'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.