Chrysilla overwhelmed with joy heard the question as in a dream and yet it wept straight

to her heart like a dagger. She cut her effusion of love short and looked into his eyes. She saw

the strange gleam there and withdrew instinctively. Axius still covered with dust from the

journey, his face dirty, a three day stubble on his chin looked like a barbarian with a soul

overcome by some terrible mystery which his burning eyes betrayed. Chrysilla understood.

Like a flash the look in Axius's eyes brought recollections that now revealed their meaning :

his unreasonable hatred of Servilia, the flogging, the journey. Axius's question echoed in her

ears as though he had been repeating it over and over again and in it she felt there was a

danger as if her very life was at stake. His. anxiety made it easy for her to give him the

suitable answer.

"Servilia ?" she murmured with contempt as sharp as a sword.

She tossed her head haughtily, eyed him from top to toe, narrowed her eyelids and gave

him a loathsome smile. She was wearing a saffron coloured tunic that set off her slender

waist and made her look taller. She added

"Hmm!”

She then turned her back on him and made for the oak door of her rooms. In the dark

opening of the door the outline of her yellow figure spelled danger.

Axius stood stock-still with the same question in his eves

"Where is Servilia ?"

Finding himself all alone his anxiety turned into fright. Why didn't Servilia show up ?

Maybe she is no longer here ? Why didn't Chrysilla answer ? It was only now he recollected

that Chrysilla had said something. Her voice now frightened him. He saw her again turning

her back on him, it seemed deliberately. That very moment a violent pain shook him as if he

had been stabbed in the chest with a dagger.

He darted desperately after Chrysilla ! In the cubicle at the foot of the double bed lay

Servilia tossing about breathing heavily. Nearby stood Chrysilla with cold eyes, clenched fists

satisfied watching the slave girl in her agony. Hearing Axius's footsteps she turned her eyes

to him and said defiantly :

"There's your Servilia!”

Howling with pain, Axius hurled himself on the slave girl in whose breast a small dagger

with an ivory hilt was still sticking

"Don't die, Servilia, don't die!" Axius cried taking her head in his hands and looking deep

into her eyes that for one whole year had lived in his heart hoping for eternal love.

A ray of joy flashed over Servilia's face as her green eyes met his and kindled a flame of

infinite happiness, Axius, however, kept repeating the words in a torpor as if he believed that

they could keep her alive

"Don't die…!”

Then he touched the hilt of the dagger. He got scared and snatched it out of the wound

certain that he would thus save her life. On Servilia's green tunic there oozed a red spot of

blood that quickly turned black. In her glassy eyes there still lingered for an instant a weak

flicker of happiness then it went out.

Axius repeated her name again and again more and more hopelessly then collapsed on

her breast sobbing bitterly. Some moments later he heard Chrysilla's voice and jumped to his

feet. He now realized that she was the one who killed the girl and for an instant flew into a fury

squeezing tight the hilt of the blood-stained dagger. The woman defied him with a calm that

crushed the very roots of his anger. Anyway, he thought, there was no point in doing anything

about it now