'By the gods, thou mockest me!'
'No, I am serious. I know your secret. You sailed to Britain, tore the princess priestess from her island home, sailed across the seas to Sidon; there deserted wife and child. The mother died, the daughter lived—became a foundling, then a slave, Saronia! Afterwards thou didst take to wife the Roman, Venusta.'
'Hold—hold, Chios! It is all true. It comes back to me!'
'By a strange fate she met thy Roman daughter. How could there be peace—the first-born a slave, the second a tyrant? I, Chios, admired the nobleness, the beauty, of this slave, until I worshipped her and loved her beyond expression. I would have purchased her with all I had, not knowing who she was—would have wed her. The Fates ordered otherwise, and she arose, as you know, until she became the mightiest woman of the land; and because her great spirit towered beyond the faith which environed her, and she accepted the faith of the Highest, her goodness became a crime in the eyes of the Ephesian people. But again, Lucius, she is thy child! Wilt thou save her?'
'Save her, Chios? 'Tis the least I can do. There shall be no mistake in this matter; and I will order guard enough to fetch her should all the soldiers in Ephesus be required.'
And Chios went back to his studio to prepare for the removal of Saronia.
CHAPTER XLVI
THE CROWN OF LIFE
Acratus was at the head of his plunderers. Nothing was too small or great for his rapacious maw. He came up the marble steps of the studio of Chios and knocked violently.
'Hast thou anything within?' said the tyrant.