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268 DAKKNESS AND DAWN
place by the side of a little stream, which was overgrown
with dense foliage, he slipped, and fell crashing through
the brushwood into the deep and muddy water which was
hidden by the undergrowth. Too weak to rise and struggle,
he could only just support himself by clinging to a bough,
when his cries were heard. A labourer came and rescued
him, and left him sitting in the sunlight to dry his soaking
rags. And now he thought that there was nothing left him
but to die, and seriously meditated whether it would not be
best to fling himself into the green-covered sludge of black
water from which he had been rescued, and so to end his
miseries.
A sound arrested him, and, lifting his head, he saw a group
of the eunuch priests of the Syrian goddess approaching along
the road, one of whom shook the jingling sistrum which had
attracted his attention. They were a company of seven, and
were men taken from the dregs of the populace. With them
was a stout youth, who rode an ass which carried their various
properties, the chief of which were musical instruments,
and the image of the goddess wrapped in an embroidered
veil.
As they passed they eyed him curiously, and stopped a few
paces beyond him as though for a consultation.
' '
A likely youth,' he heard one of them say, though now
he looks thin and miserable. We have long wanted another
'
servant. Would not he do for us, Philebus ?
Probably a runaway slave,' said another.
'
What does that matter to us ? said Philebus. We can
'
' '
say that he called himself free-born, and told us that he ran
away from the cruelties of a step-mother or anything else
we choose to invent. I will go and question him.'
Philebus was an old man with a wizened and wrinkled face.
The top of his head was bald ;
the rest of his grey locks were
trained to hang round his head in long curls.
Are you hungry
? he asked.
'
'
Onesimus nodded.
'
Here is bread for you, and some flesh of kid, and some
wine.'
Onesimus ate and drank with ravenous eagerness, and the
old man asked him, '
A fugitive slave ? '
'I was free born.'