‘Is there no escape from this horrible place?’
‘When you go in again, look round you, and see how hopeless is the attempt. The ergastulum is half subterranean. Its windows are narrow, and high above our heads. If we attempted to escape, the least noise would wake the jailers, and some of these around us would be the first to curry favour by helping to defeat our plan.’
‘Even if I could get the money, I do not think it right to bribe.’
‘Because I think that Christ means us to endure all He sends. I trust in Him. If He sends me hunger, I bear it. If He casts me down, I believe that in due time He will lift me up. If He suffers me to be sent to prison, I try to turn the prison into His Temple. But I feel sure that He will deliver me--and that soon.’
Hermas was not wrong. His incarceration was short, because he was one of the few slaves in the family of Pedanius whom the Præfect could trust. Pedanius was a man whose cruel indifference and imperious temper made him more than usually obnoxious to his slaves. He lived in terror of them, and tried to avert danger by inspiring terror into them. He could not do without Hermas. He did not know that he was a Christian; but he knew that in other houses besides his own there had recently sprung up a class of slaves honest and faithful, and that Hermas was one of them. He married his slave-girl to another youth, and Hermas was set free.
And then Onesimus, seeing that every other method of escape was impossible, tried the effects of bribery. He had managed, though with infinite difficulty, to conceal the gold piece which Octavia had given him, and he had noted that one of the underlings of the prison-keeper seemed to be not unkindly disposed to him. He was a man named Croto, chosen for the office because his stalwart proportions and herculean strength would make him formidable to any unruly slave; but there was a certain rough honesty and kindliness in his face which made Onesimus think that he might move his compassion.
Seizing his opportunity one day, as Croto passed him in the field, he boldly whispered,
‘Croto, if I gave you an _aureus_, would you swear to let me have a chance to escape?’
Croto looked long and hard at his beautiful face, and walked on without a word. But as he returned from his rounds he touched him, and said,