Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days of Pompeii

BOOK THE SECOND 3. Chapter III (continued)

'Do not wrong me, noble Glaucus; I think of both, but I should never have been a gladiator but for the money.'

'Base! mayest thou fall! A miser never was a hero.'

'I am not a miser,' said Lydon, haughtily, and he withdrew to the other end of the room.

'But I don't see Burbo; where is Burbo? I must talk with Burbo,' cried Clodius.

'He is within,' said Niger, pointing to the door at the extremity of the room.

'And Stratonice, the brave old lass, where is she?' quoth Lepidus.

'Why, she was here just before you entered; but she heard something that displeased her yonder, and vanished. Pollux! old Burbo had perhaps caught hold of some girl in the back room. I heard a female's voice crying out; the old dame is as jealous as Juno.'

'Ho! excellent!' cried Lepidus, laughing. 'Come, Clodius, let us go shares with Jupiter; perhaps he has caught a Leda.'

At this moment a loud cry of pain and terror startled the group.

'Oh, spare me! spare me! I am but a child, I am blind--is not that punishment enough?'

'O Pallas! I know that voice, it is my poor flower-girl!' exclaimed Glaucus, and he darted at once into the quarter whence the cry rose.

He burst the door; he beheld Nydia writhing in the grasp of the infuriate hag; the cord, already dabbled with blood, was raised in the air--it was suddenly arrested.

'Fury!' said Glaucus, and with his left hand he caught Nydia from her grasp; 'how dare you use thus a girl--one of your own sex, a child! My Nydia, my poor infant!'