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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Arachne, by Georg Ebers, Volume 8.
+#76 in our series by Georg Ebers
+
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+Title: Arachne, Volume 8.
+
+Author: Georg Ebers
+
+Release Date: April, 2004  [EBook #5515]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 17, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE, BY GEORG EBERS, V8 ***
+
+
+
+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 8.
+
+
+
+Hermon, filled with longing, went down toward evening to the shore.
+
+The sun was setting, and the riot of colours in the western horizon
+seemed like a mockery of the torturing anxiety which had mastered his
+soul.
+
+He did not notice the boat that was approaching the land; many travellers
+who intended to go through Arabia Petrea landed here, and for several
+days--he knew why--there had been more stir in these quiet waters.
+
+Suddenly he was surprised by the ringing shout with which he had formerly
+announced his approach to Myrtilus.
+
+Unconsciously agitated by joy, as if the sunset glow before him had
+suddenly been transformed into the dawn of a happy day, he answered by a
+loud cry glad with hope.  Although his dim eyes did not yet permit him to
+distinguish who was standing erect in the boat, waving greetings to him,
+he thought he knew whom this exquisite evening was bringing.
+
+Soon his own name reached him.  It was his "wise Bias" who shouted, and
+soon, with a throbbing heart, he held out both hands to him.
+
+The freedman had performed his commission in the best possible manner,
+and was now no longer bound to silence by oath.
+
+Ledscha had left him and Myrtilus to themselves and, as Bias thought he
+had heard, had sailed with the Gaul Lutarius for Paraetonium, the
+frontier city between the kingdom of Egypt and that of Cyrene.
+
+Myrtilus felt stronger than he had done for a long time, and had sent him
+back to the blind friend who would need him more than he did.
+
+But worthy Bias also brought messages from Archias and Daphne.  They were
+well, and his uncle now had scarcely any cause to fear pursuers.
+
+Before the landing of the boat, the shade had covered Hermon's eyes; but
+when, after the freedman's first timid question about his sight, he
+raised it again, at the same time reporting and showing what progress he
+had already made toward recovery, the excess of joy overpowered the
+freedman, and sometimes laughing, sometimes weeping, he kissed the
+convalescent's hands and simple robe.  It was some time before he calmed
+himself again, then laying his forefinger on the side of his nose, he
+said: "Therein the immortals differ from human beings.  We sculptors can
+only create good work with good tools, but the immortals often use the
+very poorest of all to accomplish the best things.  You owe your sight to
+the hate of this old witch and mother of pirates, so may she find peace
+in the grave.  She is dead.  I heard it from a fellow-countryman whom I
+met in Herocipolis.  Her end came soon after our visit."
+
+Then Bias related what he knew of Hermon's uncle, of Daphne, and
+Myrtilus.
+
+Two letters were to give him further particulars.
+
+They came from the woman he loved and from his friend, and as soon as
+Bias had lighted the lamp in the tent, at the same time telling his
+master in advance many items of news they contained, he set about the
+difficult task of reading.
+
+He had certainly scarcely become a master of this art on board the Hydra,
+yet his slow performance did all honour to the patience of his teacher
+Myrtilus.
+
+He began with Daphne's letter, but by the desire of prudent Archias it
+communicated few facts.  But the protestations of love and expressions of
+longing which filled it pierced the freedman's soul so deeply that his
+voice more than once failed while reading them.
+
+Myrtilus's letter, on the contrary, gave a minute description of his mode
+of life, and informed his friend what he expected for him and himself in
+the future.  The contents of both relieved Hermon's sorely troubled
+heart, made life with those who were dearest to him possible, and
+explained many things which the reports of the slave had not rendered
+perfectly clear.
+
+Archias had gone with Daphne to the island of Lesbos, his mother's native
+city.  The ships which conveyed travellers to Pergamus, where Myrtilus
+was living, touched at this port, and Bias, to whom Hermon had confided
+the refuge of the father and daughter, had sought them there, and found
+them in a beautiful villa.
+
+After being released from his oath, Myrtilus had put himself into
+communication with his uncle, and just before Bias's departure the
+merchant had come to Pergamus with his daughter.  As he had the most
+cordial reception from the Regent Philetaerus, he seemed inclined to
+settle permanently there.
+
+As for Myrtilus, he had cast anchor with Ledscha in the little Mysian
+seaport town of Pitane, near the mouth of the Caicus River, on which,
+farther inland, was the rapidly growing city of Pergamus.
+
+She had found a hospitable welcome in the family of a seafarer who were
+relatives, while the Gaul continued his voyage to obtain information
+about his tribe in Syria.  But he had already returned when Bias reached
+Pitane with the two talents intended for him.  Myrtilus had availed
+himself of Ledscha's permission long before and gone to Pergamus, where
+he had lived and worked in secrecy until, after the freedman's return
+from Ledscha, who at once left Pitane with the Gaul, he was released from
+his oath.
+
+During the absence of Bias he had modelled a large relief, a triumphal
+procession of Dionysus, and as the renown of his name had previously
+reached Pergamus, the artists and the most distinguished men in the city
+flocked to his studio to admire the work of the famous Alexandrian.
+
+Soon Philetoerus, who had founded the Pergamenian kingdom seven years
+before, and governed it with great wisdom, came to Myrtilus.
+
+Like his nephew and heir Eumenes, he was a friend to art, and induced the
+laurel-crowned Alexandrian to execute the relief, modelled in clay, in
+marble for the Temple of Dionysus at Pergamus.
+
+The heir to the throne of Philetaerus, who was now advancing in years,
+was especially friendly to Myrtilus, and did everything in his power to
+bind him to Pergamus.
+
+He succeeded, for in the beautiful house, located in an extremely
+healthful site, which Eumenes had assigned for a residence and studio to
+the Alexandrian artist, whose work he most ardently admired, and whom he
+regarded as the most welcome of guests, Myrtilus felt better physically
+than he had for years.  Besides, he thought that, for many reasons, his
+friend would be less willing to settle in Alexandria, and that the
+presence of his uncle and Daphne would attract him to Pergamus.
+
+Moreover, Hermon surely knew that if he came to him as a blind man he
+would find a brother; if he came restored to sight, he would also find a
+brother, and likewise a fellow-artist with whom he could live and work.
+
+Myrtilus had told the heir to the throne of Pergamus of his richly gifted
+blind relative, and of the peculiarity of his art, and Eumenes eagerly
+endeavoured to induce his beloved guest to persuade his friend to remove
+to his capital, where there was no lack of distinguished leeches.
+
+If Hermon remained blind, he would honour him; if he recovered his sight,
+he would give him large commissions.
+
+How deeply these letters moved the heart of the recovering man!  What
+prospects they opened for his future life, for love, friendship, and, not
+least, for his art!
+
+If he could see--if he could only see again!  This exclamation blended
+with everything he thought, felt, and uttered.  Even in sleep it haunted
+him.  To regain the clearness of vision he needed for his work, he would
+willingly have submitted to the severest tortures.
+
+In Alexandria alone lived the great leeches who could complete the work
+which the salve of an ignorant old woman had begun.  Thither he must go,
+though it cost him liberty and life.  The most famous surgeon of the
+Museum at the capital had refused his aid under other circumstances.
+Perhaps he would relent if Philippus, a friend of Erasistratus, smoothed
+the way for him, and the old hero was now living very near.  The ships,
+whose number on the sea at his feet was constantly increasing, were
+attracted hither by the presence of the Egyptian King and Queen on the
+isthmus which connects Asia and Africa.  The priest of Apollo at Clysma,
+and other distinguished Greeks whom he met there, had told him the day
+before yesterday, and on two former visits to the place, what was going
+on in the world, and informed him how great an honour awaited the eastern
+frontier in these days.  The appearance of their Majesties in person must
+not only mean the founding of a city, the reception of a victorious naval
+commander, and the consecration of a restored temple, but also have still
+deeper causes.
+
+During the last few years severe physical suffering had brought the
+unfortunate second king of the house of Ptolemy to this place to seek
+the aid of the ancient Egyptian gods, and, besides the philosophy, busy
+himself with the mystic teachings and magic arts of their priesthood.
+
+Only a short period of life seemed allotted to the invalid ruler, and the
+service of the time-honoured god of the dead, to whom he had erected one
+of the most magnificent temples in the world at Alexandria, to which
+Egyptians and Hellenes repaired with equal devotion, opened hopes for the
+life after death which seemed to him worthy of examination.
+
+For this reason also he desired to secure the favour of the Egyptian
+priesthood.
+
+For this purpose, for the execution of his wise and beneficent
+arrangements, as well as for the gratification of his expensive tastes,
+large sums of money were required; therefore he devoted himself with
+especial zeal to enlarging the resources of his country, already so rich
+by nature.
+
+In all these things he had found an admirable assistant in his sister
+Arsinoe.  As the daughter of the father and mother to whom he himself
+owed existence, he could claim for her unassailable legitimacy the same
+recognition from the priesthood, and the same submission from the people
+rendered to his own person, whom the religion of the country commanded
+them to revere as the representative of the sun god.
+
+As marriages between brothers and sisters had been customary from ancient
+times, and were sanctioned by religion and myth, he had married the
+second Arsinoe, his sister, immediately after the banishment of the first
+Queen of this name.
+
+After the union with her, he called himself Philadelphus--brotherly love
+--and honoured his sister and wife with the same name.
+
+True, this led the sarcastic Alexandrians to utter many a biting, more or
+less witty jest, but he never had cause to regret his choice; in spite of
+her forty years, and more than one bloody deed which before her marriage
+to him she had committed as Queen of Thrace and as a widow, the second
+Arsinoe was always a pattern of regally aristocratic, dignified bearing
+and haughty womanly beauty.
+
+Though the first Philadelphus could expect no descendants from her, he
+had provided for securing them through her, for he had induced her to
+adopt the first Arsinoe's three children, who had been taken from their
+exiled mother.
+
+Arsinoe was now accompanying her royal husband Philadelphus to the
+eastern frontier.  There the latter expected to name the city to be newly
+founded "Arsinoe" for her, and-to show his esteem for the priesthood--to
+consecrate in person the new Temple of Tum in the city of Pithom, near
+Heroopolis.
+
+Lastly, the monarch had been endeavouring to form new connections with
+the coast countries of eastern Africa, and open them to Egyptian
+commerce.
+
+Admiral Eumedes, the oldest son of Philippus and Thyone, had succeeded in
+doing this most admirably, for the distinguished commander had not only
+founded on the Ethiopian shore of the Red Sea a city which he named for
+the King "Ptolemais," but also won over the princes and tribes of that
+region to Egypt.
+
+He was now returning from Ethiopia with a wealth of treasures.
+
+After the brilliant festivals the invalid King, with his new wife, was to
+give himself up to complete rest for a month in the healthful air of the
+desert region which surrounded Pithom, far from the tumult of the capital
+and the exhausting duties of government.
+
+The magnificent shows which were to be expected, and the presence of the
+royal pair, had attracted thousands of spectators on foot or horseback,
+and by water, and the morning after Bias's return the sea near Clysma was
+swarming with vessels of all kinds and sizes.
+
+It was more than probable that Philippus, the father, and Thyone, the
+mother of the famous returning Admiral Eumedes, would not fail to be
+present at his reception on his native soil, and therefore Hermon wished
+to seek out his dear old friends in Heroopolis, where the greeting was to
+take place, and obtain their advice.
+
+The boat on which the freedman had come was at the disposal of his master
+and himself.  Before Hermon entered it, he took leave, with an agitated
+heart and open hand, of his Amalekite friends and, in spite of the mist
+which still obscured everything he beheld, he perceived how reluctantly
+the simple dwellers in the wilderness saw him depart.
+
+When the master and servant entered the boat, in spite of the sturdy
+sailors who manned it, it proved even more difficult than they had feared
+to make any progress; for the whole narrow end of the arm of the sea,
+which here extended between Egypt and Arabia Petrea, was covered with war
+galleys and transports, boats and skiffs.  The two most magnificent state
+galleys from Heroopolis were coming here, bearing the ambassadors who, in
+the King's name, were to receive the fleet and its commander.  Other
+large and small, richly equipped, or unpretending ships and boats were
+filled with curious spectators.
+
+What a gay, animated scene!  What brilliant, varied, strange, hitherto
+unseen objects were gathered here: vessels of every form and size, sails
+white, brown, and black, and on the state galleys and boats purple, blue,
+and every colour, adorned with more or less costly embroidery!  What
+rising and falling of swiftly or slowly moving oars!
+
+"From Alexandria!" cried Bias, pointing to a state galley which the King
+was sending to the commander of the southern fleet.
+
+"And there," remarked Hermon, proud of his regained power of
+distinguishing one thing from another, and letting his eyes rest on one
+of the returning transports, on whose deck stood six huge African
+elephants, whose trumpeting mingled with the roaring of the lions and
+tigers on the huge freight vessels, and the exulting shouts of the men
+and women in the ships and boats.
+
+"After the King's heart!" exclaimed Bias.  "He probably never received at
+one time before so large an accession to his collection of rare animals.
+What is the transport with the huge lotus flower on the prow probably
+bringing?"
+
+"Oh, and the monkeys and parrots over yonder!" joyously exclaimed the
+Amalekite boy who had been Hermon's guide, and had accompanied him into
+the boat.  Then he suddenly lowered his voice and, fearing that his
+delight might give pain to the less keen-sighted man whom he loved, he
+asked, "You can see them, my lord, can't you?"
+
+"Certainly, my boy, though less plainly than you do," replied Hermon,
+stroking the lad's dark hair.
+
+Meanwhile the admiral's ship had approached the shore.
+
+Bias pointed to the poop, where the commander Eumedes was standing
+directing the course of the fleet.
+
+As if moulded in bronze, a man thoroughly equal to his office, he seemed,
+in spite of the shouts, greetings, and acclamations thundering around
+him, to close his eyes and ears to the vessels thronging about his ship
+and devote himself body and soul to the fulfilment of his duty.  He had
+just embraced his father and mother, who had come here to meet him.
+
+"The King undoubtedly sent by his father the laurel wreath on his
+helmet," observed Bias, pointing to the admiral.  "So many honours while
+he is still so young!  When you went to the wrestling school in
+Alexandria, Eumedes was scarcely eight years older than you, and I
+remember how he preferred you to the others.  A sign, and he will notice
+us and allow you to go on his ship, or, at any rate, send us a boat in
+which we can enter the canal."
+
+"No, no,"  replied  Hermon.  "My call would disturb him now."
+
+"Then let us make ourselves known to the Lady Thyone or her husband," the
+freedman continued.  "They will certainly take us on their large state
+galley, from which, though your eyes do not yet see as far as a falcon's,
+not a ship, not a man, not a movement will escape them."
+
+But Hermon added one more surprise to the many which he had already
+given, for he kindly declined Bias's well-meant counsel, and, resting his
+hand on the Amalekite boy's shoulder, said modestly: "I am no longer the
+Hermon whom Eumedes preferred to the others.  And the Lady Thyone must
+not be reminded of anything sad in this festal hour for the mother's
+heart.  I shall meet her to-morrow, or the day after, and yet I had
+intended to let no one who is loyal to me look into my healing eyes
+before Daphne."
+
+Then he felt the freedman's hand secretly press his, and it comforted
+him, after the sorrowful thoughts to which he had yielded, amid the
+shouts of joy ringing around him.  How quietly, with what calm dignity,
+Eumedes received the well-merited homage, and how disgracefully the false
+fame had bewildered his own senses!
+
+Yet he had not passed through the purifying fire of misfortune in vain!
+The past should not cloud the glad anticipation of brighter days!
+
+Drawing a long breath, he straightened himself into a more erect posture,
+and ordered the men to push the boat from the shore.  Then he pressed a
+farewell kiss on the Amalekite boy's forehead, the lad sprang ashore, and
+the journey northward began.
+
+At first the sailors feared that the crowd would be too great, and the
+boat would be refused admission to the canal; but the helmsman succeeded
+in keeping close behind a vessel of medium size, and the Macedonian
+guards of the channel put no obstacle in their countryman's way, while
+boats occupied by Egyptians and other barbarians were kept back.
+
+In the Bitter Lakes, whose entire length was to be traversed, the ships
+had more room, and after a long voyage through dazzling sunlight, and
+along desolate shores, the boat anchored at nightfall at Heroopolis.
+
+Hermon and Bias obtained shelter on one of the ships which the sovereign
+had placed at the disposal of the Greeks who came to participate in the
+festivals to be celebrated.
+
+Before his master went to rest, the freedman--whom he had sent out to
+look for a vessel bound to Pelusium and Alexandria the next day or the
+following one--returned to the ship.
+
+He had talked with the Lady Thyone, and told Hermon from her that she
+would visit or send for him the next day, after the festival.
+
+His own mother, the freedman protested, could not have rejoiced more
+warmly over the commencement of his recovery, and she would have come
+with him at once had not Philippus prevented his aged wife, who was
+exhausted by the long journey.
+
+The next morning the sun poured a wealth of radiant light upon the
+desert, the green water of the harbour, and the gray and yellow walls of
+the border fortress.
+
+Three worlds held out their hands to one another on this water way
+surrounded by the barren wilderness--Egypt, Hellas, and Semitic Asia.
+
+To the first belonged the processions of priests, who, with images of the
+gods, consecrated vessels, and caskets of relics, took their places at
+the edge of the harbour.  The tawny and black, half-naked soldiers who,
+with high shields, lances, battle-axes and bows, gathered around
+strangely shaped standards, joined them, amid the beating of drums and
+blare of trumpets, as if for their protection.  Behind them surged a vast
+multitude of Egyptians and dark-skinned Africans.
+
+On the other side of the canal the Asiatics were moving to and fro.  The
+best places for spectators had been assigned to the petty kings and
+princes of tribes, Phoenician and Syrian merchants, and well-equipped,
+richly armed warriors.  Among them thronged owners of herds and seafarers
+from the coast.  Until the reception began, fresh parties of bearded sons
+of the desert, in floating white bernouse, mounted on noble steeds, were
+constantly joining the other Asiatics.
+
+The centre was occupied by the Greeks.  The appearance of every
+individual showed that they were rulers of the land, and that they
+deserved to be.  How free and bold was their bearing! how brightly and
+joyously sparkled the eyes of these men, whose wreaths of green leaves
+and bright-hued flowers adorned locks anointed for the festivals!  Strong
+and slender, they were conspicuous in their stately grace among the lean
+Egyptians, unbridled in their jests and jeers, and the excitable
+Asiatics.
+
+Now the blare of trumpets and the roll of drums shook the air like
+echoing lightning and heavy peals of thunder; the Egyptian priests sang a
+hymn of praise to the God King and Goddess Queen, and the aristocratic
+priestesses of the deity tinkled the brass rings on the sistrum.  Then a
+chorus of Hellenic singers began a polyphonous hymn, and amid its full,
+melodious notes, which rose above the enthusiastic shouts of "Hail!" from
+the multitude, King Ptolemy and his sister-wife showed themselves to the
+waiting throng.  Seated on golden thrones borne on the broad shoulders of
+gigantic black Ethiopians, and shaded by lofty canopies, both were raised
+above the crowd, whom they saluted by gracious gestures.
+
+The athletic young bearers of the large round ostrich-feather fans which
+protected them from the sunbeams were followed in ranks by the monarch's
+"relatives" and "friends," the dignitaries, the dark and fair-haired
+bands of the guards of Grecian youths and boys, as well as divisions of
+the picked corps of the Hetairoi, Diadochi, and Epigoni, in beautiful
+plain Macedonian armour.
+
+They were followed in the most informal manner by scholars from the
+Museum, many Hellenic artists, and wealthy gentlemen of Alexandria of
+Greek and Jewish origin, whom the King had invited to the festival.
+
+In his train they went on board the huge galley on which the reception
+was to take place.  Scarcely had the last one stepped on the deck when it
+began.
+
+Eumedes came from the admiral's galley to the King's.  Ptolemy embraced
+him like a friend, and Arsinoe added a wreath of fresh roses to the
+laurel crown which the sovereign had sent the day before.
+
+At the same time thundering plaudits echoed from the walls of the
+fortifications and broke, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, against
+the ships and masts in the calm water of the harbour.
+
+The King had little time to lose.  Even festal joy must move swiftly.
+There were many and varied things to be seen and done; but in the course
+of an hour--so ran the order--this portion of the festivities must be
+over, and it was fully obeyed.
+
+The hands and feet of the woolly-headed blacks who, amid loud
+acclamations, carried on shore the cages in which lions, panthers, and
+leopards shook the bars with savage fury, moved as if they were winged.
+The slender, dark-brown Ethiopians who led giraffes, apes, gazelles, and
+greyhounds past the royal pair rushed along as if they were under the
+lash; and the sixty elephants which Eumedes and his men had caught in the
+land of Chatyth moved at a rapid pace past the royal state galley.
+
+At the sight of them the King joined in the cheers of thousands of voices
+on the shore; these giant animals were to him auxiliaries who could put
+to flight a whole corps of hostile cavalry, and Arsinoe-Philadelphus, the
+Queen, sympathized with his pleasure.
+
+She raised her voice with her royal husband, and it seemed to the
+spectators on the shore as if they had a share in the narrative when she
+listened to Eumedes's first brief report.
+
+Only specimens of the gold and ivory, spices and rare woods, juniper
+trees and skins of animals which the ships brought home could be borne
+past their Majesties, and the black and brown men who carried them moved
+at a breathless rate.
+
+The sun was still far from the meridian when the royal couple and their
+train withdrew from the scene of the reception ceremonial, and drove, in
+a magnificent chariot drawn by four horses, to the neighbouring city of
+Pithoin, where new entertainments and a long period of rest awaited them.
+Hermon had seen, as if through a veil of white mists, the objects that
+aroused the enthusiasm of the throng, and so, he said to himself, it had
+been during the whole course of his life.  Only the surface of the
+phenomena on which he fixed his eyes had been visible to him; he had not
+learned to penetrate further into their nature, fathom them to their
+depths, until he became blind.
+
+If the gods fulfilled his hope, if he regained his vision entirely, and
+even the last mists had vanished, he would hold firmly to the capacity he
+had gained, and use it in life as well as in art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The messenger from Philippus appeared in the afternoon.  It was the young
+hipparch who had studied in Athens and accompanied the commandant of
+Pelusium to Tennis the year before.  He came charged with the commission
+to convey the artist, in the carriage of the gray-haired comrade of
+Alexander, to the neighbouring city of Pithom, where Philippus, by the
+King's command, was now residing.
+
+On the way the hipparch told the sculptor that the Lady Thyone had
+recently done things unprecedented for a woman of her age.
+
+She had been present at the founding of the city of Arsinoe, as well
+as at the laying of the corner stone of the temple which was to be
+consecrated to the new god Serapis in the neighbourhood.  The day before
+she had welcomed her returning son before the entry of the fleet into the
+canal, and to-day had remained from the beginning to the end of his
+reception by the King, without being unduly wearied.
+
+Her first thought, after the close of the ceremony, had concerned her
+convalescing young friend.  New entertainments, in which the Queen
+commanded her to participate, awaited her in Pithom, but pleasure at the
+return of her famous son appeared to double her power of endurance.
+
+Pithom was the sacred name of the temple precincts of the desert city of
+Thekut--[The biblical Suchot]--near Heroopolis, where the citizens lived
+and pursued their business.
+
+The travellers reached the place very speedily.  Garlands of flowers and
+hangings adorned the houses.  The sacred precinct Pithom, above which
+towered the magnificently restored temple of the god Turn, was also still
+adorned with many superb ones, as well as lofty masts, banners, and
+triumphal arches.
+
+Before they reached it the equipage passed the sumptuous tents which had
+been erected for the royal pair and their attendants.  If Hermon had not
+known how long the monarch intended to remain here, their size and number
+would have surprised him.
+
+A regular messenger and carrier-dove service had been established between
+Alexandria and Pithom for the period of Ptolemy's relaxation; and the
+sovereign was accompanied not only by several of the chief councillors
+and secretaries, but artists and some of the Museum scientists with whom
+he was on specially intimate terms, who were to adorn the festival on the
+frontier with their presence, and cheer the invalid King, who needed
+entertainment.  Singers and actors also belonged to the train.
+
+As they passed the encampment of the troops who accompanied the
+sovereign, the hipparch could show Hermon a magnificent military
+spectacle.
+
+Heroopolis was fortified, and belonged to the military colonies which
+Alexander the Great had established throughout all Egypt in order to win
+it over more quickly to Grecian customs.  A Hellenic phalanx and Libyan
+mercenaries formed the garrison there, but at Pithom the King had
+gathered the flower of his troops around him, and this circumstance
+showed how little serious consideration the cautious ruler, who usually
+carefully regarded every detail, gave to the war with Cyrene, in which he
+took no personal part.  The four thousand Gauls whom he had sent across
+the frontier as auxiliary troops promised to become perilous to the foe,
+who was also threatened in the rear by one of the most powerful Libyan
+tribes.
+
+Therefore, the artist was assured by his military companion, Philadelphus
+could let the campaign take its course, and permit himself the brief
+period of rest in this strangely chosen place, which the leeches had
+advised.
+
+The house where the aged couple lived with their son, Admiral Eumedes,
+was on the edge of the precincts of the temple.  It belonged to the most
+distinguished merchant in the place, and consisted of a large open
+courtyard in the form of a square, surrounded by the building and its
+communicating wings.
+
+When the hipparch led Hermon into this place a number of people had
+already assembled there.  Soldiers and sailors stood in groups in the
+centre, awaiting the orders of the old general and his subordinate
+officers.  Messengers and slaves, coming and going on various errands,
+were crossing it, and on the shady side benches and chairs stood under a
+light awning.  Most of these were occupied by visitors who came to
+congratulate the mother of the fame-crowned admiral.
+
+Thyone was reclining on a divan in their midst, submitting with a sigh to
+the social duties which her high position imposed upon her.
+
+Her face was turned toward the large doorway of the main entrance, while
+she sometimes greeted newly introduced guests, sometimes bade farewell to
+departing ones, and meanwhile answered and asked questions.
+
+She had been more wearied by the exertions of the last few days than her
+animated manner revealed.  Yet as soon as Hermon, leaning on the young
+hipparch's arm, approached her, she rose and cordially extended both
+hands to him.  True, the recovering man was still unable to see her
+features distinctly, but he felt the maternal kindness with which she
+received him, and what his eyes could not distinguish his ears taught him
+in her warm greetings.  His heart dilated and, after he had kissed her
+dear old hand more than once with affectionate devotion, she led him
+among her guests and presented him to them as the son of her dearest
+friend.
+
+A strange stir ran through the assembled group, nearly all whose members
+belonged to the King's train, and the low whispers and murmurs around him
+revealed to Hermon that the false wreaths he wore had by no means been
+forgotten in this circle.
+
+A painful feeling of discomfort overwhelmed the man accustomed to the
+silence of the desert, and a voice within cried with earnest insistence,
+"Away from here!"
+
+But he had no time to obey it; an unusually tall, broad-shouldered man,
+with a thick gray beard and grave, well-formed features, in whom he
+thought he recognised the great physician Erasistratus, approached
+Thyone, and asked, "The recluse from the desert with restored sight?"
+
+"The same," replied the matron, and whispered to the other, who was
+really the famous scientist and leech whom Hermon had desired to seek in
+Alexandria.  "Exhaustion will soon overcome me, and how many important
+matters I had to discuss with you and the poor fellow yonder!"
+
+The physician laid his hand on the matron's temples, and, raising his
+voice, said in a tone of grave anxiety: "Exhaustion!  It would be better
+for you, honoured lady, to keep your bed."
+
+"Surely and certainly!" the wife of the chief huntsman instantly
+assented.  "We have already taxed your strength far too long, my noble
+friend."
+
+This welcome confession produced a wonderful effect upon the other
+visitors, and very soon the last one had vanished from the space under
+the awning and the courtyard.  Not a single person had vouchsafed Hermon
+a greeting; for the artist, divested of the highest esteem, had been
+involved in the ugly suspicion of having driven his uncle from
+Alexandria, and the monarch was said to have spoken unfavourably
+of him.
+
+When the last one had left the courtyard, the leech exchanged a quick
+glance of understanding, which also included Hermon, with Thyone, and the
+majordomo received orders to admit no more visitors, while Erasistratus
+exclaimed gaily, "It is one of the physician's principal duties to keep
+all harmful things--including living ones--from his patient."
+
+Then he turned to Hermon and had already begun to question him about his
+health, when the majordomo announced another visitor.  "A very
+distinguished gentleman, apparently," he said hastily; "Herophilus of
+Chalcedon, who would not be denied admittance."
+
+Again the eyes of Erasistratus and the matron met, and the former
+hastened toward his professional colleague.
+
+The two physicians stopped in the middle of the courtyard and talked
+eagerly together, while Thyone, with cordial interest, asked Hermon to
+tell her what she had already partially learned through the freedman
+Bias.
+
+Finally Erasistratus persuaded the matron, who seemed to have
+forgotten her previous exhaustion, to share the consultation, but the
+convalescent's heart throbbed faster as he watched the famous leeches.
+
+If these two men took charge of his case, the most ardent desire of his
+soul might be fulfilled, and Thyone was certainly trying to induce them
+to undertake his treatment; what else would have drawn her away from him
+before she had said even one word about Daphne?
+
+The sculptor saw, as if through a cloud of dust, the three consulting
+together in the centre of the courtyard, away from the soldiers and
+messengers.
+
+Hermon had only seen Erasistratus indistinctly, but before his eyes were
+blinded he had met him beside the sick-bed of Myrtilus, and no one who
+had once beheld it could forget the manly bearded face, with the grave,
+thoughtful eyes, whose gaze deliberately sought their goal.
+
+The other also belonged to the great men in the realm of intellect.
+Hermon knew him well, for he had listened eagerly in the Museum to the
+lectures of the famous Herophilus, and his image also had stamped itself
+upon his soul.
+
+Even at that time the long, smooth hair of the famous investigator had
+turned gray.  From the oval of his closely shaven, well-formed face, with
+the long, thin, slightly hooked nose, a pair of sparkling eyes had gazed
+with penetrating keenness at the listeners.  Hermon had imagined
+Aristotle like him, while the bust of Pythagoras, with which he was
+familiar, resembled Erasistratus.
+
+The convalescent could scarcely expect anything more than beneficial
+advice from Herophilus; for this tireless investigator rarely rendered
+assistance to the sick in the city, because the lion's share of his time
+and strength were devoted to difficult researches.  The King favoured
+these by placing at his disposal the criminals sentenced to death.  In
+his work of dissection he had found that the human brain was the seat
+of the soul, and the nerves originated in it.
+
+Erasistratus, on the contrary, devoted himself to a large medical
+practice, though science owed him no less important discoveries.
+
+The circle of artists had heard what he taught concerning the blood in
+the veins and the air bubbles in the arteries, how he explained the
+process of breathing, and what he had found in the investigation of the
+beating of the heart.
+
+But he performed his most wonderful work with the knife in his hand as a
+surgeon.  He had opened the body of one of Archias's slaves, who had been
+nursed by Daphne, and cured him after all other physicians had given him
+up.
+
+When this man's voice reached Hermon, he repeated to himself the words
+of refusal with which the great physician had formerly declined to devote
+his time and skill to him.  Perhaps he was right then--and how
+differently he treated him to-day!
+
+Thyone had informed the famous scientist of everything which she knew
+from Hermon, and had learned of the last period of his life through Bias.
+
+She now listened with eager interest, sometimes completing Hermon's
+acknowledgments by an explanatory or propitiating word, as the leeches
+subjected him to a rigid examination, but the latter felt that his
+statements were not to serve curiosity, but an honest desire to aid him.
+So he spoke to them with absolute frankness.
+
+When the examination was over, Erasistratus exclaimed to his professional
+colleague: "This old woman!  Precisely as I would have prescribed.  She
+ordered the strictest diet with the treatment.  She rejected every strong
+internal remedy, and forbade him wine, much meat, and all kinds of
+seasoning.  Our patient was directed to live on milk and the same simple
+gifts of Nature which I would have ordered for him.  The herb juice in
+the clever sorceress's salve proved the best remedy.  The incantations
+could do no harm.  On the contrary, they often produce a wonderful effect
+on the mind, and from it proceed further."
+
+Here Erasistratus asked to have a description of the troubles which still
+affected Hermon's vision, and the passionate eagerness with which the
+leeches gazed into his eyes strengthened the artist's budding hope.
+Never had he wished more ardently that Daphne was back at his side.
+
+He also listened with keen attention when the scientists finally
+discussed in low tones what they had perceived, and caught the words,
+"White scar on the cornea," "leucoma," and "operation."  He also heard
+Herophilus declare that an injury of the cornea by the flame of the torch
+was the cause of the blindness.  In the work which led him to the
+discovery of the retina in the eye he had devoted himself sedulously to
+the organs of sight.  This case seemed as if it had been created for his
+friend's keen knife.
+
+What expectations this assurance aroused in the half-cured man, who felt
+as if the goal was already gained, when, shortly after, Erasistratus, the
+greatest physician of his time, offered to make the attempt in Alexandria
+to remove, by a few little incisions, what still dimmed his impaired
+vision!
+
+Hermon, deeply agitated, thanked the leech, and when Thyone perceived
+what was passing in his mind she ventured to ask the question whether it
+would not be feasible to perform the beneficent work here, and, if
+possible, the next day, and the surgeon was ready to fulfil the wish of
+the matron and the sufferer speedily.  He would bring the necessary
+instruments with him.  It only depended upon whether a suitable room
+could be found in the crowded city, and Thyone believed that such a one
+could not be lacking in the great building at her disposal.
+
+A short conversation with the steward confirmed this opinion.
+
+Then Erasistratus appointed the next morning for the operation.  During
+the ceremony of consecrating the temple it would be quiet in the house
+and its vicinity.  The preliminary fasting which he imposed upon his
+patients Hermon had already undergone.
+
+"The pure desert air here," he added, "will be of the utmost assistance
+in recovery.  The operation is slight, and free from danger.  A few days
+will determine its success.  I shall remain here with their Majesties,
+only--" and here he hesitated doubtfully--" where shall I find a
+competent assistant?"
+
+Herophilus looked his colleague in the face with a sly smile, saying,
+"If you credit the old man of Chalcedon with the needful skill, he is at
+your disposal."
+
+"Herophilus!" cried Thyone, and tears of emotion wet her aged eyes,
+which easily overflowed; but when Hermon tried to give expression to his
+fervent gratitude in words, Erasistratus interrupted him, exclaiming, as
+he grasped his comrade's hand, "It honours the general in his purple
+robe, when he uses the spade in the work of intrenchment."
+
+Many other matters were discussed before the professional friends
+withdrew, promising to go to work early the next morning.
+
+They kept their word, and while the temple of the god Turn resounded with
+music and the chanting of hymns by the priests, whose dying notes entered
+the windows of the sick-room, while Queen Arsinoe-Philadelphus led the
+procession, and the King, who was prevented by the gout from entering and
+passing around the sanctuary at her side, ordered a monument to be
+erected in commemoration of this festival, the famous leeches toiled
+busily.
+
+When the music and the acclamations of the crowd died away, their task
+was accomplished.  The great Herophilus had rendered his equally
+distinguished colleague the aid of an apprentice.  When Hermon's lips
+again tried to pour forth his gratitude, Herophilus interrupted him with
+the exclamation: "Use the sight you have regained, young master, in
+creating superb works of art, and I shall be in your debt, since, with
+little trouble, I was permitted to render a service to the whole Grecian
+world."
+
+Hermon spent seven long days and nights full of anxious expectation in a
+darkened room.  Bias and a careful old female slave of the Lady Thyone
+watched him faithfully.  Philippus, his wife, and his famous son Eumedes
+were allowed to pay him only brief visits; but Erasistratus watched the
+success of the operation every morning.  True, it had been by no means
+dangerous, and certainly would not have required his frequent visits, but
+it pleased the investigator, reared in the school of Stoics, to watch how
+this warm-blooded young artist voluntarily submitted to live in accord
+with reason and Nature--the guiding stars of his own existence.
+
+But Hermon opened his soul to his learned friend, and what Erasistratus
+thus learned strengthened the conviction of this great alleviator of
+physical pain that suffering and knowledge of self were the best
+physicians for the human soul.  The scientist, who saw in the arts the
+noblest ornament of mortal life, anticipated with eager interest Hermon's
+future creative work.
+
+On the seventh day the leech removed the bandage from his patient's eyes,
+and the cry of rapture with which Hermon clasped him in his arms richly
+rewarded him for his trouble and solicitude.
+
+The restored man beheld in sharp, clear, undimmed outlines everything at
+which the physician desired him to look.
+
+Now Erasistratus could write to his friend Herophilus in Alexandria that
+the operation was successful.
+
+The sculptor was ordered to avoid the dazzling sunlight a fortnight
+longer, then he might once more use his eyes without restriction, and
+appeal to the Muse to help in creating works of art.
+
+Thyone was present at this explanation.  After she had conquered the
+great emotion which for a time sealed her lips, her first question, after
+the physician's departure, was: "And Nemesis?  She too, I think, has fled
+before the new light?"
+
+Hermon pressed her hand still more warmly, exclaiming with joyous
+confidence: "No, Thyone!  True, I now have little reason to fear the
+avenging goddess who pursues the criminal, but all the more the other
+Nemesis, who limits the excess of happiness.  Will she not turn her swift
+wheel, when I again, with clear eyes, see Daphne, and am permitted to
+work in my studio once more with keen eyes and steady hand?"
+
+Now the barriers which had hitherto restricted Hermon's social
+intercourse also fell.  Eumedes, the commander of the fleet, often
+visited him, and while exchanging tales of their experiences they became
+friends.
+
+When Hermon was alone with Thyone and her gray-haired husband, the
+conversation frequently turned upon Daphne and her father.
+
+Then the recovered artist learned to whom Archias owed his escape from
+being sentenced to death and having his property confiscated.  Papers,
+undeniably genuine, had proved what large sums had been advanced by the
+merchant during the period of the first Queen Arsinoe's conspiracy, and
+envious foes had done their best to prejudice the King and his sister-
+wife against Archias.  Then the gray-haired hero fearlessly interceded
+for his friend, and the monarch did not remain deaf to his
+representations.  King Ptolemy was writing the history of the conqueror
+of the world, and needed the aged comrade of Alexander, the sole survivor
+who had held a prominent position in the great Macedonian's campaigns.
+It might be detrimental to his work, on which he set great value, if he
+angered the old warrior, who was a living source of history.  Yet the
+King was still ill-disposed to the merchant, for while he destroyed
+Archias's death sentence which had been laid before him for his
+signature, he said to Philippus: "The money-bag whose life I give you was
+the friend of my foe.  Let him beware that my arm does not yet reach him
+from afar!"
+
+Nay, his resentment went so far that he refused to receive Hermon, when
+Eumedes begged permission to present the artist whose sight had been so
+wonderfully restored.
+
+"To me he is still the unjustly crowned conspirator," Philadelphus
+replied.  "Let him create the remarkable work which I formerly expected
+from him, and perhaps I shall have a somewhat better opinion of him, deem
+him more worthy of our favour."
+
+Under these circumstances it was advisable for Archias and Daphne to
+remain absent from Alexandria, and the experienced couple could only
+approve Hermon's decision to go to Pergamus as soon as Erasistratus
+dismissed him.  A letter from Daphne, which reached Thyone's hands at
+this time, increased the convalescent's already ardent yearning to the
+highest pitch.  The girl entreated her maternal friend to tell her
+frankly the condition of her lover's health.  If he had recovered, he
+would know how to find her speedily; if the blindness was incurable, she
+would come herself to help him bear the burden of his darkened existence.
+Chrysilla would accompany her, but she could leave her father alone in
+Pergamus a few months without anxiety, for he had a second son there in
+his nephew Myrtilus, and had found a kind friend in Philetaerus, the
+ruler of the country.
+
+From this time Hermon daily urged Erasistratus to grant him entire
+liberty, but the leech steadfastly refused, though he knew whither his
+young friend longed to go.
+
+Not until the beginning of the fourth week after the operation did he
+himself lead Hermon into the full sunlight, and when the recovered artist
+came out of the house he raised his hands in mute prayer, gushing from
+the inmost depths of his heart.
+
+The King was to return to Alexandria in a few days, and at the same time
+Philippus and Thyone were going back to Pelusium.  Hermon wished to
+accompany them there and sail thence on a ship bound for Pergamus.
+
+With Eumedes he visited the unfamiliar scenes around him, and his newly
+restored gift of sight presented to him here many things that formerly he
+would scarcely have noticed, but which now filled him with grateful joy.
+Gratitude, intense gratitude, had taken possession of his whole being.
+This feeling mastered him completely and seemed to be fostered and
+strengthened by every breath, every heart throb, every glance into his
+own soul and the future.
+
+Besides, many beauties, nay, even many marvels, presented themselves to
+his restored eyes.  The whole wealth of the magic of beauty, intellect,
+and pleasure in life, characteristic of the Greek nature, appeared to
+have followed King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe-Philadelphus hither.
+Gardens had been created on the arid, sandy soil, whose gray and yellow
+surface extended in every direction, the water on the shore of the canal
+which united Pithom with the Nile not sufficing to render it possible to
+make even a narrow strip of arable land.  Fresh water flowed from
+beautiful fountains adorned with rich carvings, and the pure fluid filled
+large porphyry and marble basins.  Statues, single and in groups, stood
+forth in harmonious arrangement against green masses of leafage, and
+Grecian temples, halls, and even a theatre, rapidly constructed in the
+noblest forms from light material, invited the people to devotion, to the
+enjoyment of the most exquisite music, and to witness the perfect
+performance of many a tragedy and comedy.
+
+Statues surrounded the hurriedly erected palaestra where the Ephebi every
+morning practised their nude, anointed bodies in racing, wrestling, and
+throwing the discus.  What a delight it was to Hermon to feast his eyes
+upon these spectacles!  What a stimulus to the artist, so long absorbed
+in his own thoughts, who had so recently returned from the wilderness to
+the world of active life, when he was permitted, in Erasistratus's tent,
+to listen to the great scholars who had accompanied the King to the
+desert!  Only the regret that Daphne was not present to share his
+pleasure clouded Hermon's enjoyment, when Eumedes related to his parents,
+himself, and a few chosen friends the adventures encountered, and the
+experiences gathered in distant Ethiopia, on land and water, in battle
+and the chase, as investigator and commander.
+
+The utmost degree of variety had entered into the simplicity of the
+monotonous desert, the most refined abundance for the intellect and the
+need of beauty appeared amid its barrenness.
+
+The poet Callimachus had just arrived with a new chorus of singers,
+tablets by Antiphilus and Nicias had come to beautify the last days of
+the residence in the desert--when doves, the birds of Aphrodite, flew
+with the speed of lightning into Pithom, but instead of bringing a new
+message of love and announcing the approach of fresh pleasure, they bore
+terrible tidings which put joy to flight and stifled mirthfulness.
+
+The unbridled greed of rude barbarians had chosen Alexandria for its
+goal, and startled the royal pair and their chosen companions from the
+sea of pleasure where they would probably have remained for weeks.
+
+The four thousand Gauls who had been obtained to fight against Cyrene
+were in the act of rushing rapaciously upon the richest city in the
+world.  The most terrible danger hung like a black cloud over the capital
+founded by Alexander, whose growth had been so rapid.  True, General
+Satvrus asserted that he was strong enough, with the troops at his
+disposal, to defeat the formidable hordes; but a second dove, sent by the
+epitropus who had remained in Alexandria, alluded to serious disaster
+which it would scarcely be possible to avert.
+
+The doves now flew swiftly to and fro; but before the third arrived,
+Eumedes, the commander of the fleet just from Ethiopia, was already on
+the way to Alexandria with all the troops assembled on the frontier.
+
+The King and Queen, with the corps of pages and the corps of youths,
+entered the boats waiting for them to return, drawn by teams of four
+swift horses, to Memphis, to await within the impregnable fortress of the
+White Castle the restoration of security in the capital.
+
+The Greeks prized the most valiant fearlessness so highly that no shadow
+could be suffered to rest upon the King's, and therefore the monarch's
+hurried departure was made in a way which permitted no thought of flight,
+and merely resembled impatient yearning for new festivals and the earnest
+desire to fulfil grave duties in another portion of the kingdom.
+
+Many of the companions of the royal pair, among them Erasistratus,
+accompanied them.  Hermon bade him farewell with a troubled heart, and
+the leech, too, parted with regret from the artist to whom, a year
+before, he had refused his aid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Hermon went, with Philippus and Thyone, on board the ship which was to
+convey them through the new canal to Pelusium, where the old commandant
+had to plan all sorts of measures.  In the border fortress the artist was
+again obliged to exercise patience, for no ship bound to Pergamus or
+Lesbos could be found in the harbour.  Philippus had as much work as he
+could do, but all his arrangements were made when carrier doves announced
+that the surprise intended by the Gauls had been completely thwarted, and
+his son Eumedes was empowered to punish them.
+
+The admiral would take his fleet to the Sebennytic mouth of the Nile.
+
+Another dove came from King Ptolemy, and summoned the old general at once
+to the capital.  Philippus resolved to set off without delay and, as the
+way led past that mouth of the Nile, met his son on the voyage.
+
+Hermon must accompany him and his wife to Alexandria, whence, without
+entering the city, he could sail for Pergamus; ships bound to all the
+ports in the Mediterranean were always in one of the harbours of the
+capital.  A galley ready to weigh anchor was constantly at the disposal
+of the commandant of the fortress, and the next noon the noble pair, with
+Hermon and his faithful Bias, went on board the Galatea.
+
+The weather was dull, and gray clouds were sweeping across the sky over
+the swift vessel, which hugged the coast, and, unless the wind shifted,
+would reach the narrow tongue of land pierced by the Sebennytic mouth of
+the Nile before sunrise.
+
+Though the general and his wife went to rest early, Hermon could not
+endure the close air of the cabin.  Wrapped in his cloak he went on deck.
+The moon, almost full, was sailing in the sky, sometimes covered by dark
+clouds, sometimes leaving them behind.  Like a swan emerging from the
+shadow of the thickets along the shore upon the pure bosom of the lake,
+it finally floated into the deep azure of the radiant firmament.
+Hermon's heart swelled.
+
+How he rejoiced that he was again permitted to behold the starry sky, and
+satiate his soul with the beauty of creation!  What delight it gave him
+that the eternal wanderers above were no longer soulless forms, that he
+again saw in the pure silver disk above friendly Selene, in the rolling
+salt waves the kingdom of Poseidon!  To-morrow, when the deep blue water
+was calm, he would greet the sea-god Glaucus, and when snowy foam crowned
+the crests of the waves, white-armed Thetis.  The wind was no longer an
+empty sound to him; no, it, too, came from a deity.  All Nature had
+regained a new, divine life.  Doubtless he felt much nearer to his
+childhood than before, but he was infinitely less distant from the
+eternal divinity.  And all the forms, so full of meaning, which appeared
+to him from Nature, and from every powerful emotion of his own soul, were
+waiting to be represented by his art in the noblest of forms, those of
+human beings.  There were few with whose nature he had not become
+familiar in the darkness and solitude that once surrounded him.
+
+When he began to create again, he had only to summon them, and he
+awaited, with the suspense of the general who is in command of new
+troops on the eve of battle, the success of his own work after the
+great transformation which had taken place in him.
+
+What a stress and tumult!
+
+He had controlled it since the first hour when he regained his full
+vision.  He would fain have transformed the moon into the sun, the ship
+into the studio, and begun to model.
+
+He knew, too, what he desired to create.
+
+He would model an Apollo trampling under foot the slain dragon of
+darkness.
+
+He would succeed in this work now.  And as he looked up and saw Selene
+just emerging again from the black cloud island, the thought entered his
+mind that it was a moonlight night like this when all the unspeakably
+terrible misfortune occurred--which was now past.
+
+Yet neither the calm wanderer above nor a resentful woman had exposed him
+to the persecution of Nemesis.  In the stillness of the desert he had
+perceived what had brought all this terrible suffering upon him; but he
+would not repeat it to himself now, for he felt within his soul the power
+to remain faithful to his best self in the future.
+
+With clear eyes he gazed keenly and blithely at the new life.  Nothing,
+least of all, futile self-torturing regret for faults committed, should
+cloud the fair morning dawning anew for him, which summoned him to active
+work, to gratitude and love.
+
+Uttering a sigh of relief, he paced the deck--now brilliantly illuminated
+by silvery light--with long strides.
+
+The moon above his head reminded him of Ledscha.  He was no longer angry
+with her.  The means by which she had intended to destroy him had been
+transformed into a benefit, and while in the desert he had perceived how
+often man finally blesses, as the highest gain, what he at first regarded
+as the most cruel affliction.
+
+How distinctly the image of the Biamite again stood before his agitated
+soul!
+
+Had he not loved her once?
+
+Or how had it happened that, though his heart was Daphne's, and hers
+alone, he had felt wounded and insulted when his Bias, who was leaning
+over the railing of the deck yonder, gazing at the glittering waves, had
+informed him that Ledscha had been accompanied in her flight from her
+unloved husband by the Gaul whose life he, Hermon, had saved?  Was this
+due to jealousy or merely wounded vanity at being supplanted in a heart
+which he firmly believed belonged, though only in bitter hate, solely to
+him?
+
+She certainly had not forgotten him, and while the remembrance of her
+blended with the yearning for Daphne which never left him, he sat down
+and gazed out into the darkness till his head drooped on his breast.
+
+Then a dream showed the Biamite to the slumbering man, yet no longer in
+the guise of a woman, but as the spider Arachne.  She increased before
+his eyes to an enormous size and alighted upon the pharos erected by
+Sostratus.  Uninjured by the flames of the lighthouse, above which she
+hovered, she wove a net of endlessly long gray threads over the whole
+city of Alexandria, with its temples, palaces, and halls, harbours and
+ships, until Daphne suddenly appeared with a light step and quietly cut
+one after the other.
+
+Suddenly a shrill whistle aroused him.  It was the signal of the flute-
+player to relieve the rowers.
+
+A faint yellow line was now tingeing the eastern horizon of the gray,
+cloudy sky.  At his left extended the flat, dull-brown coast line, which
+seemed to be lower than the turbid waves of the restless sea.  The cold
+morning wind was blowing light mists over the absolutely barren shore.
+Not a tree, not a bush, not a human dwelling was to be seen in this
+dreary wilderness.  Wherever the eye turned, there was nothing but sand
+and water, which united at the edge of the land.  Long lines of surf
+poured over the arid desert, and, as if repelled by the desolation of
+this strand, returned to the wide sea whence they came.
+
+The shrill screams of the sea-gulls behind the ship, and the hoarse,
+hungry croaking of the ravens on the shore blended with the roaring of
+the waves.  Hermon shuddered at this scene.  Shivering, he wrapped his
+cloak closer around him, yet he did not go to the protecting cabin, but
+followed the nauarch, who pointed out to him the numerous vessels which,
+in a wide curve, surrounded the place where the Sebennytic arm of the
+Nile pierced the tongue of land to empty into the sea.
+
+The experienced seaman did not know what ships were doing there, but it
+was hardly anything good; for ravens in a countless multitude were to be
+seen on the shore and all moved toward the left.
+
+Philippus's appearance on deck interrupted the nauarch.  He anxiously
+showed the birds to the old hero also, and the latter's only reply was,
+"Watch the helm and sails!"
+
+Yonder squadron, Philippus said to the artist, was a part of his son's
+fleet; what brought it there was a mystery to him too.
+
+After the early meal, the galley of Eumedes approached his father's
+trireme.  Two other galleys, not much inferior in size, were behind, and
+probably fifty smaller vessels were moving about the mouth of the Nile
+and the whole dreary tongue of land.
+
+All belonged to the royal war fleet, and the deck of every one was
+crowded with armed soldiers.
+
+On one a forest of lances bristled in the murky air, and upon its
+southward side a row of archers, each man holding his bow in his hand,
+stood shoulder to shoulder.
+
+At what mark were their arrows to be aimed?  The men on board the Galatea
+saw it distinctly, for the shore was swarming with human figures, here
+standing crowded closely together, like horses attacked by a pack of
+wolves; yonder running, singly or in groups, toward the sea or into the
+land.  Dark spots on the light sand marked the places where others had
+thrown themselves on the ground, or, kneeling, stretched out their arms
+as if in defence.
+
+Who were the people who populated this usually uninhabited, inhospitable
+place so densely and in so strange a manner?
+
+This could not be distinguished from the Galatea with the naked eye, but
+Philippus thought that they were the Gauls whose punishment had been
+intrusted to his son, and it soon proved that the old general was right;
+for just as the Galatea was approaching the shore, a band of twenty or
+thirty men plunged into the sea.  They were Gauls.  The light complexions
+and fair and red bristling hair showed this--Philippus knew them, and
+Hermon remembered the hordes of men who had rushed past him on the ride
+to Tennis.
+
+But the watchers were allowed only a short time for observation; brief
+shouts of command rang from the ships near them, long bows were raised in
+the air, and one after another of the light-hued forms in the water threw
+up its arms, sprang up, or sank motionless into the waves around them,
+which were dyed with a crimson stain.
+
+The artist shuddered; the gray-haired general covered his head with his
+cloak, and the Lady Thyone followed his example, uttering her son's name
+in a tone of loud lamentation.
+
+The nauarch pointed to the black birds in the air and close above the
+shore and the water; but the shout, "A boat from the admiral's galley!"
+soon attracted the attention of the voyagers on the Galatea in a new
+direction.
+
+Thirty powerful rowers were urging the long, narrow boat toward them.
+Sometimes raised high on the crest of a mountain wave, sometimes sinking
+into the hollow, it completed its trip, and Eumedes mounted a swinging
+rope ladder to the Galatea's deck as nimbly as a boy.
+
+Here the young commander of the fleet hastened toward his parents.  His
+mother sobbed aloud at his anything but cheerful greeting; Philippus said
+mournfully, "I have heard nothing yet, but I know all."
+
+"Father," replied the admiral, and raising the helmet from his head,
+covered with brown curls, he added mournfully: "First as to these men
+here.  It will teach you to understand the other terrible things.  Your
+Uncle Archias's house was destroyed; yonder men were the criminals."
+
+"In the capital!" Philippus exclaimed furiously, and Hermon cried in no
+less vehement excitement: "How did my uncle get the ill will of these
+monsters?  But as the vengeance is in your hands, they will atone for
+this breach of the peace!"
+
+"Severely,  perhaps  too  severely,"  replied Eumedes gloomily, and
+Philippus asked his son how this evil deed could have happened, and the
+purport of the King's command.
+
+The admiral related what had occurred in the capital since his departure
+from Pithom.
+
+The four thousand Gauls who had been sent by King Antiochus to the
+Egyptian army as auxiliary troops against Cyrene refused, before reaching
+Paraetonium, on the western frontier of the Egyptian kingdom, to obey
+their Greek commanders.  As they tried to force them to continue their
+march, the barbarians left them bound in the road.  They spared their
+lives, but rushed with loud shouts of exultation toward Alexandria, which
+was close at hand.
+
+They had learned that the city was almost stripped of troops, and the
+most savage instinct urged them toward the wealthy capital.
+
+Without encountering any resistance, they broke through the necropolis
+into Alexandria, crossed the Draco canal, and marched past the unfinished
+Temple of Serapis through the Rhakotis.  At the Canopic Way they turned
+eastward and rushed through this main artery of traffic till, in the
+Brucheium, they hastened in a northerly direction toward the sea.
+
+South of the Theatre of Dionysus they halted.  One division turned toward
+the market-place, another toward the royal palaces.
+
+Until they reached the Brucheium the hordes, so eager for booty, had
+refrained from plunder and pillage.
+
+Their whole strength was to be reserved, as the examination proved, for
+the attack upon the royal palaces.  Several people who were thoroughly
+familiar with Alexandria had acted as guides.
+
+The instigator of the mutiny was said to be a Gallic captain who had
+taken part in the surprise of Delphi, but, having ventured to punish
+disobedient soldiers, he was killed.  A bridge-builder from the ranks,
+and his wife, who was not of Gallic blood, had taken his place.
+
+This woman, a resolute and obstinate but rarely beautiful creature, when
+the division that was to attack the royal palaces was marching past the
+house which Hermon had occupied as the heir of Myrtilus, pressed forward
+herself across the threshold, to order the mutineers who followed her to
+destroy and steal whatever came in their way.  The bridge-builder went to
+the market-place, and in pillaging the wealthy merchants' houses began
+with Archias's.  Meanwhile it was set on fire and, with the large
+warehouses adjoining it, was burned to the foundation walls.
+
+But the robbers were to obtain no permanent success, either in the
+market-place or in Myrtilus's house, which was diagonally opposite to the
+palaestra; for General Satyrus, at the first tidings of their approach,
+had collected all the troops at his disposal and the crews of several war
+galleys, and imprisoned the division in the market-place as though in a
+mouse-trap.  The bands to which the woman belonged were forced by the
+cavalry into the palaestra and the neighbouring Maander, and kept there
+until Eumedes brought re-enforcements and compelled the Gauls to
+surrender.
+
+The King sent from Memphis the order to take the vanquished men to the
+tongue of land where they now were, and could easily be imprisoned
+between the sea and the Sebennytic inland lake.  They were guilty of
+death to the last man, and starvation was to perform the executioner's
+office upon them.
+
+He, Eumedes, the admiral concluded, was in the King's service, and must
+do what his commander in chief ordered.
+
+"Duty," sighed Philippus; "yet what a punishment!"
+
+He held out his hand to his son as he spoke, but the Lady Thyone shook
+her head mournfully, saying: "There are four thousand over yonder; and
+the philosopher and historian on the throne, the admirable art critic
+who bestows upon his capital and Egypt all the gifts of peace, who
+understands how to guard and develop it better than any one else--yet
+what influence the gloomy powers exert upon him!"
+
+Here she hesitated, and went on in a low whisper: "The blood of two
+brothers stains his hand and his conscience.  The oldest, to whom the
+throne would have belonged, he exiled.  And our friend, Demetrius
+Phalereus, his father's noble councillor!  Because you, Philippus,
+interceded for him--though you were in a position of command, because
+Ptolemy knows your ability--you were sent to distant Pelusium, and there
+we should be still--"
+
+"Guard your tongue, wife!" interrupted the old general in a tone of grave
+rebuke.  "The vipers on the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt symbolize
+the King's swift power over life and death.  To the Egyptians the
+Philadelphi, Ptolemy and Arsinoe, are gods, and what cause have we
+to reproach them except that they use their omnipotence?"
+
+"And, mother," Eumedes eagerly added, "do not the royal pair on the
+throne merely follow the example of far greater ones among the immortal
+gods?  When the very Gauls who are devoted to death yonder, greedy for
+booty, attacked Delphi, four years ago, it was the august brother and
+sister, Apollo and Artemis, who sent them to Hades with their arrows,
+while Zeus hurled his thunderbolts at them and ordered heavy boulders to
+fall upon them from the shaken mountains.  Many of the men over there
+fled from destruction at Delphi.  Unconverted, they added new crimes to
+the old ones, but now retribution will overtake them.  The worse the
+crime, the more bloody the vengeance.
+
+"Even the last must die, as my sovereign commands; only I shall determine
+the mode of death according to my own judgment, and at the same time,
+mother, feel sure of your approval.  Instead of lingering starvation,
+I shall use swift arrows.  Now you know what you were obliged to learn.
+It would be wise, mother, for you to leave this abode of misery.  Duty
+summons me to my ship."  He held out his hand to his parents and Hermon
+as he spoke, but the latter clasped it firmly, exclaiming in a tone of
+passionate emotion, "What is the name of the woman to whom, though she is
+not of their race, the lawless barbarians yielded?"
+
+"Ledscha," replied the admiral.
+
+Hermon started as if stung by a scorpion, and asked, "Where is she?"
+
+"On my ship," was the reply, "if she has not yet been taken ashore with
+the others."
+
+"To be killed with the pitiable band there?" cried Thyone angrily,
+looking her son reproachfully in the face.
+
+"No, mother," replied Eumedes.  "She will be taken to the others under
+the escort of trustworthy men in order, perhaps, to induce her to speak.
+It must be ascertained whether there were accomplices in the attack on
+the royal palaces, and lastly whence the woman comes."
+
+"I can tell you that myself," replied Hermon.  "Allow me to accompany
+you.  I must see and speak to her."
+
+"The Arachne of Tennis?" asked Thyone.  Hermon's mute nod of assent
+answered the question,  but she exclaimed: "The unhappy woman, who called
+down the wrath of Nemesis upon you, and who has now herself fallen a prey
+to the avenging goddess.  What do you want from her?"
+
+Hermon bent down to his old friend and whispered, "To lighten her
+terrible fate, if it is in my power."
+
+"Go, then," replied the matron, and turned to her son, saying, "Let
+Hermon tell you how deeply this woman has influenced his life, and,
+when her turn comes, think of your mother."
+
+"She is a woman," replied Eumedes, "and the King's mandate only commands
+me to punish men.  Besides, I promised her indulgence if she would make a
+confession."
+
+"And she?" asked Hermon.
+
+"Neither by threats nor promises," answered the admiral, "can this
+sinister, beautiful creature be induced to speak."
+
+"Certainly not," said the artist, and a smile of satisfaction flitted
+over his face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A short row took Hermon and Eumedes the admiral's galley.  Ledscha had
+already been carried ashore.  There she was to be confronted with the men
+who were suspected of having showed the mutineers the way to the city.
+
+Absorbed in his own thoughts, Hermon waited for the admiral, who at first
+was claimed by one official duty after another.  The artist's thoughts
+lingered with Daphne.  To her father the loss of his house, nay, perhaps
+of his wealth, would seem almost unendurable, yet even were he beggared,
+provision was made for him and his daughter.  He, Hermon, could again
+create, as in former days, and what happiness it would be if he were
+permitted to repay the man to whom he owed so much for the kindness
+bestowed upon him!
+
+He longed to give to the woman he loved again and again, and it would
+have seemed to him a favour of fortune if the flames had consumed even
+the last drachm of her wealthy father.
+
+Completely engrossed by these reflections, he forgot the horrors before
+him, but when he raised his eyes and saw the archers continuing their
+terrible work he shuddered.
+
+The admiral's galley lay so near the shore that he distinguished the
+figures of the Gauls separately.  Some, obeying the instinct of self
+preservation, fled from the places which could be reached by the arrows
+of the archers on the ships, but others pressed toward the shafts.  A
+frightful, heart-rending spectacle, yet how rich in food for the long-
+darkened eyes of the artist!  Two brothers of unusual height, who, nude
+like all their comrades in death, offered their broad, beautifully arched
+chests to the arrows, would not leave his memory.  It was a terrible
+sight, yet grand and worthy of being wrested from oblivion by art, and it
+impressed itself firmly on his mind.
+
+After noon Eumedes could at last devote himself to his young friend.
+Although the wind drove showers of fine rain before it, the admiral
+remained on deck with the sculptor.  What cared they for the inclement
+weather, while one was recalling to mind and telling his friend how the
+hate of an offended woman had unchained the gloomy spirits of revenge
+upon him, the other, who had defied death on land water, listened to his
+story, sometimes in surprise, sometimes with silent horror?
+
+After the examination to which she had been subjected, Eumedes had
+believed Ledscha to be as Hermon described her.  He found nothing petty
+in this beautiful, passionate creature who avenged the injustice
+inflicted upon her as Fate took vengeance, who, with unsparing energy,
+anticipated the Nemesis to whom she appealed, compelled men's obedience,
+and instead of enriching herself cast away the talents extorted to bring
+down fresh ruin upon the man who had transformed her love to hate.
+
+While the friends consulted together with lowered voices, their
+conjecture became conviction that it was the Biamite's inextinguishable
+hate which had led her to the Gauls and induced her to share the attack
+upon the capital.
+
+The assault upon the houses of Archias and Myrtilus was a proof of this,
+for the latter was still believed to be Hermon's property.  She had
+probably supposed that the merchant's palace sheltered Daphne, in whom,
+even at Tennis, she had seen and hated her successful rival.
+
+Only the undeniable fact that Ledscha was the bridge-builder's companion
+presented an enigma difficult to solve.  The freedman Bias had remained
+on Philippus's galley, and could not now be appealed to for a
+confirmation of his assertions, but Hermon distinctly remembered his
+statement that Ledscha had allowed the Gaul, after he had received the
+money intended for him, to take her from Pitane to Africa.
+
+When the short November day was drawing to a close, and the friends had
+strengthened themselves with food and drink, the rain ceased and, as the
+sun set, its after-glow broke through the rifts and fissures in the black
+wall of clouds in the western horizon like blazing flames in the
+conflagration of a solid stone building.  Yet the glow vanished swiftly
+enough.  The darkness of night spread over the sea and the arid strip of
+land in the south, but the greedy croaking of the ravens and vultures
+echoed more and more loudly from the upper air.  From time to time the
+outbursts of rage and agony of despairing men, and horrible jeering
+laughter, drowned the voices of the flocks of birds and the roaring of
+the tempestuous sea.  Sometimes, too, a sharp word of command, or a
+signal heard for a long distance, pierced through the awful sounds.
+
+Here and there, and at last everywhere on the squadron, which surrounded
+the tongue of land in a shallow curve, dim lights began to appear on the
+masts and prows of the ships; but darkness brooded over the coast.  Only
+in the three fortified guardhouses, which had been hastily erected here,
+the feeble light of a lantern illumined the gloom.
+
+Twinkling lights also appeared in the night heavens between the swiftly
+flying clouds.  One star after another began to adorn the blue islands in
+the cloudy firmament, and at last the full moon burst through the heavy
+banks of dark clouds, and shone in pure brilliancy above their heads,
+like a huge silver vessel in the black catafalque of a giant.
+
+At the end of the first hour after sunset Eumedes ordered the boat to be
+manned.
+
+Armed as if for battle, he prepared for the row to the scene of misery,
+and requested Hermon to buckle a coat of mail under his chlamys and put
+on the sword he gave him.  True, a division of reliable Macedonian
+warriors was to accompany them, and Ledscha was in a well-guarded place,
+yet it might perhaps be necessary to defend themselves against an
+outburst of despair among the condemned prisoners.  On the short trip,
+the crests of the tossing waves sometimes shone with a flickering light,
+while elsewhere long shadows spread like dark sails over the sea.  The
+flat coast on which both men soon stepped was brightly illumined by the
+moonbeams, and the forms of the doomed men stood forth, like the black
+figures on the red background of a vase, upon the yellowish-brown sand
+on which they were standing, running, walking, or lying.
+
+At the western end of the tongue of land a sand hill had been surrounded
+by a wall and moat, guarded by heavily armed soldiers and several
+archers.  The level ground below had been made secure against any attack,
+and on the right side was a roof supported by pillars.
+
+The officials intrusted with the examination of the ringleaders had
+remained during the day in this hastily erected open hut.  The latter,
+bound to posts, awaited their sentence.
+
+The only woman among them was Ledscha, who crouched, unfettered, on the
+ground behind the enclosure, which consisted of short stakes fastened by
+a rope.
+
+Without presenting any serious obstacle, it merely indicated how far the
+prisoners might venture to go.  Whoever crossed it must expect to be
+struck down by an arrow from the wall.  This earthwork, it is true,
+menaced those held captive here, but they also owed it a debt of
+gratitude, for it shut from their eyes the horrible incidents on the
+sandy plain between the sea and the inland lake.
+
+This spot was now made as light as day by the rays of the full moon which
+floated in the pure azure sky far above the black cloud mountains, like a
+white lotus flower on clear waters, and poured floods of silvery radiance
+upon the earth.
+
+Eumedes commanded the Macedonians who formed his escort to remain at the
+fortress on the dune, and, pointing out Ledscha by a wave of the hand,
+he whispered to Hermon: "By the girdle of Aphrodite!  she is terribly
+beautiful!  For whom is the Medea probably brewing in imagination the
+poisoned draught?"
+
+Then he gave the sculptor permission to promise her immunity from
+punishment if she would consent at least to explain the Gauls' connection
+with the royal palaces; but Hermon strenuously refused to undertake this
+or a similar commission to Ledscha.
+
+Eumedes had expected the denial, and merely expressed to his friend his
+desire to speak to the Biamite after his interview was over.  However
+refractory she might be, his mother's intercession should benefit her.
+Hermon might assure her that he, the commander, meant to deal leniently.
+He pressed the artist's hand as he spoke, and walked rapidly away to
+ascertain the condition of affairs in the other guardhouses.
+
+Never had the brave artist's heart throbbed faster in any danger than on
+the eve of this meeting; but it was no longer love that thrilled it so
+passionately, far less hate or the desire to let his foe feel that her
+revenge was baffled.
+
+It was easy for the victor to exercise magnanimity, and easiest of all
+for the sculptor in the presence of so beautiful an enemy, and Hermon
+thought he had never seen the Biamite look fairer.  How exquisitely
+rounded was the oval, how delicately cut the profile of her face, how
+large were the widely separated, sparkling eyes, above which, even in the
+pale moonlight, the thick black brows were visible, united under the
+forehead as if for a dark deed to be performed in common!
+
+Time had rather enhanced than lessened the spell of this wonderful young
+creature.  Now she rose from the ground where she had been crouching and
+paced several times up and down the short path at her disposal; but she
+started suddenly, for one of the Gauls bound to the posts, in whom Hermon
+recognised the bridge-builder, Lutarius, called her name, and when she
+turned her face toward him, panted in broken Greek like one overwhelmed
+by despair: "Once more--it shall be the last time--I beseech you!  Lay
+your hand upon my brow, and if that is too much, speak but one kind word
+to me before all is over!  I only want to hear that you do not hate me
+like a foe and despise me like a dog.  What can it cost you?  You need
+only tell me in two words that you are sorry for your harshness."
+
+"The same fate awaits us both," cried Ledscha curtly and firmly.  "Let
+each take care of himself.  When my turn comes and my eyes grow dim in
+death, I will thank them that they will not show you to me again, base
+wretch, throughout eternity."
+
+Lutarius shrieked aloud in savage fury, and tore so frantically at the
+strong ropes which bound him that the firm posts shook, but Ledscha
+turned away and approached the hut.
+
+She leaned thoughtfully against one of the pillars that supported the
+roof, and the artist's eyes watched her intently; every movement seemed
+to him noble and worth remembering.
+
+With her hand shading her brow, she gazed upward to the full moon.
+
+Hermon had already delayed speaking to her too long, but he would have
+deemed it criminal to startle her from this attitude.  So must Arachne
+have stood when the goddess, in unjust anger, raised the weaver's shuttle
+against the more skilful mortal; for while Ledscha's brow frowned
+angrily, a triumphant smile hovered around her mouth.  At the same time
+she slightly opened her exquisitely formed lips, and the little white
+teeth which Hermon had once thought so bewitchingly beautiful glittered
+between them.
+
+Like the astronomer who fixes his gaze and tries to imprint upon his
+memory some rare star in the firmament which a cloud is threatening to
+obscure, he now strove to obtain Ledscha's image.  He would and could
+model her in this attitude, exactly as she stood there, without her veil,
+which had been torn from her during the hand-to-hand conflict when she
+was captured, with her thick, half-loosened tresses falling over her left
+shoulder; nav, even with the slightly hooked nose, which was opposed to
+the old rule of art that permitted only the straight bridge of the nose
+to be given to beautiful women.  Her nature harmonized with the ideal.
+even in the smallest detail; here any deviation from reality must tend to
+injure the work.
+
+She remained motionless for minutes in the same attitude, as if she knew
+that she was posing to an artist; but Hermon gazed at her as if spell
+bound till the fettered Gaul again called her name.
+
+Then she left the supporting pillar, approached the barrier, stopped at
+the rope which extended from one short stake to another, and gazed at the
+man who was following her outside of the rope.
+
+It was a Greek who stood directly opposite to her.  A black beard adorned
+his grave, handsome countenance.  He, too, had a chlamys, such as she had
+formerly seen on another.  Only the short sword, which he wore suspended
+at his right side in the Hellenic fashion, would not suit that other; but
+suddenly a rush of hot blood crimsoned her face.  As if to save herself
+from falling, she flung out both arms and clutched a stake with her right
+and her left hand, thrusting her head and the upper portion of her body
+across the rope toward the man whose appearance had created so wild a
+tumult in her whole being.
+
+At last she called Hermon's name in such keen suspense that it fell upon
+his ear like a shrill cry.
+
+"Ledscha," he answered warmly, extending both hands to her in sincere
+sympathy; but she did not heed the movement, and her tone of calm self-
+satisfaction surprised him as she answered: "So you seek me in
+misfortune?  Even the blind man knows how to find me here."
+
+"I would far rather have met you again in the greatest happiness!" he
+interrupted gently.  "But I am no longer blind.  The immortals again
+permit me, as in former days, to feast my eyes upon your marvellous
+beauty."
+
+A shrill laugh cut short his words, and the "Not blind!" which fell again
+and again from her lips sounded more like laughter than speech.
+
+There are tears of grief and of joy, and the laugh which is an
+accompaniment of pleasure is also heard on the narrow boundary between
+suffering and despair.
+
+It pierced the artist's heart more deeply than the most savage outburst
+of fury, and when Ledscha gasped: "Not blind!  Cured!  Rich and possessed
+of sight, perfect sight!" he understood her fully for the first time, and
+could account for the smile of satisfaction which had just surprised him
+on her lips.
+
+He gazed at her, absolutely unable to utter a word; but she went on
+speaking, while a low, sinister laugh mingled with her tones: "So this
+is avenging justice!  It allows us women to be trampled under foot, and
+holds its hands in its lap!  My vengeance!  How I have lauded Nemesis!
+How exquisitely my retaliation seemed to have succeeded!  And now?  It
+was mere delusion and deception.  He who was blind sees.  He who was to
+perish in misery is permitted, with a sword at his side, to gloat over
+our destruction.  Listen, if the good news has not already reached you!
+I, too, am condemned to death.  But what do I care for myself?  Even less
+than those to whom we pray and offer sacrifices for the betrayed woman.
+Now I am learning to know them!  Thus Nemesis thanks me for the lavish
+gifts I have bestowed upon her?  Just before my end she throws you, the
+rewarded traitor, into my way!  I must submit to have the hated foe,
+whose blinding was the sole pleasure in my ruined life, look me in the
+face with insolent joy."
+
+Hermon's quick blood boiled.
+
+With fierce resentment he grasped her hand, which lay on the rope,
+pressed it violently in his strong clasp, and exclaimed, "Stop, mad
+woman, that I may not be forced to think of you as a poisonous serpent
+and repulsive spider!"
+
+Ledscha had vainly endeavoured to withdraw her hand while he was
+speaking.  Now he himself released it; but she looked up at him in
+bewilderment, as if seeking aid, and said sadly: "Once--you know that
+yourself--I was different--even as long as I supposed my vengeance had
+succeeded.  But now?  The false goddess has baffled every means with
+which I sought to punish you.  Who averted the sorest ill treatment from
+my head?  And I was even defrauded of the revenge which it was my right,
+nay, my duty, to exercise."
+
+She finished the sentence with drooping head, as if utterly crushed, and
+this time she did not laugh, but Hermon felt his wrath transformed to
+sympathy, and he asked warmly and kindly if she would let nothing appease
+her, not even if he begged her forgiveness for the wrong he had done her,
+and promised to obtain her life, nay, also her liberty.
+
+Ledscha shook her head gently, and gravely answered: "What is left me
+without hate?  What are the things which others deem best and highest to
+a miserable wretch like me?"
+
+Here Hermon pointed to the bridge-builder, bound to the post, saying,
+"Yonder man led you away from the husband whom you had wedded, and from
+him you received compensation for the love you had lost."
+
+"From him?"  she cried furiously, and, raising her voice in a tone of the
+most intense loathing: "Ask yonder scoundrel himself!  Because I needed a
+guide, I permitted him to take me away from my unloved husband and from
+the Hydra.  Because he would help me to shatter the new and undeserved
+good fortune which you--yes, you--do you hear?--enjoyed, I remained with
+him among the Gauls.  More than one Alexandrian brought me the news that
+you were revelling in golden wealth, and the wretch promised to make you
+and your uncle beggars if the surprise succeeded.  He did this, though he
+knew that it was you who took him up from the road and saved his life;
+for nothing good and noble dwells in his knavish soul.  He yearned for
+me, and still more ardently for the Alexandrians' gold.  Worse than the
+wolf that licked the hand of the man who bandaged its wounds, he would
+have shown his teeth to the preserver of his life.  I have learned this,
+and if he dies here of starvation and thirst he will receive only what he
+deserves.  He knows, too, what I think of him.  The greedy beast of prey
+was not permitted even to touch my hand.  Just ask him!  There he is.
+Let him tell you how I listened to his vows of love.  Before I would
+have permitted yonder wretch to recall to life what you crushed in
+this heart--"
+
+Here Lutarius interrupted her with a flood of savage, scarcely
+intelligible curses, but very soon one of the guards, who came out
+of the hut, stopped him with a lash.
+
+When the Gaul, howling under the blows, was silenced, Hermon asked, "So
+your mad thirst for vengeance also caused this suicidal attack?"
+
+"No," she answered simply; "but when they determined upon the assault,
+and had killed their leader, Belgius, yonder monster stole to their head.
+So it happened--I myself do not know how--that they also obeyed me, and I
+took advantage of it and induced them to begin with your house and
+Archias's.  When they had captured the royal palaces, they intended to
+assail the Temple of Demeter also."
+
+"Then you thought that even the terrible affliction of blindness would
+not suffice to punish the man you hated?" asked Hermon.
+
+"No," she answered firmly; "for you could buy with your gold everything
+life offers except sight, while in me--yes, in me--gloom darker than the
+blackest night shrouded my soul.  Through your fault I was robbed of all,
+all that is clear to woman's heart: my father's house, his love, my
+sister.  Even the pleasure in myself which had been awakened by your
+sweet flatteries was transformed by you into loathing."
+
+"By me?" cried Hermon, amazed by the injustice of this severe reproach;
+but Ledscha answered his question with the resolute assertion, "By you
+and you alone!" and then impatiently added: "You, who, by your art, could
+transform mortal women into goddesses, wished to make me a humiliated
+creature, with the rope which was to strangle her about her neck, and at
+the same time the most repulsive of creeping insects.  'The hideous,
+gray, eight-legged spider!' I exclaimed to myself, when I raised my arms
+and saw my shadow on the sunlit ground.  'The spider!' I thought, when I
+shook the distaff to draw threads from the flax in leisure hours.  'Your
+image!' I said, when I saw spiders hanging in dusty corners, and catching
+flies and gnats.  All these things made me a horror to myself.  And
+at the same time to know that the Demeter, on whom you bestowed the
+features of the daughter of Archias, was kindling the whole great city
+of Alexandria with enthusiasm, and drawing countless worshippers to her
+sanctuary!  She, an object of adoration to thousands, I--the much-praised
+beauty--a horror to myself!  This is what fed my desire for vengeance
+with fresh food by day and night; this urged me to remain with yonder
+wretch; for he had promised, after pillaging the royal palaces, to
+shatter your Demeter, the image of the daughter of Archias, which they
+lauded and which brought you fame and honour--it was to be done before my
+eyes--into fragments."
+
+"Mad woman!" Hermon again broke forth indignantly, and hastily told her
+how she had been misinformed.
+
+Ledscha's large black eyes dilated as if some hideous spectre was rising
+from the ground before her, while she heard that the Demeter was the work
+of Myrtilus and not his; that his friend's legacy had long since ceased
+to belong to him, and that he was again as poor as when he was in Tennis
+during the time of their love.
+
+"And the blindness?"  she asked sadly.
+
+"It transformed life for me into one long night, illumined by no single
+ray of light," was the reply; "but, the immortals be praised, I was cured
+of it, and it was old Tabus, on the Owl's Nest at Tennis, whose wisdom
+and magic arts you so often lauded, who gave the remedy and advice to
+which I owe my recovery."
+
+Here he hesitated, for Ledscha had seized the rope with one hand and the
+stake at her right with the other, in order not to fall upon her knees;
+but Hermon perceived how terribly his words agitated her, and spoke to
+her soothingly.  Ledscha did not seem to hear him, for while still
+clinging to the rope she looked sometimes at the sand at her feet,
+sometimes up to the full moon, which was now flooding both sky and earth
+with light.
+
+At last she dropped it, and said in a hollow tone: "Now I understand
+everything.  You met her when Bias gave her the bridal dowry which was
+to purchase my release from my husband.  How it must have enraged her!
+I thought of it all, pondered and pondered how to spare her; but through
+whom, except Tabus, could I return to Hanno the property, won in battle
+by his blood, which he had thrown away for me?  Tabus kept the family
+wealth.  And she--the marriage bond which two persons formed was sacred
+and unassailable--the woman who broke her faith with her husband and
+turned from him--was an abomination to her.  How she loved her sons and
+grandsons!  I knew that she would never forgive the wrong I did Hanno.
+From resentment to me she cured the man whom I hated."
+
+"Yet probably also," said Hermon, "because my blighted youth aroused her
+pity."
+
+"Perhaps so," replied Ledscha hesitatingly, gazing thoughtfully into
+vacancy.  "She was what her demons made her.  Hard as steel and gentle
+as a tender girl.  I have experienced it.  Oh, that she should die with
+rancour against me in her faithful old heart!  She could be so kind!--
+even when I confessed that you had won my love, she still held me dear.
+But there are many great and small demons, and most of them were probably
+subject to her.  Tabus must have learned through them how deeply I
+offended her son Satabus, and how greatly his son Hanno's life was
+darkened through me.  That is why she thwarted my vengeance, and her
+spirits aided her.  Thus all these things happened.  I suspected it when
+I heard that she had succumbed to death, which I--yes, I here--had held
+back from her with severe toil through many a sleepless night.  O these
+demons!  They will continue to act in the service of the dead.  Wherever
+I may go, they will pursue me and, at their mistress's bidding, baffle
+what I hope and desire.  I have learned this only too distinctly!"
+
+"No, Ledscha, no,"  Hermon  protested.  "Every power ceases with death,
+even that of the sorceress over spirits.  You shall be freed, poor woman!
+You will be permitted to go wherever you desire; and I shall model no
+spider after your person, but the fairest of women.  Thousands will see
+and admire her, and--if the Muse aids me--whoever, enraptured by her
+beauty, asks, 'Who was the model for this work which inflames the most
+obdurate heart?' will be told, 'It was Ledscha, the daughter of Shalit,
+the Biamite, whom Hermon of Alexandria found worthy of carving in costly
+marble."
+
+Ledscha uttered a deep sigh of relief, and asked: "Is that true?  May I
+believe it?"
+
+"As true," he answered warmly, "as that Selene, who promised to grant you
+in her full radiance the greatest happiness, is now shedding her mild,
+forgiving light upon us both."
+
+"The full moon," she murmured softly, gazing upward at the shining disk.
+
+Then she added in a louder tone: "Old Tabus's demons promised me
+happiness--you know.  It was the spider which so cruelly shadowed it for
+me on every full moon, every day, and every night.  Will you now swear to
+model a statue from me, the statue of a beautiful human being that will
+arouse the delight of all who see it?  Delight--do you hear?--not
+loathing--I ask again, will you?"
+
+"I will, and I shall succeed," he said earnestly, holding out his hand
+across the rope.  She clasped it, looked up to the full moon again, and
+whispered: "This time--I will believe it--you will keep your promise
+better than when you were in Tennis.  And I--I will cease to wish you
+evil, and I will tell you why.  Bend your ear nearer, that I may confess
+it openly."  Hermon willingly obeyed the request, but she leaned her head
+against his, and he felt her laboured breathing and the warm tears that
+coursed silently down her cheeks as she said, in a low whisper: "Because
+the moon is full, and will yet bring me what the demons promised, and
+because, though strong, I am still a woman.  Happiness!  How long ago I
+ceased to expect it!--but now-yes, it is what I now feel!  I am happy,
+and yet can not tell why.  My love--oh, yes!  It was more ardent than the
+burning hate.  Now you know it, too, Hermon.  And I--I shall be free, you
+say?  And Tabus, how she lauded rest--eternal rest!  Oh dearest--this
+sorely tortured heart, too--you can not even imagine how weary I am!"
+
+Here she was silent, but the man into whose face she was gazing with
+loving devotion felt a sudden movement at his side as she uttered the
+exclamation.
+
+He did not notice it, for the sweet tone of her voice was penetrating the
+inmost depths of his heart.  It sounded as though she was speaking from
+the happiest of dreams.
+
+"Ledscha!" he exclaimed warmly, extending his arm toward her--but she had
+already stepped back from his side, and he now perceived the terrible
+object--she had snatched his sword from its sheath, and as, seized by
+sudden terror, he gazed at her, he saw the shining blade glitter in the
+moonlight and suddenly vanish.
+
+In an instant he swung his agile body over the rope and rushed to her.
+But she had already sunk to her knees, and while he clasped her in is
+arms to support her, he heard her call his own name tenderly, then murmur
+it in a lower tone, and the words "Full moon" and "Happiness" escape her
+lips.
+
+Then she was silent, and her beautiful head dropped on her breast like a
+flower broken by a tempest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+"It was best so for her and for us," said Eumedes, after gazing long at
+Ledscha's touchingly beautiful, still, dead face.
+
+Then he ordered her to be buried at once and shouted to the guards:
+"Everything must be over on this strip of land early to-morrow morning!
+Let all who bear arms begin at once.  Selene will light the men brightly
+enough for the work."
+
+The terrible order given in mercy was fulfilled, and hunger and thirst
+were robbed of their numerous prey.  When the new day dawned the friends
+were still on deck, engaged in grave conversation.  The cloudless sky now
+arched in radiant light above the azure sea.  White seagulls came flying
+from the right across the ship, and sportive dolphins gambolled around
+her keel.
+
+The flutes of the musicians, marking time for the rowers, echoed gaily up
+from the hold, and, obedient to quick words of command, the seamen were
+spreading the sails.
+
+The voyage began with a favourable wind.  As Hermon looked back for the
+last time, the flat, desolate tongue of land appeared like a line of gray
+mist in the southeastern horizon; but over it hovered, like a gloomy
+thundercloud, the flocks of vultures and ravens, whose numbers were
+constantly increasing.  Their greedy screaming could still be heard,
+though but faintly, yet the eye could no longer distinguish anything in
+the fast-vanishing abode of horror, save the hovering whirl of dark
+spots--ravens and vultures, vultures and ravens.
+
+Whatever human life had moved there yesterday, now rested from bloody
+greed for booty, after victory and defeat, mortal terror, fury, and
+despair.
+
+Eumedes pointed out the quiet grave by the sea to his parents, saying:
+"The King's command is fulfilled.  Not even the one man who is usually
+spared to carry the news remains out of the four thousand."
+
+"I thank you," exclaimed Alexander's gray-haired comrade, shaking his
+son's right hand, but Thyone laid her hand on Hermon's arm, saving:
+"Where the birds are darkening the air behind us lies buried what
+incensed Nemesis against you.  You must leave the soil of Egypt.  True,
+it is said that to live in foreign lands, far from the beloved home,
+darkens the existence; yet Pergamus, too, is Grecian soil, and there
+I see the two noblest of stars illumine your path with their pure light
+-art and love."
+
+And his old friend's premonition was fulfilled.
+
+                    .......................
+
+The story of Arachne is ended.  It closed on the Nile.  Hermon's new life
+began in Pergamus.
+
+As Daphne's husband, under the same roof with the wonderfully invigorated
+Myrtilus, his Uncle Archias, and faithful Bias, Hermon found in the new
+home what had hovered before the blind man as the fairest goal of
+existence in art, love, and friendship.
+
+He did not long miss the gay varied life of Alexandria, because he found
+a rich compensation for it, and because Pergamus, too, was a rapidly
+growing city, whose artistic decoration was inferior to no other in
+Greece.
+
+Of the numerous works which Hermon completed in the service of the first
+three art-loving rulers of the new Pergamenian kingdom, Philetaerus,
+Eumenes, and Attalus, nothing was preserved except the head of a Gaul.
+This noble masterpiece proves how faithful Hermon remained to truth,
+which he had early chosen for the guiding star of his art.  It is the
+modest remnant of the group in which Hermon perpetuated in marble the two
+Gallic brothers whom he saw before his last meeting with Ledscha, as they
+offered their breasts to the fatal shafts.
+
+One had gazed defiantly at the arrows of the conquerors; the other,
+whose head has been preserved, feeling the inevitable approach of death,
+anticipates, with sorrowful emotion, the end so close at hand.
+Philetaerus had sent this touching work to King Ptolemy to thank him for
+the severity with which he had chastised the daring of the barbarians,
+who had not spared his kingdom also.  The Gaul's head was again found on
+Egyptian soil.
+
+     [Copied in Th. Schrieber's The Head of the Gaul in the Museum of
+     Ghizeh in Cairo.  Leipsic, 1896.  With appendix.  By H. Curschmann.]
+
+Hermon also took other subjects in Pergamus from the domain of real life,
+though, in most of his work he crossed the limits which he had formerly
+imposed upon himself.  But one barrier, often as he rushed forward to its
+outermost verge, he never dared to pass--moderation, the noblest demand,
+to which his liberty-loving race subjected themselves willingly in life
+as well as in art.  The whole infinite, limitless world of the ideal had
+opened itself to the blind man.
+
+He made himself at home in it by remaining faithful to the rule which he
+had found in the desert for his creative work, and the genuine happiness
+which he enjoyed through Daphne's love and the great fame his sculptures
+brought him increased the strong individuality of his power.
+
+The fruits of his tireless industry, the much-admired god of light,
+Phoebus Apollo, slaying the dragons of darkness, as well as his
+bewitching Arachne, gazing proudly at the fabric with which she
+thinks she has surpassed the skill of the goddess, were overtaken by
+destruction.  In this statue Bias recognised his countrywoman Ledscha,
+and often gazed long at it with devout ecstasy.  Even Hermon's works of
+colossal size vanished from the earth: the Battle of the Amazons and the
+relief containing numerous figures: the Sea Gods, which the Regent
+Eumenes ordered for the Temple of Poseidon in Pergamus.
+
+The works of his grandson and grandson's pupils, however, are preserved
+on the great altar of victory in Pergamus.
+
+The power and energy natural to Hermon, the skill he had acquired in
+Rhodes, everything in the changeful life of Alexandria which had induced
+him to consecrate his art to reality, and to that alone, and whatever he
+had, finally, in quiet seclusion, recognised as right and in harmony with
+the Greek nature and his own, blend in those works of his successor,
+which a gracious dispensation of Providence permits us still to admire
+at the present day, and which we call in its entirety, the art of
+Pergamus.
+
+The city was a second beloved home to him, as well as to his wife and
+Myrtilus.  The rulers of the country took the old Alexandrian Archias
+into their confidence and knew how to honour him by many a distinction.
+He understood how to value the happiness of his only daughter, the
+beautiful development of his grandchildren, and the high place that
+Hermon and Myrtilus, whom he loved as if they were his own sons, attained
+among the artists of their time.  Yet he struggled vainly against the
+longing for his dear old home.  Therefore Hermon deemed it one of the
+best days of his life when his turn came to make Daphne's father a happy
+man.
+
+King Ptolemy Philadelphus had sent laurel to the artist who had fallen
+under suspicion in Egypt, and his messenger invited him and Myrtilus, and
+with them also the exiled merchant, to return to his presence.  In
+gratitude for the pleasure which Hermon's creation afforded him and his
+wife, the cause that kept the fugitive Archias from his home should be
+forgiven and forgotten.
+
+The gray-haired son of the capital returned with the Bithynian Gras to
+his beloved Alexandria, as if his lost youth was again restored.  There
+he found unchanged the busy, active life, the Macedonian Council, the
+bath, the marketplace, the bewitching conversation, the biting wit, the
+exquisite feasts of the eyes--in short, everything for which his heart
+had longed even amid the happiness and love of his dear ones in Pergamus.
+
+For two years he endeavoured to enjoy everything as before; but when the
+works of the Pergamenian artists, obtained by Ptolemy, had been exhibited
+in the royal palaces, he returned home with a troubled mind.  Like the
+rest of the world, he thought that the reliefs of Myrtilus, representing
+scenes of rural life, were wonderful.
+
+The Capture of Proserpina, a life-size marble group by his son-in-law
+Hermon, seemed to him no less perfect; but it exerted a peculiar in
+fluence upon his paternal heart, for, in the Demeter, he recognised
+Daphne, in the Proserpina her oldest daughter Erigone, who bore the name
+of Hermon's mother and resembled her in womanly charm.  How lovely this
+budding girl, who was his grand-daughter, seemed to the grandfather!  How
+graceful, in spite of the womanly dignity peculiar to her, was the
+mother, encircling her imperilled child with her protecting arm!
+
+No work of sculpture had ever produced such an effect upon the old patron
+of art.
+
+Gras heard him, in his bedroom, murmur the names "Daphne" and "Erigone,"
+and therefore it did not surprise him when, the next morning, he received
+the command to prepare everything for the return to Pergamus.  It pleased
+the Bithynian, for he cared more for Daphne, Hermon, and their children
+than all the pleasures of the capital.
+
+A few weeks later Archias found himself again in Pergamus with his
+family, and he never left it, though he reached extreme old age, and was
+even permitted to gaze in wondering admiration at the first attempts of
+the oldest son of Hermon and Daphne, and to hear them praised by others.
+
+This grandson of the Alexandrian Archias afterward became the master who
+taught the generation of artists who created the Pergamenian works, in
+examining which the question forced itself upon the narrator of this
+story: How do these sculptures possess the qualities which distinguish
+them so strongly from the other statues of later Hellenic antiquity?
+
+Did the great weaver Imagination err when she blended them, through the
+mighty wrestler Hermon, with a tendency of Alexandrian science and art,
+which we see appearing again among us children of a period so much later?
+
+Science, which is now once more pursuing similar paths, ought and will
+follow them further, but Hermon's words remain applicable to the present
+clay: "We will remain loyal servants of the truth; yet it alone does not
+hold the key to the holy of holies of art.  To him for whom Apollo, the
+pure among the gods, and the Muses, friends of beauty, do not open it at
+the same time with truth, its gates will remain closed, no matter how
+strongly and persistently he shakes them."
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Regular messenger and carrier-dove service had been established
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARACHNE, BY GEORG EBERS, V8 ***
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