He then related the manner in which the child had been enticed and snapped away from the porch of the house, the various places she had been hidden away, until her final removal to Surrentum. The extreme minuteness of the narrative was too extraordinary not to impress his listener’s mind with an inward conviction of its truth, but, as our reader is already acquainted with its tenor, it need not be recapitulated here.
‘Yes, noble Fabricius, Surrentum is full of potters,’ said Cestus, concluding, ‘and with one of them, called Masthlion, and his wife Tibia, was finally lodged your little maid; and, with them, a childless pair, she has grown up well cared for and tended, as I know well. She thinks herself their child to this hour, and it is time you took her to your own nest. Her poor feathers cannot hide her breed. She is known by the name of Neæra.’
Fabricius sat looking at the Suburan with the torture of [pg 390]his mind imprinted on his pale face. ‘Why do the gods permit such cruel deeds?’ said he; ‘for what reason was this wickedness perpetrated?’
‘Money,’ said Cestus.
‘Money!’ echoed Fabricius, leaping to his feet in horror; ‘was she sold, then, for a slave?’
‘Not at all,’ replied the Suburan quietly; ‘cannot you understand? Money has been at the bottom of it all. You have an enormous amount of it, and the child was in some one’s way. Once out of it, and then who comes next? Why your loving nephew, Afer—now do you see?’
‘Fellow, what do you mean? Do you dare to cast even so much as a doubt upon the honesty of a knight—a relative of mine?—take care!’
‘More than that, your honour, I say it was no other, and through no other, than your nephew, T. Domitius Afer, that your child was kidnapped.’
‘Fellow!’
‘It is true enough. He wanted her out of the way so that he might be your heir. For that end he hired a certain individual, now alive, for a comfortable sum to put her aside, so that she might never more be heard of.’