Shimei was venturing to let lapse his part Of mere reporter to a talk supposed Betwixt himself and the dull sentinel-- This to let lapse, or, if not quite let lapse, Mix and confound with his own proper part, Inveterate, unassumed, of scoffer free; He saw the chiliarch sink so deep immersed In hearing and in weighing what was said, He deemed he might thenceforward trust his speech, With scant disguise of indirection, aimed As frankly for a keen intelligence-- The chiliarch's own, and not the sentinel's-- To snare his listener's now less warded wit. Paul was clean gone indeed, gone otherwise Than through the guile that he had dared impute; But he, meantime, would such a chance not miss, A golden chance that might not come again, To prepossess the chiliarch's captive mind With pregnant ill surmise concerning Paul. There yet was unexhausted circumstance Suggestively at hand, seed that but sown Would a fine harvest of suspicion spring. Point-blank his aim shifted to Lysias now, He said: "Why did Gamaliel stay so long? Why, indeed, come at all, but, having come, Why so long tarry, wearing out the day? Where is Gamaliel now? What did it mean That that officious Hebrew youngster--he Who, at Paul's wish, Gamaliel hither brought, Who back and forth has flitted through the gate All day, carrying and fetching as he liked-- What did it mean, I ask, that he bore in Flagons of wine and loaves of bread? What mean? Why, this, provision got to serve Paul's need, When, issuing in Gamaliel's vesture, he Should shuffle forth, Gamaliel, on the street, To try the fortune of a runaway, A hopeless runaway in Cæsar's world. The clement chiliarch never would be hard On an old dotard of a hundred years, Found aider and abettor in such wile, Where left behind in ward to take his chance; Or, possibly, Gamaliel might not know, Much more, not share, the stratagem of Paul. It would be easy to put him to sleep And strip him of his raiment, unawares, For the exchange, unbargained-for, with Paul. Paul has much travelled everywhere abroad And freely commerced with all kinds of men. He has the skill of many magic arts, The virtue knows of many a mighty drug; He can compound thee opiate drinks to drown Thy thought and senses in oblivion. He could compose thee in so deep a sleep, Fair like an infant's, that not all the blare Of all Rome's trumpets loud together blown Could rouse thee ever from that fixéd sleep. A dangerous wicked man to wield such power!"