Sesostris’s emotion was too genuine to be a mere trap for ensnaring his visitor; and Agias in turn was stirred.

“Old man,” he exclaimed, seizing the other’s hand, “you and I have suffered much from evil masters.  Thank the gods, I am now serving one I love—­albeit unfortunate enough!  But we have a common right to punish the wrongdoers, and earn a little bit of happiness for ourselves.  Come, now!  If Artemisia is a slave, she is in no wise above me.  Let me save Drusus from Pratinas, and I pledge my word that I will save Artemisia from him and his nefarious schemes,—­yes, and you, too.  If Artemisia likes me, why then there will be perhaps more to add to the story.  Come—­I am your friend, and you, mine.”

Sesostris wrung the other’s hand.  The honest servant was moved too much to speak.  His heart and soul had been bound up in Artemisia.

“May your Ka[101] stand before Osiris justified!” he choked.  “I have been privy to many a dark action, until I used to try to forget the day when I must answer to the Judge of the Dead for every deed done and word spoken.  But I could not stifle my fear for the only dear thing in the world.”

  [101] The spiritual double which belonged to every man according to
  the Egyptian ideas.

Agias went away in a happy frame of mind.  He had every confidence that Sesostris would worm out of Pratinas the exact details of the plot, and put the conspirators at the mercy of Drusus and Mamercus.

* * * * *

And Agias had felt there was good reason to rejoice in his discovery in more ways than one.  Especially was he conscious that there were no lips as red and as merry, no cheeks as rosy, no eyes as dancing, no chatter as sweet, as those of Artemisia.  And what is more, he rejoiced to believe that that young lady was not half so shy of him as at first, and was as anxious to see him as he to see her.  Thanks to due warnings and precautions, Agias never stumbled on Pratinas, when the latter was at his lodgings.  The time he dared to stay was all too short for Artemisia.  She was always telling how lonesome she was with only old Sesostris for company, before she knew Agias.  Once when the latter was late in his daily visit, he was delighted to find scribbled on the wall, “Artemisia to her Agias:  you are real mean.”  Agias hated to make her erase it lest it fall under Pratinas’s eagle eye.

But still Sesostris had nothing to tell about the plot against Drusus.  Some days passed.  Agias began to grow uneasy.  Sesostris had represented that he was conversant with everything his master had on foot; but Pratinas might have been more discreet than to unfold all his affairs, even before his servant; and then, too, there was always the possibility that Sesostris was playing fast and loose, and about to betray Agias to his master.  So the latter grew disquieted, and found it a little hard to preserve the character of cheerful mystery which he simulated to Cornelia.  The long-sought information came at a time when he was really off his guard.  Agias had been visiting Artemisia.  Sesostris as well as Pratinas had been out; the two young people were amusing themselves trying to teach a pet magpie to speak, when the Ethiop rushed into the room, all in a tremble with anxious excitement.