ost in attempting to
discover: and Ione--Arbaces loved her--might his rival's success be
founded upon his ruin? That thought cut him more deeply than all; and
his noble heart was more stung by jealousy than appalled by fear. Again
he groaned aloud.

A voice from the recess of the darkness answered that burst of anguish.
'Who (it said) is my companion in this awful hour? Athenian Glaucus, it
is thou?'

'So, indeed, they called me in mine hour of fortune: they may have other
names for me now. And thy name, stranger?'

'Is Olinthus, thy co-mate in the prison as the trial.'

'What! he whom they call the Atheist? Is it the injustice of men that
hath taught thee to deny the providence of the gods?'

'Alas!' answered Olinthus: 'thou, not I, art the true Atheist, for thou
deniest the sole true God--the Unknown One--to whom thy Athenian fathers
erected an altar. It is in this hour that I know my God. He is with me
in the dungeon; His smile penetrates the darkness; on the eve of death
my heart whispers immortality, and earth recedes from me but to bring
the weary soul nearer unto heaven.'

'Tell me,' said Glaucus, abruptly, 'did I not hear thy name coupled with
that of Apaecides in my trial? Dost thou believe me guilty?'

'God alone reads the heart! but my suspicion rested not upon thee.'

'On whom then?'

'Thy accuser, Arbaces.'

'Ha! thou cheerest me: and wherefore?'

'Because I know the man's evil breast, and he had cause to fear him who
is now dead.'

With that, Olinthus proceeded to inform Glaucus of those details which
the reader already knows, the conversion of Apaecides, the plan they had
proposed for the detection of the impostures of the Egyptian upon the
youthful weakness of the proselyte. 'Therefore,' concluded Olinthus,
'had the deceased encountered Arbaces, reviled his treasons, and
threatened detection, the place, the hour, might have favored the wrath
of the Egyptian, and passion and craft alike dictated the fatal blow.'

'It must have been so!' cried Glaucus, joyfully. 'I am happy.'

'Yet what, O unfortunate! avails to thee now the discovery? Thou art
condemned and fated; and in thine innocence thou wilt perish.'

'But I shall know myself guiltless; and in my mysterious madness I had
fearful, though momentary, doubts. Yet tell me, man of a strange creed,
thinkest thou that for small errors, or for ancestral faults, we are for
ever abandoned and accursed by the powers above, whatever