Alas! how faithless are the friendships made around an epicurean board! Where were the gay loiterers who once lingered at the feasts and drank the rich wines of the house of Glaucus? Only Sallust shed a tear, but he was powerless against Arbaces who was backed by the corrupt priesthood of Isis. What ministering angel should now come forth as a light out of darkness bearing, even in her blindness, the conditions of deliverance, but Nydia. From the slaves of Arbaces she learned the approaching fate of Glaucus. Working upon the superstition of her special guard Sosia, she manages to escape his vigilance for a time, and creeping along a dark passage she overhears the cries of the priest Calenus lately incarcerated in an adjoining dungeon cell. From him she learns the circumstances of the crime of Arbaces for which the innocent Glaucus was doomed to die. A few hours later she was captured by Sosia and replaced in her cell. Yet knowing that the sole chance for the life of Glaucus rested on her, this young girl, frail, passionate, and acutely susceptible as she was--resolved not to give way to despair. Glaucus was in deadly peril, but she should save him! Sosia was her only hope, the only instrument with which she could tamper. As if afraid he would be again outwitted, Sosia refrained from visiting her until a late hour of the following day. "Kind Sosia, chide me not," said Nydia, "I cannot endure to be so long alone, the solitude appalls me. Sit with me, I pray, a little while. Nay, fear not that I should attempt to escape; place thy seat before the door. Sosia, how much dost thou require to make up thy freedom?" "How much?" said he, "why, about 2000 sesterces." "The Gods be praised! not more? Seest thou these bracelets and this chain? they are worth double that sum. I will give them thee if thou wilt let me out, only for one little hour! let me out at midnight--I will return ere to-morrow's dawn; nay, thou canst go with me." "No," said Sosia, sturdily, "a slave once disobeying Arbaces is never heard of more." "Well, then, thou wilt not, at least, refuse to take a letter for me; thy master cannot kill thee for that." "To whom?" "To Sallust, the gay Sallust. Glaucus was my master, he purchased me from a cruel lord. He alone has been kind to me. He is to die to-morrow. I shall never live happily if I cannot, in this hour of trial and doom, let him know that one heart is grateful to him. Sallust is his friend; he will convey my message." "Well, give me the trinkets, and I will take the letter." Nydia carefully prepared the epistle, but ere she placed it in the hands of Sosia she thus addressed him: