'You will not send him to the captain Polidorus?' exclaimed Ænone in affright. For at once the many atrocities of that man toward his slaves rose in her mind--how that he had slain one in a moment of passion--how that he had deliberately beaten another to death for attempting to escape to the catacombs--how that stripes and torture were the daily portion of the unfortunates in his power--and that, not by reason of any gross neglect of their duty, but for the merest and most trifling inadvertencies. Better death than such a fate. 'Pah! What can I do?' retorted Porthenus, skilfully touching the chord of her sympathies, as he saw how sensitive she was to its vibrations. 'It is true that Polidorus is no fawning woman, and that he greets his slaves with the rod and the brand, and what not. It is true that he thinks but little of sending one of them to Hades through the avenue of his fishponds. But that, after all, is his affair, and if he chooses to destroy his property, what should it matter to me? Am I so rich that I can afford to lose a fair purchaser because he may incline to hang or drown his bargain? Such self-denial may suit the governor of a province, but should not be expected of a poor centurion.' Ænone trembled, and again the impulse to make the purchase came upon her. Better to risk anything for herself--recognition, discovery, suspicion, or misconstruction, than that her friendship should so far fail as to allow this poor captive to fall into the hands of a brutish tyrant. There was a purse of gold in the half-opened drawer of a table which stood near her; and, in sore perplexity, she raised it, then let it fall, and again lifted it. As the centurion listened to the ring of the metal, his eyes sparkled, and he prepared to apply new arguments, when Cleotos himself sprang forward. 'I know nothing about this Polidorus of whom they speak,' said he, dropping upon one knee at her feet. 'And it is not to save myself from his hands that I ask your pity, most noble lady. There is much that I have already suffered, and perhaps a little more might make no difference, or, better yet, might close the scene with me forever. It is for other reasons that I would wish to be in this house--even as the lowest, meanest slave of all, rather than to live in the halls of the emperor Titus himself. There is one in this house, most noble lady, from whom I have long been cruelly separated, and who--what can I say but that if, when I was a free man, she gave me her love, now, in my abasement, she will not fail with that love to brighten my lot?' Ænone started. At hearing such words, there could be but one thought in her mind--that he had actually recognized her, and that, without waiting to see whether or not she had forgotten him, and certainly knowing that in any event her position toward him had become changed, he was daring to covertly suggest a renewal of their old relationship. But the next words reassured her.