The old man approached—a penetrating, disagreeable odor, proceeding from a goblet on the table reached him—the smell of hemlock.
He now understood everything.
“Dead!” he murmured, “dead!” he repeated, as though he could not believe his own words.
Motionless and carefully attired as usual, Callippides sat in the high-backed chair he had inherited. His dark hair and beard were redolent of perfume, there was not a spot to be seen on his light robe, and shining rings glittered on his fingers. The only thing which showed he had fought his last battle, was that his right hand was pressed against his side as if in an attack of pain, while the left hung loosely over the arm of the chair. His features were dark and grave, but neither darker nor graver than usual, and a ray of the dawning day cast a delusive semblance of life upon his pallid cheeks.
Directly above him on the white wall were two lines of an imperfectly washed inscription.
Manes, fixing his eyes on it, read:
... “Sentenced to
drink the hemlock.”
At the sight of these words, which stood there like the inscription on a tomb, marked by the finger of retribution, tears streamed from the old slave’s eyes.
“Zeus Soter be merciful to him,” he murmured. “He has sentenced himself!”
Directly after Manes saw a sheet of papyrus lying on the table. Taking it up with a trembling hand he read: