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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Arachne—Volume 04, by Georg Ebers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Arachne
+       Volume 04
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #5511]
+[Most recently updated: November 15, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE — VOLUME 04 ***
+
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of
+the file for those who may wish to sample the author’s ideas before
+making an entire meal of them. D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+Arachne
+
+By Georg Ebers
+
+Volume 4.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Outside the door of the tent Hermon was trying to banish Althea’s image
+from his mind. How foolishly he had overestimated last night the value
+of this miserable actress, who as a woman had lost all charm for
+him—even as a model for his Arachne!
+
+He would rather have appeared before his pure friend with unsightly
+stains on his robe than while mastered by yearning for the Thracian.
+
+The first glance at Daphne’s beloved face, the first words of her
+greeting, taught him that he should find with her everything for which
+he longed.
+
+In simple, truthful words she reproached him for having neglected her
+to the verge of incivility the evening before, but there was no trace
+of bitterness or resentment in the accusation, and she gave Hermon
+little time for apology, but quickly gladdened him with words of
+forgiveness.
+
+In the opinion of her companion Chrysilla, Daphne ought to have kept
+the capricious artist waiting much longer for pardon. True, the
+cautious woman took no part in the conversation afterward, but she kept
+her charge in sight while she was skilfully knotting the fringe into a
+cloth which she had woven herself. On account of her favourite
+Philotas, it was well for Daphne to be aware that she was watched.
+
+Chrysilla was acquainted with life, and knew that Eros never mingles
+more arbitrarily in the intercourse of a young couple than when, after
+a long separation, there is anything whatever to forgive.
+
+Besides, many words which the two exchanged escaped her hearing, for
+they talked in low tones, and it was hot in the tent. Often the fatigue
+she felt after the sleepless night bowed her head, still comely with
+its unwrinkled face, though she was no longer young; then she quickly
+raised it again.
+
+Neither Daphne nor Hermon noticed her. The former at once perceived
+that something was weighing on the sculptor’s mind, but he did not need
+any long inquiry. He had come to confide his troubles to her, and she
+kindly lightened the task for him by asking why he had not gone to
+breakfast with the Pelusinians.
+
+“Because I am not fit for gay company today,” was the reply.
+
+“Again dissatisfied with Fate?”
+
+“True, it has given me small cause for contentment of late.”
+
+“Put in place of Fate the far-seeing care of the gods, and you will
+accept what befalls you less unkindly.”
+
+“Let us stick to us mortals, I entreat you.”
+
+“Very well, then. Your Demeter does not fully satisfy you.”
+
+A discontented shrug of the shoulders was the reply.
+
+“Then work with twofold zeal upon the Arachne.”
+
+“Although one model I hoped to obtain forsook me, and my soul is
+estranged from the other.”
+
+“Althea?” she asked eagerly, and he nodded assent.
+
+Daphne clapped her hands joyfully, exclaiming so loudly that
+Chrysilla’s head sprang up with a jerk. “It could not help being so! O
+Hermon! how anxious I have been! Now, I thought, when this horrible
+woman represented the transformation into the spider with such
+repulsive accuracy, Hermon will believe that this is the true, and
+therefore the right, ideal; nay, I was deceived myself while gazing.
+But, eternal gods! as soon as I imagined this Arachne in marble or
+chryselephantine work, what a painful feeling overpowered me!”
+
+“Of course!” he replied in an irritated tone. “The thirst for beauty,
+to which you all succumb, would not have much satisfaction to expect
+from this work.”
+
+“No, no, no!” Daphne interrupted in a louder tone than usual, and with
+the earnest desire to convince him. “Precisely because I transported
+myself into your tendency, your aspirations, I recognised the danger. O
+Hermon! what produced so sinister an effect by the wavering light of
+the lamps and torches, while the thunderstorm was rising—the strands of
+hair, the outspread fingers, the bewildered, staring blue eyes—do you
+not feel yourself how artificial, how unnatural it all was? This
+transformation was only a clever trick of acting, nothing more. Before
+a quiet spectator, in the pure, truthful light of Apollo, the foe of
+all deception, what would this Arachne probably become? Even now—I have
+already said so—when I imagine her executed in marble or in gold and
+ivory! Beauty? Who would expect to find in the active, constantly
+toiling weaver, the mortal daughter of an industrious dyer in purple,
+the calm, refreshing charm of divine women? I at least am neither
+foolish nor unjust enough to do so. The degree of beauty Althea
+possesses would entirely satisfy me for the Arachne. But when I imagine
+a plastic work faithful to the model of yesterday evening—though I have
+seen a great deal with my own eyes, and am always ready to defer to
+riper judgment—I would think, while looking at it: This statue came to
+the artist from the stage, but never from Nature. Such would be my
+view, and I am not one of the initiated. But the adepts! The King, with
+his thorough connoisseurship and fine taste, my father, and the other
+famous judges, how much more keenly they would perceive and define it!”
+
+Here she hesitated, for the blood had left Hermon’s cheeks, and she saw
+with surprise the deep impression which the candid expression of her
+opinion had produced upon the artist, usually so independent and
+disposed to contradiction. Her judgment had undoubtedly disturbed, nay,
+perhaps convinced him; but at the same time his features revealed such
+deep depression that, far from rejoicing in so rare a success, she
+patted his arm like an affectionate sister, saying: “You have not yet
+found time to realize calmly what yesterday dazzled us all—and you,”
+she added in a lower tone, “the most strongly.”
+
+“But now,” he murmured sadly, half to himself, half to, her, “my vision
+is doubly clear. Close before the success of which I dreamed failure
+and bitter disappointment.”
+
+“If this ‘doubly’ refers to your completed work, and also to the
+Arachne,” cried Daphne in the affectionate desire to soothe him, “a
+pleasant surprise will perhaps soon await you, for Myrtilus judges your
+Demeter much more favourably than you yourself do, and he also betrayed
+to me whom it resembles.”
+
+She blushed slightly as she spoke, and, as her companion’s gloomy face
+brightened for a short time, went on eagerly: “And now for the Arachne.
+You will and must succeed in what you so ardently strive to accomplish,
+a subject so exactly adapted to your magnificent virile genius and so
+strangely suited to the course which your art has once entered upon.
+And you can not fail to secure the right model. You had not found it in
+Althea, no, certainly not! O Hermon! if I could only make you see
+clearly how ill suited she, in whom everything is false, is to you—your
+art, your only too powerful strength, your aspiration after truth—”
+
+“You hate her,” he broke in here in a repellent tone; but Daphne
+dropped her quiet composure, and her gray eyes, usually so gentle,
+flashed fiercely as she exclaimed: “Yes, and again yes! From my inmost
+soul I do, and I rejoice in it. I have long disliked her, but since
+yesterday I abhor her like the spider which she can simulate, like
+snakes and toads, falsehood and vice.”
+
+Hermon had never seen his uncle’s peaceful daughter in this mood. The
+emotions that rendered this kindly soul so unlike itself could only be
+the one powerful couple, love and jealousy; and while gazing intently
+at her face, which in this moment seemed to him as beautiful as Dallas
+Athene armed for battle, he listened breathlessly as she continued:
+“Already the murderous spider had half entangled you in her net. She
+drew you out into the tempest—our steward Gras saw it—in order, while
+Zeus was raging, to deliver you to the wrath of the other gods also and
+the contempt of all good men; for whoever yields himself to her she
+destroys, sucks the marrow from his bones like the greedy harpies, and
+all that is noble from his soul.”
+
+“Why, Daphne,” interrupted Chrysilla, raising herself from her cushions
+in alarm, “must I remind you of the moderation which distinguishes the
+Greeks from the barbarians, and especially the Hellenic woman—”
+
+Here Daphne indignantly broke in: “Whoever practises moderation in the
+conflict against vice has already gone halfway over to evil. She
+utterly ruined—how long ago is it?—the unfortunate Menander, my poor
+Ismene’s young husband. You know them both, Hermon. Here, of course,
+you scarcely heard how she lured him from his wife and the lovely
+little girl who bears my name. She tempted the poor fellow to her ship,
+only to cast him off at the end of a month for another. Now he is at
+home again, but he thinks Ismene is the statue from the Temple of Isis,
+which has gained life and speech; for he has lost his mind, and when I
+saw him I felt as if I should die of horror and pity. Now she is coming
+home with Proclus, and, as the way led through Pelusium, she attached
+herself to our friends and forces herself in here with them. What does
+she care about her elderly travelling companion? But you—yes, you,
+Hermon—are the next person whom she means to capture. Just now, when my
+eyes closed But no! It is not only in my dreams; the hideous gray
+threads which proceed from this greedy spider are continually floating
+before me and dim the light.” Here she paused, for the maid Stephanion
+announced the coming of visitors, and at the same time loud voices were
+heard outside, and the merry party who had been attending the breakfast
+given by the commandant of Pelusium entered the tent.
+
+Althea was among the guests, but she took little notice of Hermon.
+
+Proclus, her associate in Queen Arsinoe’s favour, was again asserting
+his rights as her travelling companion, and she showed him plainly that
+the attention which he paid her was acceptable.
+
+Meanwhile her eager, bright blue eyes were roving everywhere, and
+nothing that was passing around her escaped her notice.
+
+As she greeted Daphne she perceived that her cheeks had flushed during
+her conversation with Hermon.
+
+How reserved and embarrassed the sculptor’s manner was now to his
+uncle’s daughter, whom only yesterday he had treated with as much
+freedom as though she were his sister! What a bungler in dissimulation!
+how short- sighted was this big, strong man and remarkable artist! He
+had carried her, Althea, in his arms like a child for a whole quarter
+of an hour at the festival of Dionysus, and, in spite of the sculptor’s
+keen eye, he did not recognise her again!
+
+What would not dyes and a change of manner accomplish!
+
+Or had the memory of those mad hours revived and caused his
+embarrassment? If he should know that her companion, the Milesian
+Nanno, whom he had feasted with her on oyster pasties at Canopus after
+she had given the slip to her handsome young companion was Queen
+Arsinoe! Perhaps she would inform him of it some day if he recognised
+her.
+
+Yet that could scarcely have happened. He had only been told what she
+betrayed to him yesterday, and was now neglecting her for Daphne’s
+sake. That was undoubtedly the way the matter stood. How the girl’s
+cheeks were glowing when she entered!
+
+The obstacle that stood between her and Hermon was the daughter of
+Archias, and she, fool that she was, had attracted Hermon’s attention
+to her.
+
+No matter!
+
+He would want her for the Arachne, and she needed only to stretch out
+her hand to draw him to her again if she found no better amusement in
+Alexandria. Now she would awaken his fears that the best of models
+would recall her favour. Besides, it would not do to resume the
+pleasant game with him under the eyes of Philippus and his wife, who
+was a follower of the manners of old times. The right course now was to
+keep him until later.
+
+Standing at Proclus’s side, she took part gaily in the general
+conversation; but when Myrtilus and Philemon had joined the others, and
+Daphne had consented to go with Philippus and Thyone that evening, in
+order, after offering sacrifice together to Selene, to sail for
+Pelusium, Althea requested the grammateus to take her, into the open
+air.
+
+Before leaving the tent, however, she dropped her ostrich-feather fan
+as she passed Hermon, and, when he picked it up, whispered with a
+significant glance at Daphne, “I see that what was learned of her heart
+is turned to account promptly enough.”
+
+Then, laughing gaily, she continued loudly enough to be heard by her
+companion also: “Yesterday our young artist maintained that the Muse
+shunned abundance; but the works of his wealthy friend Myrtilus
+contradicted him, and he changed his view with the speed of lightning.”
+
+“Would that this swift alteration had concerned the direction of his
+art,” replied Proclus in a tone audible to her alone.
+
+Both left the tent as he spoke, and Hermon uttered a sigh of relief as
+he looked after them. She attributed the basest motives to him, and
+Daphne’s opinion of her was scarcely too severe.
+
+He no longer needed to fear her power of attraction, though, now that
+he had seen her again, he better understood the spell which she had
+exerted over him. Every movement of her lithe figure had an exquisite
+grace, whose charm was soothing to the artist’s eye. Only there was
+something piercing in her gaze when it did not woo love, and, while
+making the base charge, her extremely thin lips had showed her sharp
+teeth in a manner that reminded him of the way the she-wolf among the
+King’s wild beasts in the Paneum gardens raised her lips when any one
+went near her cage.
+
+Daphne was right. Ledscha would have been infinitely better as a model
+for the Arachne. Everything in this proud creature was genuine and
+original, which was certainly not the case with Althea. Besides, stern
+austerity was as much a part of the Biamite as her hair and her hands,
+yet what ardent passion he had seen glow in her eyes! The model so long
+sought in vain he had found in Ledscha, who in so many respects
+resembled Arachne. Fool that he was to have yielded to a swift and
+false ebullition of feeling!
+
+Since Myrtilus was again near him Hermon had devoted himself with fresh
+eagerness to his artistic task, while a voice within cried more and
+more loudly that the success of his new work depended entirely upon
+Ledscha. He must try to regain her as a model for the Arachne! But
+while pondering over the “how,” he felt a rare sense of pleasure when
+Daphne spoke to him or her glance met his.
+
+At first he had devoted himself eagerly to his father’s old friends,
+and especially to Thyone, and had not found it quite easy to remain
+firm when, in her frank, kindly, cordial manner, she tried to persuade
+him to accompany her and the others to Pelusium. Yet he had succeeded
+in refusing the worthy couple’s invitation. But when he saw Philotas,
+whose resemblance to the King, his cousin, had just been mentioned by
+one of the officers, become more and more eager in his attentions to
+Daphne, and heard him also invited by Philippus to share the nocturnal
+voyage, he felt disturbed, and could not conceal from himself that the
+uneasiness which constantly obtained a greater mastery over him arose
+from the fear of losing his friend to the young aristocrat.
+
+This was jealousy, and where it flamed so hotly love could scarcely be
+absent. Yet, had the shaft of Eros really struck him, how was it
+possible that the longing to win Ledscha back stirred so strongly
+within him that he finally reached a resolution concerning her?
+
+As soon as the guests left Tennis he would approach the Biamite again.
+He had already whispered this intention to Myrtilus, when he heard
+Daphne’s companion say to Thyone, “Philotas will accompany us, and on
+this voyage they will plight their troth if Aphrodite’s powerful son
+accepts my sacrifice.”
+
+He involuntarily looked at the pair who were intended for each other,
+and saw Daphne lower her eyes, blushing, at a whisper from the young
+Macedonian.
+
+His blood also crimsoned his cheeks, and when, soon after, he asked his
+friend whether she cared for his companionship, and Daphne assented in
+the most eager way, he said that he would share the voyage to Pelusium.
+Daphne’s eyes had never yet beamed upon him so gladly and graciously.
+Althea was right. She must love him, and it seemed as if this
+conviction awoke a new star of happiness in his troubled soul.
+
+If Philotas imagined that he could pluck the daughter of Archias like a
+ripe fruit from a tree, he would find himself mistaken.
+
+Hermon did not yet exactly understand himself, only he felt certain
+that it would be impossible to surrender Daphne to another, and that
+for her sake he would give up twenty Ledschas, though he cherished
+infinitely great expectations from the Biamite for his art, which
+hitherto had been more to him than all else.
+
+Everything that he still had to do in Tennis he could intrust to his
+conscientious Bias, to Myrtilus, and his slaves.
+
+If he returned to the city of weavers, he would earnestly endeavour to
+palliate the offence which he had inflicted on Ledscha, and, if
+possible, obtain her forgiveness. Only one thing detained him—anxiety
+about his friend, who positively refused to share the night voyage.
+
+He had promised his uncle Archias to care for him like a brother, and
+his own kind heart bade him stay with Myrtilus, and not leave him to
+the nursing of his very skilful but utterly unreliable body-servant,
+after the last night had proved to what severe attacks of his disease
+he was still liable.
+
+Myrtilus, however, earnestly entreated him not to deprive himself on
+his account of a pleasure which he would gladly have shared. There was
+plenty of time to pack the statues. As for himself, nothing would do
+him more good just now than complete rest in his beloved solitude,
+which, as Hermon knew, was more welcome to him than the gayest society.
+Nothing was to be feared for him now. The thunderstorm had purified the
+air, and another one was not to be expected soon in this dry region. He
+had always been well here in sunny weather. Storms, which were
+especially harmful to him, never came at this season of the year.
+
+Myrtilus secretly thought that Hermon’s departure would be desirable,
+because the slave Bias had confided to him what dangers threatened his
+friend from the incensed Biamite husbands.
+
+Finally, Myrtilus turned to the others and begged them not to let
+Hermon leave Pelusium quickly.
+
+When, at parting, he was alone with him, he embraced him and said more
+tenderly than usual: “You know how easy it will be for me to depart
+from life; but it would be easier still if I could leave you behind
+without anxiety, and that would happen if the hymeneal hymns at your
+marriage to Daphne preceded the dirges which will soon resound above my
+coffin. Yesterday I first became sure that she loves you, and, much
+good as you have in your nature, you owe the best to her.”
+
+Hermon clasped him in his arms with passionate affection, and after
+confessing that he, too, felt drawn with the utmost power toward
+Daphne, and urging him to anticipate complete recovery instead of an
+early death, he held out his hand to his friend; but Myrtilus clasped
+it a long time in his own, saying earnestly: “Only this one frank
+warning: An Arachne like the model which Althea presented yesterday
+evening would deal the past of your art a blow in the face. No one at
+Rhodes—and this is just what I prize in you—hated imitation more, yet
+what would using the Arachne on the pedestal for a model be except
+showing the world not how Hermon, but how Althea imagines the hapless
+transformed mortal? Even if Ledscha withdraws from you, hold fast to
+her image. It will live on in your soul. Recall it there, free it from
+whatever is superfluous, supply whatever it lacks, animate it with the
+idea of the tireless artist, the mocking, defiant mortal woman who
+ended her life as the weaver of weavers in the insect world, as you
+have so often vividly described her to me. Then, my dear fellow, you
+will remain loyal to yourself, and therefore also to the higher truth,
+toward which every one of us who labours earnestly strives, and, myself
+included, there is no one who wields hammer and chisel in Greece who
+could contest the prize with you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+When the sun was approaching the western horizon the travellers
+started.
+
+Light mists veiled the radiant right eye of the goddess of heaven. The
+blood of the contending spirits of light and darkness, which usually
+dyed the west of Egypt crimson at the departure of the great sun god,
+to-day vanished from sight.
+
+The sultry air was damp and oppressive, and experienced old Philippus,
+who had commanded a fleet of considerable size under the first
+Ptolemies, agreed with the captain of the vessel, who pointed to
+several small dark clouds under the silvery stratus, and expressed the
+fear that Selene would hardly illumine the ship’s course during the
+coming night.
+
+But before the departure the travellers had offered sacrifices to the
+foam-born Cyprian Aphrodite and the Dioscuri, the protectors of
+mariners, and the conversation took the gayest turn.
+
+In the harbour of the neighbouring seaport Tanis they went aboard of
+the commandant’s state galley, one of the largest and finest in the
+royal fleet, where a banquet awaited them.
+
+Cushions were arranged on the high poop, and the sea was as smooth as
+the silver dishes in which viands were offered to the guests.
+
+True, not a breath stirred the still, sultry air, but the three long
+double ranks of rowers in the hold of the ship provided for her swift
+progress, and if no contrary wind sprang up she would run into the
+harbour of Pelusium before the last goblet was emptied.
+
+Soon after the departure it seemed as if the captain of the little
+vessel had erred in his prediction, for the moon burst victoriously
+through the black clouds, only its shining orb was surrounded by a
+dull, glimmering halo.
+
+Doubtless many a guest longed for a cool breeze, but when the mixed
+wine had moistened the parched tongues the talk gained fresh animation.
+
+Every one did his or her part, for the point in question was to induce
+Philippus and his wife to visit Alexandria again and spend some time
+there as beloved guests with Daphne in her father’s house or in the
+palace of Philotas, who jestingly, yet with many reasons, contested the
+honour with the absent Archias.
+
+The old warrior had remained away from the capital for several years;
+he alone knew why. Now the act which had incensed him and the offence
+inflicted upon him were forgotten, and, having passed seventy four
+years, he intended to ask the commander in chief once more for the
+retirement from the army which the monarch had several times refused,
+in order, as a free man, to seek again the city which in his present
+position he had so long avoided.
+
+Thyone, it is true, thought that her husband’s youthful vigour rendered
+this step premature, but the visit to Alexandria harmonized with her
+own wishes.
+
+Proclus eagerly sided with her. “To him,” said the man of manifold
+knowledge, who as high priest of Apollo was fond of speaking in an
+instructive tone, “experience showed that men like Philippus, who
+solely on account of the number of their years withdrew their services
+from the state, felt unhappy, and, like the unused ploughshare, became
+prematurely rusty. What they lacked, and what Philippus would also
+miss, was not merely the occupation, which might easily be supplied by
+another, but still more the habit of command. One who had had thousands
+subject to his will was readily overcome by the feeling that he was
+going down hill, when only a few dozen of his own slaves and his wife
+obeyed him.”
+
+This word aroused the mirth of old Philippus, who praised all the good
+qualities of Macedonian wives except that of obedience, while Thyone
+protested that during her more than forty years of married life her
+husband had become so much accustomed to her complete submission than
+he no longer noticed it. If Philippus should command her to-morrow to
+leave their comfortable palace in Pelusium to accompany him to
+Alexandria, where they possessed no home of their own, he would see how
+willingly she obeyed him.
+
+While speaking, her bright, clear eyes, which seemed to float in the
+deep hollows sunk by age, sparkled so merrily in her wrinkled face that
+Philippus shook his finger gaily at her and showed plainly how much
+pleasure the jest of the old companion of his wanderings gave him.
+
+Yet he insisted upon his purpose of not entering Alexandria again until
+he had resigned his office, and to do this at present was impossible,
+since he was bound just now, as if with chains, to the important
+frontier fortress. Besides, there had probably been little change in
+the capital since the death of his beloved old companion in arms and
+master, the late King.
+
+This assertion evoked a storm of contradiction, and even the younger
+officers, who usually imposed severe restraint upon themselves in the
+general’s presence, raised their voices to prove that they, too, had
+looked around the flourishing capital with open eyes.
+
+Yet it was not six decades since Philippus, then a lad of seventeen,
+had been present at its foundation.
+
+His father, who had commanded as hipparch a division of cavalry in the
+army of Alexander the Great, had sent for the sturdy youth just at that
+time to come to Egypt, that he might enter the army. The conqueror of
+the world had himself assigned him, as a young Macedonian of good
+family, to the corps of the Hetairoi; and how the vigorous old man’s
+eyes sparkled as, with youthful enthusiasm, he spoke of the divine
+vanquisher of the world who had at that time condescended to address
+him, gazed at him keenly yet encouragingly with his all-discerning but
+kindly blue eyes, and extended his hand to him!
+
+“That,” he cried, “made this rough right hand precious to me. Often
+when, in Asia, in scorching India, and later here also, wounded or
+exhausted, it was ready to refuse its service, a spirit voice within
+cried, ‘Do not forget that he touched it’; and then, as if I had drunk
+the noble wine of Byblus, a fiery stream flowed from my heart into the
+paralyzed hand, and, as though animated with new life, I used it again
+and kept it worthy of his touch. To have seen a darling of the gods
+like him, young men, makes us greater. It teaches us how even we human
+beings are permitted to resemble the immortals. Now he is transported
+among the gods, and the Olympians received him, if any one, gladly.
+Whoever shared the deeds of such a hero takes a small portion of his
+renown with him through life and into the grave, and whom he touched,
+as befell me, feels himself consecrated, and whatever is petty and base
+flows away from him like water from the anointed body of the wrestler.
+Therefore I consider myself fortunate above thousands of others, and if
+there is anything which still tempts me to go to Alexandria, it is the
+desire to touch his dead body once more. To do that before I die is my
+most ardent desire.”
+
+“Then gratify it!” cried Thyone with urgent impatience; but Proclus
+turned to the matron, and, after exchanging a hasty glance with Althea,
+said: “You probably know, my venerable friend, that Queen Arsinoe, who
+most deeply honours your illustrious husband, had already arranged to
+have him summoned to the capital as priest of Alexander. True, in this
+position he would have had the burden of disposing of all the revenues
+from the temples throughout Egypt; but, on the other hand, he would
+always have his master’s mortal remains near and be permitted to be
+their guardian. What influences baffled the Queen’s wish certainly have
+not remained hidden from you here.”
+
+“You are mistaken,” replied Philippus gravely. “Not the least whisper
+of this matter reached my ears, and it is fortunate.”
+
+“Impossible!” Althea eagerly interrupted; “nothing else was talked of
+for weeks in the royal palace. Queen Arsinoe—you might be jealous, Lady
+Thyone—has been fairly in love with your hero ever since her last stay
+in your house on her way home from Thrace, and she has not yet given up
+her desire to see him in the capital as priest of Alexander. It seems
+to her just and fair that the old companion of the greatest of the
+great should have the highest place, next to her husband’s, in the city
+whose foundation he witnessed. Arsinoe speaks of you also with all the
+affection natural to her feeling heart.”
+
+“This is as flattering as it is surprising,” replied Thyone. “The
+attention we showed her in Pelusium was nothing more than we owed to
+the wife of the sovereign. But the court is not the principal
+attraction that draws me to the capital. It would make Philippus
+happy—you have just heard him say so—to remember his old master beside
+the tomb of Alexander.”
+
+“And,” added Daphne, “how amazed you will be when you see the present
+form of the ‘Soma’, in which rests the golden coffin with the body of
+the divine hero whom the fortunate Philippus aided to conquer the
+world!”
+
+“You are jesting,” interrupted the old warrior. “I aided him only as
+the drops in the stream help to turn the wheel of the mill. As to his
+body, true, I marched at the head of the procession which bore it to
+Memphis and thence to Alexandria. In the Soma I was permitted to think
+of him with devout reverence, and meantime I felt as if I had again
+seen him with these eyes—exactly as he looked in the Egyptian fishing
+village of Rhacotis, which he transformed into your magnificent
+Alexandria. What a youth he was! Even what would have been a defect in
+others became a beauty in him. The powerful neck which supported his
+divine head was a little crooked; but what grace it lent him when he
+turned kindly to any one! One scarcely noticed it, and yet it was like
+the bend of a petitioner, and gave the wish which he expressed
+resistless power. When he stood erect, the sharpest eye could not
+detect it. Would that he could appear before me thus once more!
+Besides, the buildings which surrounded the golden coffin were nearly
+completed at the time of our departure.”
+
+“But the statues, reliefs, and mosaic work were lacking,” said Hermon.
+“They were executed by Lysippus, Euphranor, and others of our greatest
+artists; the paintings by Apelles himself, Antiphilus, and Nicias. Only
+those who had won renown were permitted to take part in this work, and
+the Ares rushing to battle, created by our Myrtilus, can be seen among
+the others. The tomb of Alexander was not entirely completed until
+three years ago.”
+
+“At the same time as the Paneum,” added Philotas, completing the
+sentence; and Althea, waving her beaker toward the old hero, remarked:
+“When you have your quarters in the royal palace with your crowned
+admirer, Arsinoe—which, I hope, will be very soon—I will be your
+guide.”
+
+“That office is already bestowed on me by the Lady Thyone,” Daphne
+quietly replied.
+
+“And you think that, in this case, obedience is the husband’s duty?”
+cried the other, with a sneering laugh.
+
+“It would only be the confirmation of a wise choice,” replied
+Philippus, who disliked the Thracian’s fawning manner.
+
+Thyone, too, did not favour her, and had glanced indignantly at her
+when Althea made her rude remark. Now she turned to Daphne, and her
+plain face regained its pleasant expression as she exclaimed: “We
+really promised your father to let him show us the way, child; but,
+unfortunately, we are not yet in Alexandria and the Paneum.”
+
+“But you would set out to-morrow,” Hermon protested, “if we could
+succeed in fitly describing what now awaits you there. There is only
+one Alexandria, and no city in the world can offer a more beautiful
+scene than is visible from the mountain in the Paneum gardens.”
+
+“Certainly not,” protested the young hipparch, who had studied in
+Athens. “I stood on the Acropolis; I was permitted to visit Rhodes and
+Miletus—”
+
+“And you saw nothing more beautiful there,” cried Proclus. “The
+aristocratic Roman envoys, who left us a short time ago, admitted the
+same thing. They are just men, for the view from the Capitol of their
+growing city is also to be seen. When the King’s command led me to the
+Tiber, many things surprised me; but, as a whole, how shall I compare
+the two cities? The older Rome, with her admirable military power: a
+barbarian who is just beginning to cultivate more refined
+manners—Alexandria: a rich, aristocratic Hellene who, like you, my
+young friend, completed her education in Ilissus, and unites to the
+elegant taste and intellect of the Athenian the mysterious
+thoughtfulness of the Egyptian, the tireless industry of the Jew, and
+the many-sided wisdom and brilliant magnificence of the other Oriental
+countries.”
+
+“But who disdains to dazzle the eyes with Asiatic splendour,”
+interrupted Philotas.
+
+“And yet what do we not hear about the unprecedented luxury in the
+royal palace!” growled the gray-haired warrior.
+
+“Parsimony—the gods be praised!—no one need expect from our royal
+pair,” Althea broke in; “but King Ptolemy uses his paternal wealth for
+very different purposes than glittering gems and golden chambers. If
+you disdain my guidance, honoured hero, at least accept that of some
+genuine Alexandrian. Then you will understand Proclus’s apt simile. You
+ought to begin with the royal palaces in the Brucheium.”
+
+“No, no-with the harbour of Eunostus!” interrupted the grammateus.
+
+“With the Soma!” cried the young hipparch, while Daphne wished to have
+the tour begin in the Paneum gardens.
+
+“They were already laid out when we left Alexandria,” said Thyone.
+
+“And they have grown marvellously, as if creative Nature had doubled
+her powers in their behalf,” Hermon added eagerly. “But man has also
+wrought amazing miracles here. Industrious hands reared an actual
+mountain. A winding path leads to the top, and when you stand upon the
+summit and look northward you at first feel like the sailor who steps
+on shore and hears the people speak a language which is new to him. It
+seems like a jumble of meaningless sounds until he learns, not only to
+understand the words, but also to distinguish the sentences. Temples
+and palaces, statues and columns appear everywhere in motley confusion.
+Each one, if you separate it from the whole and give it a careful
+examination, is worthy of inspection, nay, of admiration. Here are
+light, graceful creations of Hellenic, yonder heavy, sombre ones of
+Egyptian art, and in the background the exquisite azure of the eternal
+sea, which the marvellous structure of the heptastadium unites to the
+land; while on the island of Pharos the lighthouse of Sostratus towers
+aloft almost to the sky, and with a flood of light points out the way
+to mariners who approach the great harbour at night. Countless vessels
+are also at anchor in the Eunostus. The riches of the whole earth flow
+into both havens. And the life and movement there and in the inland
+harbour on Lake Mareotis, where the Nile boats land! From early until
+late, what a busy throng, what an abundance of wares—and how many of
+the most valuable goods are made in our own city! for whatever useful,
+fine, and costly articles industrial art produces are manufactured
+here. The roof has not yet been put on many a factory in which busy
+workers are already making beautiful things. Here the weaver’s shuttle
+flies, yonder gold is spun around slender threads of sheep guts,
+elsewhere costly materials are embroidered by women’s nimble fingers
+with the prepared gold thread. There glass is blown, or weapons and
+iron utensils are forged. Finely polished knives split the pith of the
+papyrus, and long rows of workmen and workwomen gum the strips
+together. No hand, no head is permitted to rest. In the Museum the
+brains of the great thinkers and investigators are toiling. Here, too,
+reality asserts its rights. The time for chimeras and wretched polemics
+is over. Now it is observing, fathoming, turning to account, nothing
+more!”
+
+“Gently, my young friend,” Proclus interrupted the artist. “I know that
+you, too, sat at the feet of some of the philosophers in the Museum,
+and still uphold the teachings of Straton, which your fellow-pupil,
+King Ptolemy, outgrew long ago. Yet he, also, recognised in philosophy,
+first of all, the bond which unites the widely sundered acquisitions of
+the intellect, the vital breath which pervades them, the touchstone
+which proves each true or false. If the praise of Alexandria is to be
+sung, we must not forget the library to which the most precious
+treasures of knowledge of the East and West are flowing, and which
+feeds those who thirst for knowledge with the intellectual gains of
+former ages and other nations. Honour, too, to our King, and, that I
+may be just, to his illustrious wife; for wherever in the Grecian world
+a friend of the Muses appears, whether he is investigator, poet,
+architect, sculptor, artist, actor, or singer, he is drawn to
+Alexandria, and, that he may not be idle, work is provided. Palaces
+spring from the earth quickly enough.”
+
+“Yet not like mushrooms,” Hermon interrupted, “but as the noblest, most
+carefully executed creations of art-sculpture and painting provide for
+their decoration both without and within.”
+
+“And,” Proclus went on, “abodes are erected for the gods as well as for
+men, both Egyptian and Hellenic divinities, each in their own style,
+and so beautiful that it must be a pleasure for them to dwell under the
+new roof.”
+
+“Go to the gardens of the Paneum, friends!” cried young Philotas; and
+Hermon, nodding to Thyone, added gaily: “Then you must climb the
+mountain and keep your eyes open while you are ascending the winding
+path. You will find enough to do to look at all the new sights. You
+will stand there with dry feet, but your soul will bathe in eternal,
+imperishable, divine beauty.”
+
+“The foe of beauty!” exclaimed Proclus, pointing to the sculptor with a
+scornful glance; but Daphne, full of joyous emotion, whispered to
+Hermon as he approached her: “Eternal, divine beauty! To hear it thus
+praised by you makes me happy.”
+
+“Yes,” cried the artist, “what else should I call what has so often
+filled me with the deepest rapture? The Greek language has no more
+fitting expression for the grand and lofty things that hovered before
+me, and which I called by that chameleon of a word. Yet I have a
+different meaning from what appears before you at its sound. Were I to
+call it truth, you would scarcely understand me, but when I conjure
+before my soul the image of Alexandria, with all that springs from it,
+all that is moving, creating, and thriving with such marvellous
+freedom, naturalness, and variety within it, it is not alone the beauty
+that pleases the eye which delights me; I value more the sound natural
+growth, the genuine, abundant life. To truth, Daphne, as I mean it.”
+
+He raised his goblet as he spoke and drank to her.
+
+She willingly pledged him, but, after removing her lips from the cup,
+she eagerly exclaimed: “Show it to us, with the mind which animates it,
+in perfect form, and I should not know wherein it was to be
+distinguished from the beauty which hitherto has been our highest
+goal.”
+
+Here the helmsman’s loud shout, “The light of Pelusium!” interrupted
+the conversation. The bright glare from the lighthouse of this city was
+really piercing the misty night air, which for some time had again
+concealed the moon.
+
+There was no further connected conversation, for the sea was now rising
+and falling in broad, leaden, almost imperceptible waves. The comfort
+of most of Philippus’s guests was destroyed, and the ladies uttered a
+sigh of relief when they had descended from the lofty galley and the
+boats that conveyed them ashore, and their feet once more pressed the
+solid land. The party of travellers went to the commandant’s
+magnificent palace to rest, and Hermon also retired to his room, but
+sleep fled from his couch.
+
+No one on earth was nearer to his heart and mind than Daphne, and it
+often seemed as if her kind, loyal, yet firm look was resting upon him;
+but the memory of Ledscha also constantly forced itself upon his mind
+and stirred his blood. When he thought of the menacing fire of her dark
+eyes, she seemed to him as terrible as one of the unlovely creatures
+born of Night, the Erinyes, Apate, and Eris.
+
+Then he could not help recalling their meetings in the grove of
+Astarte, her self-forgetting, passionate tenderness, and the
+wonderfully delicate beauty of her foreign type. True, she had never
+laughed in his presence; but what a peculiar charm there was in her
+smile! Had he really lost her entirely and forever? Would it not yet be
+possible to obtain her forgiveness and persuade her to pose as the
+model of his Arachne?
+
+During the voyage to Pelusium he had caught Althea’s eye again and
+again, and rejected as an insult her demand to give her his whole love.
+The success of the Arachne depended upon Ledscha, and on her alone. He
+had nothing good to expect from the Demeter, and during the nocturnal
+meditation, which shows everything in the darkest colours, his best
+plan seemed to be to destroy the unsuccessful statue and not exhibit it
+for the verdict of the judges.
+
+But if he went to work again in Tennis to model the Arachne, did not
+love for Daphne forbid him to sue afresh for Ledscha’s favour?
+
+What a terrible conflict of feelings!
+
+But perhaps all this might gain a more satisfactory aspect by daylight.
+Now he felt as though he had entangled himself in a snare. Besides,
+other thoughts drove sleep from his couch.
+
+The window spaces were closed by wooden shutters, and whenever they
+moved with a low creaking or louder banging Hermon started and forgot
+everything else in anxiety about his invalid friend, whose suffering
+every strong wind brought on again, and often seriously increased.
+
+Three times he sprang up from the soft wool, covered with linen sheets,
+and looked out to convince himself that no storm had risen. But, though
+masses of black clouds concealed the moon and stars, and the sea beat
+heavily against the solid walls of the harbour, as yet only a sultry
+breeze of no great strength blew on his head as he thrust it into the
+night air.
+
+This weather could scarcely be dangerous to Myrtilus, yet when the
+morning relieved him from the torturing anxiety which he had found
+under his host’s roof instead of rest and sleep, gray and black clouds
+were sweeping as swiftly over the port and the ramparts beside him as
+if they were already driven by a tempest, and warm raindrops
+besprinkled his face.
+
+He went, full of anxiety, to take his bath, and, while committing the
+care of the adornment of his outer man to one of the household slaves,
+he determined that unless—as often happened in this country—the sun
+gained the victory over the clouds, he would return to Tennis and join
+Myrtilus.
+
+In the hall of the men he met the rest of the old hero’s guests.
+
+They received him pleasantly enough, Althea alone barely noticed his
+greeting; she seemed to suspect in what way he thought of her.
+
+Thyone and Daphne extended their hands to him all the more cordially.
+
+Philippus did not appear until after breakfast. He had been detained by
+important despatches from Alexandria, and by questions and
+communications from Proclus. The latter desired to ascertain whether
+the influential warrior who commanded the most important fortress in
+the country could be persuaded to join a conspiracy formed by Arsinoe
+against her royal husband, but he seemed to have left Philippus with
+very faint hopes.
+
+Subordinate officers and messengers also frequently claimed the
+commandant’s attention. When the market place was filling, however, the
+sturdy old soldier kindly fulfilled his duties as host by offering to
+show his guests the sights of the fortified seaport.
+
+Hermon also accompanied him at Daphne’s side, but he made it easy for
+Philotas to engross her attention; for, though the immense thickness of
+the walls and the arrangement of the wooden towers which, crowned with
+battlements, rose at long intervals, seemed to him also well worth
+seeing, he gave them only partial attention.
+
+While Philippus was showing the guests how safely the archers and
+slingers could be concealed behind the walls and battlements and
+discharge their missiles, and explaining the purpose of the great
+catapults on the outermost dike washed by the sea, the artist was
+listening to the ever-increasing roar of the waves which poured into
+the harbour from the open sea, to their loud dashing against the strong
+mole, to the shrill scream of the sea gulls, the flapping of the sails,
+which were being taken in everywhere—in short, to all the sounds
+occasioned by the rising violence of the wind.
+
+There were not a few war ships in the port and among them perfect
+giants of amazing size and unusual construction, but Hermon had already
+seen many similar ones.
+
+When, shortly after noon, the sun for a few brief moments pierced with
+scorching rays the dark curtain that shrouded it from sight, and then
+suddenly dense masses of clouds, driven from the sea by the tempest,
+covered the day star, his eyes and cars were engrossed entirely by the
+uproar of the elements.
+
+The air darkened as if night was falling at this noontide hour, and
+with savage fury the foaming mountain waves rushed like mad wild beasts
+in fierce assault upon the mole, the walls, and the dikes of the
+fortified port.
+
+“Home!” cried Thyone, and again entered the litter which she had left
+to inspect the new catapults.
+
+Althea, trembling, drew her peplos together as the storm swept her
+light figure before it, and, shrieking, struggled against the black
+slaves who tried to lift her upon the war elephant which had borne her
+here.
+
+Philotas gave his arm to Daphne. Hermon had ceased to notice her; he
+had just gone to his gray-haired host with the entreaty that he would
+give him a ship for the voyage to Tennis, where Myrtilus would need his
+assistance.
+
+“It is impossible in such weather,” was the reply.
+
+“Then I will ride!” cried Hermon resolutely, and Philippus scanned the
+son of his old friend and companion in arms with an expression of quiet
+satisfaction in his eyes, still sparkling brightly, and answered
+quickly, “You shall have two horses, my boy, and a guide who knows the
+road besides.”
+
+Then, turning swiftly to one of the officers who accompanied him, he
+ordered him to provide what was necessary.
+
+When, soon after, in the impluvium, the tempest tore the velarium that
+covered the open space from its rings, and the ladies endeavoured to
+detain Hermon, Philippus silenced them with the remark:
+
+“A disagreeable ride is before him, but what urges him on is pleasing
+to the gods. I have just ventured to send out a carrier dove,” he
+added, turning to the artist, “to inform Myrtilus that he may expect
+you before sunset. The storm comes from the cast, otherwise it would
+hardly reach the goal. Put even if it should be lost, what does it
+matter?”
+
+Thyone nodded to her old husband with a look of pleasure, and her eyes
+shone through tears at Hermon as she clasped his hand and, remembering
+her friend, his mother, exclaimed: “Go, then, you true son of your
+father, and tell your friend that we will offer sacrifices for his
+welfare.”
+
+“A lean chicken to Aesculapius,” whispered the grammateus to Althea.
+“She holds on to the oboli.”
+
+“Which, at any rate, would be hard enough to dispose of in this
+wretched place unless one were a dealer in weapons or a thirsty
+sailor,” sighed the Thracian. “As soon as the sky and sea are blue
+again, chains could not keep me here. And the cooing around this
+insipid rich beauty into the bargain!”
+
+This remark referred to Philotas, who was just offering Daphne a
+magnificent bunch of roses, which a mounted messenger had brought to
+him from Alexandria.
+
+The girl received it with a grateful glance, but she instantly
+separated one of the most beautiful blossoms from its companions and
+handed it to Hermon, saying, “For our suffering friend, with my
+affectionate remembrances.”
+
+The artist pressed her dear hand with a tender look of love, intended
+to express how difficult it was for him to leave her, and when, just at
+that moment, a slave announced that the horses were waiting, Thyone
+whispered: “Have no anxiety, my son! Your ride away from her through
+the tempest will bring you a better reward than his slave’s swift horse
+will bear the giver of the roses.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Hermon, with the rose for his friend fastened in the breast folds of
+his chiton, mounted his horse gratefully, and his companion, a sinewy,
+bronzed Midianite, who was also to attend to the opening of the
+fortress gates, did the same.
+
+Before reaching the open country the sculptor had to ride through the
+whole city, with which he was entirely unfamiliar. Fiercely as the
+storm was sweeping down the streets and squares, and often as the
+horseman was forced to hold on to his travelling hat and draw his
+chlamys closer around him, he felt the anxieties which had made his
+night sleepless and saddened his day suddenly leave him as if by a
+miracle. Was it the consciousness of having acted rightly? was it the
+friendly farewell which Daphne had given him, and the hope Thyone had
+aroused, or the expectation of seeing Ledscha once more, and at least
+regaining her good will, that had restored his lost light-heartedness?
+He did not know himself, nor did he desire to know.
+
+While formerly he had merely glanced carelessly about him in Pelusium,
+and only half listened to the explanations given by the veteran’s deep
+voice, now whatever he saw appeared in clear outlines and awakened his
+interest, in spite of the annoyances caused by the storm.
+
+Had he not known that he was in Pelusium, it would have been difficult
+for him to determine whether the city he was crossing was an Egyptian,
+a Hellenic, or a Syrian one; for here rose an ancient temple of the
+time of the Pharaohs, with obelisks and colossal statues before the
+lofty pylons, yonder the sanctuary of Poseidon, surrounded by stately
+rows of Doric columns, and farther on the smaller temple dedicated to
+the Dioscuri, and the circular Grecian building that belonged to
+Aphrodite.
+
+In another spot, still close to the harbour, he saw the large buildings
+consecrated to the worship of the Syrian Baal and Astarte.
+
+Here he was obliged to wait awhile, for the tempest had excited the war
+elephants which were returning from their exercising ground, and their
+black keepers only succeeded with the utmost difficulty in restraining
+them. Shrieking with fear, the few persons who were in the street
+besides the soldiers, that were everywhere present, scattered before
+the huge, terrified animals.
+
+The costume and appearance of the citizens, too, gave no clew to the
+country to which the place belonged; there were as many Egyptians among
+them as Greeks, Syrians, and negroes. Asiatics appeared in the majority
+only in the market place, where the dealers were just leaving their
+stands to secure their goods from the storm. In front of the big
+building where the famous Pelusinian xythus beer was brewed, the drink
+was being carried away in jugs and wineskins, in ox-carts and on
+donkeys. Here, too, men were loading camels, which were rarely seen in
+Egypt, and had been introduced there only a short time before.
+
+How forcibly all these things riveted Hermon’s attention, now that no
+one was at hand to explain them and no delay was permitted! He scarcely
+had time for recollection and expectation.
+
+Finally, the last gate was unlocked, and the ramparts and moats lay
+behind him.
+
+Thus far the wind had kept back the rain, and only scattered drops
+lashed the riders’ faces; but as soon as they entered the open country,
+it seemed as though the pent-up floods burst the barriers which
+retained them above, and a torrent of water such as only those dry
+regions know rushed, not in straight or slanting lines, but in thick
+streams, whirled by the hurricane, upon the marshy land which stretched
+from Pelusium to Tennis, and on the horsemen.
+
+The road led along a dike raised above fields which, at this season of
+the year, were under water, and Hermon’s companion knew it well.
+
+For a time both riders allowed themselves to be drenched in silence.
+The water ran down upon them from their broad-brimmed hats, and their
+dripping horses trotted with drooping heads and steaming flanks one
+behind the other until, at the very brick-kiln where Ledscha had
+recalled her widowed sister’s unruly slaves to obedience, the guide
+stopped with an oath, and pointed to the water which had risen to the
+top of the dam, and in some places concealed the road from their eyes.
+
+Now it was no longer possible to trot, for the guide was obliged to
+seek the traces of the dike with great caution. Meanwhile the force of
+the pouring rain by no means lessened—nay, it even seemed to
+increase—and the horses were already wading in water up to their
+fetlocks.
+
+But if the votive stones, the little altars and statues of the gods,
+the bushes and single trees along the sides of the dike road were
+overflowed while the travellers were in the region of the marsh, they
+would be obliged to interrupt their journey, for the danger of sinking
+into the morass with their horses would then threaten them.
+
+Even at the brick-kiln travellers, soldiers, and trains of merchandise
+had stopped to wait for the end of the cloud-burst.
+
+In front of the farmhouse, too, which Hermon and his companion next
+reached, they saw dozens of people seeking shelter, and the Midianite
+urged his master to join them for a short time at least. The wisest
+course here was probably to yield, and Hermon was already turning his
+horse’s head toward the house when a Greek messenger dashed past the
+beckoning refuge and also by him.
+
+“Do you dare to ride farther?” the artist shouted in a tone of warning
+inquiry to the man on the dripping bay, and the latter, without
+pausing, answered: “Duty! On business for the King!”
+
+Then Hermon turned his steed back toward the road, beat the water from
+his soaked beard with the edge of his hand, and with a curt “Forward!”
+announced his decision to his companion. Duty summoned him also, and
+what another risked for the King he would not fail to do for his
+friend.
+
+The Midianite, shaking his head, rode angrily after him; but, though
+the violence of the rain was lessening, the wind began to blow with
+redoubled force, beating and lashing the boundless expanse of the
+quickly formed lake with such savage fury that it rolled in surges like
+the sea, and sweeping over it dense clouds of foam like the sand waves
+tossed by the desert tempests.
+
+Sometimes moaning, sometimes whistling, the gusts of the hurricane
+drove the water and the travellers before it, while the rain poured
+from the sky to the earth, and wherever it struck splashed upward,
+making little whirlpools and swiftly breaking bubbles.
+
+What might not Myrtilus suffer in this storm! This thought strengthened
+Hermon’s courage to twice ride past other farmhouses which offered
+shelter. At the third the horse refused to wade farther in such a
+tempest, so there was nothing to be done except spring off and lead it
+to the higher ground which the water had not yet reached.
+
+The interior of the peasant hut was filled with people who had sought
+shelter there, and the stifling atmosphere which the artist felt at the
+door induced him to remain outside.
+
+He had stood there dripping barely fifteen minutes when loud shouts and
+yells were heard on the road from Pelusium by which he had come, and
+upon the flooded dike appeared a body of men rushing forward with
+marvellous speed.
+
+The nearer they came the fiercer and more bewildering sounded the loud,
+shrill medley of their frantic cries, mingled with hoarse laughter, and
+the spectacle presented to the eyes was no less rough and bold.
+
+The majority seemed to be powerful men. Their complexions were as light
+as the Macedonians; their fair, red, and brown locks were thick,
+unkempt, and bristling. Most of the reckless, defiantly bold faces were
+smooth- shaven, with only a mustache on the upper lip, and sometimes a
+short imperial. All carried weapons, and a fleece covered the shoulders
+of many, while chains, ornamented with the teeth of animals, hung on
+their white muscular chests.
+
+“Galatians,” Hermon heard one man near him call to another. “They came
+to the fortress as auxiliary troops. Philippus forbade them to plunder
+on pain of death, and showed them—the gods be thanked!—that he was in
+earnest. Otherwise it would soon look here as though the plagues of
+locusts, flood, and fire had visited us at once. Red-haired men are not
+the only sons of Typhon!”
+
+And Hermon thought that he had indeed never seen any human beings
+equally fierce, bold to the verge of reckless madness, as these Gallic
+warriors. The tempest which swept them forward, and the water through
+which they waded, only seemed to increase their enjoyment, for sheer
+delight rang in their exulting shouts and yells.
+
+Oh, yes! To march amid this uproar of the elements was a pleasure to
+the healthy men. It afforded them the rarest, most enlivening delight.
+For a long time nothing had so strongly reminded them of the roaring of
+the wind and the rushing of the rain in their northern home. It seemed
+a delicious relief, after the heat and dryness of the south, which they
+had endured with groans.
+
+When they perceived the eyes fixed upon them they swung their weapons,
+arched their breasts with conscious vanity, distorted their faces into
+terrible threatening grimaces, or raised bugle horns to their lips,
+drew from them shrill, ear-piercing notes and gloated, with childish
+delight, in the terror of the gaping crowd, on whom the restraint of
+authority sternly forbade them to show their mettle.
+
+Lust of rapine and greed for booty glittered in many a fiery, longing
+look, but their leaders kept them in check with the sword. So they
+rushed on without stopping, like a thunderstorm pregnant with
+destruction which the wind drives over a terrified village.
+
+Hermon also had to take the road they followed, and, after giving the
+Gauls a long start, he set out again.
+
+But though he succeeded in passing the marshy region without injury,
+there had been delay after delay; here the horses had left the flooded
+dike road and floundered up to their knees in the morass, there trees
+from the roadside, uprooted by the storm, barred the way.
+
+As night closed in the rain ceased and the wind began to subside, but
+dark clouds covered the sky, and the horsemen were still an hour’s ride
+from the place where the road ended at the little harbour from which
+travellers entered the boat which conveyed them to Tennis.
+
+The way no longer led through the marsh, but through tilled lands, and
+crossed the ditches which irrigated the fields on wooden bridges.
+
+On their account, in the dense darkness which prevailed, caution was
+necessary, and this the guide certainly did not lack. He rode at a slow
+walk in front of the artist, and had just pointed out to him the light
+at the landing place of the boat which went to Tennis, when Hermon was
+suddenly startled by a loud cry, followed by clattering and splashing.
+
+With swift presence of mind he sprang from his horse and found his
+conjecture verified. The bridge had broken down, and horse and rider
+had fallen into the broad canal.
+
+“The Galatians!” reached Hermon from the dark depths, and the
+exclamation relieved him concerning the fate of the Midianite.
+
+The latter soon struggled up to the road uninjured. The bridge must
+have given way under the feet of the savage horde, unless the Gallic
+monsters, with brutal malice, had intentionally shattered it.
+
+The first supposition, however, seemed to be the correct one, for as
+Hermon approached the canal he heard moans of pain. One of the Gauls
+had apparently met with an accident in the fall of the bridge and been
+deserted by his comrades. With the skill acquired in the wrestling
+school, Hermon descended into the canal to look for the wounded man,
+while his guide undertook to get the horses ashore.
+
+The deep darkness considerably increased the difficulty of carrying out
+his purpose, but the young Greek went up to his neck in the water he
+could not become wetter than he was already. So he remained in the
+ditch until he found the injured man whose groans of suffering pierced
+his compassionate heart.
+
+He was obliged to release the luckless Gaul from the broken timbers of
+the bridge, and, when Hermon had dragged him out on the opposite bank
+of the canal, he made no answer to any question. A falling beam had
+probably struck him senseless.
+
+His hair, which Hermon’s groping fingers informed him was thick and
+rough, seemed to denote a Gaul, but a full, long beard was very rarely
+seen in this nation, and the wounded man wore one. Nor could anything
+be discovered from the ornaments or weapons of this fierce barbarian.
+
+But to whatever people he might belong, he certainly was not a Greek.
+The thoroughly un-Hellenic wrapping up of the legs proved that.
+
+No matter! Hermon at any rate was dealing with some one who was
+severely injured, and the self-sacrificing pity with which even
+suffering animals inspired him, and which in his boyhood had drawn upon
+him the jeers of the companions of his own age, did not abandon him
+now.
+
+Reluctantly obeying his command, the Midianite helped him bandage the
+sufferer’s head, in which a wound could be felt, as well as it could be
+done in the darkness, and lift him on the artist’s horse. During this
+time fresh groans issued from the bearded lips of the injured warrior,
+and Hermon walked by his side, guarding the senseless man from the
+danger of falling from the back of the horse as it slowly followed the
+Midianite’s.
+
+This tiresome walk, however, did not last long; the landing place was
+reached sooner than Hermon expected, and the ferryboat bore the
+travellers and the horses to Tennis.
+
+By the flickering light of the captain’s lantern it was ascertained
+that the wounded man, in spite of his long dark beard, was probably a
+Gaul. The stupor was to be attributed to the fall of a beam on his
+head, and the shock, rather than to the wound. The great loss of blood
+sustained by the young and powerful soldier had probably caused the
+duration of the swoon.
+
+During the attempts at resuscitation a sailor boy offered his
+assistance. He carefully held the lantern, and, as its flickering light
+fell for brief moments upon the artist’s face, the lad of thirteen or
+fourteen asked if he was Hermon of Alexandria.
+
+A curt “If you will permit,” answered the question, considered by the
+Hellenes an unseemly one, especially from such a youth; but the
+sculptor paid no further attention to him, for, while devoting himself
+honestly to the wounded man, his anxiety about his invalid friend
+increased, and Ledscha’s image also rose again before him.
+
+At last the ferryboat touched the land, and when Hermon looked around
+for the lad he had already leaped ashore, and was just vanishing in the
+darkness.
+
+It was probably within an hour of midnight.
+
+The gale was still blowing fiercely over the water, driving the black
+clouds across the dark sky, sometimes with long-drawn, wailing sounds,
+sometimes with sharp, whistling ones. The rain had wholly ceased, and
+seemed to have exhausted itself here in the afternoon.
+
+As Archias’s white house was a considerable distance from the landing
+place of the ferryboat, Hermon had the wounded warrior carried to it by
+Biamite sailors, and again mounted his horse to ride to Myrtilus at as
+swift a trot as the soaked, wretched, but familiar road would permit.
+
+Considerable time had been spent in obtaining a litter for the Gaul,
+yet Hermon was surprised to meet the lad who had questioned him so
+boldly on the ferryboat coming, not from the landing place, but running
+toward it again from the city, and then saw him follow the shore,
+carrying a blazing torch, which he waved saucily. The wind blew aside
+the flame and smoke which came from the burning pitch, but it shone
+brightly through the gloom and permitted the boy to be distinctly seen.
+Whence had the nimble fellow come so quickly? How had he succeeded, in
+this fierce gale, in kindling the torch so soon into a powerful flame?
+Was it not foolish to let a child amuse itself in the middle of the
+night with so dangerous a toy?
+
+Hermon hastily thought over these questions, but the supposition that
+the light of the torch might be intended for a signal did not occur to
+him.
+
+Besides, the boy and the light in his hand occupied his mind only a
+short time. He had better things to think of. With what longing
+Myrtilus must now be expecting his arrival! But the Gaul needed his aid
+no less urgently than his friend. Accurately as he knew what remedies
+relieved Myrtilus in severe attacks of illness, he could scarcely
+dispense with an assistant or a leech for the other, and the idea
+swiftly flashed upon him that the wounded man would afford him an
+opportunity of seeing Ledscha again.
+
+She had told him more than once about the healing art possessed by old
+Tabus on the Owl’s Nest. Suppose he should now seek the angry girl to
+entreat her to speak to the aged miracle-worker in behalf of the sorely
+wounded young foreigner?
+
+Here he interrupted himself; something new claimed his attention.
+
+A dim light glimmered through the intense darkness from a bit of rising
+ground by the wayside. It came from the Temple of Nemesis—a pretty
+little structure belonging to the time of Alexander the Great, which he
+had often examined with pleasure. Several steps led to the anteroom,
+supported by Ionic columns, which adjoined the naos.
+
+Two lamps were burning at the side of the door leading into the little
+open cella, and at the back of the consecrated place the statue of the
+winged goddess was visible in the light of a small altar fire.
+
+In her right hand she held the bridle and scourge, and at her feet
+stood the wheel, whose turning indicates the influence exerted by her
+power upon the destiny of mortals. With stern severity that boded evil,
+she gazed down upon her left forearm, bent at the elbow, which
+corresponds with the ell, the just measure.
+
+Hermon certainly now, if ever, lacked both time and inclination to
+examine again this modest work of an ordinary artist, yet he quickly
+stopped his weary horse; for in the little pronaos directly in front of
+the cella door stood a slender figure clad in a long floating dark
+robe, extending its hands through the cella door toward the statue in
+fervent prayer. She was pressing her brow against the left post of the
+door, but at her feet, on the right side, cowered another figure, which
+could scarcely be recognised as a human being.
+
+This, too, was a woman.
+
+Deeply absorbed in her own thoughts, she was also extending her arms
+toward the statue of Nemesis.
+
+Hermon knew them both.
+
+At first he fancied that his excited imagination was showing him a
+threatening illusion. But no!
+
+The erect figure was Ledscha, the crouching one Gula, the sailor’s wife
+whose child he had rescued from the flames, and who had recently been
+cast out by her husband.
+
+“Ledscha!” escaped his lips in a muttered tone, and he involuntarily
+extended his hands toward her as she was doing toward the goddess.
+
+But she did not seem to hear him, and the other woman also retained the
+same attitude, as if hewn from stone.
+
+Then he called the supplicant’s name loud tone, and the next instant
+still more loudly; and now she turned, and, in the faint light of the
+little lamp, showed the marvellously noble outlines of her profile. He
+called again, and this time Ledscha heard anguished yearning in his
+deep tones; but they seemed to have lost their influence over her, for
+her large dark eyes gazed at him so repellently and sternly that a cold
+tremor ran down his spine.
+
+Swinging himself from his horse, he ascended the steps of the temple,
+and in the most tender tones at his command exclaimed: “Ledscha!
+Severely as I have offended you, Ledscha—oh, do not say no! Will you
+hear me?”
+
+“No!” she answered firmly, and, before he could speak, continued: “This
+place is ill chosen for another meeting! Your presence is hateful to
+me! Do not disturb me a moment longer!”
+
+“As you command,” he began hesitatingly; but she swiftly interrupted
+with the question, “Do you come from Pelusium, and are you going
+directly home?”
+
+“I did not heed the storm on account of Myrtilus’s illness,” he
+answered quietly, “and if you demand it, I will return home at once;
+but first let me make one more entreaty, which will be pleasing also to
+the gods.”
+
+“Get your response from yonder deity! “she impatiently interrupted,
+pointing with a grand, queenly gesture, which at any other time would
+have delighted his artist eye, to the statue of Nemesis in the cella.
+
+Meanwhile Gula had also turned her face toward Hermon, and he now
+addressed her, saying with a faint tone of reproach: “And did hatred
+lead you also, Gula, to this sanctuary at midnight to implore the
+goddess to destroy me in her wrath?”
+
+The young mother rose and pointed to Ledscha, exclaiming, “She desires
+it.”
+
+“And I?” he asked gently. “Have I really done you so much evil?”
+
+She raised her hand to her brow as if bewildered; her glance fell on
+the artist’s troubled face, and lingered there for a short time. Then
+her eyes wandered to Ledscha, and from her to the goddess, and finally
+back again to the sculptor. Meanwhile Hermon saw how her young figure
+was trembling, and, before he had time to address a soothing-word to
+her, she sobbed aloud, crying out to Ledscha: “You are not a mother! My
+child, he rescued it from the flames. I will not, and I can not—I will
+no longer pray for his misfortune!”
+
+She drew her veil over her pretty, tear-stained face as she spoke, and
+darted lightly down the temple steps close beside him to seek shelter
+in her parents’ house, which had been unwillingly opened to the
+cast-off wife, but now afforded her a home rich in affection.
+
+Immeasurably bitter scorn was depicted in Ledscha’s features as she
+gazed after Gula. She did not appear to notice Hermon, and when at last
+he appealed to her and briefly urged her to ask the old enchantress on
+the Owl’s Nest for a remedy for the wounded Gaul, she again leaned
+against the post of the cella door, extended both arms with passionate
+fervour toward the goddess, and remained standing there motionless,
+deaf to his petition.
+
+His blood seethed in his veins, and he was tempted to go nearer and
+force her to hear him; but before he had ascended the first of the
+flight of steps leading to the pronaos, he heard the footsteps of the
+men who were bearing the wounded warrior after him.
+
+They must not see him here with one of their countrywomen at this hour,
+and manly pride forbade him to address her again as a supplicant.
+
+So he went back to the road, mounted his horse, and rode on without
+vouchsafing a word of farewell to the woman who was invoking
+destruction upon his head. As he did so his eyes again rested on the
+stern face of Nemesis, and the wheel whose turning determined the
+destiny of men at her feet.
+
+Assailed by horrible fears, and overpowered by presentiments of evil,
+he pursued his way through the darkness.
+
+Perhaps Myrtilus had succumbed to the terrible attack which must have
+visited him in such a storm, and life without his friend would be
+bereft of half its charm. Orphaned, poor, a struggler who had gained no
+complete victory, it had been rich only in disappointments to him, in
+spite of his conviction that he was a genuine artist, and was fighting
+for a good cause. Now he knew that he had also lost the woman by whose
+assistance he was certain of a great success in his own much-disputed
+course, and Ledscha, if any one, was right in expecting a favourable
+hearing from the goddess who punished injustice.
+
+He did not think of Daphne again until he was approaching the place
+where her tents had stood, and the remembrance of her fell like a ray
+of light into his darkened soul.
+
+Yet on that spot had also been erected the wooden platform from which
+Althea had showed him the transformation into the spider, and the
+recollection of the foolish error into which the Thracian had drawn him
+disagreeably clouded the pleasant thought of Daphne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Complete darkness enfolded the white house. Hermon saw only two windows
+lighted, the ones in his friend’s studio, which looked out into the
+open square, while his own faced the water.
+
+What did this mean?
+
+It must be nearly midnight, and he could no longer expect Myrtilus to
+be still at work. He had supposed that he should find him in his
+chamber, supported by his slaves, struggling for breath. What was the
+meaning of the light in the workrooms now?
+
+Where was his usually efficient Bias? He never went to rest when his
+master was to return home, yet the carrier dove must have announced his
+coming!
+
+But Hermon had also enjoined the care of Myrtilus upon the slave, and
+he was undoubtedly beside the sufferer’s couch, supporting him in the
+same way that he had often seen his master.
+
+He was now riding across the open space, and he heard the men who
+carried the Gaul talking close behind him.
+
+Was the wounded barbarian the sole acquisition of this journey?
+
+The beat of his horse’s hoofs and the voices of the Biamites echoed
+distinctly enough amid the stillness of the night, which was
+interrupted only by the roaring of the wind. And this disturbance of
+the deep silence around had entered the lighted windows before him, for
+a figure appeared at one of them, and—could he believe his own
+eyes?—Myrtilus looked down into the square, and a joyous welcome rang
+from his lips as loudly as in his days of health.
+
+The darkness of the night suddenly seemed to Hermon to be illumined. A
+leap to the ground, two bounds up the steps leading to the house, an
+eager rush through the corridor that separated him from the room in
+which Myrtilus was, the bursting instead of opening of the door, and,
+as if frantic with happy surprise, he impetuously embraced his friend,
+who, burin and file in hand, was just approaching the threshold, and
+kissed his brow and cheeks in the pure joy of his heart.
+
+Then what questions, answers, tidings! In spite of the torrents of rain
+and the gale, the invalid’s health had been excellent. The solitude had
+done him good. He knew nothing about the carrier dove. The hurricane
+had probably “blown it away,” as the breeders of the swift messengers
+said.
+
+Question and reply now followed one another in rapid succession, and
+both were soon acquainted with everything worth knowing; nay, Hermon
+had even delivered Daphne’s rose to his friend, and informed him what
+had befallen the Gaul who was being brought into the house.
+
+Bias and the other slaves had quickly appeared, and Hermon soon
+rendered the wounded man the help he needed in an airy chamber in the
+second story of the house, which, owing to the heat that prevailed in
+summer so close under the roof, the slaves had never occupied.
+
+Bias assisted his master with equal readiness and skill, and at last
+the Gaul opened his eyes and, in the language of his country, asked a
+few brief questions which were incomprehensible to the others. Then,
+groaning, he again closed his lids.
+
+Hitherto Hermon had not even allowed himself time to look around his
+friend’s studio and examine what he had created during his absence.
+But, after perceiving that his kind act had not been in vain, and
+consuming with a vigorous appetite the food and wine which Bias set
+before him, he obliged Myrtilus—for another day was coming—to go to
+rest, that the storm might not still prove hurtful to him.
+
+Yet he held his friend’s hand in a firm clasp for a long time, and,
+when the latter at last prepared to go, he pressed it so closely that
+it actually hurt Myrtilus. But he understood his meaning, and, with a
+loving glance that sank deep into Hermon’s heart, called a last good
+night.
+
+After two sleepless nights and the fatiguing ride which he had just
+taken, the sculptor felt weary enough; but when he laid his hand on the
+Gaul’s brow and breast, and felt their burning heat, he refused Bias’s
+voluntary offer to watch the sufferer in his place.
+
+If to amuse or forget himself he had caroused far more nights in
+succession in Alexandria, why should he not keep awake when the object
+in question was to wrest a young life from the grasp of death? This man
+and his life were now his highest goal, and he had never yet repented
+his foolish eccentricity of imposing discomforts upon himself to help
+the suffering.
+
+Bias, on his part, was very willing to go to rest. He had plenty of
+cause for weariness; Myrtilus’s unscrupulous body-servant had stolen
+off with the other slaves the night before, and did not return, with
+staggering gait, until the next morning, but, in order to keep his
+promise to his master, he had scarcely closed his eyes, that he might
+be at hand if Myrtilus should need assistance.
+
+So Bias fell asleep quickly enough in his little room in the lower
+story, while his master, by the exertion of all his strength of will,
+watched beside the couch of the Gaul.
+
+Yet, after the first quarter of an hour, his head, no matter how he
+struggled to prevent it, drooped again and again upon his breast. But
+just as slumber was completely overpowering him his patient made him
+start up, for he had left his bed, and when Hermon, fully roused,
+looked for him, was standing in the middle of the room, gazing about
+him.
+
+The artist thought that fever had driven the wounded warrior from his
+couch, as it formerly did his fellow-pupil Lycon, whom, in the delirium
+of typhus, he could keep in bed only by force. So he led the Gaul
+carefully back to the couch he had deserted, and, after moistening the
+bandage with healing balm from Myrtilus’s medicine chest, ordered him
+to keep quiet.
+
+The barbarian yielded as obediently as a child, but at first remained
+in a sitting posture and asked, in scarcely intelligible broken Greek,
+how he came to this place.
+
+After Hermon had satisfied his curiosity, he also put a few questions,
+and learned that his charge not only wore a mustache, like his fellow
+countrymen, but also a full beard, because the latter was the badge of
+the bridge builders, to which class he belonged. While examining the
+one crossing the canal, it had fallen in upon him.
+
+He closed his eyes as he spoke, and Hermon wondered if it was not time
+for him to lie down also; but the wounded man’s brow was still burning,
+and the Gallic words which he constantly muttered were probably about
+the phantoms of fever, which Hermon recognised from Lycon’s illness.
+
+So he resolved to wait and continue to devote the night, which he had
+already intended to give him, to the sufferer. From the chair at the
+foot of the bed he looked directly into his face. The soft light of the
+lamp, which with two others hung from a tall, heavy bronze stand in the
+shape of an anchor, which Bias had brought, shone brightly enough to
+allow him to perceive how powerful was the man whose life he had saved.
+His own face was scarcely lighter in hue than the barbarian’s, and how
+sharp was the contrast between his long, thick black beard and his
+white face and bare arched chest!
+
+Hermon had noticed this same contrast in his own person. Otherwise the
+Gaul did not resemble him in a single feature, and he might even have
+refused to compare his soft, wavy beard with the harsh, almost bristly
+one of the barbarian. And what a defiant, almost evil expression his
+countenance wore when—perhaps because his wound ached—he closed his
+lips more firmly! The children who so willingly let him, Hermon, take
+them in his arms would certainly have been afraid of this
+savage-looking fellow.
+
+Yet in build, and at any rate in height and breadth of shoulders, there
+was some resemblance between him and the Gaul.
+
+As a bridge builder, the injured man belonged, in a certain sense, to
+the ranks of the artists, and this increased Hermon’s interest in his
+patient, who was now probably out of the most serious danger.
+
+True, the Greek still cast many a searching glance at the barbarian,
+but his eyes closed more and more frequently, and at last the idea took
+possession of him that he himself was the wounded man on the couch, and
+some one else, who again was himself, was caring for him.
+
+He vainly strove to understand the impossibility of this division of
+his own being, but the more eagerly he did so the greater became his
+bewilderment.
+
+Suddenly the scene changed; Ledscha had appeared.
+
+Bending over him, she lavished words of love; but when, in passionate
+excitement, he sprang from the couch to draw her toward him, she
+changed into the Nemesis to whose statue she had just prayed.
+
+He stood still as if petrified, and the goddess, too, did not stir.
+Only the wheel which had rested at her feet began to move, and rolled,
+with a thundering din, sometimes around him, sometimes around the
+people who, as if they had sprung from the ground, formed a jeering
+company of spectators, and clapped their hands, laughed, and shouted
+whenever it rolled toward him and he sprang back in fear.
+
+Meanwhile the wheel constantly grew larger, and seemed to become
+heavier, for the wooden beams over which it rolled splintered, crashing
+like thin laths, and the spectators’ shouts of applause sounded ruder
+and fiercer.
+
+Then mortal terror suddenly seized him, and while he shouted for help
+to Myrtilus, Daphne, and her father Archias, his slave Bias, the old
+comrade of Alexander, Philippus, and his wife, he awoke, bathed in
+perspiration, and looked about him.
+
+But he must still be under the spell of the horrible dream, for the
+rattling and clattering around him continued, and the bed where the
+wounded Gaul had lain was empty.
+
+Hermon involuntarily dipped his hand into the water which stood ready
+to wet the bandages, and sprinkled his own face with it; but if he had
+ever beheld life with waking eyes, he was doing so now. Yet the
+barbarian had vanished, and the noise in the house still continued.
+
+Was it possible that rats and mice—? No! That was the shriek of a
+terrified human being—that a cry for help! This sound was the imperious
+command of a rough man’s voice, that—no, he was not mistaken—that was
+his own name, and it came from the lips of his Myrtilus, anxiously,
+urgently calling for assistance.
+
+Then he suddenly realized that the white house had been attacked, that
+his friend must be rescued from robbers or the fury of a mob of
+Biamites, and, like the bent wood of a projectile when released from
+the noose which holds it to the ground, the virile energy that
+characterized him sprang upward with mighty power. The swift glance
+that swept the room was sent to discover a weapon, and before it
+completed the circuit Hermon had already grasped the bronze anchor with
+the long rod twined with leaves and the teeth turned downward. Only one
+of the three little vessels filled with oil that hung from it was
+burning. Before swinging the heavy standard aloft, he freed it from the
+lamps, which struck the floor with a clanging noise.
+
+The man to whom he dealt a blow with this ponderous implement would
+forget to rise. Then, as if running for a prize in the gymnasium, he
+rushed through the darkness to the staircase, and with breathless haste
+groped his way down the narrow, ladderlike steps. He felt himself an
+avenging, punishing power, like the Nemesis who had pursued him in his
+dreams. He must wrest the friend who was to him the most beloved of
+mortals from the rioters. To defeat them himself seemed a small matter.
+His shout—“I am coming, Myrtilus! Snuphis, Bias, Dorcas, Syrus! here,
+follow me!” was to summon the old Egyptian doorkeeper and the slaves,
+and inform his friend of the approach of a deliverer.
+
+The loudest uproar echoed from his own studio. Its door stood wide
+open, and black smoke, mingled with the deep red and yellow flames of
+burning pitch, poured from it toward him.
+
+“Myrtilus!” he shouted at the top of his voice as he leaped across the
+threshold into the tumult which filled the spacious apartment, at the
+same time clashing the heavy iron anchor down upon the head of the
+broad- shouldered, half-naked fellow who was raising a clumsy lance
+against him.
+
+The pirate fell as though struck by lightning, and he again shouted
+“Myrtilus!” into the big room, so familiar to him, where the conflict
+was raging chaotically amid a savage clamour, and the smoke did not
+allow him to distinguish a single individual.
+
+For the second time he swung the terrible weapon, and it struck to the
+floor the monster with a blackened face who had rushed toward him, but
+at the same time the anchor broke in two.
+
+Only a short metal rod remained in his hand, and, while he raised his
+arm, determined to crush the temples of the giant carrying a torch who
+sprang forward to meet him, it suddenly seemed as if a vulture with
+glowing plumage and burning beak was attacking his face, and the
+terrible bird of prey was striking its hard, sharp, red-hot talons more
+and more furiously into his lips, cheeks, and eyes.
+
+At first a glare as bright as sunshine had flashed before his gaze;
+then, where he had just seen figures and things half veiled by the
+smoke, he beheld only a scarlet surface, which changed to a violet, and
+finally a black spot, followed by a violet-blue one, while the vulture
+continued to rend his face with beak and talons.
+
+Then the name “Myrtilus!” once more escaped his lips; this time,
+however, it did not sound like the encouraging shout of an avenging
+hero, but the cry for aid of one succumbing to defeat, and it was soon
+followed by a succession of frantic outbursts of suffering, terror, and
+despair.
+
+But now sharp whistles from the water shrilly pierced the air and
+penetrated into the darkened room, and, while the tumult around Hermon
+gradually died away, he strove, tortured by burning pain, to grope his
+way toward the door; but here his foot struck against a human body,
+there against something hard, whose form he could not distinguish, and
+finally a large object which felt cool, and could be nothing but his
+Demeter.
+
+But she seemed doomed to destruction, for the smoke was increasing
+every moment, and constantly made his open wounds smart more fiercely.
+
+Suddenly a cooler air fanned his burning face, and at the same time he
+heard hurrying steps approach and the mingled cries of human voices.
+
+Again he began to shout the names of his friends, the slaves, and the
+porter; but no answer came from any of them, though hasty questions in
+the Greek language fell upon his ear.
+
+The strategist, with his officers, the nomarch of the district with his
+subordinates, and many citizens of Tennis had arrived. Hermon knew most
+of them by their voices, but their figures were not visible. The red,
+violet, and black cloud before him was all he could see.
+
+Yet, although the pain continued to torture him, and a voice in his
+soul told him that he was blinded, he did not allow the government
+officials who eagerly surrounded him to speak, only pointed hastily to
+his eyes, and then bade them enter Myrtilus’s studio. The Egyptian
+Chello, the Tennis goldsmith, who had assisted the artists in the
+preparation of the noble metal, and one of the police officers who had
+been summoned to rid the old house of the rats and mice which infested
+it, both knew the way.
+
+They must first try to save Myrtilus’s work and, when that was
+accomplished, preserve his also from destruction by the flames.
+
+Leaning on the goldsmith’s arm, Hermon went to his friend’s studio; but
+before they reached it smoke and flames poured out so densely that it
+was impossible even to gain the door.
+
+“Destroyed—a prey to the flames!” he groaned. “And he—he—he—”
+
+Then like a madman he asked if no one had seen Myrtilus, and where he
+was; but in vain, always in vain.
+
+At last the goldsmith who was leading him asked him to move aside, for
+all who had flocked to the white house when it was seized by the flames
+had joined in the effort to save the statue of Demeter, which they had
+found unharmed in his studio.
+
+Seventeen men, by the exertion of all their strength, were dragging the
+heavy statue from the house, which was almost on the point of falling
+in, into the square. Several others were bearing corpses into the open
+air- the old porter Snuphis and Myrtilus’s body servant. Some
+motionless forms they were obliged to leave behind. Both the bodies had
+deep wounds. There was no trace of Myrtilus and Bias.
+
+Outside the storm had subsided, and a cool breeze blew refreshingly
+into Hermon’s face. As he walked arm in arm with the notary Melampus,
+who had invited him to his house, and heard some one at his side
+exclaim, “How lavishly Eos is scattering her roses to-day!” he
+involuntarily lifted the cloth with which he had covered his smarting
+face to enjoy the beautiful flush of dawn, but again beheld nothing
+save a black and violet-blue surface.
+
+Then drawing his hand from his guide’s arm, he pressed it upon his
+poor, sightless, burning eyes, and in helpless rage, like a beast of
+prey which feels the teeth of the hunter’s iron trap rend his flesh,
+groaned fiercely, “Blind! blind!” and again, and yet again, “Blind!”
+
+While the morning star was still paling, the lad who after Hermon’s
+landing had raced along the shore with the burning torch glided into
+the little pronaos of the Temple of Nemesis.
+
+Ledscha was still standing by the doorpost of the cella with uplifted
+hand, so deeply absorbed in fervent prayer that she did not perceive
+the approach of the messenger until he called her.
+
+“Succeeded?” she asked in a muffled tone, interrupting his hasty
+greeting.
+
+“You must give the goddess what you vowed,” was the reply. “Hanno sends
+you the message. And also, ‘You must come with me in the boat
+quickly-at once!’”
+
+“Where?” the girl demanded.
+
+“Not on board the Hydra yet,” replied the boy hurriedly. “First only to
+the old man on the Megara. The dowry is ready for your father. But
+there is not a moment to lose.”
+
+“Well, well!” she gasped hoarsely. “But, first, shall I find the man
+with the black beard on board of one of the ships?”
+
+“Certainly!” answered the lad proudly, grasping her arm to hurry her;
+but she shook him off violently, turned toward the cella again, and
+once more lifted her hands and eyes to the statue of Nemesis.
+
+Then she took up the bundle she had hidden behind a pillar, drew from
+it a handful of gold coins, which she flung into the box intended for
+offerings, and followed the boy.
+
+“Alive?” she asked as she descended the steps; but the lad understood
+the meaning of the question, and exclaimed: “Yes, indeed! Hanno says
+the wounds are not at all dangerous.”
+
+“And the other?”
+
+“Not a scratch. On the Hydra, with two severely wounded slaves. The
+porter and the others were killed.”
+
+“And the statues?”
+
+“They-such things can’t be accomplished without some little
+blunder-Labaja thinks so, too.”
+
+“Did they escape you?”
+
+“Only one. I myself helped to smash the other, which stood in the
+workroom that looks out upon the water. The gold and ivory are on the
+ship. We had horrible work with the statue which stood in the room
+whose windows faced the square. They dragged the great monster
+carefully into the studio that fronts upon the water. But probably it
+is still standing there, if the thing is not already—just see how the
+flames are whirling upward!—if it is not already burned with the
+house.”
+
+“What a misfortune!” Ledscha reproachfully exclaimed.
+
+“It could not be helped,” the boy protested. “People from Tennis
+suddenly rushed in. The first—a big, furious fellow-killed our Loule
+and the fierce Judas. Now he has to pay for it. Little Chareb threw the
+black powder into his eyes, while Hanno himself thrust the torch in his
+face.”
+
+“And Bias, the blackbeard’s slave?”
+
+“I don’t know. Oh, yes! Wounded, I believe, on board the ship.”
+
+Meanwhile the lad, a precocious fourteen-year-old cabin-boy from the
+Hydra, pointed to the boat which lay ready, and took Ledscha’s bundle
+in his hand; but she sprang into the light skiff before him and ordered
+it to be rowed to the Owl’s Nest, where she must bid Mother Tabus
+good-bye. The cabin-boy, however, declared positively that the command
+could not be obeyed now, and at his signal two black sailors urged it
+with swift oar strokes toward the northwest, to Satabus’s ship. Hanno
+wished to receive his bride as a wife from his father’s hand.
+
+Ledscha had not insisted upon the fulfilment of her desire, but as the
+boat passed the Pelican Island her gaze rested on the lustreless waning
+disk of the moon. She thought of the torturing night, during which she
+had vainly waited here for Hermon, and a triumphant smile hovered
+around her lips; but soon the heavy eyebrows of the girl who was thus
+leaving her home contracted in a frown—she again fancied she saw, where
+the moon was just fading, the body of a gigantic, hideous spider. She
+banished the illusion by speaking to the boy—spiders in the morning
+mean misfortune.
+
+The early dawn, which was now crimsoning the east, reminded her of the
+blood which, as an avenger, she must yet shed.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
+
+
+Camels, which were rarely seen in Egypt
+
+
+
+
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