Toxaris; Or, Friendship (61)

When I have told you as my fifth case the deeds of Abauchas I will stop. This Abauchas once came into a city of the Borysthenites, bringing with him his wife, whom he loved tenderly, and two small children, one of them a baby at the breast and the other a girl seven years old. A friend of his, Gyndanes, journeyed in company with him, and he, moreover, was suffering from a wound he got from robbers who had waylaid them on the road. For in fighting them he got a thrust in the thigh, so that he could not even stand for pain. As they were asleep at night— they happened to be lodging in an upper story—a great fire broke out, all means of exit were cut off, and the flames surrounded the house on every

side. Thereupon Abauchas awoke, and he left his weeping child behind and shook off his wife, who clung to him, calling to her to save herself; but he lifted his friend and made his way down, and was in time to get out through part of the house not yet entirely seized by the fire. His wife followed, carrying the baby, and bidding the little girl come after; but the woman was half-burnt and let the baby fall from her arm, and barely leaped through the flame with the little girl, who also had a narrow escape from death. When it was afterwards made a reproach to Abauchas that he had deserted his wife and children to bring Gyndanes out, he would say, "It is an easy matter for me to have more children, and it is impossible to know whether they will be good or not; but it would take me a long time to find another such friend as Gyndanes, who has given me great proof of his affection."