are, before too great a risk is incurred for his rescue. He has now, we
are to remember, been at the capital of the great king thirteen years. You
have hinted that he had been kindly regarded by the son of Sapor. Possibly
his captivity amounts to no more than a foreign residence--a sort of
exile. Possibly he may, in this long series of years, have become changed
into a Persian. I understand your little lip, Fausta, and your indignant
frown, Lucius; but what I suggest is among things possible, it cannot be
denied; and can you deny it?--not so very unlikely, when you think what
the feelings of one must have been to be so wholly forgotten and abandoned
by his native country, and that country, Rome, the mistress of the world,
who needed but to have stretched forth the half of her power to have
broken for ever the chains of his slavery, as well as of the thousands who
with him have been left to linger out their lives in bondage. If
Calpurnius has been distinguished by the son of Sapor, his lot, doubtless,
has been greatly lightened, and he may now be living as a Persian prince.
My counsel is, therefore, that the truth in this regard be first obtained,
before the life of another son, and the only inheritor of so great a name,
be put in jeopardy. But what is the exact sum of what you have learned,
and upon which we may rely, and from which reason and act?'

'Our knowledge,' I replied, 'is derived from a soldier, who, by a great
and happy fortune, escaped and reached his native Rome. He only knew what
he saw when he was first a captive, and afterward, by chance, had heard
from others. He was, he said, taken to serve as a slave about the palace
of the King, and it was there that for a space he was an eye-witness to
the cruel and insulting usage of both Valerian and Calpurnius. That was
but too true, he said, which had been reported to us, that whenever the
proud Sapor went forth to mount his horse, the Emperor was brought, in the
face of the whole court, and of the populace who crowded round, to serve
as his footstool. Clothed in the imperial purple, the unfortunate Valerian