While, in the vast peristyle, many a cup was still being emptied, and
the carousers were growing merrier and noisier--while Cleopatra
was abusing the maids and ladies who were undressing her for their
clumsiness and unreadiness, because every touch hurt her, and every
pin taken out of her dress pricked her--the Roman and his friend Lysias
walked up and down in their tent in violent agitation.
“Speak lower,” said the Greek, “for the very griffins woven into
the tissue of these thin walls seem to me to be lying in wait, and
listening.
“I certainly was not mistaken. When I came to fetch the gems I saw a
light gleaming in the doorway as I approached it; but the intruder must
have been warned, for just as I got up to the lantern in front of
the servants’ tent, it disappeared, and the torch which usually burns
outside our tent had not been lighted at all; but a beam of light fell
on the road, and a man’s figure slipped across in a black robe sprinkled
with gold ornaments which I saw glitter as the pale light of the lantern
fell upon them--just as a slimy, black newt glides through a pool. I
have good eyes as you know, and I will give one of them at this moment,
if I am mistaken, and if the cat that stole into our tent was not
Eulaeus.”
“And why did you not have him caught?” asked Publius, provoked.
“Because our tent was pitch-dark,” replied Lysias, “and that stout
villain is as slippery as a badger with the dogs at his heels, Owls,
bats and such vermin which seek their prey by night are all hideous to
me, and this Eulaeus, who grins like a hyaena when he laughs--”
“This Eulaeus,” said Publius, interrupting his friend, “shall learn to
know me, and know too by experience that a man comes to no good, who
picks a quarrel with my father’s son.”
“But, in the first instance, you treated him with disdain and
discourtesy,” said Lysias, “and that was not wise.”
“Wise, and wise, and wise!” the Roman broke out. “He is a scoundrel. It
makes no difference to me so long as he keeps out of my way; but when,
as has been the case for several days now, he constantly sticks close to
me to spy upon me, and treats me as if he were my equal, I will show
him that he is mistaken. He has no reason to complain of my want of
frankness; he knows my opinion of him, and that I am quite inclined to
give him a thrashing. If I wanted to meet his cunning with cunning I
should get the worst of it, for he is far superior to me in intrigue. I
shall fare better with him by my own unconcealed mode of fighting, which
is new to him and puzzles him; besides it is better suited to my own
nature, and more consonant to me than any other. He is not only sly, but
is keen-witted, and he has at once connected the complaint which I have
threatened to bring against him with the manuscript which Serapion, the
recluse, gave me in his presence. There it lies--only look.
“Now, being not merely crafty, but a daring rascal too--two qualities
which generally contradict each other, for no one who is really prudent
lives in disobedience to the laws--he has secretly untied the strings
which fastened it. But, you see, he had not time enough to tie the
roll up again! He has read it all or in part, and I wish him joy of
the picture of himself he will have found painted there. The anchorite
wields a powerful pen, and paints with a firm outline and strongly
marked coloring. If he has read the roll to the end it will spare me the
trouble of explaining to him what I purpose to charge him with; if
you disturbed him too soon I shall have to be more explicit in my
accusation. Be that as it may, it is all the same to me.”
“Nay, certainly not,” cried Lysias, “for in the first case Eulaeus will
have time to meditate his lies, and bribe witnesses for his defence. If
any one entrusted me with such important papers--and if it had not been
you who neglected to do it--I would carefully seal or lock them up.
Where have you put the despatch from the Senate which the messenger
brought you just now?”
“That is locked up in this casket,” replied Publius, moving his hand to
press it more closely over his robe, under which he had carefully hidden
it.
“May I not know what it contain?” asked the Corinthian.
“No, there is not time for that now, for we must first, and at once,
consider what can be done to repair the last mischief which you have
done. Is it not a disgraceful thing that you should betray the sweet
creature whose childlike embarrassment charmed us this morning--of whom
you yourself said, as we came home, that she reminded you of your lovely
sister--that you should betray her, I say, into the power of the wildest
of all the profligates I ever met--to this monster, whose pleasures are
the unspeakable, whose boast is vice? What has Euergetes--”
“By great Poseidon!” cried Lysias, eagerly interrupting his friend. “I
never once thought of this second Alcibiades when I mentioned her. What
can the manager of a performance do, but all in his power to secure the
applause of the audience? and, by my honor! it was for my own sake that
I wanted to bring Irene into the palace--I am mad with love for her--she
has undone me.”
“Aye! like Callista, and Phryne, and the flute-player Stephanion,”
interrupted the Roman, shrugging his shoulders.
“How should it be different?” asked the Corinthian, looking at his
friend in astonishment. “Eros has many arrows in his quiver; one
strikes deeply, another less deeply; and I believe that the wound I
have received to-day will ache for many a week if I have to give up
this child, who is even more charming than the much-admired Hebe on our
cistern.”
“I advise you however to accustom yourself to the idea, and the sooner
the better,” said Publius gravely, as he set himself with his arms
crossed, directly in front of the Greek. “What would you feel inclined
to do to me if I took a fancy to lure your pretty sister--whom Irene, I
repeat it, is said to resemble--to tempt her with base cunning from your
parents’ house?”
“I protest against any such comparison,” cried the Corinthian very
positively, and more genuinely exasperated than the Roman had ever seen
him.
“You are angry without cause,” replied Publius calmly and gravely. “Your
sister is a charming girl, the ornament of your illustrious house, and
yet I dare compare the humble Irene--”
“With her! do you mean to say?” Lysias shouted again. “That is a poor
return for the hospitality which was shown to you by my parents and of
which you formally sang the praises. I am a good-natured fellow and
will submit to more from you than from any other man--I know not why,
myself;--but in a matter like this I do not understand a joke! My sister
is the only daughter of the noblest and richest house in Corinth and
has many suitors. She is in no respect inferior to the child of your own
parents, and I should like to know what you would say if I made so
bold as to compare the proud Lucretia with this poor little thing, who
carries water like a serving-maid.”
“Do so, by all means!” interrupted Publius coolly, “I do not take your
rage amiss, for you do not know who these two sisters are, in the temple
of Serapis. Besides, they do not fill their jars for men but in the
service of a god. Here--take this roll and read it through while I
answer the despatch from Rome. Here! Spartacus, come and light a few
more lamps.”
In a few minutes the two young men were sitting opposite each other at
the table which stood in the middle of their tent. Publius wrote busily,
and only looked up when his friend, who was reading the anchorite’s
document, struck his hand on the table in disgust or sprang from his
seat ejaculating bitter words of indignation. Both had finished at the
same moment, and when Publius had folded and sealed his letter, and
Lysias had flung the roll on to the table, the Roman said slowly, as he
looked his friend steadily in the face: “Well?”
“Well!” repeated Lysias. I now find myself in the humiliating position
of being obliged to deem myself more stupid than you--I must own you
in the right, and beg your pardon for having thought you insolent and
arrogant! Never, no never did I hear a story so infernally scandalous as
that in that roll, and such a thing could never have occurred but among
these accursed Egyptians! Poor little Irene! And how can the dear little
girl have kept such a sunny look through it all! I could thrash myself
like any school-boy to think that I--a fool among fools--should have
directed the attention of Euergetes to this girl, and he, the most
powerful and profligate man in the whole country. What can now be
done to save Irene from him? I cannot endure the thought of seeing her
abandoned to his clutches, and I will not permit it to happen.
“Do not you think that we ought to take the water-bearers under our
charge?”
“Not only we ought but we must,” said Publius decisively; “and if we did
not we should be contemptible wretches. Since the recluse took me into
his confidence I feel as if it were my duty to watch over these
girls whose parents have been stolen from them, as if I were their
guardian--and you, my Lysias, shall help me. The elder sister is not now
very friendly towards me, but I do not esteem her the less for that;
the younger one seems less grave and reserved than Klea; I saw how she
responded to your smile when the procession broke up. Afterwards, you
did not come home immediately any more than I did, and I suspect that it
was Irene who detained you. Be frank, I earnestly beseech you, and tell
me all; for we must act in unison, and with thorough deliberation, if we
hope to succeed in spoiling Euergetes’ game.”
“I have not much to tell you,” replied the Corinthian. “After the
procession I went to the Pastophorium--naturally it was to see Irene,
and in order not to fail in this I allowed the pilgrims to tell me what
visions the god had sent them in their dreams, and what advice had been
given them in the temple of Asclepius as to what to do for their own
complaints, and those of their cousins, male and female.
“Quite half an hour had passed so before Irene came. She carried a
little basket in which lay the gold ornaments she had worn at
the festival, and which she had to restore to the keeper of the
temple-treasure. My pomegranate-flower, which she had accepted in the
morning, shone upon me from afar, and then, when she caught sight of me
and blushed all over, casting down her eyes, then it was that it first
struck me ‘just like the Hebe on our cistern.’
“She wanted to pass me, but I detained her, begging her to show me the
ornaments in her hand; I said a number of things such as girls like to
hear, and then I asked her if she were strictly watched, and whether
they gave her delicate little hands and feet--which were worthy of
better occupation than water-carrying--a great deal to do. She did not
hesitate to answer, but with all she said she rarely raised her eyes.
The longer you look at her the lovelier she is--and yet she is still a
mere child-though a child certainly who no longer loves staying at home,
who has dreams of splendor, and enjoyment, and freedom while she is kept
shut up in a dismal, dark place, and left to starve.
“The poor creatures may never quit the temple excepting for a
procession, or before sunrise. It sounded too delightful when she said
that she was always so horribly tired, and so glad to go to sleep again
after she was waked, and had to go out at once just when it is coldest,
in the twilight before sunrise. Then she has to draw water from a
cistern called the Well of the Sun.”
“Do you know where that cistern lies?” asked Publius.
“Behind the acacia-grove,” answered Lysias. “The guide pointed it out to
me. It is said to hold particularly sacred water, which must be poured
as a libation to the god at sunrise, unmixed with any other. The girls
must get up so early, that as soon as dawn breaks water from this
cistern shall not be lacking at the altar of Serapis. It is poured out
on the earth by the priests as a drink-offering.”
Publius had listened attentively, and had not lost a word of his
friend’s narrative. He now quitted him hastily, opened the tent-door,
and went out into the night, looking up to discover the hour from
the stars which were silently pursuing their everlasting courses in
countless thousands, and sparkling with extraordinary brilliancy in the
deep blue sky. The moon was already set, and the morning-star was slowly
rising--every night since the Roman had been in the land of the Pyramids
he had admired its magnificent size and brightness.
A cold breeze fanned the young man’s brow, and as he drew his robe
across his breast with a shiver, he thought of the sisters, who, before
long, would have to go out in the fresh morning air. Once more he raised
his eyes from the earth to the firmament over his head, and it seemed to
him that he saw before his very eyes the proud form of Klea, enveloped
in a mantle sown over with stars. His heart throbbed high, and he felt
as if the breeze that his heaving breast inhaled in deep breaths was as
fresh and pure as the ether that floats over Elysium, and of a strange
potency withal, as if too rare to breathe. Still he fancied he saw
before him the image of Klea, but as he stretched out his hand towards
the beautiful vision it vanished--a sound of hoofs and wheels fell upon
his ear. Publius was not accustomed to abandon himself to dreaming when
action was needed, and this reminded him of the purpose for which he had
come out into the open air. Chariot after chariot came driving past
as he returned into his tent. Lysias, who during his absence had been
pacing up and down and reflecting, met him with the question:
“How long is it yet till sunrise?”
“Hardly two hours,” replied the Roman. “And we must make good use of
them if we would not arrive too late.”
“So I think too,” said the Corinthian. “The sisters will soon be at the
Well of the Sun outside the temple walls, and I will persuade Irene to
follow me. You think I shall not be successful? Nor do I myself--but
still perhaps she will if I promise to show her something very pretty,
and if she does not suspect that she is to be parted from her sister,
for she is like a child.”
“But Klea,” interrupted Publius thoughtfully, “is grave and prudent; and
the light tone which you are so ready to adopt will be very little to
her taste, Consider that, and dare the attempt--no, you dare not deceive
her. Tell her the whole truth, out of Irene’s hearing, with the gravity
the matter deserves, and she will not hinder her sister when she knows
how great and how imminent is the danger that threatens her.”
“Good!” said the Corinthian. “I will be so solemnly earnest that the
most wrinkled and furrowed graybeard among the censors of your native
city shall seem a Dionysiac dancer compared with me. I will speak like
your Cato when he so bitterly complained that the epicures of Rome paid
more now for a barrel of fresh herrings than for a yoke of oxen. You
shall be perfectly satisfied with me!--But whither am I to conduct
Irene? I might perhaps make use of one of the king’s chariots which are
passing now by dozens to carry the guests home.”
“I also had thought of that,” replied Publius. “Go with the chief of the
Diadoches, whose splendid house was shown to us yesterday. It is on the
way to the Serapeum, and just now at the feast you were talking with
him incessantly. When there, indemnify the driver by the gift of a gold
piece, so that he may not betray us, and do not return here but proceed
to the harbor. I will await you near the little temple of Isis with our
travelling chariot and my own horses, will receive Irene, and conduct
her to some new refuge while you drive back Fuergetes’ chariot, and
restore it to the driver.”
“That will not satisfy me by any means,” said Lysias very gravely; “I
was ready to give up my pomegranate-flower to you yesterday for Irene,
but herself--”
“I want nothing of her,” exclaimed Publius annoyed. “But you might--it
seems to me--be rather more zealous in helping me to preserve her from
the misfortune which threatens her through your own blunder. We cannot
bring her here, but I think that I have thought of a safe hiding-place
for her.
“Do you remember Apollodorus, the sculptor, to whom we were recommended
by my father, and his kind and friendly wife who set before us
that capital Chios wine? The man owes me a service, for my father
commissioned him and his assistants to execute the mosaic pavement in
the new arcade he was having built in the capitol; and subsequently,
when the envy of rival artists threatened his life, my father saved him.
You yourself heard him say that he and his were all at my disposal.”
“Certainly, certainly,” said Lysias. “But say, does it not strike you
as most extraordinary that artists, the very men, that is to say, who
beyond all others devote themselves to ideal aims and efforts, are
particularly ready to yield to the basest impulses; envy, detraction,
and--”
“Man!” exclaimed Publius, angrily interrupting the Greek, “can you never
for ten seconds keep on the same subject, and never keep anything to
yourself that comes into your head? We have just now, as it seems to me,
more important matters to discuss than the jealousy of each other
shown by artists--and in my opinion, by learned men too. The sculptor
Apollodorus, who is thus beholden to me, has been living here for the
last six months with his wife and daughters, for he has been executing
for Philometor the busts of the philosophers, and the animal groups
to decorate the open space in front of the tomb of Apis. His sons are
managers of his large factory in Alexandria, and when he next goes
there, down the Nile in his boat, as often happens, he can take Irene
with him, and put her on board a ship.
“As to where we can have her taken to keep her safe from Euergetes, we
will talk that over afterwards with Apollodorus.”
“Good, very good,” agreed the Corinthian. “By Heracles! I am not
suspicious--still it does not altogether please me that you should
yourself conduct Irene to Apollodorus, for if you are seen in her
company our whole project may be shipwrecked. Send the sculptor’s wife,
who is little known in Memphis, to the temple of Isis, and request her
to bring a veil and cloak to conceal the girl. Greet the gay Milesian
from me too, and tell her--no, tell her nothing--I shall see her myself
afterwards at the temple of Isis.”
During the last words of this conversation, slaves had been enveloping
the two young men in their mantles. They now quitted the tent together,
wished each other success, and set out at a brisk pace; the Roman to
have his horses harnessed, and Lysias to accompany the chief of the
Diadoches in one of the king’s chariots, and then to act on the plan he
had agreed upon with Publius.