"Why do I want to look at a flower? Why do I want to hear the nightingale sing? Why do I like a cup of good wine?" laughed Agias. "Then, fair mistress, you may look for my answer when you have answered all of these questions of mine."
"I don't see what you mean," said poor Artemisia, looking dreadfully puzzled.
"I mean," exclaimed the other, "what Sappho meant of the bride,—
'She like an apple turned red; which reddens far up on the tree-top:—
Upon the topmost of boughs,—the gatherers they have quite missed it.
Yes, they saw it indeed; but too high to dare try to pluck it.'
Only I, if you don't greatly mind, will be the bold tree-climber and pluck the apple."
"But I do mind," cried Artemisia, all blushes, and springing a little back. Old Sesostris looked alarmed.
"You—you mean the girl no ill?" he faltered.
Agias looked from the innocent little thing over to the Ethiop, snapped his finger, and replied:—
"Ill? I am not a human wolf, making pretty objects like this my prey!" Then, choosing his moment carefully, by a quick turn he confronted Sesostris sternly, and almost thundered: "You speak of my doing ill to this maiden? You speak—the slave of Pratinas, who is the leader in every vice and wild prank in Rome! Has the slave as well as the master learned to play the hypocrite? Do you want to be tortured into confessing your part in all your master's crimes when the hour of reckoning comes and he is brought to justice. A! A!" he went on, seeing that Sesostris was rolling the whites of his eyes, and was trembling in every limb, "you know for a certainty how and when Pratinas is to have Quintus Drusus killed! Don't deny it. You will soon be in the meshes. Don't hope to escape. If murder comes to Drusus he may perish, but he has friends who will fearfully avenge his death."
"Mercy! Mercy!" howled the Ethiop, falling on his knees and clutching at the young Greek's robe, "I know very little of the plot. I only know—"