“Where have you been hiding yourself this last half-year?” Stephanus went on. “Will you speak, or shall I loosen your tongue by the help of this dagger?” He drew out the weapon and stepped forward. The slave raised his head with a melancholy smile. “I understand,” he said, “you have come to finish your work. You are afraid of me. After suffering so long from the misery of terror, you want to make away with the witness of your crime. But you are mistaken. That dreaded secret will not die with me. Cneius Afranius knows it, and sooner or later he will make himself heard. But kill me all the same. For me death can hardly hold more terrors than life.” Stephanus had dropped his arms by his side; a flash of implacable hatred glared in his eyes. “Wretch! you dared.... But you triumph too soon; Afranius is an exile, banned as a traitor....” “By Caesar,” added Eurymachus. “But even Caesars are mortal and human. Take my word for it, that exile will see an end. The wrath of God is hanging over the head of the tyrant, who gives the servants of God to be devoured by beasts. Your accuser will return and demand justice of a tribunal, that you cannot bribe as you did the judges to whom Thrax Barbatus appealed for his rights.” “Mean slave!” cried Stephanus furious. “And what is there to prevent me from having you racked and tortured, till every nerve in your body writhes with anguish like a worm?” “Well, satisfy your vengeance. Throw me into the lowest depths of your ergastulum, and leave me there to rot before I die. Send me to join your father--aye, your father--for I know it, and Afranius knows it--it was not your uncle even, but your own father, who was the victim of your brutal crime.” “Silence!” roared Stephanus, “or I will murder you!” and he flew at the slave. But something in the man’s lofty indifference again stayed the blow. “Is it loathing and horror of yourself, that hold you back?” asked Eurymachus. “Aye, shudder, Stephanus, and quail! Yes--I saw him, the hapless wretch, half-mad on his filthy bed of straw. I shuddered at it too, as if hell had shown me its horrors, and I thanked God, even with tears, when I knew that in that very hour the suffering soul was free. For three dreadful years, immured by his own son, bereft of life and hope, fed like a beggar’s dog--and this for the sake of filthy lucre, which you would certainly have had in the course of time! Why, the bloodiest patricide is meritorious, when compared with your crime!” Then suddenly drawing himself up, he went on: