‘Croto, if I gave you an aureus, would you swear to let me have a chance to escape?’
Croto looked long and hard at his beautiful face, and walked on without a word. But as he returned from his rounds he touched him, and said,
‘Yes; I pity you. You are not like the rest of this herd of swine. Such things as an escape have happened ere now, and no one is the wiser. Masters don’t care to ask many questions.’
‘I will trust you,’ said Onesimus; and tearing the aureus from the hem of his dark serge dress, he slipped it into Croto’s hand.
‘Keep awake to-night. The two who guard the door shall be drunk. Get up a disturbance after midnight; be near the door, and when it opens— The plan may fail, but it is the only chance I can give you.’
Onesimus pointed in despair to the fetters on his feet.
‘When a slave has shown himself quiet and reasonable, they are sometimes removed; and yours shall be. But the manacles on your wrists must remain; they are never removed at night.’
Onesimus made his plans. At the dead of night, when the prison was plunged in darkness—for oil was much too dear to be wasted on chained slaves—he raised a great outcry, as though he had been suddenly attacked. The slaves sprang up from their pallets, heavy and confused with sleep. But Onesimus had all his senses on the alert, and by violently pushing one, jostling against another, and striking a third, he soon had the whole place in a tumultuous uproar of rage and panic, during which he quietly crouched down beside the door. It was opened by the sleepy and drunken guardians, to find the cause of the disturbance, and, before they could be reinforced by their more sober colleagues, Onesimus dashed the lamp out of the hand of one of them, tripped up the other, and ran to hide himself in the dark corner of an adjacent street, behind the Temple of Fortune. He succeeded, though with great pain, in forcing one hand free from the chain; and hiding the other, with the manacle which dangled from it, under his sleeve, he determined, at the first gleam of light, to try and find some assembly of Christians. He knew that it was their custom to meet at earliest dawn in secret places—generally, if possible, the secluded entrance to some sand-pit—to sing hymns to Christ as God, before the slumbering pagan population began to stir. He was fortunate, for soon, with senses preternaturally quickened by peril, he heard at no great distance the faint sound of a hymn. He made his way towards the spot, and concealed himself till the congregation should break up. He knew that the last to leave was generally the Presbyter; and, waiting for him, he called him as he passed.
The Presbyter started, and said, ‘Who goes there?’
Onesimus stepped out of his hiding-place, and said, ‘Oh, for the love of Christ, help me to get free from this chain!’