“And now, oh! makaira,"[128] said Agias, “I must go away for just a little while.  I have ever so many things to attend to; and you must be a good, brave girl, and wait until I come back.”

  [128] Blessed dear.

“St!" broke in Sesostris, “there’s a step on the stairs.  Pratinas is coming!”

“Hide me!” cried Agias, as the approaching feet grew nearer.  There was no time to take refuge in one of the farther rooms.

“Here;” and Sesostris threw open the same iron clamped chest in which some time ago we saw Pratinas inspecting his treasure.  “The money was taken out yesterday.”

Agias bounded into the box, and Sesostris pushed down the cover.  The luckless occupant had only a chance to push out a corner of his tunic through the slit to admit a little air, when Pratinas entered the room.  Agias longed to spring forth and throttle him, but such an act would have been folly.

The young Greek’s prison was sufficiently cramped and stuffy; but for a moment Agias tried to persuade himself that he had only to wait with patience until Pratinas should be gone, and no one would be the worse.  An exclamation from the room without dispelled this comforting illusion.

“By Zeus!” cried Pratinas, “what is this?  Whence came this new toga?”

Agias writhed in his confinement.  In the plentitude of the glory of his newly acquired freedom, he had come abroad in an elegant new toga; but he had laid it on a chair when he entered the room.

There was an awkward pause outside; then Pratinas burst out, “You worthless Ethiopian, you, where did this toga come from?  It hasn’t wings or feet!  How came it here?  Who’s been here?  Speak, speak, you fool, or I will teach you a lesson!”

Agias gathered himself for a spring; for he expected to hear Sesostris whimper out a confession, and see Pratinas’s wickedly handsome face peering into the chest.  “He shan’t cut my throat without a struggle!” was his vow.

But, to his surprise, Sesostris answered with a tone of unlooked-for firmness, “Master, I cannot tell you where the toga came from.”

The tone of Pratinas, in reply, indicated his passion.  “Sheep!  Dog!  Have I had you all these years that you should need a thrashing for impertinence!  What rascal has been here to ogle at this wretched girl?” He might have thundered his commands to Artemisia, who was sobbing in evident distress; but his anger was concentrated on Sesostris.  “Will you not speak?”

“Master,” came the same firm reply, “I will not tell you, though you take my life for refusing.”

What followed was, as Agias heard it, a volley of curses, blows, groans, and scuffling; then a heavy fall; an extremely fierce execration from Pratinas, and a loud shrill scream from Artemisia, “O Sesostris; dear Sesostris!  He doesn’t speak!  He doesn’t move!  You’ve killed him!”