'Ah! runaway! I have thee--eh?' said Sosia, seizing upon the unhappy Nydia. As a hare's last human cry in the fangs of the dogs--as the sharp voice of terror uttered by a sleep-walker suddenly awakened--broke the shriek of the blind girl, when she felt the abrupt gripe of her gaoler. It was a shriek of such utter agony, such entire despair, that it might have rung hauntingly in your ears for ever. She felt as if the last plank of the sinking Glaucus were torn from his clasp! It had been a suspense of life and death; and death had now won the game. 'Gods! that cry will alarm the house! Arbaces sleeps full lightly. Gag her!' cried Callias. 'Ah! here is the very napkin with which the young witch conjured away my reason! Come, that's right; now thou art dumb as well as blind.' And, catching the light weight in his arms, Sosia soon gained the house, and reached the chamber from which Nydia had escaped. There, removing the gag, he left her to a solitude so racked and terrible, that out of Hades its anguish could scarcely be exceeded. Chapter XVI THE SORROW OF BOON COMPANIONS FOR OUR AFFLICTIONS. THE DUNGEON AND ITS VICTIMS. IT was now late on the third and last day of the trial of Glaucus and Olinthus. A few hours after the court had broken up and judgment been given, a small party of the fashionable youth at Pompeii were assembled round the fastidious board of Lepidus. 'So Glaucus denies his crime to the last?' said Clodius. 'Yes; but the testimony of Arbaces was convincing; he saw the blow given,' answered Lepidus. 'What could have been the cause?' 'Why, the priest was a gloomy and sullen fellow. He probably rated Glaucus soundly about his gay life and gaming habits, and ultimately swore he would not consent to his marriage with Ione. High words arose; Glaucus seems to have been full of the passionate god, and struck in sudden exasperation. The excitement of wine, the desperation of abrupt remorse, brought on the delirium under which he suffered for some days; and I can readily imagine, poor fellow! that, yet confused by that delirium, he is even now unconscious of the crime he committed! Such, at least, is the shrewd conjecture of Arbaces, who seems to have been most kind and forbearing in his testimony.' 'Yes; he has made himself generally popular by it. But, in consideration of these extenuating circumstances, the senate should have relaxed the sentence.' 'And they would have done so, but for the people; but they were outrageous. The priest had spared no pains to excite them; and they imagined--the ferocious brutes!--because Glaucus was a rich man and a gentleman, that he was likely to escape; and therefore they were inveterate against him, and doubly resolved upon his sentence. It seems, by some accident or other, that he was never formally enrolled as a Roman citizen; and thus the senate is deprived of the power to resist the people, though, after all, there was but a majority of three against him. Ho! the Chian!'