"Not yet departed?" said Thellus.
"Sir, I was asleep," replied the slave, with a look of terror.
"I have but to tighten my fingers," cried Thellus, "and you will sleep so as not to awake in a hurry."
"Thellus," observed Paulus, "I am not depending either on this man's knowledge or on this man's ignorance. I have quite other hopes and other grounds of confidence. Let him go."
"Ah!" said Thellus, "I would like to have the chastising of you. But go, as this noble gentleman desires; go, then, as the young Roman knight bids you!"
He shook the reptile-headed, down-looking, and side-looking slave away, and the latter disappeared.
"O friend and noble sir!" said Thellus, "it nearly breaks my heart to see you thus bound hand and foot, and doomed to destruction."
"Have a good heart, dear Thellus," said Paulus.
So they parted, the gladiator returning to his vehicle, and Paulus retiring to his room, where, as he lay on his bed and listened to the plash of the fountain in the impluvium, he silently and calmly offered back to the great unknown God whom Dionysius worshipped the life which he, that unknown Deity, could alone have given.