n.

"Take him to the armorer's and have put upon him the collar. And on pain
of punishment let no man say he is not the one who went away."

So they put upon him the brazen collar of slaveship, with the name of
Eudemius engraved thereon; and set him to work among the household
slaves. And he, being alone, was helpless, and could do no more than
bide his time as best he might.

But at first, when his bonds galled, he stormed, raging in fury at his
impotence and the high-handedness of those who had betrayed him to his
servitude. Finding that this brought him but blows and curses, and was
of no manner of good, he calmed down and simmered inwardly. Then--and
herein he surprised himself--he began to take an interest in this new
life into which he had been cast. He had abiding faith in himself, and
this is a thing of which every man has need; he was undergoing a new
experience, which at the outset was interesting. When he became tired of
it--well, he would then find means of escape. The work was not over
hard, since there were many hands to lighten it; he was brought into
contact with a magnificence of which he had never dreamed. As always, he
kept his eyes and ears open; with his strange, sure prescience that all
he could see and hear and know would be useful to him, somehow,
somewhen, he set out to learn all he could of the life of the great
mansion and of those who dwelt therein.

So he found out many things; and one day he found Varia, the great
lord's daughter.

The house was so vast that one might lose himself with ease among its
many halls and courts and passages if he did not know its plan. Nicanor,
sent one day on an errand to the kitchens, reached them in safety; and
then took the wrong way back, and found himself wandering in a part of
the house new to him. This did not trouble him, for by then he was well
known among the household servants, and was sure of soon meeting some
one who would set him right. So, quite without thought, he pushed open a
door at random, and then abruptly lost all his wits through sheer
amazement and delight.

For he was in a garden, beautiful to his eyes beyond all words, with
broad terraces and gleaming marble steps where peacocks strutted; with
at one end a fountain banked in a tangle of roses, where sprays of water
fell with silvery splash and tinkle; with marble seats and statues
gleaming from the cool gloom of trees. Around the garden were high
walls, vine-hung, with the surrou