The soldiers and their _decurio_ broke into loud laughter at the threat, and without ceremony put gyves on the wrists of the seven Galli. They consulted whether they should also arrest Onesimus and the flute-player, but Onesimus said that he was ignorant of the theft, that neither he nor his companion--who were acting as slaves of the priests--had ever been permitted to see the contents of the silken veil. The soldiers believed him, and all the more because they did not care to burden themselves with too many prisoners. They took the Galli to Naples, where Onesimus was afterwards told that they had been scourged, imprisoned, and mulcted of all they possessed. Free once more, and not troubling himself about their fate, Onesimus asked the flute-player what he meant to do. Finding that he regarded his present calling as too comfortable a berth to be given up, Onesimus left him and made his way disconsolately to Baiæ. CHAPTER XXXIII _TITUS AND THE VESTAL_ ‘Laudabile est infelicis scire misereri.’--VAL. MAX. v. i. 8. Cast once more on his own resources, Onesimus tried his chance of earning a living in the streets. He had a little money in hand, and, seeing that the street vendors drove a brisker trade in drink than in anything else, he bought two or three dozen bottles of _posca_, and sold them at a small profit to the poorer wayfarers. In this, as in all his adventures, his good looks were of use to him, for men and women alike were more inclined to buy of a lively and pleasant youth than of the wandering Jews and beggars who sometimes attempted the same trade. He began to think that, for the present, he could keep soul and body together in this way; but he had been rash in choosing a place so near Rome, and still more rash in discarding his disguise. For one day, as he was calling out the merits of his wine in his clear, ringing voice, and making the people laugh with his jokes, Dama, the steward of the lovely villa which Nero owned at Baiæ, caught sight of him. The man had often been to the Palace on business connected with his accounts, and had noticed Onesimus, then dressed in gay attire and at the zenith of his prosperity, as a youth high in favour in the imperial household. He had heard from Callicles, Nero’s dispensator, of the drunken escapade which had put so sudden an end to his good fortune, and of his subsequent flight from the ergastulum. Now the flight of any slave, but above all of one of Cæsar’s slaves, was so capital an offence that Callicles had asked his friend to keep a good lookout for the recovery of the fugitive. A glance made him nearly sure of the identity of Onesimus, but to be quite certain he took out a copy of the reward which had been offered. It ran as follows:--