ore his
mistress with a smiling face.

"Don't raise high hopes, my lady, but trust me. I have struck a path
that I'm sure Pratinas will wish I'd never travelled." And that was
all he would say, but laid his finger on his lips as though it was a
great secret. When he was gone, for Cornelia the sun shone brighter,
and the tinkling of the water in the fountain in the peristylium
sounded sweeter than before. After all, there had come a gleam of
hope.

Cornelia needed the encouragement. That same day when Herennia called
to see her, that excellent young lady--for not the least reason in the
world--had been full of stories of poisoning and murders, how some
years ago a certain Balbutius of Larinum was taken off, it was said,
at a wedding feast of a friend for whom the poison had been intended;
and then again she had to tell how, at another time, poison had been
put in a bit of bread of which the victim partook. The stories were
old ones and perhaps nothing more than second-hand scandal, but they
were enough to make poor Cornelia miserable; so she was doubly
rejoiced when Agias that evening pressed his lips again and smiled and
said briefly: "All is going well. We shall have the root of the matter
in a few days."

Agias had actually come upon what he was right in considering a great
piece of good fortune. He had easily found the tenement in the Subura
where Pratinas lodged, but to learn anything there that would be
useful was a far more difficult affair. He had hung around the place,
however, as much as he dared, making his headquarters at a tavern
conveniently near, and tried to learn Pratinas's habits, and whether
he ever took any visitors home with him. All this came to little
purpose till one morning he observed an old Ethiop, who was tugging a
heavy provision basket, stagger up the street, through the nondescript
crowd. The old slave was being assailed by a mob of street gamins and
low pedlers who saw in the contents of the hamper so much fair
plunder. These vagabonds had just thrown the Ethiop down into the mud,
and were about to divide their booty, when Agias, acting on a generous
impulse, rushed out from the tavern to the rescue. Nimble, for his age
powerful, and armed with a stout staff which he had caught up in the
wine-shop to aid him, the young Greek won an easy victory over
cowardly antagonists, put all the plunderers to flight, and lifted the
old slave out of the mire. The Ethiop was profuse in his thanks.