'Why, she was here just before you entered; but she heard something that displeased her yonder, and vanished. Pollux! old Burbo had perhaps caught hold of some girl in the back room. I heard a female's voice crying out;the old dame is as jealous as Juno.'
'Ho! excellent!' cried Lepidus, laughing. 'Come, Clodius, let us go shares with Jupiter; perhaps he has caught a Leda.'
At this moment a loud cry of pain and terror startled the group.
'Oh, spare me! spare me! I am but a child, I am blind--is not that punishment enough?'
'O Pallas! I know that voice, it is my poor flower-girl!' exclaimed Glaucus, and he darted at once into the quarter whence the cry rose.
He burst the door; he beheld Nydia writhing in the grasp of the infuriate hag; the cord, already dabbled with blood, was raised in the air--it was suddenly arrested.
'Fury!' said Glaucus, and with his left hand he caught Nydia from her grasp;'how dare you use thus a girl--one of your own sex, a child! My Nydia, my poor infant!'
'Oh? is that you--is that Glaucus?' exclaimed the flower-girl, in a tone almost of transport; the tears stood arrested on her cheek; she smiled, she clung to his breast, she kissed his robe as she clung.
'And how dare you, pert stranger! interfere between a free woman and her slave. By the gods! despite your fine tunic and your filthy perfumes, Idoubt whether you are even a Roman citizen, my mannikin.'
'Fair words, mistress--fair words!' said Clodius, now entering with Lepidus.
'This is my friend and sworn brother; he must be put under shelter of your tongue, sweet one; it rains stones!'
'Give me my slave!' shrieked the virago, placing her mighty grasp on the breast of the Greek.
'Not if all your sister Furies could help you,' answered Glaucus. 'Fear not, sweet Nydia; an Athenian never forsook distress!'
'Holla!' said Burbo, rising reluctantly, 'What turmoil is all this about a slave? Let go the young gentleman, wife--let him go: for his sake the pert thing shall be spared this once.' So saying, he drew, or rather dragged off, his ferocious help-mate.
'Methought when we entered,' said Clodius, 'there was another man present?'
'He is gone.'
For the priest of Isis had indeed thought it high time to vanish.
'Oh, a friend of mine! a brother cupman, a quiet dog, who does not love these snarlings,' said Burbo, carelessly. 'But go, child, you will tear the gentleman's tunic if you cling to him so tight; go, you are pardoned.'
'Oh, do not--do not forsake me!' cried Nydia, clinging yet closer to the Athenian.
Moved by her forlorn situation, her appeal to him, her own innumerable and touching graces, the Greek seated himself on one of the rude chairs. He held her on his knees--he wiped the blood from her shoulders with his long hair--he kissed the tears from her cheeks--he whispered to her a thousand of those soothing words with which we calm the grief of a child--and so beautiful did he seem in his gentle and consoling task, that even the fierce heart of Stratonice was touched. His presence seemed to shed light over that base and obscene haunt--young, beautiful, glorious, he was the emblem of all that earth made most happy, comforting one that earth had abandoned!
'Well, who could have thought our blind Nydia had been so honored!' said the virago, wiping her heated brow.
Glaucus looked up at Burbo.
'My good man,' said he, 'this is your slave; she sings well, she is accustomed to the care of flowers--I wish to make a present of such a slave to a lady. Will you sell her to me?' As he spoke he felt the whole frame of the poor girl tremble with delight; she started up, she put her disheveled hair from her eyes, she looked around, as if, alas, she had the power to see!
'Sell our Nydia! no, indeed,' said Stratonice, gruffly.
Nydia sank back with a long sigh, and again clasped the robe of her protector.
'Nonsense!' said Clodius, imperiously: 'you must oblige me. What, man! what, old dame! offend me, and your trade is ruined. Is not Burbo my kinsman Pansa's client? Am I not the oracle of the amphitheatre and its heroes? If I say the word, break up your wine-jars--you sell no more. Glaucus, the slave is yours.'
Burbo scratched his huge head, in evident embarrassment.
'The girl is worth her weight in gold to me.'
'Name your price, I am rich,' said Glaucus.
The ancient Italians were like the modern, there was nothing they would not sell, much less a poor blind girl.
'I paid six sestertia for her, she is worth twelve now,' muttered Stratonice.
'You shall have twenty; come to the magistrates at once, and then to my house for your money.'
'I would not have sold the dear girl for a hundred but to oblige noble Clodius,' said Burbo, whiningly. 'And you will speak to Pansa about the place of designator at the amphitheatre, noble Clodius? it would just suit me.'
'Thou shalt have it,' said Clodius; adding in a whisper to Burbo, 'Yon Greek can make your fortune; money runs through him like a sieve: mark to-day with white chalk, my Priam.'
'An dabis?' said Glaucus, in the formal question of sale and barter.
'Dabitur,' answered Burbo.
'Then, then, I am to go with you--with you? O happiness!' murmured Nydia.
'Pretty one, yes; and thy hardest task henceforth shall be to sing thy Grecian hymns to the loveliest lady in Pompeii.'
The girl sprang from his clasp; a change came over her whole face, bright the instant before; she sighed heavily, and then once more taking his hand, she said:
'I thought I was to go to your house?'
'And so thou shalt for the present; come, we lose time.'
