1 files changed, 2174 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/5511.txt b/old/5511.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eba9cea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/5511.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2174 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook Arachne, by Georg Ebers, Volume 4.
+#72 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: Arachne, Volume 4.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5511]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 17, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE, BY GEORG EBERS, V4 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[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
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE, BY GEORG EBERS, V4 ***
+
+******** This file should be named 5511.txt or 5511.zip ********
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+https://gutenberg.org or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+