerogative of humanity?  I know that many philosophers have spoken of slavery as an injustice done by the strong to the weak:  but they shrugged their shoulders over it nevertheless, and excused it as an inevitable evil; for, thought they, who will serve me if my slave is regarded as my equal?  You only smile at this confusion of the meditative recluses, but you forget”—­and a sinister