he straps of his sandals which dragged unfastened, and
Argutis had had to lead him, almost to carry him in from the garden, for
a violent fit of coughing had left him quite exhausted. The effort of
pulling at the heavy oars on board the galley had been too much for his
weak chest. Argutis and Dido had carried him to bed, and he had soon
fallen into a deep sleep, from which he had not waked since.

And now what were these two plotting? They were writing; and not on wax
tablets, but with reed pens on papyrus, as though it were a matter of
importance.

All this gave the slave much to think about, and the faithful soul did
not know whether to weep for joy or grief when Alexander told him, with
a gravity which frightened him in this light-hearted youth, that,
partly as the reward of his faithful service and partly to put him in a
position to aid them all in a crisis of peculiar difficulty, he gave him
his freedom. His father had long since intended to do this, and the deed
was already drawn out. Here was the document; and he knew that, even as
a freedman, Argutis would continue to serve them as faithfully as ever.
With this he gave the slave his manumission, which he was in any case to
have received within a month, at the end of thirty years' service, and
Argutis took it with tears of joy, not unmixed with grief and anxiety,
while only a few hours since it would have been enough to make him the
happiest of mortals.

While he kissed their hands and stammered out words of gratitude, his
uncultured but upright spirit told him that he had been blind ever to
have rejoiced for a moment at the news that Melissa had been chosen to
be empress. All that he had seen during the last half-hour had convinced
him, as surely as if he had been told it in words, that his beloved
young mistress scorned her imperial suitor, and firmly intended to evade
him--how, Argutis could not guess. And, recognizing this, a spirit of
adventure and daring stirred him also. This was a struggle of the weak
against the strong; and to him, who had spent his life as one of the
oppressed, nothing could be more tempting than to help on the side of
the weak.

Argutis now undertook with ardent zeal to get Diodoros and his parents
safely on board the ship he was to engage, and to explain to Heron, as
soon as he should have read the letter which Alexander was now writing,
that, unless he could escape at once with Philip, he was lost. Finally,
he promised that the e