"Remove the Athenian!--Quick! or his blood be on your head. Prætor, delay, and you answer with your own life to the Emperor! I bring with me the eye-witness to the death of the priest Apæcides. Room there, stand back, give way. People of Pompeii, fix every eye upon Arbaces; there he sits! Room there for the priest Calenus!"
Pale, haggard, fresh from the jaws of famine and of death, his face fallen, his eyes dull as a vulture's, his broad frame gaunt as a skeleton, Calenus was supported into the very row in which Arbaces sat. His releasers had given him sparingly of food; but the chief sustenance that nerved his feeble limbs was revenge!
"The priest Calenus--Calenus!" cried the mob. "It is he? No--it is a dead man!"
"It is the priest Calenus," said the prætor, gravely. "What hast thou to say?"
"Arbaces of Egypt is the murderer of Apæcides, the priest of Isis; these eyes saw him deal the blow. It is from the dungeon into which he plunged me--it is from the darkness and horror of a death by famine--that the gods have raised me to proclaim his crime! Release the Athenian--he is innocent!"
"It is for this, then, that the lion spared him, A miracle! a miracle!" cried Pansa.
"A miracle! a miracle!" shouted the people; "remove the Athenian--Arbaces to the lion."
And that shout echoed from hill to vale--from coast to sea--Arbaces to the lion.
"Officers, remove the accused Glaucus--remove, but guard him yet," said the prætor. "The gods lavish their wonders upon this day."
As the prætor gave the word of release, there was a cry of joy: a female voice, a child's voice; and it was of joy! It rang through the heart of the assembly with electric force; it was touching, it was holy, that child's voice. And the populace echoed it back with sympathizing congratulation.