r burst into loud laughter.

Chapter LIX

FOR some time Vinicius had spent his nights away from home. It occurred
to Petronius that perhaps he had formed a new plan, and was working to
liberate Lygia from the Esquiline dungeon; he did not wish, however, to
inquire about anything, lest he might bring misfortune to the work. This
sceptical exquisite had become in a certain sense superstitious. He had
failed to snatch Lygia from the Mamertine prison, hence had ceased to
believe in his own star.

Besides, he did not count this time on a favorable outcome for the
efforts of Vinicius. The Esquiline prison, formed in a hurry from the
cellars of houses thrown down to stop the fire, was not, it is true,
so terrible as the old Tullianum near the Capitol, but it was a hundred
times better guarded. Petronius understood perfectly that Lygia had been
taken there only to escape death and not escape the amphitheatre. He
could understand at once that for this very reason they were guarding
her as a man guards the eye in his head.

"Evidently," said he to himself, "Caesar and Tigellinus have reserved her
for some special spectacle, more dreadful than all others, and Vinicius
is more likely to perish than rescue her."

Vinicius, too, had lost hope of being able to free Lygia. Christ alone
could do that. The young tribune now thought only of seeing her in
prison.

For some time the knowledge that Nazarius had penetrated the Mamertine
prison as a corpse-bearer had given him no peace; hence he resolved to
try that method also.

The overseer of the "Putrid Pits," who had been bribed for an immense
sum of money, admitted him at last among servants whom he sent nightly
to prisons for corpses. The danger that Vinicius might be recognized was
really small. He was preserved from it by night, the dress of a slave,
and the defective illumination of the prison. Besides, into whose head
could it enter that a patrician, the grandson of one consul, the son of
another, could be found among servants, corpse-bearers, exposed to the
miasma of prisons and the "Putrid Pits"? And he began work to which men
were forced only by slavery or the direst need.

When the desired evening came, he girded his loins gladly, covered his
head with a cloth steeped in turpentine, and with throbbing heart betook
himself, with a crowd of others, to the Esquiline.

The pretorian guards made no trouble, for all had brought proper
tesserae, which the centurion e