Becoming calm, he resumed—"Hasten the search, Coryna; ask the maiden to come and see me before I die. Tell her that I shall regard her visit as a kindness and honour. I desire much to speak to her, my beloved sister, to place thee in her care, and then I shall die in peace." Tharsos spoke these last words very feebly, and then closing his eyes he sank bask into unconsciousness.
Coryna's heart was torn, but she would not renounce hope.
*****
It was difficult to trace where Pathema had gone, humble Christian friends having taken her to a remote, obscure, but comfortable home. One messenger, however, got word of her whereabouts late the same night, but too late to be prudent to call. When he knocked at the door next day he did not know that the object of his search was well informed through her friends concerning Tharsos' critical state, and that already there was a brief, beautiful, tablet-letter in her own handwriting, lying near his unconscious pillow.
Weakened by her cruel experience, Pathema was resting quietly upon a couch beside a small open window, her heart full of gratitude to God for deliverance and of anxiety about her human deliverer.
"Is there a maiden named Pathema lodging here?" Marcellus, the messenger, enquired.
"There is, sir," said a little Roman maid, the daughter of the hostess, much excited as she looked out into the street and saw six slaves in red livery standing beside a grand palanquin.
"My master, Tharsos, is at the point of death, but he would like to see the Christian maiden ere he die."
Pathema overheard these words, and rose up at once. Though weak in body, she was resolute in mind, and she had enjoyed a providential night's rest. There was no delay in arranging matters, and she stepped into the lectica calmly but as one about to go through a painful ordeal.
After elbowing their way through the streets, Marcellus leading, the slaves at length laid their burden down beside a statue of Caractacus in the vestibule before the door of the young nobleman's mansion.