The young Greek proceeded. “Your Excellency is aware that the two women, Rhoda and Cleone, hitherto reputed daughters of one Bion and Rhoda his wife, were adjudged to be of servile condition on testimony by which it was proved that they were not in truth daughters of the said Bion, but were castaway children, adopted by him and his wife.
“I have now to bring under your Excellency’s [157] notice the terms of an Imperial rescript quoted by yourself in this court last December, as settling a certain question concerning the condition of exposed children submitted by you to the Emperor. These terms were in substance as followsyour Excellency will correct me if I am wrong, but I took them down in writing at the time, as seeming to me to be of great importance:‘If it should be proved that children so exposed were born of free parents, their free condition shall not be held to have been impaired by such exposure.’ This, my lord, is exactly what I am now prepared to prove of the two women Rhoda and Cleone. And first I will, with your permission, produce the witness on whose testimony I chiefly rely, though indeed it can easily be confirmed by other evidence.”
“Inform the court of the name and condition of this witness. But it will promote the ends of justice if you will first inform us of your own proceedings in this case, and of how you were led to believe that our adjudications needed to be corrected.”
“My lord,” began the young advocate, “it must have occurred to you and to others who were present on the first day of the trial, as certainly it occurred to me, that nature had committed, if I may so speak, a strange freak when she [158] ordered that maidens of an appearance so noble, so worthy of freedom, should be born of slaves.”
“The thought was not unreasonable,” said the Governor; “but such eccentricities are not unknown, and the evidence seemed to support the presumption.”
“Further, my lord, I was aware that this nobility was not of appearance only, but of mind also and disposition, for I had been admitted into the home of Bion, the reputed father of the two, and know that none could be more worthy of respect and love.”
Cleone cast down her eyes, blushing to hear these praises from her lover’s lips.
“But I will leave suppositions, my lord, and proceed to facts. I gathered from the evidence that there was a secret connected with the birth of these two childrenthat the only person who had been known to be cognisant of this secret was a certain nurse, and that this person was now deceased. It was also proved that, when about to die, she had refused to communicate the knowledge that she evidently possessed. The only hope that seemed to me to remain was, if I could discover that there had been some other person who had shared, or might be supposed likely to have shared, in this knowledge. I made many inquiries for such a person, and for a long [159] time could hear of none. Her husband had been long dead. She had left no children behind her. But at last I heard from a woman of the same age, who is yet alive, that she had a brother who had been a slave in the city. All that I could learn about him was that he had suddenly disappeared from this neighbourhood; that some supposed that he had been drowned, but others doubted, seeing that his body had never been found. Here, then, my inquiries seemed to have an end.
“But now, my lord, listen to what followed. Your Excellency sent me on business, wholly unconnected with this matter, to a certain village on the borders of Phrygia. It was finished sooner than I had expected, and as I could not return till my horse had had a day’s rest, I had some time to spare. I spent it in wandering about the downs which are above the village, and in the course of my walks I fell in with an old shepherd. The man interested me with his talk, which touched upon more things than such a man commonly knows. He happened to let fall something, from which I gathered that he knew this town. When I asked him a question about it, he seemed unwilling to speak. I pressed him. Something seemed to warn me that by chance, if there is such thing as chance, I had found the man whom I wanted.”
[160] “You are a student,” interrupted the Governor, and you know doubtless how one of your historians speaks of an ‘inspired chance.’ It was that, if I remember right, which made the baby Cypselus smile in the face of the men who came to murder him. Chance, I take it, is an ordering of things which we do not understand, and we may well call it inspired. But go on.”
“Well, my lord, as I said, I pressed him, and he told me that he knew this town well. And then he gave me the story of how he came to leave it. But as this story bears directly upon the matter in hand, I would suggest, with your permission, that you should hear it from the man’s own lips.”
The witness, who had been waiting outside in the charge of one of the officers of the court, was called in. His face, curiously seamed with lines and wrinkles beyond all counting, indicated an extreme old age; but it was an age that was still vigorous and green. His blue eyes were bright and piercing. His hair was abundant, and showed amidst the prevailing grey much of the auburn which had been its color in the days of his prime. His tall figure was but little bowed by years; and his broad shoulders and sinewy arm (the right of them left bare by his one-sleeved tunic) showed that he might still be a match for many a younger man.
[161] It was evident that the scene into which he had been brought was wholly strange to him, and that he was not at all at his ease. He had stood nervously shifting his red Phrygian cap from one hand to another, while his eye roved restlessly over the crowded court.
“Tell us your name,” said the Governor.
“My lord,” said the man in Greek, “let me first implore your protection.” The refinement of his voice and accent contrasted curiously with his uncultured look. In garb he was a rustic of the rustics; but it might be seen that he had once been a dweller in cities.
“You can speak without fear,” said the Governor.
“I shall have to say that which may be brought up against myself. It concerns years long past; but if the man against whom I offended still lives, he is not one of those who forgive.”
“No one shall harm you if you will speak the truth. I promise it by the majesty of Augustus.”
“More than twenty years ago I was steward in the household of a certain merchant in Nic?a.”
“What was his name?” asked the Governor.
“With your permission, I will reserve this to the end of the story which I have to relate. I was a slave, but I had been well taught, and he trusted me with much of his business. I kept his [162] accounts, and I knew much of his affairs. He was, at the time of which I speak, a man of about forty years of age. Five years before, he had married the only daughter of the merchant Lycophron of Nicomedia. Lycophron was reputed to be rich, and my master, who was very greedy after money, expected to inherit much wealth from him.
“Lycophron had given but a very small portion to his daughter on her marriage. This was a grievance with my master; but he hoped to have it made up to him. I have heard the two talking about itthey always spoke openly before me. ‘ Never mind,’ the old man would say; ‘there will be the more when you come to unseal the tablets, and by that time you will know how to use it and keep it better.’ This was a joke of the old man’s, for no man could make more of money, or cared less for spending it, than my master.
“Well, at the time of which I am speaking, news came that old Lycophron was dead, and my master started at once for Nicomedia. He was not very willing, for my mistress was then not very well. Three days after, he came back. He was in a furious rage, and broke out as soon as he saw me. ‘Listen, Geta,’ he said: ‘that old villain has deceived me. He has not left so much as a single [163] drachma behind him. His house was mortgaged; the very bed on which he died was pledged. When I came to open his willfor he had the impudence to leave a will, though there was nothing to dispose ofI found written in it“The only possession of value that belongs to me I have already given away, to wit, my daughter Eubule. My son-in-law, who has now known for five years what a treasure he has found in her, will not be disappointed to know that I can give him nothing more.” These were his very words. Yes; he palmed off his beggar’s brat on me very cleverly. A treasure, indeed!’