had told her
father that he was blind, and her brother-in-law Labaja had heard the
same thing. While saying this, her lips curled scornfully, but when she
saw how deeply their friend's misfortune moved her two prisoners, she
waved her hand, declaring that he did not need their sympathy; the pilot
had reported that he was living in magnificence and pleasure, and the
people in the capital honoured and praised him as if he were a god.

Thereupon she had laughed shrilly and reviled so bitterly the
contemptible blind Fortune that remains most loyal to those who deserve
to perish in the deepest misery, that Bias avoided repeating her words
to his master.

The news of Myrtilus's legacy had not reached her ears, and Bias, too,
had just heard of it for the first time.

Ledscha's object had been to relieve her troubled soul by attacks
upon the man whom she hated, but she suddenly turned to the master and
servant to ask if they desired to obtain their liberty.

Oh, how quickly a hopeful "Yes" reached the ears of the gloomy woman!
how ready both were to swear, by a solemn oath, to fulfil the conditions
the Biamite desired to impose!

As soon as opportunity offered, both were to leave the Hydra with one
other person who, like Bias and herself, understood how to mange a boat.

The favourable moment soon came. One moonless night, when the steering
of the Hydra was intrusted to the Gaul, Ledscha waked the two prisoners
and, with the Gaul Lutarius, Myrtilus, and the slave, entered the boat,
which conveyed them to the shore without accident or interruption.

Bias knew the name of the place where it had anchored, it is true, but
the oath which Ledscha had made him swear there was so terrible that he
would not have broken it at any cost.

This oath required the slave, who, three days after their landing,
was sent to Alexandria by the first ship that sailed for that port, to
maintain the most absolute secrecy concerning Myrtilus's hiding place
until he was authorized to speak. Bias was to go to Alexandria without
delay, and there obtain from Archias, who managed Myrtilus's property,
the sums which Ledscha intended to use in the following manner: Two
attic talents Bias was to bring back. These were for the Gaul, probably
in payment for his assistance. Two more were to be taken by the slave to
the Temple of Nemesis. Lastly, Bias was to deliver five talents to old
Tabus, who kept the treasure of the pirate family on the Owl's Nest, an