CHAPTER I.

Deep silence brooded over the water and the green islands which rose

like oases from its glittering surface. The palms, silver poplars, and

sycamores on the largest one were already casting longer shadows as the

slanting rays of the sun touched their dark crowns, while its glowing

ball still poured a flood of golden radiance upon the bushes along the

shore, and the light, feathery tufts at the tops of the papyrus reeds in

the brackish water.

More than one flock of large and small waterfowl flew past beneath the

silvery cloudlets flecking the lofty azure vault of heaven; here and

there a pelican or a pair of wild ducks plunged, with short calls which

ceased abruptly, into the lush green thicket, but their cackling and

quacking belonged to the voices of Nature, and, when heard, soon

died away in the heights of the tipper air, or in the darkness of the

underbrush that received the birds. Very few reached the little city of

Tennis, which now, during the period of inundation in the year 274 B.C.,

was completely encircled by water.

From the small island, separated from it by a channel scarcely three

arrow-shots wide, it seemed as though sleep or paralysis had fallen upon

the citizens of the busy little industrial town, for few people appeared

in the streets, and the scanty number of porters and sailors who were

working among the ships and boats in the little fleet performed their

tasks noiselessly, exhausted by the heat and labour of the day.

Columns of light smoke rose from many of the buildings, but the sunbeams

prevented its ascent into the clear, still air, and forced it to spread

over the roofs as if it, too, needed rest.

Silence also reigned in the little island diagonally opposite to the

harbour. The Tennites called it the Owl’s Nest, and, though for no

especial reason, neither they nor the magistrates of King Ptolemy II

ever stepped upon its shores. Indeed, a short time before, the latter

had even been forbidden to concern themselves about the pursuits of its

inhabitants; since, though for centuries it had belonged to a family

of seafaring folk who were suspected of piracy, it had received, two

generations ago, from Alexander the Great himself, the right of asylum,

because its owner, in those days, had commanded a little fleet which

proved extremely useful to the conqueror of the world in the siege

of Gaza and during the expedition to Egypt. True, under the reign of

Ptolemy I, the owners of the Owl’s Nest were on the point of being

deprived of this favour, because they were repeatedly accused of piracy

in distant seas; but it had not been done. Yet for the past two years

an investigation had threatened Satabus, the distinguished head of the

family, and during this period he, with his ships and his sons, had

avoided Tennis and the Egyptian coast.

The house occupied by the islanders stood on the shore facing the little

city. It had once been a stately building, but now every part of it

seemed to be going to ruin except the central portion, which presented

a less dilapidated appearance than the sorely damaged, utterly neglected

side wings.

The roof of the whole long structure had originally consisted of palm

branches, upon which mud and turf had been piled; but this, too, was now

in repair only on the central building. On the right and left wings the

rain which often falls in the northeastern part of the Nile Delta, near

the sea, had washed off the protecting earth, and the wind had borne it

away as dust.

Once the house had been spacious enough to shelter a numerous family and

to store a great quantity of goods and provisions, but it was now long

since the ruinous chambers had been occupied. Smoke rose only from the

opening in the roof of the main building, but its slender column showed

from what a very scanty fire it ascended.

The purpose which this was to serve was readily discovered, for in

front of the open door of the dwelling, that seemed far too large and

on account of the pillars at the entrance, which supported a triangular

pediment--also too stately for its sole occupant, sat an old woman,

plucking three ducks.

In front of her a girl, paying no heed to her companion, stood leaning

against the trunk of the low, wide-branching sycamore tree near the

shore. A narrow boat, now concealed from view by the dense growth of

rushes, had brought her to the spot.

The beautiful, motherless young creature, needing counsel, had come to

old Tabus to appeal to her art of prophecy and, if she wanted them,

to render her any little services; for the old dame on the island

was closely bound to Ledscha, the daughter of one of the principal

ship-owners in Tennis, and had once been even more closely united to the

girl.

Now, as the sun was about to set, the latter gave herself up to a wild

tumult of sweet memories, anxious fears, and yearning expectation.

Not until a cool breath from the neighbouring sea fanned her brow did

she throw down the cord and implement with which she had been adding a

few meshes to a net, and rising, gaze sometimes across the water at a

large white house in the northern part of the city, sometimes at the

little harbour or the vessels on the horizon steering toward Tennis,

among which her keen eyes discovered a magnificent ship with bright-hued

sails.

Drawing a long breath, she enjoyed the coolness which precedes the

departure of the daystar.

But the effect of this harbinger of night upon her surroundings was

even more powerful than upon herself, for the sun in the western horizon

scarcely began to sink slowly behind the papyrus thicket on the shore

of the straight Tanite arm of the Nile, dug by human hands, than one new

and strange phenomenon followed another.

First a fan, composed of countless glowing rays which spread in dazzling

radiance over the west, rose from the vanishing orb and for several

minutes adorned the lofty dome of the deep-blue sky like the tail of

a gigantic peacock. Then the glitter of the shining plumes paled. The

light-giving body from which they emanated disappeared and, in its

stead, a crimson mantle, with gold-bordered, crocus-yellow edges, spread

itself over the space it had left until the gleaming tints merged into

the deeper hues of the violet.

But the girl paid no heed to this splendid spectacle. Perhaps she

noticed how the fading light diffused a delicate rose-hued veil over

the light-blue sails, embroidered with silver vines, of the approaching

state galley, making its gilded prow glitter more brightly, and saw one

fishing boat after another move toward the harbour, but she gave the

whole scene only a few careless glances.

Ledscha cared little for the poor fishermen of Tennis, and the

glittering state galley could scarcely bring or bear away anything of

importance to her.

The epistrategus of the whole province was daily expected. But of what

consequence to the young girl were the changes which it was rumoured

he intended to introduce into the government of the country, concerning

which her father had expressed such bitter dissatisfaction before he set

out on his last trip to Pontus?

A very different matter occupied her thoughts, and as, pressing her hand

upon her heart, she gazed at the little city, gleaming with crimson hues

in the reflection of the setting sun, a strange, restless stir pervaded

the former stillness of Nature. Pelicans and flamingoes, geese and

ducks, storks and herons, ibises and cranes, bitterns and lapwings,

flew in dark flocks of manifold forms from all directions. Countless

multitudes of waterfowl darkened the air as they alighted upon the

uninhabited islands, and with ear-splitting croaking and cackling,

whistling and chirping, clapping and twittering, dropped into the sedges

and bushes which concealed their nests, while in the city the doors of

the houses opened, and men, women, and children, after toiling at the

loom and in the workshop, came out to enjoy the coolness of the evening

in the open air.

One fishing boat after another was already throwing a rope to the shore,

as the ship with the gay sails approached the little roadstead.

How large and magnificent it was!

None of the king’s officials had ever used such a galley, not even the

epistrategus of the Delta, who last year had given the banking and the

oil trade to new lessees. Besides, the two transports that had followed

the magnificent vessel appeared to belong to it.

Ledscha had watched the ships indifferently enough, but suddenly her

gaze--and with it the austere beauty of her face--assumed a different

expression.

Her large black eyes dilated, and with passionate intentness she looked

from the gaily ornamented galley to the shore, which several men in

Greek costume were approaching.

The first two had come from the large white house whose door, since

sunset, had been the principal object of her attention.

It was Hermon, the taller one, for whom she was waiting with old Tabus.

He had promised to take her from the Owl’s Nest, after nightfall, for a

lonely row upon the water.

Now he was not coming alone, but with his fellow-artist, the

sculptor Myrtilus, the nomarch and the notary--she recognised both

distinctly--Gorgias, the rich owner of the second largest weaving

establishment in Tennis, and several slaves.

What did it mean?

A sudden flush crimsoned her face, now slightly tanned, to the brow, and

her lips were compressed, giving her mouth an expression of repellent,

almost cruel harshness.

But the tension of her charming features, whose lines, though sharp,

were delicately outlined, soon vanished. There was still plenty of

time before the darkness would permit Hermon to join her unnoticed. A

reception, from which he could not be absent, was evidently about to

take place.

Yes, that was certainly the case; for now the magnificent galley had

approached as near the land as the shallow water permitted, and the

whistle of the rowers’ flute-player, shouts of command, and the barking

of dogs could be heard.

Then a handkerchief waved a greeting from the vessel to the men on

shore, but the hand that held it was a woman’s. Ledscha would have

recognised it had the twilight been far deeper.

The features of the new arrival could no longer be distinguished; but

she must be young. An elderly woman would not have sprung so nimbly into

the skiff that was to convey her to the land.

The man who assisted her in doing so was the same sculptor, Hermon, for

whom she had watched with so much longing.

Again the blood mounted into Ledscha’s cheeks, and when she saw the

stranger lay her hand upon the shoulder of the Alexandrian who, only

yesterday, had assured the young girl of his love with ardent vows, and

allow him to lift her out of the boat, she buried her little white teeth

deeply in her lips.

She had never seen Hermon in the society of a woman of his own class,

and, full of jealous displeasure; perceived with what zealous assiduity

he who bowed before no one in Tennis, paid court to the stranger no less

eagerly than did his friend Myrtilus.

The whole scene passed like a shadow in the dusk before Ledscha’s eyes,

half dimmed by uneasiness, perplexity, and suddenly inflamed jealousy.

The Egyptian twilight is short, and when Hermon disappeared with the

new-comer it was no longer possible to recognise the man who entered the

very boat in which she was to have taken the nocturnal voyage with her

lover, and which was now rowed toward the Owl’s Nest.

Surely it would bring her a message from Hermon; and as the stranger,

who was now joined by a number of other women and two packs of barking

dogs, with their keepers, vanished in the darkness, the skiff already

touched the shore close at her side.

CHAPTER II.

In spite of the surrounding gloom, Ledscha recognised the man who left

the boat.

The greeting he shouted told her that it was Hermon’s slave, Pias, a

Biamite, whom she had met in the house of some neighbours who were his

relatives and had sharply rebuffed when he ventured to accost her more

familiarly than was seemly for one in bondage.

True, in his childhood this man had lived near Tennis as the son of

a free papyrus raiser, but when still a lad was sold into slavery in

Alexandria with his father, who had been seized for taking part in an

insurrection against the last king.

In the service of Areluas, his present master’s uncle, who had given him

to his nephew, and as the slave of the impetuous yet anything but cruel

sculptor, Hermon, he had become accustomed to bondage, but was still far

more strongly attached to his Biamite race than to the Greek, to whom,

it is true, his master belonged, but who had robbed him and his family

of freedom.

The man of forty did not lack mother wit, and as his hard fate rendered

him thoughtful and often led him to use figurative turns of speech,

which were by no means intended as jests, he had been called by his

first master “Bias” for the sage of Priene.

In the house of Hermon, who associated with the best artists in

Alexandria, he had picked up all sorts of knowledge and gladly welcomed

instruction. His highest desire was to win esteem, and he often did so.

Hermon prized the useful fellow highly. He had no secrets from him, and

was sure of his silence and good will.

Bias had managed to lure many a young beauty in Alexandria, in whom the

sculptor had seen a desirable model, to his studio, even under the most

difficult circumstances; but he was vexed to find that his master had

cast his eye upon the daughter of one of the most distinguished families

among his own people. He knew, too, that the Biamites jealously

guarded the honour of their women, and had represented to Hermon what

a dangerous game he was playing when he began to offer vows of love to

Ledscha.

So it was an extremely welcome task to be permitted to inform her that

she was awaiting his master in vain.

In reply to her inquiry whether it was the aristocrat who had just

arrived who kept Hermon from her, he admitted that she was right, but

added that the gods were above even kings, and his master was obliged to

yield to the Alexandrian’s will.

Ledscha laughed incredulously: “He--obey a woman!”

“He certainly would not submit to a man,” replied the slave. “Artists,

you must know, would rather oppose ten of the most powerful men than

one weak woman, if she is only beautiful. As for the daughter of

Archias--thereby hangs a tale.”

“Archias?” interrupted the girl. “The rich Alexandrian who owns the

great weaving house?”

“The very man.”

“So it is his daughter who is keeping Hermon? And you say he is obliged

to serve her?”

“As men serve the Deity, to the utmost, or truth,” replied the slave

importantly. “Archias, the father, it is true, imposed upon us the debt

which is most tardily paid, and which people, even in this country, call

‘gratitude.’ We are under obligations to the old man--there’s no denying

it--and therefore also to his only child.”

“For what?” Ledscha indignantly exclaimed, and the dark eyebrows which

met above her delicate nose contracted suspiciously. “I must know!”

“Must!” repeated the slave. “That word is a ploughshare which suits only

loose soil, and mine, now that my master is waiting for me, can not be

tilled even by the sharpest. Another time! But if, meanwhile, you have

any message for Hermon----”

“Nothing,” she replied defiantly; but Bias, in a tone of the most eager

assent, exclaimed: “One friendly word, girl. You are the fairest among

the daughters of the highest Biamite families, and probably the richest

also, and therefore a thousand times too good to yield what adorns you

to the Greek, that it may tickle the curiosity of the Alexandrian apes.

There are more than enough women in the capital to serve that purpose.

Trust the experience of a man not wholly devoid of wisdom, my girl. He

will throw you aside like an empty wine bottle when he has used you for

a model.”

“Used?” interrupted Ledscha disdainfully; but he repeated with firm

decision: “Yes, used! What could you learn of life, of art and artists,

here in the weaver’s nest in the midst of the waves? I know them. A

sculptor needs beautiful women as a cobbler wants leather, and the

charms he seeks in you he does not conceal from his friend Myrtilus, at

least. They are your large almond-shaped eyes and your arms. They make

him fairly wild with delight by their curves when, in drawing water, you

hold the jug balanced on your head. Your slender arched foot, too, is a

welcome morsel to him.”

The darkness prevented Bias from seeing Ledscha’s features, but it

was easy to perceive what was passing in her mind as, hoarse with

indignation, she gasped: “How can I know the object of your accusations?

but fie upon the servant who would alienate from his own kind master

what his soul desires!”

Then Bias changed not only his tone of voice, but his language, and,

deeply offended, poured forth a torrent of wrath in the dialect of his

people: “If to guard you, and my master with you, from harm, my words

had the power to put between you and Hermon the distance which separates

yonder rising moon from Tennis, I would make them sound as loud as

the lion’s roar. Yet perhaps you would not understand them, for you go

through life as though you were deaf and blind. Did you ever even ask

yourself whether the Greek is not differently constituted from the sons

of the Biamite sailors and fishermen, with whom you grew up, and to whom

he is an abomination? Yet he is no more like them than poppy juice is

like pure water. He and his companions turn life upside down. There is

no more distinction between right and wrong in Alexandria than we here

in the dark can make between blue and green. To me, the slave, who is

already growing old, Hermon is a kind master. I know without your

aid what I owe him, and serve him as loyally as any one; but where he

threatens to lead to ruin the innocent daughter of the race whose blood

flows in my veins as well as yours, and in doing so perhaps finally

destroy himself too, conscience commands me to raise my voice as loud

as the sentinel crane when danger threatens the flock. Beware, girl, I

repeat! Keep your beauty, which is now to be degraded to feast the eyes

of gaping Greeks, for the worthiest husband among our people. Though

Hermon has vowed, I know not what, your love-dallying will very soon be

over; we shall leave Tennis within the next few days. When he has gone

there will be one more deceived Biamite who will call down the curse

of the gods upon the head of a Greek. You are not the only one who will

execrate the destiny that brought us here. Others have been caught in

his net too.”

“Here?” asked Ledscha in a hollow tone; and the slave eagerly answered:

“Where else? And that you may know the truth--among those who visited

Hermon in his studio is your own young sister.”

“Our Taus? That child?” exclaimed the girl, stretching her hands toward

the slave in horror, as if to ward off some impending disaster.

“That child, who, I think, has grown into a very charming girl--and,

before her, pretty Gula, the wife of Paseth, who, like your father, is

away on his ship.”

Here, in a tone of triumphant confidence, the answer rang from the

Biamite’s lips: “There the slanderer stands revealed! Now you are

detected, now I perceive the meaning of your threat. Because, miserable

slave, you cherish the mad hope of beguiling me yourself, you do your

utmost to estrange me from your master. Gula, you say, visited Hermon

in his studio, and it may be true. But though I have been at home only

a short time, Tennis is too full of the praises of the heroic Greek

who, at the risk of his own life, rescued a child from Paseth’s burning

house, for the tale not to reach my ears from ten or a dozen different

quarters. Gula is the mother of the little girl whose life was saved

by Hermon’s bold deed, and perhaps the young mother only knocked at her

benefactor’s door to thank him; but you, base defamer--”

“I,” Bias continued, maintaining his composure with difficulty, “I saw

Gula secretly glide into our rooms again and again to permit her child’s

preserver to imitate in clay what he considered beautiful. To seek your

love, as you know, the slave forbade himself, although a man no more

loses tender desires with his freedom than the tree which is encircled

by a fence ceases to put forth buds and blossoms. Eros chooses the

slave’s heart also as the target for his arrows; but his aim at yours

was better than at mine. Now I know how deeply he wounds, and so, as

soon as yonder ship in the harbour bears our visitor away again, I shall

see you, Schalit’s daughter, Ledscha, standing before Hermon’s modelling

table and behold him scan your beauty to determine what seems worth

copying.”

The Biamite, panting for breath, had listened to the end. Then, raising

her little clinched hand menacingly, she muttered through her set teeth:

“Let him try even to touch my veil with his fingers! If I had not been

obliged to go away, this would not have happened to my Taus and luckless

Gula.”

“Scarcely,” replied Bias calmly. “If the chicken runs into the water,

the hen can not save it. For the rest--I grew up as a boy in freedom

with the husband of your sister, who summoned you to her aid. His

father’s brick-kiln was next to our papyrus plantation. Then we fared

like so many others--the great devour the small, the just cause is

the lost one, and the gods are like men. My father, who drew the

sword against oppression and violence, was robbed of liberty, and your

brother-in-law, in payment for his honest courage, met an early death.

Is the story which is told of you here true? I heard that soon after the

poor fellow’s burial the slaves in the brick-kiln refused to obey his

widow. There were a dozen rebellious brick-moulders, and you--one can

forgive you much for it--you, the weak girl----”

“I am not weak,” interrupted Ledscha proudly. “I could have taught three

times twelve of the scoundrels who was master. Now they obey my sister,

and yet I wish I had stayed in Tennis. Our Taus,” she continued in a

more gentle tone, “is still so young, and our mother died when she was

a little child; but I, fool, who should have warned her, left her alone,

and if she yielded to Hermon’s temptations the fault is mine, wholly

mine.”

During this outburst the light of the fire, which old Tabus had fed with

fresh straw and dry rushes, fell upon the face of the agitated girl. It

revealed her thoughts plainly enough, and, pleased with the success of

his warning, Bias exclaimed: “And Ledscha, you, too, will not grant him

that from which you would so gladly have withheld your sister. So I will

go and tell my master that you refuse to give him another appointment.”

He had confidently expected an assent, and therefore started indignantly

at her exclamation: “I intend to do just the contrary.” Yet she eagerly

added, as if in explanation: “He must give me an account of himself, no

matter where, and, since it can not be to-day, to-morrow at latest.”

The slave, disappointed and anxious, now tried to make her understand

how foolish and hard to accomplish her wish was, but she obstinately

insisted upon having her own way.

Bias angrily turned his back upon her and, in the early light of the

moon, walked toward the shore, but she hastened after him, seized his

arm and, with imperious firmness, commanded: “You will stay! I must

first know whether Hermon really means to leave Tennis so soon.”

“That was his intention early this morning,” replied the other,

releasing himself from her grasp. “What are we to do here longer, now

that his work is as good as finished?”

“But when is he going?” she urged with increased eagerness.

“Day after to-morrow,” was the reply, “in five, or perhaps even in six

days, just as it suits him. Usually we do not even know to-day what

is to be done to-morrow. So long as the Alexandrian remains, he will

scarcely leave her, or Myrtilus either. Probably she will take both

hunting with her, for, though a kind, fair-minded woman, she loves the

chase, and as both have finished their work, they probably will not be

reluctant to go with Daphne.”

He stepped into the boat as he spoke, but Ledscha again detained him,

asking impatiently: “And ‘the work,’ as you call it? It was covered

with a cloth when I visited the studio, but Hermon himself termed it the

statue of a goddess. Yet what it represents--Does it look like my sister

Taus--enough like her, I mean, to be recognised?”

A half-compassionate, half-mocking smile flitted over the Biamite’s

copper-coloured visage, and in a tone of patronizing instruction assumed

by the better informed, he began: “You are thinking of the face? Why no,

child! What that requires can be found in the countenance of no Biamite,

hardly even in yours, the fairest of all.”

“And the goddess’s figure?” asked Ledscha eagerly.

“For that he first used as a model the fair-haired Heliodora, whom

he summoned from Alexandria, and as the wild cat could endure the

loneliness only a fortnight, the sisters Nico and Pagis came together.

But Tennis was too quiet for them too. The rabble can only be contented

among those of their own sort in the capital. But the great preliminary

work was already finished before we left Alexandria.”

“And Gula--my sister?”

“They were not used for the Demeter,” said the slave, smiling. “Just

think, that slender scarcely grown creature, Taus, and the matronly

patroness of marriage. And Gula? True, her little round face is fresh

and not ill-looking--but the model of a goddess requires something more.

That can only be obtained in Alexandria. What do not the women there do

for the care of the body! They learn it in the Aphrodision, as the boys

study reading and writing. But you! What do you here know even about

colouring the eyelids and the lips, curling the hair, and treating the

nails on the hands and feet? And the clothes! You let them hang just as

you put them on, and my master’s work is full of folds and little lines

in the robe and the peplos--But I have staid too long already. Do you

really insist upon meeting Hermon again?

“I will and must see him,” she eagerly declared.

“Well, then,” he answered harshly. “But if you cast my warning to the

winds, pity will also fly away with it.”

“I do not need it,” the girl retorted in a contemptuous tone.

“Then let Fate take its course,” said the slave, shrugging his shoulders

regretfully. “My master shall learn what you wish. I shall remain at

home until the market is empty. There are plenty of servants at your

farm. Your messenger shall bring you Hermon’s answer.”

“I will come myself and wait for it under the acacia,” she cried

hastily, and went toward the house, but this time it was Bias who called

her back.

Ledscha reluctantly fulfilled his wish, but she soon regretted it, for

though what he had to say was doubtless kindly meant, it contained a

fresh and severe offence: the slave represented to her the possibility

that, so long as the daughter of Archias remained his guest, Hermon

might rebuff her like a troublesome beggar.

Then, as if sure of her cause, she indignantly cut short his words: “You

measure him according to your own standard, and do not know what depends

upon it for us. Remind him of the full moon on the coming night and,

though ten Alexandrians detained him, he would escape from them to hear

what I bring him.”

With these words Ledscha again turned her back upon him, but Bias, with

a low imprecation, pushed the boat from the shore and rowed toward the

city.

CHAPTER III.

When Ledscha heard the strokes of the oars she stopped again and, with

glowing cheeks, gazed after the boat and the glimmering silver furrow

which it left upon the calm surface of the moonlit water.

Her heart was heavy. The doubts of her lover’s sincerity which the slave

had awakened tortured her proud soul.

Was Hermon really only trifling mischievously with her affection?

Surely it was impossible.

She would rather endure everything, everything, than this torturing

uncertainty.

Yet she was here on the Owl’s Nest to seek the aid of old Tabus’s magic

arts. If any one could give her satisfaction, it was she and the demons

who obeyed her will, and the old woman was glad to oblige Ledscha; she

was bound to her by closer ties than most people in Tennis knew.

Ledscha had no cause to be ashamed of her frequent visits to the Owl’s

Nest, for old Tabus had no equal as a leech and a prophetess, and the

corsair family, of which she was the female head, stood in high repute

among the Biamites. People bore them no ill-will because they practised

piracy; many of their race pursued the same calling, and the sailors

made common cause with them.

Ledscha’s father, too, was on good terms with the pirates, and when

Abus, a handsome fellow who commanded his father’s second ship and had

won a certain degree of renown by many a bold deed, sought the hand

of his oldest daughter, he did not refuse him, and only imposed the

condition that when he had gained riches enough and made Ledscha his

wife, he would cease his piratical pursuits and, in partnership with

him, take goods and slaves from Pontus to the Syrian and Egyptian

harbours, and grain and textiles from the Nile to the coasts of the

Black Sea.

Young Abus had yielded to this demand, since his grandmother on the

Owl’s Nest thought it wise to delay for a time the girl’s marriage to

him, the best beloved of her grandsons; she was then scarcely beyond

childhood.

Yet Ledscha had felt a strong affection for the young pirate, in

whom she saw the embodiment of heroic manhood. She accompanied him

in imagination through all his perilous expeditions; but she had been

permitted to enjoy his society only after long intervals for a few days.

Once he remained absent longer than usual, and this very voyage was to

have been his last on a pirate craft--the peaceful seafaring life was to

begin, after his landing, with the marriage.

Ledscha had expected her lover’s return with eager longing, but week

after week elapsed, yet nothing was seen or heard of the ships owned by

the Owl’s Nest family; then a rumour spread that this time the corsairs

were defeated in a battle with the Syrian war-galleys.

The first person who received sure tidings was old Tabus. Her grandson

Hanno, who escaped with his life, at the bidding of his father Satabus,

who revered his mother, had made his way to her amid great perils to

convey the sorrowful news. Two of the best ships in the family had

been sunk, and on one the brave Abus, Ledscha’s betrothed husband, who

commanded it, had lost his life; on the other the aged dame’s oldest son

and three of her grandchildren.

Tabus fell as if struck by lightning when she heard the tidings, and

since that time her tongue had lost its power of fluent speech, her ear

its sharpness; but Ledscha did not leave her side, and saved her life by

tireless, faithful nursing.

Neither Satabus, the old woman’s second son, who now commanded the

little pirate fleet, nor his sons, Hanno and Labaja, had been seen in

the neighbourhood of Tennis since the disaster, but after Tabus had

recovered sufficiently to provide for herself, Ledscha returned to

Tennis to manage her father’s great household and supply the mother’s

place to her younger sister, Taus.

She had not recovered the careless cheerfulness of earlier years, but,

graver than the companions of her own age, she absented herself from

the gaieties of the Biamite maidens. Meanwhile her beauty had increased

wonderfully, and, attracting attention far and wide, drew many suitors

from neighbouring towns to Tennis. Only a few, however, had made offers

of marriage to her father; the beautiful girl’s cold, repellent manner

disheartened them. She herself desired nothing better; yet it secretly

incensed her and pierced her soul with pain to see herself at twenty

unwedded, while far less attractive companions of her own age had long

been wives and mothers.

The arduous task which she had performed a short time before for her

widowed sister had increased the seriousness of her disposition to

sullen moroseness.

After her return home she often rowed to the Owl’s Nest, for Ledscha

felt bound to old Tabus, and, so far as lay in her power, under

obligation to atone for the injury which the horror of her lover’s

sudden death had inflicted upon his grandmother.

Now she had at last been subjugated by a new passion--love for the Greek

sculptor Hermon, who did his best to win the heart of the Biamite girl,

whose austere, extremely singular beauty attracted his artist eyes.

To-day Ledscha had come to the sorceress to learn from her what awaited

her and her love. She had landed on the island, sure of favourable

predictions, but now her hopes lay as if crushed by hailstones.

If Bias, who was superior to an ordinary slave, was right, she was to be

degraded to a toy and useful tool by the man who had already proved

his pernicious power over other women of her race, even her own young

sister, whom she had hitherto guarded with faithful care. It had by no

means escaped her notice that the girl was concealing something from

her, though she did not perceive the true cause of the change.

The bright moonbeams, which now wove a silvery web over every

surrounding object, seemed like a mockery of her darkened soul.

If the demons of the heights and depths had been subject to her, as to

the aged enchantress she would have commanded them to cover the heavens

with black clouds. Now they must show her what she had to hope or to

fear.

She shook her head slightly, as if she no longer believed in a

favourable turn of affairs, pushed the little curls which had escaped

from the wealth of her black hair back from her forehead with her

slender hand, and walked firmly to the house.

The old dame was crouching beside the hearth in the middle room, turning

the metal spit, on which she had put the ducks, over the freshly kindled

fire.

The smoke hurt her eyes, which were slightly inflamed, yet they seemed

to serve their purpose better than her half-dulled ear, for, after a

swift glance at Ledscha, she stammered in her faltering speech: “What

has happened? Nothing good, certainly. It is written on your face.”

The girl nodded assent, pointed with a significant gesture to her eyes

and the open air, and went down to the shore again to convince herself

that no other vessel was approaching.

What she had to confide to Tabus was intended for her alone, and

experience taught how far spoken words could be heard at night over the

water.

When she had returned to the hut, she bent down to the old woman’s ear

and, holding her curved hand to her lips, cried, “He is not coming!”

Tabus shrugged her shoulders, and the smile of satisfaction which

flitted over her brown, wrinkled face showed that the news was welcome.

For her murdered grandson’s sake the girl’s confession that she had

given her heart to a Greek affected her painfully; but Tabus also had

something else on her mind for her beautiful darling.

Now she only intimated by a silent nod that she understood Ledscha, and

her head remained constantly in motion as the latter continued: “True,

I shall see him again to-morrow, but when we part, it will hardly be

in love. At any rate--do you hear, grandmother?--to-morrow must decide

everything. Therefore--do you understand me?--you must question the

cords now, to-night, for to-morrow evening what they advised might be

too late.”

“Now?” repeated Tabus in surprise, letting her gaze rest inquiringly

upon the girl. Then she took the spit from the fire, exclaiming angrily:

“Directly, do you mean? As if that could be! As if the stars obeyed

us mortals like maids or men servants! The moon must be at the full to

learn the truth from the cords. Wait, child! What is life but waiting?

Only have patience, girl! True, few know how to practise this art at

your age, and it is alien to many all their lives. But the stars! From

them, the least and the greatest, man can learn to go his way patiently,

year by year. Always the same course and the same pace. No deviation

even one hair’s breadth, no swifter or slower movement for the unresting

wanderers. No sudden wrath, no ardent desire, no weariness or aversion

urges or delays them. How I love and honour them! They willingly submit

to the great law until the end of all things. What they appoint for

this hour is for it alone, not for the next one. Everything in the vast

universe is connected with them. Whoever should delay their course a

moment would make the earth reel. Night would become day, the rivers

would return to their sources. People would walk on their heads

instead of their feet, joy would be transformed to sorrow and power to

servitude. Therefore, child, the full moon has a different effect from

the waxing or waning one during the other twenty-nine nights of the

month. To ask of one what belongs to another is to expect an answer from

the foreigner who does not understand your language. How young you are,

child, and how foolish! To question the cords for you in the moonlight

now is to expect to gather grapes from thorns. Take my word for that!”

Here she interrupted the words uttered with so much difficulty, and

with her blackish-blue cotton dress wiped her perspiring face, strangely

flushed by the exertion and the firelight.

Ledscha had listened with increasing disappointment.

The wise old dame was doubtless right, yet before she ventured to the

sculptor’s workshop the next day she must know at every cost how matters

stood, what she had to fear or to hope from him; so after a brief

silence she ventured to ask the question, “But are there only the stars

and the cords which predict what fate holds in store for one who is so

nearly allied to you?”

“No, child, no,” was the reply. “But nothing can be clone about looking

into the future now. It requires rigid fasting from early dawn, and I

ate the dates you brought me. I inhaled the odor of the roasting ducks,

too, and then--it must be done at midnight; and at midnight your people

will be anxious if you are not at home by that time, or perhaps send a

slave to seek you here at my house, and that--that must not be done--I

must prevent it.”

“So you are expecting some one,” Ledscha eagerly replied. “And I know

who it is. Your son Satabus, or one of your grandsons. Else why are the

ducks cooked? And for what is the wine jar which I just took from its

hiding place?”

A vehement gesture of denial from Tabus contradicted the girl’s

conjecture; but directly after she scanned her with a keen, searching

glance, and said: “No, no. We have nothing to fear from you, surely.

Poor Abus! Through him you will always belong to us. In spite of the

Greek, ours you are and ours you will remain. The stars confirm it,

and you have always been faithful to the old woman. You are shrewd and

steadfast. You would have been the right mate for him who was also wise

and firm. Poor, dear, brave boy! But why pity him? Because the salt

waves now flow over him? Fools that we are! There is nothing better than

death, for it is peace. And almost all of them have found it. Of nine

sons and twenty grandsons, only three are left. The others are all

calm after so much conflict and danger. How long ago it is since seven

perished at once! The last three their turn will come too. How I envy

them that best of blessings, only may they not also go before me!”

Here she lowered her voice, and in a scarcely audible whisper murmured:

“You shall know it. My son Satabus, with his brave boys Hanno and

Labaja, are coming later in the evening. About midnight--if ye protect

them, ye powers above--they will be with me. And you, child, I know your

soul to its inmost depths. Before you would betray the last of Abus’s

kindred--”

“My hand and tongue should wither!” Ledscha passionately interrupted,

and then, with zealous feminine solicitude, she asked whether the three

ducks would suffice to satisfy the hunger of these strong men.

The old woman smiled and pointed to a pile of fresh leaves heaped one

above another, beneath which lay several fine shad. They were not to be

cooked until the expected visitors arrived, and she had plenty of bread

besides.

In the presence of these proofs of maternal solicitude the morose,

wrinkled countenance of the old sorceress wore a kind, almost tender

expression, and the light of joyous anticipation beamed upon her young

guest from her red-rimmed eyes.

“I am to see them once more!” cried Tabus in an agitated tone. “The

last--and all three, all! If they--But no; they will not set to work so

near Pelusium. No, no! They will not, lest they should spoil the meeting

with the old woman. Oh, they are kind; no one knows how kind my rough

Satabus can be. He would be your father now, girl, if we could have kept

our Abus--he was the best of all--longer. It is fortunate that you are

here, for they must see you, and it would have been hard for me to fetch

the other things: the salt, the Indian pepper, and the jug of Pelusinian

zythus, which Satabus is always so fond of drinking.”

Then Ledscha went into the ruinous left wing of the house, where she

took from a covered hole in the floor what the old woman had kept for

the last of her race, and she performed her task gladly and with rare

skill.

Next she prepared the fish and the pan, and while her hands were moving

busily she earnestly entreated the old woman to gratify her wish and

look into the future for her.

Tabus, however, persisted in her refusal, until Ledscha again called her

“grandmother,” and entreated her, by the heads of the three beloved ones

whom she expected, to fulfil her desire.

Then the old dame rose, and while the girl, panting for breath, took the

roasted ducks from the spit, the former, with her own trembling hands,

drew from the little chest which she kept concealed behind a heap of dry

reeds, branches, and straw, a shining copper dish, tossed the gold coins

which had been in it back into the box, and moistened the bottom with

the blackish-red juice of the grape from the wine jar.

After carefully making these preparations she called Ledscha and

repeated that the cords possessed the power of prophecy only on nights

when the moon was full, and that she would use another means of looking

into the future.

Then she commanded the girl to let her hands rest now and to think of

nothing except the questions whose answer she had at heart. Lastly,

she muttered into the vessel a series of incantations, which Ledscha

repeated after her, and gazed as if spellbound at the dark liquid which

covered the bottom.

The girl, panting for breath, watched every movement of the sorceress,

but some time elapsed ere the latter suddenly exclaimed, “There he is!”

and then, without removing her eyes from the bottom of the vessel, she

went on, with faltering accents, as though she was describing a scene

close before her eyes. “Two young men-both Greeks, if the dress does not

deceive--one is at your right hand, the other at your left. The former

is fair-haired; the glance of his eyes is deep and constant. It is he,

I think--But no! His image is fading, and you are turning your back upon

him. You do it intentionally. No, no, you two are not destined for each

other. You think of the one with the waving black hair and beard--of him

alone. He is growing more and more distinct--a handsome man, and how his

brow shines! Yet his glance--it sees more than that of many others, but,

like the rest of his nature, it lacks steadfastness.”

Here she paused, raised her shaking head, looked at Ledscha’s flushed

face, and in a grave, warning tone, said: “Many signs of happiness, but

also many dark shadows and black spots. If he is the one, child, you

must be on your guard.”

“He is,” murmured the girl softly, as if speaking to herself.

But the deaf old crone had read the words from her lips, and while

gazing intently at the wine, went on impatiently: “If the picture would

only grow more distinct! As it was, so it has remained. And now! The

image of the fair man with the deep-blue eyes melts away entirely, and a

gray cloud flutters between you and the other one with the black beard.

If it would only scatter! But we shall never make any progress in this

way. Now pay attention, girl.”

The words had an imperious tone, and with outstretched head and

throbbing heart Ledscha awaited the old woman’s further commands.

They came at once and ordered her to confess, as freely and openly as

though she was talking to herself, where she had met the man whom she

loved, how he had succeeded in snaring her heart, and how he repaid her

for the passion which he had awakened.

These commands were so confused and mingled in utterance that any one

less familiar with the speaker would scarcely have comprehended what

they required of her, but Ledscha understood and was ready to obey.

CHAPTER IV.

This reserved, thoroughly self-reliant creature would never have

betrayed to any human being what moved her soul and filled it some times

with inspiring hope, sometimes with a consuming desire for vengeance;

but Ledscha did not shrink from confiding it to the demons who were to

help her to regain her composure.

So, obeying a swift impulse, she threw herself on her knees by the old

woman’s side. Then, supporting her head with her hands, she gazed at the

still glimmering fire, and, as if one memory after another received new

life from it, she began the difficult confession:

“I returned from my sister’s brick-kiln a fortnight ago,” she commenced,

while the sorceress leaned her deaf ear nearer to her lips.

“During my absence something--I know not what it was--had saddened the

cheerful spirits of my young sister Taus. At the recent festival of

Astarte she regained them, and obtained some beautiful bright flowers

to make wreaths for herself and me. So we joined the procession of the

Tennis maidens and, as the fairest, they placed us directly behind the

daughters of Hiram.

“When we were about to go home after the sacrifice, two young Greeks

approached us and greeted Hiram’s daughters and my sister also.

“One was a quiet young man, with narrow shoulders and light, curling

hair; the other towered above him in stature. His powerful figure was

magnificently formed, and he carried his head with its splendid black

beard proudly.

“Since the gods snatched Abus from me, though so many men had wooed me,

I had cared for no one; but the fair-haired Greek with the sparkling

light in his blue eyes and the faint flush on his cheeks pleased me, and

his name, ‘Myrtilus,’ fell upon my ear like music. I was glad when he

joined me and asked, as simply as though he were merely inquiring the

way, why he had never seen me, the loveliest among the beauties in the

temple, in Tennis.

“I scarcely noticed the other. Besides, he seemed to have eyes only

for Taus and the daughters of Hiram. He played all sorts of pranks with

them, and they laughed so heartily that, fearing the strangers, of whom

there was no lack, might class them with the Hieroduli who followed

the sailors and young men in the temple grottoes, I motioned to Taus to

restrain herself.

“Hermon--this was the name of the tall, bearded man--noticed it and

turned toward me. In doing so his eyes met mine, and it seemed as though

sweet wine flowed through my veins, for I perceived that my appearance

paralyzed his reckless tongue. Yet he did not accost me; but Myrtilus,

the fair one, entreated me not to lessen for the beautiful children the

pleasure to which we are all born.

“I thought this remark foolish--how much sorrow and how little pleasure

I had experienced from childhood!--so I only shrugged my shoulders

disdainfully.

“Then the black-bearded man asked if, young and beautiful as I was, I

had forgotten to believe in mirth and joy. My reply was intended to tell

him that, though this was not the case, I did not belong to those who

spent their lives in loud laughing and extravagant jests.

“The answer was aimed at the black-bearded man’s reckless conduct; but

the fair-haired one parried the attack in his stead, and retorted that I

seemed to misunderstand his friend. Pleasure belonged to a festival, as

light belonged to the sun; but usually Hermon laboured earnestly, and

only a short time before he had saved the little daughter of Gula, the

sailor’s wife, from a burning house.

“The other did not let Myrtilus finish, but exclaimed that this would

only confirm my opinion of him, for this very leap into the flames had

afforded him the utmost joy.

“The words fell from his bearded lips as if the affair was very simple,

a mere matter of course, yet I knew that the bold deed had nearly cost

him his life--I said to myself that no one but our Abus would have done

it, and then I may have looked at him more kindly, for he cried out that

I, too, understood how to smile, and would never cease doing so if I

knew how it became me.

“As he spoke he turned away from the girls to my side, while Myrtilus

joined them. Hermon’s handsome face had become grave and thoughtful, and

when our eyes met I could have wished that they would never part again.

But on account of the others I soon looked down at the ground and we

walked on in this way, side by side, for some distance; but as he

did not address a word to me, only sometimes gazed into my face as if

seeking or examining, I grew vexed and asked him why he, who had just

entertained the others gaily enough, had suddenly become so silent.

“He shook his head and answered--every word impressed itself firmly upon

my memory: ‘Because speech fails even the eloquent when confronted with

a miracle.’

“What, except me and my beauty, could be meant by that? But he probably

perceived how strangely his words confused me, for he suddenly seized

my hand, pressing it so firmly that it hurt me, and while I tried to

withdraw it he whispered, ‘How the immortals must love you, that they

lend you so large a share of their own divine beauty!’”

“Greek honey,” interposed the sorceress, “but strong enough to turn such

a poor young head. And what more happened? The demons desire to hear

all--all--down to the least detail--all!”

“The least detail?” repeated Ledscha reluctantly, gazing into vacancy

as if seeking aid. Then, pressing her hand on her brow, she indignantly

exclaimed: “Ah, if I only knew myself how it conquered me so quickly! If

I could understand and put it into intelligible words, I should need

no stranger’s counsel to regain my peace of mind. But as it is! I was

driven by my anxiety from temple to temple, and now to you and your

demons. I went from hour to hour as though in a burning fever. If I

left the house firmly resolved to bethink myself and, as I had bidden my

sister, avoid danger and the gossip of the people, my feet still led me

only where he desired to meet me. Oh, and how well he understood how to

flatter, to describe my beauty! Surely it was impossible not to believe

in it and trust its power!”

Here she hesitated, and while gazing silently into vacancy a sunny

light flitted over her grave face, and, drawing a long breath, she began

again: “I could curse those days of weakness and ecstasy which now--at

least I hope so--are over. Yet they were wonderfully beautiful, and

never can I forget them!”

Here she again bowed her head silently, but the old dame nodded

encouragingly, saying eagerly; “Well, well! I understand all that, and

I shall learn what more is coming, for whatever appears in the mirror

of the wine is infallible--but it must become still more distinct. Let

me--first conjure up the seventy-seven great and the seven hundred and

seventy-seven little demons. They will do their duty, if you open your

heart to us without reserve.”

This demand sounded urgent enough, and Ledscha pressed her head against

the old woman’s shoulder as if seeking assistance, exclaiming: “I can

not--no, I can not! As if the spirits who obey you did not know already

what had happened and will happen in the future! Let them search the

depths of my soul. There they will see, with their own eyes, what I

should never, never succeed in describing. I could not tell even

you, grandmother, for who among the Biamites ever found such lofty,

heart-bewitching words as Hermon? And what looks, what language he had

at command, when he desired to put an end to my jealous complaints!

Could I still be angry with him, when he confessed that there were other

beauties here whom he admired, and then gazed deep into my eyes and said

that when I appeared they all vanished like the stars at sunrise? Then

every reproach was forgotten, and resentment was transformed into doubly

ardent longing. This, however, by no means escaped his keen glance,

which detects everything, and so he urged me with touching, ardent

entreaties to go with him to his studio, though but for one poor, brief

hour.”

“And you granted his wish?” Tabus anxiously interrupted.

“Yes,” she answered frankly, “but it was the evening of the day before

yesterday--that was the only time. Secrecy--nothing, Grand mother, was

more hateful to me from childhood.”

“But he,” the old woman again interrupted, “he--I know it--he praised it

to you as the noblest virtue.”

A silent nod from Ledscha confirmed this conjecture, and she added

hesitatingly: “‘Only far from the haunts of men,’ he said, ‘when the

light had vanished, did we hear the nightingale trill in the

dark thickets. Those are his own words, and though it angers you,

Grandmother, they are true.”

“Until the secrecy is over, and the sun shines upon misery,” the

sorceress answered in her faltering speech, with menacing severity.

“And beneath the tempter’s roof you enjoyed the lauded secret love until

the cock roused you?”

“No,” replied Ledscha firmly. “Did I ever tell you a lie, that you look

at me so incredulously?”

“Incredulously?” replied the old woman in protest. “I only trembled at

the danger into which you plunged.”

“There could be no greater peril,” the girl admitted. “I foresaw it

clearly enough, and yet--this is the most terrible part of it--yet my

feet moved as if obeying a will of their own, instead of mine, and when

I crossed his threshold, resistance was silenced, for I was received

like a princess. The lofty, spacious apartment was brilliantly

illuminated, and the door was garlanded with flowers.

“It was magnificent! Then, in a manner as respectful as if welcoming an

illustrious guest, he invited me to take my place opposite to him, that

he might form a goddess after my model. This was the highest flattery of

all, and I willingly assumed the position he directed, but he looked

at me from every side, with sparkling eyes, and asked me to let down my

hair and remove the veil from the back of my head. Then--need I assure

you of it?--my blood boiled with righteous indignation; but instead of

being ashamed of the outrage, he raised his hand to my head and pulled

the veil. Resentment and wrath suddenly flamed in my soul, and before he

could detain me I had left the room. In spite of his representations and

entreaties, I did not enter it again.”

“Yet,” asked the sorceress in perplexity, “you once more obeyed his

summons?”

“Yesterday also I could not help it,” Ledscha answered softly.

“Fool!” cried Tabus indignantly, but the girl exclaimed, in a tone of

sincere shame: “You do well to call me that. Perhaps I deserve still

harsher names, for, in spite of the sternness with which I forbade him

ever to remind me of the studio by even a single word, I soon listened

to him willingly when he besought me, if I really loved him, not to

refuse what would make him happy. If I allowed him to model my figure,

his renown and greatness would be secured. And how clearly he made me

understand this! I could not help believing it, and at last promised

that, in spite of my father and the women of Tennis, I would grant all,

all, and accompany him again to the work room if he would have patience

until the night of the next day but one, when the moon would be at the

full.”

“And he?” asked Tabus anxiously.

“He called the brief hours which I required him to wait an eternity,”

replied the girl, “and they seemed no less long to me--but neither

entreaties nor urgency availed; what you predicted for me from the

cords last year strengthened my courage. I should wantonly throw away--I

constantly reminded myself--whatever great good fortune Fate destined

for me if I yielded to my longing and took prematurely what was already

so close at hand; for--do you remember?--at that time it was promised

that on a night when the moon was at the full a new period of the

utmost happiness would begin for me. And now--unless everything deceives

me--now it awaits me. Whether it will come with the full moon of

to-morrow night, or the next, or the following one, your spirits

alone can know; but yesterday was surely too soon to expect the new

happiness.”

“And he?” asked the old dame.

“He certainly did not make it easy for me,” was the reply, “but as

I remained firm, he was obliged to yield. I granted only his earnest

desire to see me again this evening. I fancy I can still hear him

exclaim, with loving impetuosity, that he hated every day and every

night which kept him from me. And now? Now? For another’s sake he lets

me wait for him in vain, and if his slave does not lie, this is only the

beginning of his infamous, treacherous game.”

She had uttered the last words in a hoarse cry, but Tabus answered

soothingly: “Hush, child, hush! The first thing is to see clearly, if

I am to interpret correctly what is shown me here. The demons are to

be fully informed they have required it. But you? Did you come to hear

whether the spirits still intend to keep the promise they made then?”

Ledscha eagerly assented to this question, and the old woman continued

urgently: “Then tell me first what suddenly incenses you so violently

against the man whom you have so highly praised?”

The girl related what had formerly been rumoured in Tennis, and which

she had just heard from the slave.

He had lured other women--even her innocent young sister--to his studio.

Now he wanted to induce Ledscha to go there, not from love, but merely

to model her limbs so far as he considered them useful for his work.

He was in haste to do so because he intended to return to the capital

immediately. Whether he meant to leave her in the lurch after using her

for his selfish purposes, she also desired to learn from the sorceress.

But she would ask him that question herself to-morrow. Woe betide him if

the spirits recognised in him the deceiver she now believed him.

Hitherto Tabus had listened quietly, but when she closed her passionate

threats with the exclamation that he also deserved punishment for

alienating Gula, the sailor’s wife, from her absent husband, the

enchantress also lost her composure and cried out angrily: “If that

is true, if the Greek really committed that crime--then certainly. The

foreigners destroy, with their laughing levity, much that is good among

us. We must endure it; but whoever broke the Biamite’s marriage bond,

from the earliest times, forfeited his life, and so, the gods be

thanked, it has remained. This very last year the fisherman Phabis

killed with a hammer the Alexandrian clerk who had stolen into his

house, and drowned his faithless wife. But your lover--though you should

weep for sorrow till your eyes are red--”

“I would denounce the traitor, if he made himself worthy of death,”

Ledscha passionately interrupted, with flashing eyes. “What portion

of the slave’s charge is true will appear at once--and if it proves

correct, to morrow’s full moon shall indeed bring me the greatest bliss;

for though, when I was younger and happier, I contradicted Abus when he

declared that one thing surpassed even the raptures of love--satisfied

vengeance--now I would agree with him.”

A loud cry of “Right! right!” from the old crone’s lips expressed the

gray-haired Biamite’s pleasure in this worthy daughter of her race.

Then she again gazed at the wine in the vessel, and this time she did so

silently, as if spellbound by the mirror on its bottom.

At last, raising her aged head, she said in a tone of the most sincere

compassion: “Poor child! Yes, you would be cruelly and shamefully

deceived. Tear your love for this man from your heart, like poisonous

hemlock. But the full moon which is to bring you great happiness is

scarcely the next, perhaps not even the one which follows it, but surely

and certainly a later one will rise, by whose light the utmost bliss

awaits you. True, I see it come from another man than the Greek.”

The girl had listened with panting breath. She believed as firmly in the

infallibility of the knowledge which the witch received from the demons

who obeyed her as she did in her own existence.

All her happiness, all that had filled her joyous soul with freshly

awakened hopes, now lay shattered at her feet, and sobbing aloud she

threw herself down beside the old woman and buried her beautiful face in

her lap.

Completely overwhelmed by the great misfortune which had come upon her,

without thinking of the vengeance which had just made her hold her head

so proudly erect, or the rare delight which a later full moon was to

bring, she remained motionless, while the old woman, who loved her and

who remembered an hour in the distant past when she herself had been

dissolved in tears at the prediction of another prophetess, laid her

trembling hand upon her head.

Let the child weep her fill.

Time, perhaps vengeance also, cured many a heartache, and when they had

accomplished this office upon the girl who had once been betrothed to

her grandson, perhaps the full moon bringing happiness, whose appearance

first the cords, then the wine mirror in the bottom of the vessel had

predicted, would come to Ledscha, and she believed she knew at whose

side the girl could regain what she had twice lost--satisfaction for the

young heart that yearned for love.

“Only wait, wait,” she cried at last, repeating the consoling words

again and again, till Ledscha raised her tear-stained face.

Impulse urged her to kiss the sufferer, but as she bent over the mourner

the copper dish slipped from her knees and fell rattling on the floor.

Ledscha started up in terror, and at the same moment the Alexandrian’s

packs of hounds on the shore opposite to the Owl’s Nest began to bark

so loudly that the deaf old woman heard the baying as if it came from a

great distance; but the girl ran out into the open air and, returning

at the end of a few minutes, called joyously to the sorceress from the

threshold, “They are coming!”

“They, they,” faltered Tabus, hurriedly pushing her disordered gray hair

under the veil on the back of her head, while exclaiming, scarcely able

to use her voice in her joyous excitement: “I knew it. He keeps his

word. My Satabus is coming. The ducks, the bread, the fish, girl! Good,

loyal heart.”

Then a wide, long shadow fell across the dimly lighted room, and from

the darkened threshold a strangely deep, gasping peal of laughter rang

from a man’s broad breast.

“Satabus! My boy!” the witch’s shriek rose above the peculiar sound.

“Mother!” answered the gray-bearded lips of the pirate.

For one short moment he remained standing at the door with outstretched

arms. Then he took a step toward the beloved being from whom he had been

separated more than two years, and suddenly throwing himself down before

her, while his huge lower limbs covered part of the floor, he stretched

his hands toward the little crooked old woman, who had not strength

to rise from her crouching posture, and seizing her with loving

impetuosity, lifted her as if she were a child, and placing her on his

knees, drew her into a close embrace.

Tabus willingly submitted to this act of violence, and passing her

thin left arm around her son’s bull neck with her free hand, patted his

bearded cheeks, wrinkled brow, and bushy, almost white hair.

No intelligible words passed the lips of either the mother or the son

at this meeting; nothing but a confused medley of tender and uncouth

natural sounds, which no language knows.

Yet they understood each other, and Ledscha, who had moved silently

aside, also comprehended that these low laughs, moans, cries, and

stammers were the expressions of love of two deeply agitated hearts, and

for a moment an emotion of envy seized her.

The gods had early bereft her of her mother, while this savage fighter

against the might of the waves, justice, law, and their pitiless,

too powerful defenders, this man, already on the verge of age, still

possessed his, and sunned his rude heart in her love.

It was some time before the old pirate had satisfied his yearning for

affection and placed his light burden down beside the fire.

Tabus now regained the power to utter distinct words, and, difficult

as it was for her half paralyzed tongue to speak, she poured a flood of

tender pet names and affectionate thanks upon the head of her rude son,

the last one left, who had grown gray in bloody warfare; but with the

eyes of her soul she again saw in him the little boy whom, with warm

maternal love, she had once pressed to her breast and cradled in her

arms.

When, in his rough fashion, he warmly returned her professions of

tenderness, her eyes grew wet with tears, and at the question what he

could still find in her, a withered, good-for-nothing little creature

who just dragged along from one day to another, an object of pity

to herself, he again burst into his mighty laugh, and his deep voice

shouted: “Do you want to know that? But where would be the lime that

holds us on the ships if you were no longer here? The best capture

wouldn’t be worth a drachm if we could not say, ‘Hurrah! how pleased the

old mother will be when she hears it!’ And when things go badly, when

men have been wounded or perished in the sea, we should despair of

our lives if we did not know that whatever troubles our hearts the

old mother feels, too, and we shall always get from her the kind words

needed to press on again. And then, when the strait is sore and life is

at stake, whence would come the courage to cast the die if we did not

know that you are with us day and night, and will send your spirits to

help us if the need is great? Hundreds of times they rushed to our aid

just at the right time, and assisted us to hew off the hand of the foe

which was already choking us. But that is only something extra, which we

could do without, if necessary. That you are here, that a man still

has his dear mother, whose heart wishes us everything good and our foes

death and destruction, whose aged eyes will weep if anything harms us,

that, mother dear, that is the main thing!”

He bent his clumsy figure over her as he spoke, and cautiously, as if he

were afraid of doing her some injury, kissed her head with tender care.

Then, rising, he turned to Ledscha, whom he always regarded as his dead

son’s betrothed bride, and greeted her with sincere kindness.

Her great beauty strengthened his plan of uniting her to his oldest son,

and when the latter entered the house he cast a searching glance at him.

The result was favourable, for a smile of satisfaction flitted over his

scarred features.

The young pirate’s stately figure was not inferior in height to the

old one’s, but his shoulders were narrower, his features less broad and

full, and his hair and beard had the glossy raven hue of the blackbird’s

plumage.

The young man paused on the threshold in embarrassment, and gazed at

Ledscha with pleased surprise. When he saw her last his grandmother had

not been stricken by paralysis, and the girl was the promised wife of

his older brother, to whom custom forbade him to raise his eyes.

He had thought of her numberless times as the most desirable of women.

Now nothing prevented his wooing her, and finding her far more beautiful

than memory had showed her, strengthened his intention of winning her.

This purpose had matured in the utmost secrecy. He had concealed it even

from his father and his brother Labaja, who was still keeping watch on

the ships, for he had a reserved disposition, and though obliged to obey

his father, wherever it was possible he pursued his own way.

Though Satabus shared Hanno’s wish, it vexed him that at this meeting,

after so long a separation, his son should neglect his beloved and

honoured mother for the sake of a beautiful girl. So, turning his back

on Ledscha, he seized the young giant’s shoulder with a powerful grip to

drag him toward the old woman; but Hanno perceived his error, and now,

in brief but affectionate words, showed his grandmother that he, too,

rejoiced at seeing her again.

The sorceress gazed at her grandson’s stalwart figure with a pleasant

smile, and, after welcoming him, exclaimed to Ledscha: “It seems as if

Abus had risen from the grave.”

The girl vouchsafed her dead lover’s brother a brief glance, and, while

pouring oil upon the fish in the pan, answered carelessly: “He is a

little like him.”

“Not only in person,” remarked the old pirate, with fatherly pride, and

pointing to the broad scar across the young man’s forehead, visible

even in the dim light, he added by way of explanation: “When we took

vengeance for Abus, he bore away that decoration of honour. The blow

nearly made him follow his brother, but the youth first sent the souls

of half a dozen enemies to greet him in the nether world.”

Then Ledscha held out her hand to Hanno, and permitted him to detain it

till an ardent glance from his black eyes met hers, and she withdrew

it blushing. As she did so she said to Tabus: “You can put them on the

fire, and there stands whatever else you need. I must go home now.”

In taking leave of the men she asked if she could hope to find them here

again the next day. “The full moon will make it damnably light,” replied

the father, “but they will scarcely venture to assail the right of

asylum, and the ships anchored according to regulation at Tanis, with a

cargo of wood from Sinope. Besides, for two years people have believed

that we have abandoned these waters, and the guards think that if we

should return, the last time to choose would be these bright nights.

Still, I should not like to decide anything positively about the morrow

until news came from Labaja.”

“You will find me, whatever happens,” Hanno declared after his father

had ceased speaking. Old Tabus exchanged a swift glance with her son,

and Satabus said: “He is his own master. If I am obliged to go--which

may happen--then, my girl, you must be content with the youth. Besides,

you are better suited to him than to the graybeard.”

He shook hands with Ledscha as he spoke, and Hanno accompanied her to

her boat.

At first he was silent, but as she was stepping into the skiff he

repeated his promise of meeting her here the following night.

“Very well,” she answered quickly. “Perhaps I may have a commission to

give you.”

“I will fulfil it,” he answered firmly.

“To-morrow, then,” she called, “unless something unexpected prevents.”

But when seated on the thwart she again turned to him, and asked: “Does

it need a long time to bring your ship, with brave men on board, to this

place?”

“We can be here in four hours, and with favourable winds still sooner,”

was the reply.

“Even if it displeases your father?”

“Even then, and though the gods, many as there are, should forbid--if

only your gratitude will be gained.”

“It will,” she answered firmly, and the water plashed lightly under the

strokes of her oars.

CHAPTER V.

In the extreme northern portion of the little city of Tennis a large,

perfectly plain whitewashed building stood on an open, grass-grown

square.

The side facing the north rested upon a solid substructure of hard

blocks of hewn stone washed by the waves.

This protecting wall extended along both sides of the long, plain

edifice, and prevented the water from overflowing the open space which

belonged to it.

Archias, the owner of the largest weaving establishment in Tennis, the

father of the Alexandrian aristocrat who had arrived the evening before,

was the owner of the house, as well as of the broad plain on which

he had had it built, with the indestructible sea wall, to serve as a

storehouse to receive the supplies of linen, flax, and wool which were

manufactured in his factories.

It was favourably situated for this purpose, for the raw materials could

be moved from the ships which brought them to Tennis directly into the

building. But as the factories were at a considerable distance, the

transportation required much time and expense, and therefore Archias had

had a canal dug connecting the workshops with the water, and at its end

erected a new storehouse, which rendered a second transportation of the

ships’ cargoes unnecessary.

The white mansion had not yet been devoted to any other purpose when the

owner determined to offer the spacious empty rooms of the ware house to

his nephews, the sculptors Hermon and Myrtilus, for the production

of two works with whose completion he associated expectations of good

fortune both for the young artists, who were his nephews and wards, and

himself.

The very extensive building which now contained the studios and spacious

living apartments for the sculptors and their slaves would also have

afforded ample room for his daughter and her attendants, but Daphne

had learned from the reports of the artists that rats, mice, and other

disagreeable vermin shared the former storehouse with them, so she had

preferred to have tents pitched in the large open space which belonged

it.

True, the broad field was exposed to the burning sun, and its soil was

covered only with sand and pitiably scorched turf, but three palm trees,

a few sunt acacias, two carob trees, a small clump of fig trees, and the

superb, wide-branched sycamore on the extreme outer edge had won for it

the proud name of a “garden.”

Now a great change in its favour had taken place, for Daphne’s beautiful

tent, with walls and top of blue and white striped sail-cloth, and the

small adjoining tents of the same colours, gave it a brighter aspect.

The very roomy main tent contained the splendidly furnished sitting and

dining rooms. The beds occupied by Daphne and her companion, Chrysilla,

had been placed in an adjoining one, which was nearly as large, and the

cook, with his assistants, was quartered in a third.

The head keeper, the master of the hounds, and most of the slaves

remained in the transports which had followed the state galley. Some

had slept under the open sky beside the dog kennel hastily erected for

Daphne’s pack of hounds.

So, on the morning after the wholly unexpected arrival of the owner’s

daughter, the “garden” in front of the white house, but yesterday a

desolate field, resembled an encampment, whose busy life was varied and

noisy enough.

Slaves and freedmen had been astir before sunrise, for Daphne was up

betimes in order to begin the hunt in the early hour when the birds left

their secret nooks on the islands.

Her cousins, the young sculptors, to please her, had gone out, too, but

the sport did not last long; for when the market place of Tennis, just

between the morning and noontide hours, was most crowded, the little

boats which the hunters had used again touched the shore.

With them and Daphne’s servants seafaring men also left the

boats--Biamite fishermen and boatmen, who knew the breeding places and

nests of the feathered prey--and before them, barking loudly and shaking

their dripping bodies, the young huntress’s brown and white spotted dogs

ran toward the tents.

Dark-skinned slaves carried the game, which had been tied in bunches

while in the boats, to the white house, where they laid three rows of

large water fowl, upon the steps leading to the entrance.

Daphne’s arrows were supposed to have killed all these, but the master

of the hunt had taken care to place among his mistress’s booty some of

the largest pelicans and vultures which had been shot by the others.

Before retiring to her tent, she inspected the result of the shooting

expedition and was satisfied.

She had been told of the numbers of birds in this archipelago, but

the quantity of game which had been killed far exceeded her greatest

expectations, and her pleasant blue eyes sparkled with joy as she began

to examine the birds which had been slaughtered in so short a time.

Yet, ere she had finished the task, a slight shadow flitted over her

well-formed and attractive though not beautiful features.

The odour emanating from so many dead fowls, on which the sun, already

high in the heavens, was shining, became disagreeable to her, and a

strong sense of discomfort, whose cause, however, she did not seek, made

her turn from them.

The movement with which she did so was full of quiet, stately grace, and

the admiring glance with which Hermon, a tall, black-bearded young man,

watched it, showed that he knew how to value the exquisite symmetry of

her figure.

The somewhat full outlines of her form and the self-possession of her

bearing would have led every one to think her a young matron rather than

a girl; but the two artists who accompanied her on the shooting party

had been intimate with her from childhood, and knew how much modesty and

genuine kindness of heart were united with the resolute nature of this

maiden, who numbered two and twenty years.

Fair-haired Myrtilus seemed to pay little heed to the game which Gras,

Archias’s Bithynian house steward, was counting, but black-bearded

Hermon had given it more attention, and when Daphne drew back he nodded

approvingly, and pointing to the heap of motionless inhabitants of the

air, exclaimed with sincere regret: “Fie upon us human wretches! Would

the most bloodthirsty hyena destroy such a number of living creatures in

a few hours? Other beasts of prey do not kill even one wretched

sparrow more than they need to appease their hunger. But we and you,

tender-hearted priestess of a gracious goddess--leading us friends of

the Muse--we pursue a different course! What a mound of corpses! And

what will become of it? Perhaps a few geese and ducks will go into the

kitchen; but the rest--the red flamingoes and the brave pelicans who

feed their young with their own blood? They are only fit to throw away,

for the Biamites eat no game that is shot, and your black slaves, too,

would refuse to taste it. So we destroy hundreds of lives for pastime.

Base word! As if we had so many superfluous hours at our disposal ere we

descend into Hades. A philosopher among brutes would be entitled to cry

out, ‘Shame upon you, raging monster!’”

“Shame on you, you perpetual grumbler,” interrupted Daphne in an

offended tone. “Who would ever have thought it cruel to test the steady

hand and the keen eye upon senseless animals in the joyous chase? But

what shall we call the fault-finder, who spoils his friend’s innocent

enjoyment of a happy morning by his sharp reproaches?”

Hermon shrugged his shoulders, and, in a voice which expressed far

more compassion than resentment, answered: “If this pile of dead birds

pleases you, go on with the slaughter. You can sometimes save the arrows

and catch the swarming game with your hands. If your lifeless victims

yonder were human beings, after all, they would have cause to thank you;

for what is existence?”

“To these creatures, everything,” said Myrtilus, the Alexandrian’s

other cousin, beckoning to Daphne, who had summoned him to her aid by

a beseeching glance, to draw nearer. “Gladly as I would always and

everywhere uphold your cause, I can not do so this time. Only look here!

Your arrow merely broke the wing of yonder sea eagle, and he is just

recovering from the shock. What a magnificent fellow! How wrathfully and

vengefully his eyes sparkle! How fiercely he stretches his brave head

toward us in helpless fury, and--step back!--how vigorously, spite of

the pain of his poor, wounded, drooping pinion, he flaps the other, and

raises his yellow claws to punish his foes! His plumage glistens and

shines exquisitely where it lies smooth, and how savagely he puffs

out the feathers on his neck! A wonderful spectacle! The embodiment

of powerful life! And the others by his side. We transformed the poor

creatures into a motionless, miserable mass, and just now they were

cleaving the air with their strong wings, proclaiming by proud, glad

cries to their families among the reeds their approach with an abundant

store of prey. Every one was a feast to the eyes before our arrows

struck it, and now? When Hermon, with his pitying heart, condemns this

kind of hunting, he is right. It deprives free, harmless creatures of

their best possession--life--and us thereby of a pleasant sight. In

general, a bird’s existence seems to me also of little value, but

beauty, to me as to you, transcends everything else. What would

existence be without it? and wherever it appears, to injure it is

infamous.”

Here a slight cough interrupted the young artist, and the moist glitter

of his blue eyes also betrayed that he was suffering from an attack of

severe pain in his lungs; but Daphne nodded assent to him, and to Hermon

also, and commanded the steward Gras to take the birds out of her sight.

“But,” said the Bithynian, “our mistress will doubtless allow us at

least to take the hard lower part of the pelicans’ beaks, and the wing

feathers of the flamingoes and birds of prey, to show our master on our

return as trophies.”

“Trophies?” repeated the girl scornfully. “Hermon, you are better than

I and the rest of us, and I see that you are right. Where game flies

toward us in such quantities, hunting becomes almost murder. And

successes won by so slight an exertion offer little charm. The second

expedition before sunset, Gras, shall be given up. The master of the

hounds, with his men and the dogs, will return home on the transports

this very day. I am disgusted with sport here. Birds of prey, and those

only when brought down from the air, would probably be the right game in

this place.”

“Those are the very ones to which I would grant life,” said Hermon,

smiling, “because they enjoy it most.”

“Then we will at least save the sea eagle,” cried Daphne, and ordered

the steward, who was already having the dead fowl carried off, to care

for the wounded bird of prey; but when the latter struck furiously with

his beak at the Biamite who attempted to remove it, Hermon again turned

to the girl, saying: “I thank you in the eagle’s name for your good

will, you best of women; but I fear even the most careful nursing will

not help this wounded creature, for the higher one seeks to soar, the

more surely he goes to destruction if his power of flight is broken.

Mine, too, was seriously injured.”

“Here?” asked Daphne anxiously. “At this time, which is of such great

importance to you and your art?”

Then she interrupted herself to ask Myrtilus’s opinion, but as he had

gone away coughing, she continued, in a softer tone: “How anxious you

can make one, Hermon! Has anything really happened which clouds your

pleasure in creating, and your hope of success?”

“Let us wait,” he answered, hastily throwing back his head, with its

thick, waving raven locks. “If, in leaping over the ditch, I should fall

into the marsh, I must endure it, if thereby I can only reach the shore

where my roses bloom!”

“Then you fear that you have failed in the Demeter?” asked Daphne.

“Failed?” repeated the other. “That seems too strong. Only the work is

not proving as good as I originally expected. For the head we both used

a model--you will see--whose fitness could not be surpassed. But the

body! Myrtilus knows how earnestly I laboured, and, without looking to

the right or the left, devoted all my powers to the task of creation.

True, the models did not remain. But even had a magic spell doubled my

ability, the toil would still have been futile. The error is there; yet

I am repairing it. To be sure, many things must aid me in doing so, for

which I now hope; who knows whether it will not again be in vain? You

are acquainted with my past life. It has never yet granted me any great,

complete success, and if I was occasionally permitted to pluck a flower,

my hands were pricked by thorns and nettles!”

He pursed up his lips as if to hiss the unfriendly fate, and Daphne felt

that he, whose career she had watched from childhood with the interest

of affection, and to whom, though she did not confess it even to

herself, she had clung for years with far more than sisterly love,

needed a kind word.

Her heart ached, and it was difficult for her to assume the cheerful

tone which she desired to use; but she succeeded, and her voice sounded

gay and careless enough as she exclaimed to the by no means happy artist

and Myrtilus, who was just returning: “Give up your foolish opposition,

you obstinate men, and let me see what you have accomplished during this

long time. You promised my father that you would show your work to no

one before him, but believe my words, if he were here he would give

you back the pledge and lead me himself to the last production of your

study. Compassion would compel you disobliging fellows to yield, if you

could only imagine how curiosity tortures us women. We can conquer it

where more indifferent matters are concerned. But here!--it need not

make you vainer than you already are, but except my father, you are

dearest in all the world to me. And then, only listen! In my character

as priestess of Demeter I hereby release you from your vow, and thus

from any evil consequences of your, moreover, very trivial guilt; for a

father and daughter who live together, as I do with your uncle, are

just the same as one person. So come! Wearied as I am by the miserable

hunting excursion which caused me such vexation, in the presence of your

works--rely upon it--I shall instantly be gay again, and all my life

will thank you for your noble indulgence.”

While speaking, she walked toward the white house, beckoning to the

young men with a winning, encouraging smile.

It seemed to produce the effect intended, for the artists looked at

each other irresolutely, and Hermon was already asking himself whether

Daphne’s arguments had convinced Myrtilus also, when the latter, in

great excitement, called after her: “How gladly we would do it, but we

must not fulfil your wish, for it was no light promise--no, your father

exacted an oath. He alone can absolve us from the obligation of showing

him, before any one else, what we finish here. It is not to be submitted

to the judges until after he has seen it.”

“Listen to me!” Daphne interrupted with urgent warmth, and began to

assail the artists with fresh entreaties.

For the second time black-bearded Hermon seemed inclined to give up his

resistance, but Myrtilus cried in zealous refusal: “For Hermon’s sake,

I insist upon my denial. The judges must not talk about the work until

both tasks are completed, for then each of us will be as good as certain

of a prize. I myself believe that the one for Demeter will fall to me.”

“But Hermon will succeed better with the Arachne?” asked Daphne eagerly.

Myrtilus warmly assented, but Hermon exclaimed: “If I could only rely

upon the good will of the judges!”

“Why not?” the girl interrupted. “My father is just, the king is an

incorruptible connoisseur, and certainly yesterday evening you, too,

believed the others to be honest men; as for your fellow-candidate

Myrtilus, he will no more grudge a prize to you than to himself.”

“Why should he?” asked Hermon, as if he, too, was perfectly sure of his

friend. “We have shared many a bit of bread together. When we determined

upon this competition each knew the other’s ability. Your father

commissioned us to create peaceful Demeter, the patroness of

agriculture, peace, marriage, and Arachne, the mortal who was the most

skilful of spinners; for he is both a grain dealer and owner of spinning

factories. The best Demeter is to be placed in the Alexandrian temple of

the goddess, to whose priestesses you belong; the less successful one

in your own house in the city, but whose Demeter is destined for the

sanctuary, I repeat, is now virtually decided. Myrtilus will add this

prize to the others, and grant me with all his heart the one for the

Arachne. The subject, at any rate, is better adapted to my art than to

his, and so I should be tolerably certain of my cause. Yet my anxiety

about the verdict of the judges remains, for surely you know how much

the majority are opposed to my tendency. I, and the few Alexandrians

who, following me, sacrifice beauty to truth, swim against the stream

which bears you, Myrtilus, and those who are on your side, smoothly

along. I know that you do it from thorough conviction, but with

other acknowledged great artists and our judges, you, too, demand

beauty--always beauty. Am I right, or wrong? Is not any one who refuses

to follow in the footsteps left by the ancients of Athens as certain of

condemnation as the convicted thief or murderer? But I will not follow

the lead of the Athenians, inimitably great though they are in their

own way, because I would fain be more than the ancients of Ilissus: a

disciple and an Alexandrian.”

“The never-ending dispute,” Myrtilus answered his fellow-artist, with a

cordiality in which, nevertheless, there was a slight accent of pity.

“Surely you know it, Daphne. To me the ideal and its embodiment

within the limits of the natural, according to the models of Phidias,

Polycletus, and Myron is the highest goal, but he and his co-workers

seek objects nearer at hand.”

“Or rather we found them,” cried Hermon, interrupting his companion

with angry positiveness. “The city of Alexandria, which is growing with

unprecedented vigour, is their home. There, the place to which every

race on earth sends a representative, the pulse of the whole world is

throbbing. There, whoever does not run with the rest is run over; there,

but one thing is important--actual life. Science has undertaken to

fathom it, and the results which it gains with measures and numbers is

of a different value and more lasting than that which the idle sport of

the intellects of the older philosophers obtained. But art, her nobler

sister, must pursue the same paths. To copy life as it is, to reproduce

the real as it presents itself, not as it might or must be, is the task

which I set myself. If you would have me carve gods, whom man can not

represent to himself except in his own form, allow me also to represent

them as reality shows me mortals. I will form them after the models of

the greatest, highest, and best, and also, when the subject permits, in

powerful action in accordance with my own power, but always as real men

from head to foot. We must also cling to the old symbols which those

who order demand, because they serve as signs of recognition, and my

Demeter, too, received the bundle of wheat.”

As the excited artist uttered this challenge a defiant glance rested

upon his comrade and Daphne. But Myrtilus, with a soothing gesture of

the hand, answered: “What is the cause of this heat? I at least watch

your work with interest, and do not dispute your art so long as it does

not cross the boundaries of the beautiful, which to me are those of

art.”

Here the conversation was interrupted; the steward Gras brought a letter

which a courier from Pelusium had just delivered.

Thyone, the wife of Philippus, the commander of the strong border

fortress of Pelusium, near Tennis, had written it. She and her husband

had been intimate friends of Hermon’s father, who had served under the

old general as hipparch, and through him had become well acquainted with

his wealthy brother Archias and his relatives.

The Alexandrian merchant had informed Philippus--whom, like all the

world, he held in the highest honour as one of the former companions

of Alexander the Great--of his daughter’s journey, and his wife now

announced her visit to Daphne. She expected to reach Tennis that evening

with her husband and several friends, and mentioned especially her

anticipation of meeting Hermon, the son of her beloved Erigone and her

husband’s brave companion in arms.

Daphne and Myrtilus received the announcement with pleasure; but

Hermon, who only the day before had spoken of the old couple with great

affection, seemed disturbed by the arrival of the unexpected guests. To

avoid them entirely appeared impossible even to him, but he declared

in an embarrassed tone, and without giving any reason, that he should

scarcely be able to devote the entire evening to Daphne and the

Pelusinians.

Then he turned quickly toward the house, to which a signal from his

slave Bias summoned him.

CHAPTER VI.

As soon as Hermon had disappeared behind the door Daphne begged Myrtilus

to accompany her into the tent.

After taking their seats there, the anxious exclamation escaped her

lips: “How excited he became again! The stay in Tennis does not seem to

agree with you--you are coughing, and father expected so much benefit to

your ailment from the pure moist air, and to Hermon still more from

the lonely life here in your society. But I have rarely seen him more

strongly enlisted in behalf of the tendency opposed to beauty.”

“Then your father must be satisfied with the good effect which our

residence here has exerted upon me,” replied Myrtilus. “I know that

he was thinking of my illness when he proposed to us to complete his

commissions here. Hermon--the good fellow!--could never have been

induced to leave his Alexandria, had not the hope of thereby doing me a

kindness induced him to follow me. I will add it to the many for which

I am already indebted to his friendship. As for art, he will go his

own way, and any opposition would be futile. A goddess--he perceives it

himself--was certainly the most unfortunate subject possible for his--”

“Is his Demeter a complete failure?” asked Daphne anxiously.

“Certainly not,” replied Myrtilus eagerly.

“The head is even one of his very best. Only the figure awakens grave

doubts. In the effort to be faithful to reality, the fear of making

concessions to beauty, he lapsed into ungraceful angularity and a

sturdiness which, in my opinion, would be unpleasing even in a mortal

woman. The excess of unbridled power again makes it self visible in the

wonderfully gifted man. Many things reached him too late, and others too

soon.”

Daphne eagerly asked what he meant by these words, and Myrtilus replied:

“Surely you know how he became a sculptor. Your father had intended him

to be his successor in business, but Hermon felt the vocation to become

an artist--probably first in my studio--awake with intense force. While

I early placed myself under the instruction of the great Bryaxis, he was

being trained for a merchant’s life. When he was to guide the reed in

the counting-house, he sketched; when he was sent to the harbour to

direct the loading of the ships, he became absorbed in gazing at the

statues placed there. In the warehouse he secretly modelled, instead

of attending to the bales of goods. You are certainly aware what a

sad breach occurred then, and how long Hermon was restrained before he

succeeded in turning his back upon trade.”

“My father meant so kindly toward him,” Daphne protested. “He was

appointed guardian to you both. You are rich, and therefore he aided in

every possible way your taste for art; but Hermon did not inherit from

his parents a single drachm, and so my father saw the most serious

struggles awaiting him if he devoted himself to sculpture. And, besides,

he had destined his nephew to become his successor, the head of one of

the largest commercial houses in the city.”

“And in doing so,” Myrtilus responded, “he believed he had made the best

provision for his happiness. But there is something peculiar in art.

I know from your father himself how kind his intentions were when he

withdrew his assistance from Hermon, and when he had escaped to the

island of Rhodes, left him to make his own way during the first period

of apprenticeship through which he passed there. Necessity, he thought,

would bring him back to where he had a life free from anxiety awaiting

him. But the result was different. Far be it from me to blame the

admirable Archias, yet had he permitted his ward to follow his true

vocation earlier, it would have been better for him.”

“Then you think that he began to study too late?” asked Daphne eagerly.

“Not too late,” was the reply, “but with his passionate struggle to

advance, an earlier commencement would have been more favourable. While

the companions of his own age were already doing independent work, he

was still a student, and so it happened that he began for himself too

soon.”

“Yet,” Daphne answered, “can you deny that, directly after Hermon

produced his first work which made his talent undeniable, my father

again treated him like his own son?”

“On the contrary,” replied Myrtilus, “I remember only too well how

Archias at that time, probably not entirely without your intercession,

fairly showered gold upon his nephew, but unfortunately this abundance

was by no means to his advantage.”

“What do you mean?” asked Daphne. “Were not you, at that very time,

in full possession of the great wealth inherited from your father and

mother, and yet did you not work far beyond your strength? Bryaxis--I

heard him--was full of your praises, and yet entreated my father to use

all his influence, as guardian, to warn you against overwork.”

“My kind master!” cried Myrtilus, deeply moved. “He was as anxious about

me as a father.”

“Because he perceived that you were destined for great achievements.”

“And because it did not escape his penetration how much I needed care.

My lungs, Daphne, my lungs--surely you know how the malicious disease

became fatal to my clear mother, and to my brother and sister also. All

three sank prematurely into the grave, and for years the shades of my

parents have been beckoning to me too. When the cough shakes my chest, I

see Charon raise his oar and invite me also to enter his sable boat.”

“But you just assured me that you were doing well,” observed the girl.

“The cough alone makes me a little anxious. If you could only see for

yourself what a beautiful colour the pure air has given your cheeks!”

“This flush,” replied Myrtilus gravely, “is the sunset of life’s closing

day, not the dawn of approaching convalescence. But let us drop the

subject. I allude to these sorrowful things only to prevent your praises

of me at Hermon’s expense. True, even while a student I possessed wealth

far beyond my needs, but the early deaths of my brother and sister had

taught me even then to be economical of the brief span of life allotted

to me. Hermon, on the contrary, was overflowing with manly vigour, and

the strongest among the Ephebi in the wrestling school. After three

nights’ revel he would not even feel weary, and how difficult the women

made it for the handsome, black-bearded fellow to commence his work

early! Did you ever ask yourself why young steeds are not broken in

flowery meadows, but upon sand? Nothing which attracts their attention

and awakens their desires must surround them; but your father’s gold

led Hermon, ere the season of apprenticeship was over, into the most

luxuriant clover fields. Honour and respect the handsome, hot-blooded

youth that, nevertheless, he allowed himself to be diverted from work

only a short time and soon resumed it with ardent zeal, at first in

superabundance, and then amid fresh need and privation.”

“O Myrtilus,” the girl interrupted, “how terribly I suffered in those

days! For the first time the gods made me experience that there are

black clouds, as well as bright sunshine, in the human soul. For weeks

an impassable gulf separated me from my father, with whom I had always

had one heart and soul. But I never saw him as he was then. The first

prize had been awarded to you for your Aphrodite, radiant in marvellous

beauty, and your brow had also been already crowned for your statue of

Alexander, when Hermon stepped forward with his works. They were at the

same time the first which were to show what he believed to be the true

mission of art--a hideous hawker, hide in hand, praising his wares with

open mouth, and the struggling Maenads. Surely you know the horrible

women who throw one another on the ground, tearing and rending with

bestial fury. The spectacle of these fruits of the industry of one dear

to me grieved me also, and I could not understand how you and the others

saw anything to admire in them. And my father! At the sight of these

things the colour faded from his cheeks and lips, and, as if by virtue

of his guardianship he had a right to direct Hermon in the paths of

art also, he forbade his ward to waste any more time in such horrible

scarecrows, and awaken loathing and wrath instead of gratification,

exultation, and joy. You know the consequences, but you do not know how

my heart ached when Hermon, frantic with wounded pride and indignation,

turned his back upon my father and severed every tie that united him to

us. In spite of his deep vexation and the unbridled violence with which

the nephew had allowed himself to address his uncle, my father did not

dream of withholding his assistance from him. But Hermon no longer

came to our house, and when I sent for him to bring him to reason, he

positively declared that he would not accept another obolus from my

father--he would rather starve than permit any one to dictate to him

in the choice of his subjects. Liberty was worth more than his uncle’s

gold. Yet my father sent him his annual allowance.”

“But he refused it,” added Myrtilus. “I remember that day well, how I

tried to persuade him, and, when he persisted in his intention, besought

him to accept from my abundance what he needed. But this, too, he

resolutely refused, though at that time I was already so deeply in his

debt that I could not repay him at all with paltry money.”

“You are thinking of the devotion with which he nursed you when you were

so ill?” asked Daphne.

“Certainly; yet not of that alone,” was the reply. “You do not know how

he stood by me in the worst days. Who was it that after my first great

successes, when base envy clouded many an hour of my life, rejoiced with

me as though he himself had won the laurel? It was he, the ambitious

artist, though recognition held even farther aloof from his creations

than success. And when, just at that time, the insidious disease

attacked me more cruelly than ever, he devoted himself to me like a

loving brother. While formerly, in the overflowing joy of existence, he

had revelled all day and caroused all night, how often he paused in the

rush of gaiety to exchange the festal hall for a place beside my couch,

frequently remaining there until Eos dyed the east, that he might

hold my fevered hand and support my shaken frame! Frequently too, when

already garlanded for some gay banquet, he took the flowers from his

head and devoted the night to his friend, that he might not leave him to

the attendance of the slaves. It is owing to him, and the care and skill

of the great leech Erasistratus, that I am still standing before you

alive and can praise what my Hermon was and proved himself to me in

those days. Yet I must also accuse him of a wrong; to this hour I bear

him a grudge for having, in those sorrowful hours, refused to share my

property with me fraternally. What manly pride would have cheerfully

permitted him to accept was opposed by the defiant desire to show me,

your father, you, the whole world, that he would depend upon himself,

and needed assistance neither from human beings nor even the gods. In

the same way, while working, he obstinately rejected my counsel and

my help, though the Muse grants me some things which he unfortunately

lacks. Great as his talent is, firmly as I believe that he will yet

succeed some day in creating something grand, nay, perhaps something

mighty, the unbelieving disciple of Straton lacks the power of

comprehending the august dignity, the superhuman majesty of the divine

nature, and he does not succeed in representing the bewitching charm

of woman, because he hates it as the bull hates a red rag. Only once

hitherto has he been successful, and that was with your bust.”

Daphne’s cheeks suddenly flamed with a burning flush, and feeling it

she raised her feather fan to her eyes, and with forced indifference

murmured: “We were good friends from our earliest childhood. And,

besides, how small is the charm with which the artist who chooses me for

a model has to deal!”

“It is rather an unusually fascinating one,” Myrtilus asserted

resolutely. “I have no idea of flattering you, and you are certainly

aware that I do not number you among the beauties of Alexandria. But

instead of the delicate, symmetrical features which artists need, the

gods bestowed upon you a face which wins all hearts, even those of

women, because it is a mirror of genuine, helpful, womanly kindness, a

sincere disposition, and a healthy, receptive mind. To reproduce such a

face, not exactly beautiful, and yet bewitching, is the hardest possible

task, and Hermon, I repeat it, has succeeded. You are the only one of

your noble sex who inspires the motherless man with respect, and for

whom he feels more than a fleeting fancy. What does he not owe you?

After the bridge which united him to his uncle and paternal friend had

been so suddenly broken, it was you who rebuilt it. Now, I think, it is

stronger than ever. I could not imagine anything that would induce him

to give you up; and all honour to your father, who, instead of bearing

the insubordinate fellow a grudge, only drew him more warmly to his

heart, and gave us two commissions which will permit each to do his

best. If I see clearly, the daughter of Archias is closely connected

with this admirable deed.”

“Of course,” replied Daphne, “my father discussed his intention with me,

but the thought was entirely his own. True, Hermon’s Street-Boy eating

Figs was not exactly according to his taste, but it pleased him better

than his former works, and I agree with Euphranor, it is remarkably true

to nature. My father perceived this too. Besides, he is a merchant who

sets a high value upon what he has earned, and Hermon’s refusal of his

gold startled him. Then the good man also saw how nobly, in spite of his

wild life, his obstinacy, and the work so unpleasing to him, his nephew

always showed the noble impulses inherited from his brave father, and

thus Hermon gained the day.”

“But what would have become of him last year, after the mortifying

rejection of his model of The Happy Return Home for the harbour of

Eunostus,” asked Myrtilus, “if you and your encouragement had not

cheered him?”

“That verdict, too, was abominable!” exclaimed Daphne indignantly. “The

mother opening her arms to the returning son was unlovely, it is true,

and did not please me either; but the youth with the travelling hat and

staff is magnificent in his vigour and natural action.”

“That opinion, as you know, is mine also,” replied Myrtilus. “In the

mother the expression was intended to take the place of beauty. For the

returning son, as well as for the fig-eater, he found a suitable model.

True, the best was at his disposal for his Demeter.”

Here he hesitated; but Daphne so urgently asked to know what he, who had

already denied her admission to the studios, was now again withholding

from her, that, smiling indulgently, he added: “Then I must probably

consent to tell in advance the secret with which you were to be

surprised. Before him, as well as before me, hovered--since you wish

to know it--in Alexandria, when we first began to model the head of

the goddess, a certain charming face which is as dear to one as to the

other.”

Daphne, joyously excited, held out her hand to the artist, exclaiming:

“Oh, how kind that is! Yet how was it possible, since I posed neither to

him nor to you?”

“Hermon had finished your bust only a short time before, and you

permitted me to use your head for my statue of the goddess of Peace,

which went down with the ship on the voyage to Ostia. This was at the

disposal of us both in three or four reproductions, and, besides, it

hovered before our mental vision clearly enough. When the time to show

you our work arrives, you will be surprised to discover how differently

two persons see and copy the same object.”

“Now that I know so much, and have a certain share in your works, I

insist upon seeing them!” cried Daphne with far greater impetuosity than

usual. “Tell Hermon so, and remind him that I shall at any rate expect

him to meet the Pelusinian guests at the banquet. Threaten him seriously

with my grave displeasure if he persists in leaving it speedily.”

“I will not fail to do my part,” replied Myrtilus; “but as to your wish

to see the two Demeters--”

“That will come to pass,” interrupted Daphne, “as soon as we three are

together again like a clover leaf.” She returned the sculptor’s farewell

greeting as she spoke, but before he reached the entrance to the tent

she again detained him with the exclamation: “Only this one thing more:

Does Hermon deceive himself when he hopes so confidently for success

with the weaver, Arachne?”

“Hardly--if the model whom he desires does not fail him.”

“Is she beautiful, and did he find her here in Tennis?” asked Daphne,

trying to assume an indifferent manner; but Myrtilus was not deceived,

and answered gaily: “That’s the way people question children to find out

things. Farewell until the banquet, fair curiosity!”

CHAPTER VII.

The slave Bias had not gone to the hunting party with his master. He had

never been fit for such expeditions, since the Egyptian guard who took

him to the slave market for sale crippled the arch-traitor’s son’s left

leg by a blow, but he was all the more useful in the house, and even the

keenest eye could scarcely now perceive the injury which lessened his

commercial value.

He had prepared everything his master would need to shoot the birds very

early in the morning, and after helping the men push the boats into the

water, he, too, remained out of doors.

The old Nubian doorkeeper’s little badger dog ran to meet him, as usual,

barking loudly, and startled a flock of sparrows, which flew up directly

in front of Bias and fluttered to and fro in confusion.

The slave regarded this as an infallible omen, and when Stephanion,

Daphne’s maid, who had grown gray in the household of Archias, and

though a freed woman still worked in the old way, came out of the tent,

he called to her the gay Greek greeting, “Rejoice!” pointed to the

sparrows, and eagerly continued: “How one flies above another! how they

flutter and chirp and twitter! It will be a busy day.”

Stephanion thought this interpretation of the ordinary action of the

birds very consistent with Bias’s wisdom, which was highly esteemed in

the household of Archias, and it also just suited her inclination to

chat with him for a while, especially as she had brought a great deal of

news from Alexandria.

By way of introduction she mentioned the marriages and deaths in their

circle of acquaintances, bond and free, and then confided to the slave

what had induced her mistress to remain so long absent from her father,

whom she usually left alone for only a few hours at the utmost.

Archias himself had sent her here, after young Philotas, who was now

apparently wooing her with better success than other suitors, had

spoken of the enormous booty which one of his friends had brought from a

shooting expedition at Tennis, and Daphne had expressed a wish to empty

her quiver there too.

True, Philotas himself had been eager to guide the hunting party, but

Daphne declined his escort because--so the maid asserted--she cared far

more about meeting her cousins, the sculptors, than for the chase. Her

mistress had frankly told her so, but her father was delighted to hear

her express a wish, because for several months she had been so quiet and

listless that she, Stephanion, had become anxious about her. Meanwhile,

Daphne had tried honestly to conceal her feelings from the old man,

but such games of hide and seek were useless against the master’s keen

penetration. He spared no pains in the preparations for the journey,

and the girl now seemed already transformed. This was caused solely by

meeting her cousins again; but if any one should ask her whether Daphne

preferred Myrtilus or Hermon, she could not give a positive answer.

“Cautious inquiry saves recantation,” replied Bias importantly. “Yet you

may believe my experience, it is Myrtilus. Fame inspires love, and what

the world will not grant my master, in spite of his great talent, it

conceded to the other long ago. And, besides, we are not starving; but

Myrtilus is as rich as King Croesus of Sardis. Not that Daphne, who is

stifling in gold herself, would care about that, but whoever knows life

knows--where doves are, doves will fly.”

Stephanion, however, was of a different opinion, not only because Daphne

talked far more about the black-bearded cousin than the fair one, but

because she knew the girl, and was seldom mistaken in such matters.

She would not deny that Daphne was also fond of Myrtilus. Yet probably

neither of the artists, but Philotas, would lead home the bride, for he

was related to the royal family--a fine, handsome man; and, besides,

her father preferred him to the other suitors who hovered around her as

flies buzzed about honey. Of course, matters would be more favourable

to Philotas in any other household. Who else in Alexandria would consult

the daughter long, when he was choosing her future husband? But Archias

was a white raven among fathers, and would never force his only child to

do anything.

Marrying and loving, however, were two different affairs. If Eros had

the final decision, her choice might perhaps fall on one of the artists.

Here she was interrupted by the slave’s indignant exclamation: “What

contradictions! ‘Woman’s hair is long, but her wit is short,’ says the

proverb. ‘Waiting is the merchant’s wisdom,’ I have heard your master

say more than once, and to obey the words of shrewd people is the best

plan for those who are not so wise. Meanwhile, I am of the opinion that

curiosity alone brought Daphne--who, after all, is only a woman--to this

place. She wants to see the statues of Demeter which her father ordered

from us.”

“And the Arachne?” asked the maid. This was an opportune question to the

slave--how often he had heard the artists utter the word “Arachne!”--and

his pride of education had suffered from the consciousness that he knew

nothing about her except the name, which in Greek meant “the spider.”

Some special story must surely be associated with this Arachne, for

which his master desired to use his young countrywoman, Ledscha, as

a model, and whose statues Archias intended to place in his house in

Alexandria and in the great weaving establishment at Tennis beside the

statue of Demeter.

Stephanion, a Greek woman who grew up in a Macedonian household, must

know something about her.

So he cautiously turned the conversation to the spinner Arachne, and

when Stephanion entered into it, admitted that he, too, was curious to

learn in what way the sculptors would represent her.

“Yes,” replied the maid, “my mistress has more than once racked her

brains over that, and Archias too. Perhaps they will carve her as a girl

at work in the house of her father Idmon, the purple dyer of Colophon.”

“Never,” replied Bias in a tone of dissent. “Just imagine how the loom

would look wrought in gold and ivory!”

“I thought so too,” said Stephanion, in apology for the foolish idea.

“Daphne thinks that the two will model her in different ways: Myrtilus,

as mistress in the weaving room, showing with proud delight a piece just

completed to the nymphs from the Pactolus and other rivers, who sought

her at Colophon to admire her work; but Hermon, after she aroused the

wrath of Athene because she dared to weave into the hangings the love

adventures of the gods with mortal women.”

“Father Zeus as a swan toying with Leda,” replied Bias as confidently

as if Arachne’s works were before his eyes, “and in the form of a

bull bearing away Europa, the chaste Artemis bending over the sleeping

Endymion.”

“How that pleases you men!” interrupted the maid, striking him lightly

on the arm with the duster which she had brought from the tent. “But

ought the virgin Athene to be blamed because she punished the weaver

who, with all her skill, was only a mortal woman, for thus exposing her

divine kindred?”

“Certainly not,” replied Bias, and Stephanion went on eagerly: “And

when the great Athene, who invented weaving and protects weavers,

condescended to compete with Arachne, and was excelled by her, surely

her gall must have overflowed. Whoever is just will scarcely blame

her for striking the audacious conqueror on the brow with the weaver’s

shuttle.”

“It is that very thing,” replied Bias modestly, “which to a

short-sighted fool like myself--may the great goddess not bear me a

grudge for it!--never seemed just in her. Even the mortal who succumbs

in a fair fight ought not to be enraged against the victor. At least, so

I was taught. But what, I ask myself, when I think of the stones which

were flung at Hermon’s struggling Maenads, could be less suited for

imitation than two women, one of whom strikes the other?”

“The woman who in her desperation at that blow desires to hang herself,

must produce a still more horrible impression,” replied Stephanion.

“Probably she will be represented as Athene releases her from the noose

rather than when, as a punishment for her insolence, she transforms

Arachne into a spider.”

“That she might be permitted, in the form of an insect, to make artistic

webs until the end of her life,” the slave, now sufficiently well

informed, added importantly. “Since that transformation, as you know,

the spider has been called by the Greeks Arachne. Perhaps--I always

thought so--Hermon will represent her twisting the rope with which she

is to kill herself. You have seen many of our works, and know that we

love the terrible.”

“Oh, let me go into your studio!” the maid now entreated no less

urgently than her mistress had done a short time before, but her wish,

too, remained ungratified.

“The sculptors,” Bias truthfully asserted, “always kept their workrooms

carefully locked.” They were as inaccessible as the strongest fortress,

and it was wise, less on account of curious spectators, from whom there

was nothing to fear, than of the thievish propensities of the

people. The statues, by Archias’s orders, were to be executed in

chryselephantine work, and the gold and ivory which this required might

only too easily awaken the vice of cupidity in the honest and frugal

Biamites. So nothing could be done about it, not to mention the fact

that he was forbidden, on pain of being sold to work in a stone quarry,

to open the studio to any one without his master’s consent.

So the maid, too, was obliged to submit, and the sacrifice was rendered

easier for her because, just at that moment, a young female slave called

her back to the tent where Chrysilla, Daphne’s companion, a matron who

belonged to a distinguished Greek family, needed her services.

Bias, rejoicing that he had at last learned, without exposing his own

ignorance, the story of the much-discussed Arachne, returned to the

house, where he remained until Daphne came back from shooting with

her companions. While the latter were talking about the birds they had

killed, Bias went out of doors; but he was forced to give up his desire

to listen to a conversation which was exactly suited to arrest his

attention, for after the first few sentences he perceived behind the

thorny acacias in the “garden” his countrywoman Ledscha.

So she was keeping her promise. He recognised her plainly, in spite of

the veil which covered the back of her head and the lower portion of her

face. Her black eyes were visible, and what a sinister light shone in

them as she fixed them sometimes on Daphne, sometimes on Hermon, who

stood talking together by the steps!

The evening before Bias had caught a glimpse of this passionate

creature’s agitated soul. If anything happened here that incensed or

wounded her she would be capable of committing some unprecedented act

before the very master’s honoured guest.

To prevent this was a duty to the master whom he loved, and against whom

he had only warned Ledscha because he was reluctant to see a free maiden

of his own race placed on a level with the venal Alexandrian models,

but still more because any serious love affair between Hermon and the

Biamite might bring disastrous consequences upon both, and therefore

also on himself. He knew that the free men of his little nation would

not suffer an insult offered by a Greek to a virgin daughter of their

lineage to pass unavenged.

True, in his bondage he had by no means remained free from all the bad

qualities of slaves, but he was faithfully devoted to his master, who

had imposed upon him a great debt of gratitude; for though, during the

trying period of variance with his rich and generous uncle, Hermon had

often been offered so large a sum for him that it would have relieved

the artist from want, he could not be induced to yield his “wise and

faithful Bias” to another. The slave had sworn to himself that he would

never forget this, and he kept his oath.

Freedmen and slaves were moving to and fro in the large open square

before him, amid the barking of the dogs and the shouts of the male and

female venders of fruit, vegetables, and fish, who hoped to dispose of

their wares in the kitchen tent of the wealthy strangers.

The single veiled woman attracted no attention here, but Bias kept his

gaze fixed steadily upon her, and as she curved her little slender hand

above her brow to shade her watchful eyes from the dazzling sunlight,

and set her beautifully arched foot on a stone near one of the trees in

order to gain a better view, he thought of the story of the weaver which

he had just heard.

Though the stillness of the hot noontide was interrupted by many sounds,

it exerted a bewitching influence over him.

Ledscha seemed like the embodiment of some great danger, and when she

lowered one arm and raised the other to protect herself again from the

radiance of the noonday sun, he started; for through the brain of the

usually fearless man darted the thought that now the nimble spider-legs

were moving to draw him toward her, entwine him, and suck his heart’s

blood.

The illusion lasted only a few brief moments, but when it vanished and

the girl had regained the figure of an unusually slender, veiled Biamite

woman, he shook his head with a sigh of relief, for never had such a

vision appeared to him in broad noonday and while awake, and it must

have been sent to warn him and his master against this uncanny maiden.

It positively announced some approaching misfortune which proceeded from

this beautiful creature.

The Biamite now advanced hesitatingly toward Hermon and Daphne, who were

still a considerable distance from her. But Bias had also quitted his

post of observation, and after she had taken a few steps forward, barred

her way.

With a curt “Come,” he took her hand, whispering, “Hermon is joyously

expecting your visit.”

Ledscha’s veil concealed her mouth, but the expression of her eyes made

him think that it curled scornfully.

Yet she silently followed him.

At first he led her by the hand, but on the way he saw at the edge of

her upper veil the thick, dark eyebrows which met each other, and her

fingers seemed to him so strangely cold and tapering that a shudder ran

through his frame and he released them.

Ledscha scarcely seemed to notice it, and, with bowed head, walked

beside him through the side entrance to the door of Hermon’s studio.

It was a disappointment to her to find it locked, but Bias did not

heed her angry complaint, and led her into the artist’s sitting room,

requesting her to wait for his master there.

Then he hurried to the steps, and by a significant sign informed the

sculptor that something important required his attention.

Hermon understood him, and Bias soon had an opportunity to tell the

artist who it was that desired to speak to him and where he had taken

Ledscha. He also made him aware that he feared some evil from her,

and that, in an alarming vision, she had appeared to him as a hideous

spider.

Hermon laughed softly. “As a spider? The omen is appropriate. We will

make her a woman spider--an Arachne that is worth looking at. But this

strange beauty is one of the most obstinate of her sex, and if I let her

carry out her bold visit in broad daylight she will get the better of

me completely. The blood must first be washed from my hands here. The

wounded sea eagle tore the skin with its claw, and I concealed the

scratch from Daphne. A strip of linen to bandage it! Meanwhile, let

the impatient intruder learn that her sign is not enough to open every

door.”

Then he entered his sitting room, greeted Ledscha curtly, invited her to

go into the studio, unlocked it, and left her there alone while he

went to his chamber with the slave and had the slight wound bandaged

comfortably.

While Bias was helping his master he repeated with sincere anxiety his

warning against the dangerous beauty whose eyebrows, which had grown

together, proved that she was possessed by the demons of the nether

world.

“Yet they increase the austere beauty of her face,” assented the artist.

“I should not want to omit them in modelling Arachne while the goddess

is transforming her into a spider! What a subject! A bolder one was

scarcely ever attempted and, like you, I already see before me the

coming spider.”

Then, without the slightest haste, he exchanged the huntsman’s chiton

for the white chlamys, which was extremely becoming to his long, waving

beard, and at last, exclaiming gaily, “If I stay any longer, she will

transform herself into empty air instead of the spider,” he went to her.

CHAPTER VIII.

While waiting in the studio Ledscha had used the time to satisfy her

curiosity.

What was there not to be seen!

On pedestals and upon the boards of the floor, on boxes, racks, and

along the wall, stood, lay, or hung the greatest variety of articles:

plaster casts of human limbs and parts of the bodies of animals, male

and female, of clay and wax, withered garlands, all sorts of sculptor’s

tools, a ladder, vases, cups and jars for wine and water, a frame over

which linen and soft woollen materials were spread, a lute and a zither,

several seats, an armchair, and in one corner a small table with three

dilapidated book rolls, writing tablets, metal styluses, and reed pens.

All these articles were arranged haphazard, and showed that Bias

possessed more wisdom than care in the use of duster and broom.

It would have been difficult to count the number of things brought

together here, but the unusually long, wide room was by no means

crowded.

Ledscha cast a wondering glance sometimes at one object, sometimes at

another, but without understanding its meaning or its use.

The huge figure on the pedestal in the middle of the studio, upon which

the full glare of light fell through the open windows, was certainly

the statue of the goddess on which Hermon was working; but a large gray

cloth concealed it from her gaze.

How tall it was!

When she looked at it more closely she felt small and oppressed by

comparison.

A passionate longing urged her to remove the cloth, but the boldness

of the act restrained her. After she had taken another survey of

the spacious apartment, which she was visiting for the first time by

daylight, the torturing feeling of being neglected gained possession of

her.

She clinched her white teeth more firmly, and when there was a noise at

the door that died away again without bringing the man she expected, she

went up to the statue which she had already walked past quietly several

times and, obeying an impatient impulse, freed it from its covering.

The goddess, now illumined by the sunlight, shone before her in gleaming

yellow gold and snowy ivory.

She had never seen such a statue, and drew back dazzled.

What a master was the man who had deceived her trusting heart!

He had created a Demeter; the wheat in her hand showed it.

How beautiful this work was--and how valuable! It produced a powerful

impression upon her mind, wholly unaccustomed to the estimate of such

things.

The goddess before her was the very one whose statue stood in the temple

of Demeter, and to whom she also sacrificed, with the Greeks in Tennis,

when danger threatened the harvest. Involuntarily she removed the lower

veil from her face and raised her hand in prayer.

Meanwhile she gazed into the pallid face, carved from ivory, of the

immortal dispenser of blessings, and suddenly the blood crimsoned her

cheeks, the nostrils of her delicate, slightly arched nose rose and

fell more swiftly, for the countenance of the goddess--she was not

mistaken--was that of the Alexandrian whom she had just watched so

intently, and for whose sake Hermon had left her in the lurch the

evening before.

Now, too, she remembered for what purpose the sculptor was said to have

lured Gula, the sailor’s wife, and her own young sister Taus, to his

studio, and in increasing excitement she drew the cloth also from the

bust beside the Demeter.

Again the Alexandrian’s face--the likeness was even more unmistakable

than in the goddess.

The Greek girl alone occupied his thoughts. Hermon had disdained to

model the Biamite’s head.

What could the others, or she herself, be to him, since he loved the

rich foreigner in the tent outside, and her alone? How firmly her image

must have been impressed upon his soul, that he could reproduce the

features of the absent one with such lifelike fidelity!

Yet with what bold assurance he had protested that his heart belonged

solely to her. But she thought that she now perceived his purpose. If

the slave was right, it was done that she might permit him to model

what he admired in her figure, only not the head and face, whose beauty,

nevertheless, he praised so extravagantly.

Had he attracted Gula and her sister with similar sweet flatteries?

Had the promise to bestow their charms upon a goddess been made to them

also?

The swift throbbing of her indignant heart made it impossible for her to

think calmly, but its vehement pulsation reminded her of the object of

her presence here.

She had come to obtain a clear understanding between him and herself.

She stood here as a judge.

She must know whether she had been betrayed or deceived.

He should confess what his intentions toward her were. The next moments

must decide the fate of her life, and she added, drawing a long breath,

perhaps of his also.

Suddenly Ledscha started. She had not heard Hermon enter the studio, and

was now startled by his greeting.

It was not positively unkind, but certainly not a lover’s.

Perhaps the words might have been warmer, but for his annoyance at the

insolent boldness with which she had removed the coverings from his

works. He restrained himself from openly blaming her, it is true, but he

exclaimed, with a tinge of gay sarcasm: “You seem to feel very much at

home here already, fairest of the fair. Or was it the goddess herself

who removed the curtain from her image in order to show herself to her

successor upon this pedestal?”

But the question was to remain unanswered, for under the spell of the

resentment which filled her heart, and in the effort not to lose sight

of the object that brought her here, Ledscha had only half understood

its meaning, and pointing her slender forefinger at the face of his

completed work, she demanded to know whom she recognised in this statue.

“The goddess Demeter,” he answered quietly; “but if it pleases you

better, as you seem to be on the right track, also the daughter of

Archias.”

Then, angered by the wrathful glance she cast at him, he added more

sternly: “She is kind-hearted, free from disagreeable whims and the

disposition to torture others who are kindly disposed toward her. So I

adorned the goddess with her pleasant features.”

“Mine, you mean to say,” Ledscha answered bitterly, “would be less

suitable for this purpose. Yet they, too, can wear a different

expression from the present one. You, I think, have learned this. Only I

shall never acquire the art of dissimulation, not even in your society.”

“You seem to be angry on account of my absence yesterday evening?”

Hermon asked in an altered tone, clasping her hand; but Ledscha snatched

it from him, exclaiming: “The model of the Demeter, the daughter of the

wealthy Archias, detained you, you were going to tell me, and you think

that ought to satisfy the barbarian maiden.”

“Folly!” he answered angrily. “I owe a debt of gratitude to her father,

who was my guardian, and custom commands you also to honour a guest. But

your obstinacy and jealousy are unbearable. What great thing is it that

I ask of your love? A little patience. Practise it. Then your turn will

come too.”

“Of course, the second and third will follow the first,” she answered

bitterly. “After Gula, the sailor’s wife, you lured my innocent young

sister, Taus, to this apartment; or am I mistaken in the order, and was

Gula the second?”

“So that’s it!” cried Hermon, who was surprised rather than alarmed by

this betrayal of his secret. “If you want confirmation of the fact, very

well--both were here.”

“Because you deluded them with false vows of love.”

“By no means. My heart has nothing what ever to do with these visits.

Gula came to thank me because I rendered her a service--you know

it--which to every mother seems greater than it is.”

“But you certainly did not underestimate it,” Ledscha impetuously

interrupted, “for you demanded her honour in return.”

“Guard your tongue!” the artist burst forth angrily. “The woman visited

me unasked, and I let her leave me as faithful or as unfaithful to her

husband as she came. If I used her as a model--”

“Gula, whom the sculptor transforms into a goddess,” Ledscha

interrupted, with a sneering laugh.

“Into a fish-seller, if you wish to know it,” cried Hermon indignantly.

“I saw in the market a young woman selling shad. I took the subject, and

found in Gula a suitable model. Unfortunately, she ventured here far too

seldom. But I can finish it with the help of the sketch--it stands in

yonder cupboard.”

“A fish-seller,” Ledscha repeated contemptuously. “And for what did my

Taus, poor lovely child, seem desirable?”

“Over opposite,” Hermon answered quickly, as if he wished to get rid of

a troublesome duty, pointing through the window out of doors, “the free

maidens, during the hot days, took off their sandals and waded through

the water. There I saw your sister’s feet. They were the prettiest

of all, and Gula brought the young girl to me. I had commenced in

Alexandria a figure of a girl holding her foot in her hand to take out a

thorn, so I used your sister’s for it.”

“And when my turn comes?” Ledscha demanded.

“Then,” he replied, freshly captivated by the magic of her beauty, in a

kinder, almost tender tone, “then I will make of you, in gold and ivory,

you wonderfully lovely creature, the counterpart of this goddess.”

“And you will need a long time for it?”

“The oftener you come the faster the work will advance.”

“And the more surely the Biamite women will point their fingers at me.”

“Yet you ventured here to-day, unasked, in the broad light of noon.”

“Because I wish to remind you myself that I shall expect you this

evening. Yesterday you did not appear; but to-day-I am right, am I

not?--to-day you will come.”

“With the greatest delight, if it is possible,” he answered eagerly.

A warmer glance from her dark eyes rested upon him. The blood seethed in

his veins, and as he extended both hands to her and ardently uttered her

name, she rushed forward, clinging to him with passionate devotion, as

if seeking assistance, but when his lips touched hers she shrank back

and loosed her soft arms from his neck.

“What does this mean?” asked the sculptor in surprise, trying to draw

her toward him again; but Ledscha would not permit it, pleading in a

softer tone than before: “Not now; but--am I not right, dearest--I may

expect you this evening? Just this once let the daughter of Archias

yield to me, who loves you better. We shall have a full moon to-night,

and you have heard what was predicted to me--to-night the highest bliss

which the gods can bestow upon a mortal awaits me.”

“And me also,” cried Hermon, “if you will permit me to share it with

you.”

“Then I will expect you on the Pelican Island--just when the full moon

is over the lofty poplars there. You will come? Not to the Owl’s Nest:

to the Pelican Island. And though your love is far less, far cooler than

mine, yet you will not defraud me of the best happiness of my life?”

“How could I?” he asked, as if he felt wounded by such distrust. “What

detains me must be something absolutely unavoidable.”

Ledscha’s eyebrows contracted sharply, and in a choked voice she

exclaimed: “Nothing must detain you--nothing, whatever it may be! Though

death should threaten, you will be with me just at midnight.”

“I will, if it is possible,” he protested, painfully touched by the

vehemence of her urging. “What can be more welcome to me also than to

spend happy hours with you in the silence of a moonlight night? Besides,

my stay in Tennis will not be long.”

“You are going?” she asked in a hollow tone.

“In three or four days,” he answered carelessly; “then Myrtilus and I

will be expected in Alexandria. But gently--gently--how pale you are,

girl! Yes, the parting! But in six weeks at latest I shall be here

again; then real life will first begin, and Eros will make the roses

bloom for us.”

Ledscha nodded silently, and gazing into his face with a searching look

asked, “And how long will this season of blossoming last?”

“Several months, girl; three, if not six.”

“And then?”

“Who looks so far into the future?”

She lowered her glance, and, as if yielding to the inevitable, answered:

“What a fool I was! Who knows what the morrow may bring? Are we even

sure whether, six months hence, we shall not hate, instead of loving,

each other?”

She passed her hand across her brow as she spoke, exclaiming: “You said

just now that only the present belonged to man. Then let us enjoy it

as though every moment might be the last. By the light of the full moon

to-night, the happiness which has been predicted to me must begin. After

it, the orb between the horns of Astarte will become smaller; but when

it fulls and wanes again, if you keep your promise and return, then,

though they may curse and condemn me, I will come to your studio and

grant what you ask. But which of the goddesses do you intend to model

from me as a companion statue to the Demeter?”

“This time it can not be one of the immortelles,” he answered

hesitatingly, “but a famous woman, an artist who succeeded in a

competition in vanquishing even the august Athene.”

“So it is no goddess?” Ledscha asked in a disappointed tone.

“No, child, but the most skilful woman who ever plied the weaver’s

shuttle.”

“And her name?”

“Arachne.”

The young girl started, exclaiming contemptuously: “Arachne? That

is--that is what you Greeks call the most repulsive of creatures--the

spider.”

“The most skilful of all creatures, that taught man the noble art of

weaving,” he eagerly retorted.

Here he was interrupted; his friend Myrtilus put his fair head into the

room, exclaiming: “Pardon me if I interrupt you--but we shall not see

each other again for some time. I have important business in the city,

and may be detained a long while. Yet before I go I must perform the

commission Daphne gave me for you. She sends word that she shall expect

you without fail at the banquet for the Pelusinian guests. Your absence,

do you hear?--pardon the interruption, fairest Ledscha--your absence

would seriously anger her.”

“Then I shall be prepared for considerable trouble in appeasing her,”

replied Hermon, glancing significantly at the young girl.

Myrtilus crossed the threshold, turned to the Biamite, and said in his

quiet, cheerful manner: “Where beautiful gifts are to be brought to

Eros, it beseems the friend to strew with flowers the path of the one

who is offering the sacrifices; and you, if everything does not deceive

me, would fain choose to-night to serve him with the utmost devotion.

Therefore, I shall need forgiveness from you and the god, if I beseech

you to defer the offering, were it only until to-morrow.”

Ledscha silently shrugged her shoulders and made no answer to the

inquiring glance with which Hermon sought hers, but Myrtilus changed his

tone and addressed a grave warning to his friend to consider well that

it would be an insult to the manes of his dead parents if he should

avoid the old couple from Pelusium, who had been their best friends and

had taken the journey hither for his sake.

Hermon looked after him in painful perplexity, but the Biamite also

approached the threshold, and holding her head haughtily erect, said

coldly: “The choice is difficult for you, as I see. Then recall to your

memory again what this night of the full moon means--you are well

aware of it--to me. If, nevertheless, you still decide in favour of the

banquet with your friends, I can not help it; but I must now know: Shall

this night belong to me, or to the daughter of Archias?”

“Is it impossible to talk with you, unlucky girl, as one would with

other sensible people?” Hermon burst forth wrathfully. “Everything is

carried to extremes; you condemn a brief necessary delay as breach of

faith and base treachery. This behaviour is unbearable.”

“Then you will not come?” she asked apathetically, laying her hand

upon the door; but Hermon cried out in a tone half beseeching, half

imperious: “You must not go so! If you insist upon it, surely I will

come. There is no room in your obstinate soul for kind indulgence. No

one, by the dog, ever accused me of being specially skilled in this

smooth art; yet there may be duties and circumstances--”

Here Ledscha gently opened the door; but, seized with a fear of losing

this rare creature, whose singular beauty attracted him powerfully,

even now, this peerless model for a work on which he placed the highest

hopes, he strode swiftly to her side, and drawing her back from the

threshold, exclaimed: “Difficult as it is for me on this special day, I

will come, only you must not demand what is impossible. The right course

often lies midway. Half the night must belong to the banquet with my old

friends and Daphne; the second half--”

“To the barbarian, you think--the spider,” she gasped hoarsely. “But my

welfare as well as yours depends on the decision. Stay here, or come to

the island--you have your choice.”

Wrenching herself from his hold as she spoke, she slipped through the

doorway and left the room.

Hermon, with a muttered oath, stood still, shrugging his shoulders

angrily.

He could do nothing but yield to this obstinate creature’s will.

In the atrium Ledscha met the slave Bias, and returned his greeting only

by a wave of the hand; but before opening the side door which was

to lead her into the open air, she paused, and asked bluntly in the

language of their people: “Was Arachne--I don’t mean the spider, but the

weaver whom the Greeks call by that name--a woman like the rest of us?

Yet it is said that she remained victor in a contest with the goddess

Athene.”

“That is perfectly true,” answered Bias, “but she had to atone cruelly

for this triumph; the goddess struck her on the forehead with the

weaver’s shuttle, and when, in her shame and rage, she tried to hang

herself, she was transformed into the spider.”

Ledscha stood still, and, while drawing the veil over her pallid face,

asked with quivering lips, “And is there no other Arachne?”

“Not among mortals,” was the reply, “but even here in this house there

are more than enough of the disagreeable, creeping creatures which bear

the same name.”

Ledscha now went clown the steps which led to the lawn, and Bias saw

that she stumbled on the last one and would have fallen had not her

lithe body regained its balance in time.

“A bad omen!” thought the slave. “If I had the power to build a wall

between my master and the spider yonder, it should be higher than the

lighthouse of Sostratus. To heed omens guides one safely through life. I

know what I know, and will keep my eyes open, for my master too.”

CHAPTER IX.

Hermon had intended to add a few more touches to his Demeter, but he

could not do it. Ledscha, her demand, and the resentment with which she

had left him, were not to be driven from his mind.

There was no doubt that he must seek her if he was not to lose her, yet

he reproached himself for having acted like a thoughtless fool when he

proposed to divide the night between her and Daphne.

There was something offensive in the proposal to so proud a creature.

He ought to have promised positively to come, and then left the banquet

somewhat earlier. It would have been easy to apologize for his late

arrival, and Ledscha would have had no cause to be angry with him.

Now she had, and her resentment awakened in him--though he certainly

did not lack manly courage--an uncomfortable feeling closely allied to

anxiety.

Angered by his own conduct, he asked himself whether he loved the

barbarian, and could find no satisfactory answer.

At their first meeting he had felt that she was far superior to the

other Biamite maidens, not only in beauty but in everything else. The

very acerbity of her nature had seemed charming. To win this wonderful,

pliant creature, slender as a cypress, whose independence merged into

fierce obstinacy, had appeared to him worth any sacrifice; and having

perceived in her an admirable model for his Arachne, he had also

determined to brave the dangers which might easily arise for the Greek

from a love affair with a Biamite girl, whose family was free and

distinguished.

It had been easier for him to win her heart than he expected; yet at

none of the meetings which she granted him had he rejoiced in the secret

bond between them.

Hitherto her austere reserve had been invincible, and during the

greater part of their interviews he had been compelled to exert all his

influence to soothe, appease her, and atone for imprudent acts which he

had committed.

True, she, too, had often allowed herself to display passionate

tenderness, but always only to torture him with reproaches and demands

inspired by her jealousy, suspicion, and wounded pride.

Yet her beauty, and the strong power of resistance which she offered to

his wooing, exerted so bewitching a thrall over him that he had been led

into conceding far too much, and making vows which he could not and did

not desire to fulfil.

Love had usually been to him a richly flowing well-spring of gay

delight, but this bond had plunged him from one vexation into another,

one anxiety to another, and now that he had almost reached the goal of

his wishes, he could not help fearing that he had transformed Ledscha’s

love to hate.

Daphne was dear to him. He esteemed her highly, and owed her a great

debt of gratitude. Yet in this hour he anathematized her unexpected

journey to Tennis; for without it he would have obtained from Ledscha

that very day what he desired, and could have returned to Alexandria

with the certainty of finding her ready later to pose as the model for

his Arachne.

Never could he find anywhere a more fitting one.

He had devoted himself with passionate love to his art, and even his

enemies numbered him among its most promising disciples. Yet hither to

he had not succeeded in obtaining a great and undisputed success. On

the other hand, he had experienced what were termed failures in abundant

measure.

The art to which he had gained entrance by so severe a struggle, and on

whose soil he had laboured diligently enough, proved, so far as outward

recognition was concerned, cruel to the enthusiastic disciple. Yet even

now he would not have abandoned it at any price; the joy of creation

compensated him richly for suffering and disappointment. Confidence in

his own powers and the final triumph of his conviction had deserted him

only occasionally, and for a few brief hours.

He was born for conflicts. What ill-success, what antagonism and

difficulties he had encountered! Some day the laurel which had so long

adorned the brow of Myrtilus must also grow green for him and the

great talent whose possession he felt. With the Arachne--he was sure of

this--he would compel even his opponents to accord him the recognition

for which hitherto he had striven in vain.

While pacing restlessly up and down the spacious apartment, stopping

from time to time before his work to fix his eyes angrily upon it, he

thought of his friend’s Demeter, whose head also had Daphne’s features,

who also bore in her hand a bundle of wheat, and even in attitude

did not differ very widely from his own. And yet--eternal gods!--how

thoroughly dissimilar the two were!

In the figure created by Myrtilus, supernatural dignity blended with

the utmost womanly charm; in his, a pleasing head rested upon a body

in whose formation he had used various models without striving to

accomplish anything except to depart as far as possible from established

custom, with which he was at variance.

Yet had he not found himself, nevertheless, compelled to follow the old

rules? One arm was raised, the other hung down; the right foot was put

forward, the left one back.

Exactly the same as in Myrtilus’s statue, and thousands of other figures

of Demeter!

If he could have used the hammer and chisel, the thing might have become

more powerful; but how many things he had had to consider in employing

the accursed gold and ivory upon which Archias obstinately insisted!

This hammering, chipping, and filing told unfavourably upon his power

and his aspiration toward grandeur.

This time the battle seemed to be lost.

It was fortunate that the conqueror was no other than Myrtilus. Often

as he had gone astray in his young life, many as were the errors he had

committed, not even the faintest shadow of an envious feeling concerning

his friend’s more successful work had ever stained his soul.

True, the fact that fate, in addition to such abundant gifts of mind

and spirit, had also endowed the latter with great worldly possessions,

while he, but for the generosity of his uncle Archias, must have

starved, had often led Hermon to inveigh angrily against the injustice

of the gods. Yet he did not grudge Myrtilus the wealth without which he

could not imagine him, and which his invalid friend needed to continue

successfully the struggle against the insidious disease inherited with

the gold. And his sufferings! Hermon could not have endured keener pain

had they been his own. He must even rejoice over the poor dear fellow’s

victory; for if he, Hermon, succeeded with his Arachne as he hoped, it

would make Myrtilus--he could swear to it--happier than his own triumph.

After these reflections, which again reminded him of the second

appointment and of Ledscha, the sculptor turned away from his work and

went to the window to look across at Pelican Island, where she must not

await him in vain.

The boat which was to convey him over to it lay ready in the little

flotilla, where a magnificently equipped galley had just been moored to

the shore, undoubtedly the one that had brought the guests from Pelusium

hither. The best thing he could do was to greet them at once, share

the banquet with them, and, before the dessert was served, seek the

beautiful woman whom his absence threatened to make his foe. And she

was certainly justified in resenting it if, with cruel lack of

consideration, he paid no heed to what had been prophesied for her on

this night of the full moon.

For the first time compassion mingled with his feelings for Ledscha.

If to avoid the fleeting censure of aristocratic friends he left in the

lurch the simple barbarian maiden who loved him with ardent passion,

it was no evidence of resolute strength of soul, but of pitiful,

reprehensible weakness. No, no! He must take the nocturnal voyage in

order not to grieve Ledscha.

Soon after the girl’s abrupt departure he dressed himself in festal

garments for the banquet. It would flatter Ledscha also if he went to

her in this attire and, with his figure drawn up to its full height, he

walked toward the door to go to the Alexandrian’s tent.

But what did this mean? Myrtilus was standing before his Demeter,

scanning it intently with his keen artist eyes. Hermon had not noticed

his entrance, and did not disturb him now, but fixed his gaze upon his

mobile features in intense expectation.

There were few of his fellow-artists whose opinion he valued as highly

as that of this darling of the Muse.

At a slight shake of the head, which Hermon interpreted as disapproval,

he clinched his teeth; but soon his lips relaxed and his breast heaved

with a sigh of relief, for the sunny glance that Myrtilus bent upon the

face of the goddess seemed to show Hermon that it aroused his approval,

and, as if relieved from an oppressive nightmare, he approached his

friend.

The latter turned toward him, exclaiming: “Daphne! As in the case

of yonder bust, you have succeeded most perfectly with this dear

face--only--”

“Only,” Hermon repeated slowly; “I am familiar with that evil word.

Doubts knock at the door with it. Out with them honestly. I gave up my

last hope of the prize yesterday while looking at your Demeter. Besides,

careful scrutiny has just destroyed the last gleam of satisfaction with

my own work. But if you like the head, what seem to you the greatest

defects in the figure?”

“It has nothing to do with defects, which, with your rare ability,

can scarcely exist,” replied the other, the faint pink flush in his

beardless cheeks deepening to a more vivid hue. “It refers rather to

the expression which you have given the divinity in yonder statue.”

Here Myrtilus hesitated, and, turning so that he stood face to face

with Hermon, asked frankly, “Did you ever seek the goddess and, when you

found her, did you feel any supernatural power and beauty?”

“What a question!” exclaimed Hermon in astonishment. “A pupil of

Straton, and go in search of beings and powers whose existence he

denies! What my mother instilled into my heart I lost with my childhood,

and you address your question only to the artist who holds his own

ground, not to the boy. The power that calls creation to life, and

maintains it, has for me long had nothing in common with those beings

like mortals whom the multitude designates by the name of divinities.”

“I think differently,” replied Myrtilus. “While I numbered myself among

the Epicureans, whose doctrine still possesses the greatest charm for

me, I nevertheless shared the master’s opinion that it is insulting the

gods to suppose that they will disturb their blissful repose for the

sake of us insignificant mortals. Now my mind and my experience rebel

against holding to this view, yet I believe with Epicurus, and with you,

that the eternal laws of Nature bow to neither divine nor human will.”

“And yet,” said Hermon, “you expect me to trouble myself about those who

are as powerless as myself!”

“I only wished that you might do so,” answered Myrtilus; “for they

are not powerless to those who from the first assumed that they can do

nothing in opposition to those changeless laws. The state, too, rules

according to them, and the wise king who refrains from interfering with

them in the smallest trifle can therefore wield the sceptre with mighty

power. So, in my opinion, it is perfectly allowable to expect aid from

the gods. But we will let that pass. A healthy man, full of exuberant

vigour like yourself, rarely learns early what they can bestow in

suffering and misfortune; yet where the great majority believe in them,

he, too, will be unable to help forming some idea of them; nay, even you

and I have experienced it. By a thousand phenomena they force themselves

into the world which surrounds us and our emotional life. Epicurus, who

denied their power, saw in them at least immortal beings who possess

in stainless perfection everything which in mortals is disfigured by

errors, weaknesses, and afflictions. To him they are the intensified,

reflected image of our own nature, and I think we can do nothing wiser

than to cling to that, because it shows us to what heights of beauty and

power, intellect, goodness, and purity we may attain. To completely deny

their existence would hardly be possible even for you, because their

persons have found a place in your imagination. Since this is the case,

it can only benefit you to recognise in them magnificent models, by

whose means we artists, if we imitate, perfect, and model them, will

create works far more sublime and beautiful than anything visible to our

senses which we meet here beneath the sun.”

“It is this very superiority in sublimity and beauty which I, and those

who pursue the same path with me, oppose,” replied Hermon. “Nature

is sufficient for us. To take anything from her, mutilates; to add

anything, disfigures her.”

“But not,” replied Myrtilus firmly, “when it is done only in a special

sense, and within the limits of Nature, to which the gods also belong.

The final task of art, fiercely as you and your few followers contend

against it, lies in the disentanglement, enhancing, and ennobling of

Nature. You, too, ought not to overlook it when you undertake to model

a Demeter; for she is a goddess, no mortal like yourself. The rest or I

ought rather to say the alteration which converts the mortal woman into

the immortal one, the goddess--I miss, and with special regret, because

you do not even deem it worth consideration.”

“That I shall never do,” retorted Hermon irritably, “so long as it is a

changing chimera which presents itself differently to every mind.”

“Yet, should it really be a chimera, it is at any rate a sublime one,”

Myrtilus protested, “and whoever among us artists wanders through Nature

with open eyes and heart, and then examines his own soul, will find it

worth while to attempt to give his ideal form.”

“Whatever stirs my breast during such walks, unless it is some unusual

human being, I leave to the poet,” replied Hermon. “I should be

satisfied with the Demeter yonder, and you, too, probably, if--entirely

apart from that--I had only succeeded fully and entirely in making her

an individual--that is, a clearly outlined, distinct personality. This,

you have often told me, is just wherein I am usually most successful.

But here, I admit, I am baffled. Demeter hovered before me as a

kindly dispenser of good gifts, a faithful, loving wife. Daphne’s head

expresses this; but in modelling the body I lost sight of the whole

creation. While, for instance, in my fig-eater, every toe, every scrap

of the tattered garments, belongs to the street urchin whom I wished

to represent, in the goddess everything came by chance as the model

suggested it, and you know that I used several. Had the Demeter from

head to foot resembled Daphne, who has so much in common with our

goddess, the statue would have been harmonious, complete, and you would

perhaps have been the first to acknowledge it.”

“By no means,” Myrtilus eagerly interrupted. “What our statues of the

gods are we two know best: a wooden block, covered with gold and sheets

of ivory. But to tens of thousands the statue of the divinity must be

much more. When they raise their hearts, eyes, hands to it in prayer,

they must be possessed by the idea of the deity which animated us while

creating it, and with which we, as it were, permeated it. If it shows

them only a woman endowed with praiseworthy qualities--”

“Then,” interrupted Hermon, “the worshipper should thank the sculptor;

for is it not more profitable to him to be encouraged by the statue to

emulate the human virtues whose successful embodiment it shows him than

to strive for the aid of the botchwork of human hands, which possesses

as much or as little power as the wood, gold, and ivory that compose it?

If the worshipper does not appeal to the statue, but to the goddess, I

fear it will be no less futile. So I shall consider it no blemish if you

see in my Demeter a mortal woman, and no goddess; nay, it reconciles me

in some degree to her weaknesses, to which I by no means close my eyes.

I, too--I confess it--often feel a great desire to give the power of

imagination greater play, and I know the divinities in whom I have lost

faith as well as any one; for I, too, was once a child, and few have

ever prayed to them more fervently, but with the increasing impulse

toward liberty came the perception: There are no gods, and whoever bows

to the power of the immortals makes himself a slave. So what I banished

from life I will also remove from art, and model nothing which might not

meet me to-day or to-morrow.”

“Then, as an honest man, abstain altogether from making statues of the

gods,” interrupted his friend.

“That was my intention long ago, as you are aware,” the other answered.

“You could not commit a worse robbery upon yourself,” cried Myrtilus. “I

know you; nay, perhaps I see farther into your soul than you yourself.

By ingenious fetters you force the mighty winged intellect to content

itself within the narrow world of reality. But the time when you will

yourself rend the bonds and find the divinity you have lost, will come,

and then, with your mighty power once more free, you will outstrip most

of us, and me also if I live to see it.”

Then he pressed his hand upon his rattling chest and walked slowly

to the couch; but Hermon followed, helped him to lie down, and with

affectionate solicitude arranged his pillows.

“It is nothing,” Myrtilus said soothingly, after a few minutes’ silence.

“My undermined strength has been heavily taxed to-day. The Olympians

know how calmly I await death. It ends all things. Nothing will be left

of me except the ashes, to which you will reduce my body, and what you

call ‘possession.’ But even this can no longer belong to me after death,

because I shall then be no more, and the idea of possession requires a

possessor. My estate, too, is now disposed of. I have just been to the

notary, and sixteen witnesses--neither more nor less--have signed my

will according to the custom of this ceremonious country. There, now,

if you please, go before me, and let me stay here alone a little while.

Remember me to Daphne and the Pelusinians. I will join you in an hour.”

CHAPTER X.

“When the moon is over Pelican Island.” How often Ledscha had repeated

this sentence to herself while Hermon was detained by Daphne and her

Pelusinian guests!

When she entered the boat after nightfall she exclaimed hopefully, sure

of her cause, “When the moon is over Pelican Island he will come.”

Her goal was quickly reached in the skiff; the place selected for the

nocturnal meeting was a familiar one to her.

The pirates had remained absent from it quite two years. Formerly

they had often visited the spot to conceal their arms and booty on the

densely wooded island. The large papyrus thicket on the shore also hid

boats from spying eyes, and near the spot where Ledscha landed was a

grassy seat which looked like an ordinary resting place, but beneath

it the corsairs had built a long, walled passage, that led to the other

side of the island, and had enabled many a fugitive to vanish from the

sight of pursuers, as though the earth had swallowed them.

“When the moon is over the island,” Ledscha repeated after she had

waited more than an hour.

The time had not yet come; the expanse of water lay before her

motionless, in hue a dull, leaden gray, and only the dimly illumined air

and a glimmering radiance along the edges of the waves that washed the

island showed that the moon was already brightening the night.

When its full orb floated above the island Hermon, too, would appear,

and the happiness which had been predicted to Ledscha would begin.

Happiness?

A bitter smile hovered around her delicately cut lips as she repeated

the word.

Hitherto no feeling was more distant from her; for when love and longing

began to stir in her heart, it seemed as though a hideous spider was

weaving its web about her, and vague fears, painful memories, and in

their train fierce hate would force glad expectation into the shadow.

Yet she yearned with passionate fervour to see Hermon again, and when

he was once there all must be well between them. The prediction of old

Tabus, who ruled as mistress over so many demons, could not deceive.

After Ledscha had so lately reminded the lover who so vehemently roused

her jealous wrath what this night of the full moon meant to her, she

could rely upon his appearance in spite of everything.

Various matters undoubtedly held him firmly enough in Tennis--she

admitted this to herself after she grew calmer--but he had promised to

come; he would surely enter the boat, and she--she would submit to share

the night with the Hellene.

Her whole being longed for the bliss awaiting her, and it could come

from no one save the man whose lips would seek hers when the moon rose

over the Pelican Island.

How tardily and sluggishly the cow-headed goddess who bore the silver

orb between her horns rose to-night! how slowly the time passed, yet she

did not move forward more certainly that the man whom Ledscha expected

must arrive.

Of the possibility of his non-appearance she would not think; but when

the fear that she was perhaps looking for him in vain assailed her,

the blood crimsoned her face as if she felt the shame of a humiliating

insult. Yet why should she make the period of waiting more torturing

than it was already?

Surely he must come!

Sometimes she rested on the grassy seat and gazed across the dull gray

surface of the water into the distance; sometimes she walked to and fro,

stopping at every turn to look across at Tennis and the bright torches

and lights which surrounded the Alexandrian’s tent.

So one quarter of an hour after another passed away.

A light breeze rose, and gradually the tops of the rushes began to

shine, and the leafage before, beside, and above her to glitter in the

silvery light.

The water was no longer calm, but furrowed by countless little ripples,

on whose crests the rays from above played, sparkling and flashing

restlessly. A web of shimmering silvery radiance covered the edges of

every island, and suddenly the brilliant full moon was reflected in

argent lustre like a magnificent quivering column upon the surface of

the water, now rippled by the evening breeze.

The time during which Ledscha could repeat “When the moon is over

Pelican Island” was past; already its course had led it beyond.

The island lay behind it, and it continued its pilgrimage before the

young girl’s eyes.

The glittering column of light upon the water proved that she was

not mistaken; the time which she had appointed for Hermon had already

expired.

The moon in calm majesty sailed farther and farther onward in its

course, and with it minute after minute elapsed, until they became a

half hour, then a whole one.

“How long is it since the moon was over Pelican Island?” was the

question which now pressed itself upon her again and again, and to

which she found an answer at every glance upward, for she had learned to

estimate time by the position of the stars.

Rarely was the silence of the night interrupted by the call of a human

being or the barking of a dog from the city, or even the hooting of an

owl at a still greater distance; but the farther the moon moved on above

her the fiercer grew the uproar in Ledscha’s proud, cruelly wronged

soul. She felt offended, scorned, insulted, and at the same time

defrauded of the happiness which this night of the full moon contained

for her. Or had the demons who promised happiness meant something else

in their prediction than Hermon’s love? Was she to owe the bliss they

had foretold to hate and pitiless retribution?

When the midnight hour had nearly arrived she prepared to depart, but

after she had already set her foot on the edge of the boat she returned

to the grassy seat. She would wait a little longer yet. Then there would

be nothing which could give Hermon a right to consideration; then she

might let loose upon him the avenging powers at her command.

Ledscha again gazed over the calm landscape, but in the wild tumult of

her heart she no longer distinguished the details upon which her eyes

rested. Doubtless she saw the light mists hovering like ghosts, or the

restless shades of the unburied dead, over the shining expanse before

her, and the filmy vapours that veiled the brightness of the stars, but

she had ceased to question the heavenly bodies about the time.

What did she care for the progress of the hours, since the constellation

of Charles’s Wain showed her that it was past midnight?

The moon no longer stood forth in sharp outlines against the deep azure

of the vaulted sky, but, robbed of its radiance, floated in a circle of

dimly illumined mists.

Not only the feelings which stirred Ledscha’s soul, but the scene around

her, had gained a totally different aspect.

Since every hope of the happiness awaiting her was destroyed, she no

longer sought to palliate the wrongs Hermon had inflicted upon her.

While dwelling on them, she by no means forgot the trivial purpose for

which the artist intended to use her charms; and when she again gazed up

at the slightly-clouded sky, the shrouded moon no longer reminded her of

the silver orb between the horns of Astarte.

She did not ask herself how the transformation had occurred, but in its

place, high above her head, hung a huge gray spider. Its gigantic limbs

extended over the whole firmament, and seemed striving to clutch and

stifle the world beneath. The enormous monster was weaving its gray net

over Tennis, and all the islands in the water, the Pelican Island, and

she herself upon the seat of turf, and held them all prisoned in it.

It was a horrible vision, fraught with terrors which, even when she shut

her eyes in order to escape it, showed very little change.

Assailed by anxious fears, Ledscha started up, and a few seconds later

was urging her boat with steady strokes toward the Owl’s Nest.

Even now lights were still shining from the Alexandrian’s tent through

the sultry, veiled night.

There seemed to be no waking life on the pirates’ island. Even old Tabus

had probably put out the fire and gone to sleep, for deathlike silence

and deep darkness surrounded it.

Had Hanno, who agreed to meet her here after midnight, also failed to

come? Had the pirate learned, like the Greek, to break his promise?

Only half conscious what she was doing, she left the boat; but her

slender foot had scarcely touched the land when a tall figure emerged

from the thicket near the shore and approached her through the darkness.

“Hanno!” she exclaimed, as if relieved from a burden, and the young

pirate repeated “Hanno” as if the name was the watchword of the night.

Her own name, uttered in a tone of intense yearning, followed. Not

another syllable accompanied it, but the expression with which it fell

upon her ear revealed so plainly what the young pirate felt for and

expected from her that, in spite of the darkness which concealed her,

she felt her face flush.

Then he tried to clasp her hand, and she dared not withdraw it from the

man whom she had chosen for her tool. So she unresistingly permitted him

to hold her right hand while he whispered his desire to take the place

of the fallen Abus and make her his wife.

Ledscha, in hurried, embarrassed tones, answered that she appreciated

the honour of his suit, but before she gave full consent she must

discuss an important matter with him.

Then Hanno begged her to go out on the water.

His father and his brother Labaja were sitting in the house by the

fire with his grandmother. They had learned, in following the trade of

piracy, to hide the glimmer of lights. The old people had approved his

choice, but the conversation in the dwelling would soon be over, and

then the opportunity of seeing each other alone would be at an end.

Without uttering a word in reply, Ledscha stepped back into the boat,

but Hanno plied the oars with the utmost caution and guided the skiff

without the slightest sound away from the island to an open part of the

water far distant from any shore.

Here he took in the oars and asked her to speak. They had no cause to

fear being overheard, for the surrounding mists merely subdued the

light of the full moon, and no other boat could have approached them

unobserved.

The few night birds, sweeping swiftly on their strong pinions from one

island to another, flew past them like flitting shadows. One hawk only,

in search of nocturnal booty, circled around the motionless skiff, and

sometimes, with expanded wings, swooped down close to the couple who

were talking together so eagerly; but both spoke so low that it would

have been impossible, even for the bird’s keen hearing, to follow the

course of their consultation. Merely a few louder words and exclamations

reached the height where it hovered.

The young pirate himself was obliged to listen with the most strained

attention while Ledscha, in low whispers, accused the Greek sculptor of

having basely wronged and deceived her; but the curse with which Hanno

received this acknowledgment reached even the bird circling around

the boat, and it seemed as if it wished to express its approval to the

corsair, for this time its fierce croak, as it suddenly swooped down to

the surface of the water behind the boat, sounded shrilly through the

silent night. But it soon soared again, and now Ledscha’s declaration

that she would become Hanno’s bride only on condition that he would aid

her to punish the Hellenic traitor also reached him.

Then came the words “valuable booty,” “slight risk,” “thanks and

reward.”

The girl’s whispered allusion to two colossal statues made of pure gold

and genuine ivory was followed by a laugh of disagreeable meaning from

the pirate.

At last he raised his deep voice to ask whether Ledscha, if the venture

in which he would willingly risk his life were successful, would

accompany him on board the Hydra, the good ship whose command his

father intrusted to him. The firm “Yes” with which she answered, and

her indignant exclamation as she repulsed Hanno’s premature attempt

at tenderness, might have been heard by the hawk even at a greater

distance.

Then the pirate’s promised bride lowered her voice again, and did not

raise her tones until she saw in imagination the fulfilment of the

judgment which she was calling down upon the man who had torn her heart

with such pitiless cruelty.

Was this the happiness predicted for her on the night of the full moon?

It might be, and, radiant with secret joy, her eyes sparkling and her

bosom heaving as if her foot was already on the breast of the fallen

foe, she assured Hanno that the gold and the ivory should belong to him,

and to him alone; but not until he had delivered the base traitor to her

alive, and left his punishment in her hands, would she be ready to go

with him wherever he wished--not until then, and not one moment earlier.

The pirate, with a proud “I’ll capture him!” consented to this

condition; but Ledscha, in hurried words, now described how she had

planned the attack, while the corsair, at her bidding, plied the oars so

as to bring the boat nearer to the scene of the assault.

The vulture followed the skiff; but when it stopped opposite to the

large white building, one side of which was washed by the waves, Ledscha

pointed to the windows of Hermon’s studio, exclaiming hoarsely to the

young pirate: “You will seize him there--the Greek with the long, soft

black beard, and the slender figure, I mean. Then you will bind and gag

him, but, you hear, without killing him, for I can only inflict what he

deserves upon the living man. I am not bargaining for a dead one.”

Just at that instant the bird of prey, with a shrill, greedy cry, as if

it were invited to a delicious banquet, flew far away into the distance

and did not return. It flew toward the left; the girl noticed it, and

her heavy black eyebrows, which already met, contracted still more. The

direction taken by the bird, which soon vanished in the darkness of the

night, indicated approaching misfortune; but she was here only to sow

destruction, and the more terrible growth it attained the better!

With an acuteness which aroused the admiration of the young corsair, who

was trained to similar plots, she explained hers.

That they must wait until after the departure of the Alexandrian with

her numerous train, and for the first dark night, was a matter of

course.

One signal was to notify Hanno to hold himself in readiness, another to

inform him that every one in the white house had gone to rest, and

that Hermon was there too. The pirates were to enter the black-bearded

Greek’s studio. While some were shattering his statues to carry away

in sacks the gold and ivory which they contained, others were to force

their way into Myrtilus’s workroom, which was on the opposite side of

the house. There they would find the second statue; but this they must

spare, because, on account of the great fame of its creator, it was more

valuable than the other. The fair-haired artist was ill, and it would be

no difficult matter to take him alive, even if he should put himself on

the defensive. Hermon, on the contrary, was a strong fellow, and to bind

him without injuring him severely would require both strength and skill.

Yet it must be done, for only in case Hanno succeeded in delivering both

sculptors to her alive would she consider herself--she could not repeat

it often enough--bound to fulfil what she had promised him.

With the exception of the two artists, only Myrtilus’s servant, the old

doorkeeper, and Bias, Hermon’s slave, remained during the night in the

house which was to be attacked, and Hanno would undertake the assault

with twenty-five sturdy fellows whom he commanded on the Hydra if his

brother Labaja consented to share in the assault, this force could be

considerably increased.

To take the old corsair into their confidence now would not be

advisable, for, on account of his mother’s near presence, he would

scarcely consent to enter into the peril. Should the venture fail,

everything would be over; but if it succeeded, the old man could only

praise the courage and skill with which it had been executed.

Nothing was to be feared from the coast guard, for since Abus’s death

the authorities believed that piracy had vanished from these waters,

and the ships commanded by Satabus and his sons had been admitted from

Pontus into the Tanite arm of the Nile as trading vessels.

CHAPTER XI.

While Hanno was discussing these considerations, he rowed the boat past

the landing place from which the “garden” with the Alexandrian’s tent

could be seen.

The third hour after midnight had begun. Smoking flames were still

rising from the pitch pans and blazing torches, and long rows of

lanterns also illumined the broad space.

It was as light as day in the vicinity of the tent, and Biamite huntsmen

and traders were moving to and fro among the slaves and attendants as

though it was market time.

“Your father, too,” Hanno remarked in his awkward fashion, “will

scarcely make life hard for us. We shall probably find him in Pontus.

He is getting a cargo of wood for Egypt there. We have had dealings with

him a long time. He thought highly of Abus, and I, too, have already

been useful to him. There were handsome young fellows on the Pontine

coast, and we captured them. At the peril of our lives we took them to

the mart. He may even risk it in Alexandria. So the old man makes

over to him a large number of these youths, and often a girl into

the bargain, and he does it far too cheaply. One might envy him the

profit--if it were not your father! When you are once my wife, I’ll make

a special contract with him about the slaves. And, besides, since the

last great capture, in which the old man allowed me a share of my own,

I, too, need not complain of poverty. I shall be ready for the dowry. Do

you want to know what you are worth to me?”

But Ledscha’s attention was attracted by other things, and even after

Hanno, with proud conceit, repeated his momentous question, he waited in

vain for a reply.

Then he perceived that the girl was gazing at the brilliantly lighted

square as if spellbound, and now he himself saw before the tent a shed

with a canopied roof, and beneath it cushioned couches, on which several

Greeks--men and women--were half sitting, half lying, watching with

eager attention the spectacle which a slender young Hellenic woman was

presenting to them.

The tall man with the magnificent black beard, who seemed fairly

devouring her with his eyes, must be the sculptor whom Ledscha commanded

him to capture.

To the rude pirate the Greek girl, who in a light, half-transparent

bombyx robe, was exhibiting herself to the eyes of the men upon a

pedestal draped with cloths, seemed bold and shameless.

Behind her stood two female attendants, holding soft white garments

ready, and a handsome Pontine boy with black, waving locks, who gazed up

at her waiting for her signs.

“Nearer,” Ledscha ordered the pirate in a stifled voice, and he rowed

the boat noiselessly under the shadow of a willow on the bank. But the

skiff had scarcely been brought to a stop there when an elderly matron,

who shared the couch of an old Macedonian man of a distinguished,

soldierly appearance, called the name “Niobe.”

The Hellene on the pedestal took a cloth from the hand of one of the

female attendants, and beckoned to the boy, who obediently drew through

his girdle the short blue chiton which hung only to his knees, and

sprang upon the platform.

There the Greek girl manipulated in some way the red tresses piled high

upon her head, and confined above the brow by a costly gold diadem,

flung the white linen fabric which the young slave handed to her over

her head, wound her arm around the shoulders of the raven-locked boy,

and drew him toward her with passionate tenderness. At the same time

she raised the end of the linen drapery with her left hand, spreading it

over him like a protecting canopy.

The mobile features which had just smiled so radiantly expressed mortal

terror, and the pirate, to whom even the name “Niobe” was unfamiliar,

looked around him for the terrible danger threatening the innocent

child, from which the woman on the pedestal was protecting it with

loving devotion.

The mortal terror of a mother robbed by a higher power of her child

could scarcely be more vividly depicted, and yet haughty defiance

hovered around her slightly pouting lips; the uplifted hands seemed

not only anxiously to defend, but also to defy an invisible foe with

powerless anger.

The pirate’s eyes rested on this spectacle as if spellbound, and the

man who in Pontus had dragged hundreds of young creatures--boys and

girls--on his ship to sell them into slavery, never thinking of the

tears which he thereby caused in huts and mansions, clinched his rough

hand to attack the base wretch who was robbing the poor mother of her

lovely darling.

But just as Hanno was rising to look around him for the invisible

evildoer, the loud shouts of many voices startled him. He glanced toward

the pedestal; but now, instead of the hapless mother, he found there

the bold woman whom he had previously seen, as radiant as if some great

piece of good fortune had befallen her, bowing and waving her hand to

the other Greeks, who were thanking her with loud applause.

The sorely threatened boy, bowing merrily, sprang to the ground; but

Hanno put his hand on Ledscha’s arm, and in great perplexity whispered,

“What did that mean?”

“Hush!” said the girl softly, stretching her slender neck toward the

illuminated square, for the performer had remained standing upon the

pedestal, and Chrysilla, Daphne’s companion, sat erect on her couch,

exclaiming, “If it is agreeable to you, beautiful Althea, show us Nike

crowning the victor.”

Even the Biamite’s keen ear could not catch the reply and the purport

of the rapid conversation which followed; but she guessed the point in

question when the young men who were present rose hastily, rushed toward

the pedestal, loosed the wreaths from their heads, and offered them to

the Greek girl whom Chrysilla had just called “beautiful Althea.”

Four Hellenic officers in the strong military force under Philippus,

the commandant of the “Key of Egypt,” as Pelusium was justly called,

had accompanied the old Macedonian general to visit his friend

Archias’s daughter at Tennis; but Althea rejected their garlands with an

explanation which seemed to satisfy them.

Ledscha could not hear what she said, but when only Hermon and Myrtilus

still stood with their wreaths of flowers opposite the “beautiful

Althea,” and she glanced hesitatingly from one to the other, as if she

found the choice difficult, and then drew from her finger a sparkling

ring, the Biamite detected the swift look of understanding which Hermon

exchanged with her.

The girl’s heart began to throb faster, and, with the keen premonition

of a jealous soul, she recognised in Althea her rival and foe.

Now there was no doubt of it; now, as the actress, skilled in every

wile, hid the hand holding the ring, as well as the other empty one,

behind her back, she would know how to manage so that she could use the

garland which Hermon handed her.

Ledscha’s foreboding was instantly fulfilled, for when Althea held out

her little tightly clinched fist to the artists and asked Myrtilus to

choose, the hand to which he pointed and she then opened was empty, and

she took from the other the ring, which she displayed with well-feigned

regret to the spectators.

Then Hermon knelt before her, and, as he offered Althea his wreath,

his dark eyes gazed so ardently into the blue ones of the red-haired

Greek-like Queen Arsinoe, she was of Thracian descent--that Ledscha was

now positively certain she knew for whose sake her lover had so basely

betrayed her.

How she hated this bold woman!

Yet she was forced to keep quiet, and pressed her lips tightly together

as Althea seized the white sheet and with marvellous celerity wound it

about her until it fell in exquisite folds like a long robe.

Surprise, curiosity, and a pleasant sense of satisfaction in seeing

what seemed to her a shameless display withdrawn from her lover’s eyes,

rendered it easier for Ledscha to maintain her composure; yet she felt

the blood throbbing in her temples as Hermon remained kneeling before

the Hellene, gazing intently into her expressive face.

Was it not too narrow wholly to please the man who had known how to

praise her own beauty so passionately? Did not the outlines of Althea’s

figure, which the bombyx robe only partially concealed, lack roundness

even more than her own?

And yet! As soon as Althea had transformed the sheet into a robe,

and held the wreath above him, Hermon’s gaze rested on hers as though

enraptured, while from her bright blue eyes a flood of ardent admiration

poured upon the man for whom she held the victor’s wreath.

This was done with the upper portion of her body bending very far

forward. The slender figure was poised on one foot; the other, covered

to the ankle with the long robe, hovered in the air. Had not the wings

which, as Nike, belonged to her been lacking, every one would have been

convinced that she was flying--that she had just descended from the

heights of Olympus to crown the kneeling victor. Not only her hand, her

gaze and her every feature awarded the prize to the man at her feet.

There was no doubt that, if Nike herself came to the earth to make the

best man happy with the noblest of crowns, the spectacle would be a

similar one.

And Hermon! No garlanded victor could look up to the gracious divinity

more joyously, more completely enthralled by grateful rapture.

The applause which now rang out more and more loudly was certainly

not undeserved, but it pierced Ledscha’s soul like a mockery, like the

bitterest scorn.

Hanno, on the contrary, seemed to consider the scene scarcely worth

looking at. Something more powerful was required to stir him. He was

particularly averse to all exhibitions. The utmost which his relatives

could induce the quiet, reserved man to do when they ventured into the

great seaports was to attend the animal fights and the games of the

athletes. He felt thoroughly happy only when at sea, on board of his

good ship. His best pleasure was to gaze up at the stars on calm nights,

guide the helm, and meanwhile dream--of late most gladly of making the

beautiful girl who had seemed to him worthy of his brave brother Abus,

his own wife.

In the secluded monotony of his life as a scar over memory had exalted

Ledscha into the most desirable of all women, and the slaughtered Abus

into the greatest of heroes.

To win the love of this much-praised maiden seemed to Hanno peerless

happiness, and the young corsair felt that he was worthy of it; for

on the high seas, when a superior foe was to be opposed by force and

stratagem, when a ship was to be boarded and death spread over her deck,

he had proved himself a man of unflinching courage.

His suit had progressed more easily than he expected. His father would

rejoice, and his heart exulted at the thought of encountering a serious

peril for the girl he loved. His whole existence was a venture of life,

and, had he had ten to lose, they would not have been too dear a price

to him to win Ledscha.

While Althea, as the goddess of Victory, held the wreath aloft, and loud

applause hailed her, Hanno was thinking of the treasures which he had

garnered since his father had allowed him a share of the booty, and of

the future.

When he had accumulated ten talents of gold he would give up piracy,

like Abus, and carry on his own ships wood and slaves from Pontus to

Egypt, and textiles from Tennis, arms and other manufactured articles

from Alexandria to the Pontine cities. In this way Ledscha’s father had

become a rich man, and he would also, not for his own sake--he needed

little--but to make life sweet for his wife, surround her with splendour

and luxury, and adorn her beautiful person with costly jewels. Many a

stolen ornament was already lying in the safe hiding place that even his

brother Labaja did not know.

At last the shouts died away, and as the stopping of the clattering

wheel wakes the miller, so the stillness on the shore roused Hanno from

his dream.

What was it that Ledscha saw there so fascinating that she did not

even hear his low call? His father and Labaja had undoubtedly left his

grandmother’s house long ago, and were looking for him in vain.

Yes, he was right; the old pirate’s shrill whistle reached his ear from

the Owl’s Nest, and he was accustomed to obedience.

So, lightly touching Ledscha on the shoulder, he whispered that he must

return to the island at once. His father would be rejoiced if she went

with him.

“To-morrow,” she answered in a tone of resolute denial. Then, reminding

him once more of the meaning of the signals she had promised to give,

she waved her hand to him, sprang swiftly past him to the prow of the

boat, caught an overhanging bough of the willow on the shore, and, as

she had learned during the games of her childhood, swung herself as

lightly as a bird into the thicket at the water’s edge, which concealed

her from every eye.

CHAPTER XII.

Without even vouchsafing Hanno another glance, Ledscha glided forward in

the shadow of the bushes to the great sycamore, whose thick, broad top

on the side toward the tents was striped with light from the flood of

radiance streaming from them. On the opposite side the leafage vanished

in the darkness of the night, but Myrtilus had had a bench placed there,

that he might rest in the shade, and from this spot the girl could

obtain the best view of what she desired to see.

How gay and animated it was under the awning!

A throng of companions had arrived with the Pelusinians, and some also

had probably been on the ship which--she knew it from Bias--had come to

Tennis directly from Alexandria that afternoon. The galley was said to

belong to Philotas, an aristocratic relative of King Ptolemy. If she was

not mistaken, he was the stately young Greek who was just picking up the

ostrich-feather fan that had slipped from Daphne’s lap.

The performance was over.

Young slaves in gay garments, and nimble female servants with glittering

gold circlets round their upper arms and on their ankles, were

passing from couch to couch, and from one guest to another, offering

refreshments. Hermon had risen from his knees, and the wreath of bright

flowers again adorned his black curls. He held himself as proudly erect

as if the goddess of Victory herself had crowned him, while Althea was

reaping applause and thanks. Ledscha gazed past her and the others to

watch every movement of the sculptor.

It was scarcely the daughter of Archias who had detained Hermon, for he

made only a brief answer--Ledscha could not hear what it was--when she

accosted him pleasantly, to devote himself to Althea, and--this could be

perceived even at a distance--thank her with ardent devotion.

And now--now he even raised the hem of her peplos to his lips.

A scornful smile hovered around Ledscha’s mouth; but Daphne’s guests

also noticed this mark of homage--an unusual one in their circle--and

young Philotas, who had followed Daphne from Alexandria, cast a

significant glance at a man with a smooth, thin, birdlike face, whose

hair was already turning gray. His name was Proclus, and, as grammateus

of the Dionysian games and high priest of Apollo, he was one of the most

influential men in Alexandria, especially as he was one of the favoured

courtiers of Queen Arsinoe.

He had gone by her command to the Syrian court, had enjoyed on

his return, at Pelusium, with his travelling companion Althea, the

hospitality of Philippus, and accompanied the venerable officer to

Tennis in order to win him over to certain plans. In spite of his

advanced age, he still strove to gain the favour of fair women, and the

sculptor’s excessive ardour had displeased him.

So he let his somewhat mocking glance wander from Althea to Hermon,

and called to the latter: “My congratulations, young master; but I need

scarcely remind you that Nike suffers no one--not even goodness and

grace personified--to take from her hand what it is her sole duty to

bestow.”

While speaking he adjusted the laurel on his own thin hair; but Thyone,

the wife of Philippus, answered eagerly: “If I were a young man like

Hermon, instead of an old woman, noble Proclus, I think the wreath which

Beauty bestows would render me scarcely less happy than stern Nike’s

crown of victory.”

While making this pleasant reply the matron’s wrinkled face wore an

expression of such cordial kindness, and her deep voice was so winning

in its melody, that Hermon forced himself to heed the glance of urgent

warning Daphne cast at him, and leave the sharp retort that hovered on

his lips unuttered. Turning half to the grammateus, half to the matron,

he merely said, in a cold, self-conscious tone, that Thyone was right.

In this gay circle, the wreath of bright flowers proffered by the hands

of a beautiful woman was the dearest of all gifts, and he would know how

to value it.

“Until other more precious ones cast it into oblivion,” observed Althea.

“Let me see, Hermon: ivy and roses. The former is lasting, but the

roses--” She shook her finger in roguish menace at the sculptor as she

spoke.

“The roses,” Proclus broke in again, “are of course the most welcome to

our young friend from such a hand; yet these flowers of the goddess of

Beauty have little in common with his art, which is hostile to beauty.

Still, I do not know what wreath will be offered to the new tendency

with which he surprised us.”

At this Hermon raised his head higher, and answered sharply: “Doubtless

there must have been few of them, since you, who are so often among the

judges, do not know them. At any rate, those which justice bestows have

hitherto been lacking.”

“I should deplore that,” replied Proclus, stroking his sharp chin with

his thumb and forefinger; “but I fear that our beautiful Nike also

cared little for this lofty virtue of the judge in the last coronation.

However, her immortal model lacks it often enough.”

“Because she is a woman,” said one of the young officers, laughing; and

another added gaily: “That very thing may be acceptable to us soldiers.

For my part, I think everything about the goddess of Victory is

beautiful and just, that she may remain graciously disposed toward

us. Nay, I accuse the noble Althea of withholding from Nike, in her

personation, her special ornament--her swift, powerful wings.”

“She gave those to Eros, to speed his flight,” laughed Proclus, casting

a meaning look at Althea and Hermon.

No one failed to notice that this jest alluded to the love which seemed

to have been awakened in the sculptor as quickly as in the personator

of the goddess of Victory, and, while it excited the merriment of the

others, the blood mounted into Hermon’s cheeks; but Myrtilus perceived

what was passing in the mind of his irritable friend, and, as the

grammateus praised Nike because in this coronation she had omitted the

laurel, the fair-haired Greek interrupted him with the exclamation:

“Quite right, noble Proclus, the grave laurel does not suit our gay

pastime; but roses belong to the artist everywhere, and are always

welcome to him. The more, the better!”

“Then we will wait till the laurel is distributed in some other place,”

replied the grammateus; and Myrtilus quickly added, “I will answer for

it that Hermon does not leave it empty-handed.”

“No one will greet the work which brings your friend the wreath of

victory with warmer joy,” Proclus protested. “But, if I am correctly

informed, yonder house hides completed treasures whose inspection would

give the fitting consecration to this happy meeting. Do you know what

an exquisite effect gold and ivory statues produce in a full glow of

lamplight? I first learned it a short time ago at the court of King

Antiochus. There is no lack of lights here. What do you say, gentlemen?

Will you not have the studios lighted till the rooms are as bright as

day, and add a noble enjoyment of art to the pleasures of this wonderful

night?”

But Hermon and Myrtilus opposed this proposal with equal decision.

Their refusal awakened keen regret, and the old commandant of Pelusium

would not willingly yield to it.

Angrily shaking his large head, around which, in spite of his advanced

age, thick snowwhite locks floated like a lion’s mane, he exclaimed,

“Must we then really return to our Pelusium, where Ares restricts the

native rights of the Muses, without having admired the noble works which

arose in such mysterious secrecy here, where Arachne rules and swings

the weaver’s shuttle?”

“But my two cruel cousins have closed their doors even upon me, who came

here for the sake of their works,” Daphne interrupted, “and, as rather

Zeus is threatening a storm--just see what black clouds are rising!--we

ought not to urge our artists further; a solemn oath forbids them to

show their creations now to any one.”

This earnest assurance silenced the curious, and, while the conversation

took another turn, the gray-haired general’s wife drew Myrtilus aside.

Hermon’s parents had been intimate friends of her own, as well as of

her husband’s, and with the interest of sincere affection she desired

to know whether the young sculptor could really hope for the success of

which Myrtilus had just spoken.

It was years since she had visited Alexandria, but what she heard of

Hermon’s artistic work from many guests, and now again through Proclus,

filled her with anxiety.

He had succeeded, it was said, in attracting attention, and his great

talent was beyond question; but in this age, to which beauty was as much

one of the necessities of life as bread and wine, and which could not

separate it from art, he ventured to deny it recognition. He headed a

current in art which was striving to destroy what had been proved and

acknowledged, yet, though his creations were undeniably powerful,

and even showed many other admirable qualities, instead of pleasing,

satisfying, and ennobling, they repelled.

These opinions had troubled the matron, who understood men, and was the

more disposed to credit them the more distinctly she perceived traces

of discontent and instability in Hermon’s manner during the present

meeting.

So it afforded her special pleasure to learn from Myrtilus his firm

conviction that, in Arachne, Hermon would produce a masterpiece which

could scarcely be excelled.

During this conversation Althea had come to Thyone’s side, and, as

Hermon had already spoken to her of the Arachne, she eagerly expressed

her belief that this work seemed as if it were specially created for

him.

The Greek matron leaned back comfortably upon her cushions, her

wrinkled, owl-like face assumed a cheerful expression, and, with the

easy confidence conferred by aristocratic birth, a distinguished social

position, and a light heart, she exclaimed: “Lucifer is probably already

behind yonder clouds, preparing to announce day, and this exquisite

banquet ought to have a close worthy of it. What do you say, you

wonder-working darling of the Muses”--she held out her hand to Althea as

she spoke--“to showing us and the two competing artists yonder the model

of the Arachne they are to represent in gold and ivory?”

Althea fixed her eyes upon the ground, and, after a short period of

reflection, answered hesitatingly: “The task which you set before me is

certainly no easy one, but I shall rely upon your indulgence.”

“She will!” cried the matron to the others.

Then, clapping her hands, she continued gaily, in the tone of the

director of an entertainment issuing invitations to a performance: “Your

attention is requested! In this city of weavers the noble Thracian,

Althea, will depict before you all the weaver of weavers, Arachne, in

person.”

“Take heed and follow my advice to sharpen your eyes,” added Philotas,

who, conscious of his inferiority in intellect and talents to the men

and women assembled here, took advantage of this opportunity to assert

himself in a manner suited to his aristocratic birth. “This artistic yet

hapless Arachne, if any one, teaches the lesson how the lofty Olympians

punish those who venture to place themselves on the same level; so

let artists beware. We stepchildren of the Muse can lull ourselves

comfortably in the assurance of not giving the jealous gods the

slightest cause for the doom which overtook the pitiable weaver.”

Not a word of this declaration of the Macedonian aristocrat escaped the

listening Ledscha. Scales seemed to fall from her eyes. Hermon had won

her love in order to use her for the model of his statue of Arachne,

and, now that he had met Althea, who perhaps suited his purpose even

better, he no longer needed the barbarian. He had cast her aside like

a tight shoe as soon as he found a more acceptable one in this female

juggler.

The girl had already asked herself, with a slight thrill of horror,

whether she had not prematurely called down so terrible a punishment

upon her lover; now she rejoiced in her swift action. If anything else

remained for her to do, it was to make the vengeance with which she

intended to requite him still more severe.

There he stood beside the woman she hated. Could he bestow even one poor

thought upon the Biamite girl and the wrong he had inflicted?

Oh, no! His heart was filled to overflowing by the Greek--every look

revealed it.

What was the shameless creature probably whispering to him now?

Perhaps a meeting was just being granted. The rapture which had been

predicted to her for this moonlight night, and of which Hermon had

robbed her, was mirrored in his features. He could think of everything

except her and her poor, crushed heart.

But Ledscha was mistaken. Althea had asked the sculptor whether he

still regretted having been detained by her before midnight, and he had

confessed that his remaining at the banquet had been connected with a

great sacrifice--nay, with an offence which weighed heavily on his

mind. Yet he was grateful to the favour of the gods that had guided his

decision, for Althea had it in her power to compensate him richly for

what he had lost.

A glance full of promise flashed upon him from her eloquent eyes, and,

turning toward the pedestal at the same instant, she asked softly, “Is

the compensation I must and will bestow connected with the Arachne?”

An eager “Yes” confirmed this question, and a swift movement of her

expressive lips showed him that his boldest anticipations were to be

surpassed.

How gladly he would have detained her longer!--but she was already the

object of all eyes, and his, too, followed her in expectant suspense as

she gave an order to the female attendant and then stood thoughtfully

for some time before the platform.

When she at last ascended it, the spectators supposed that she would

again use a cloth; but, instead of asking anything more from the

assistants, she cast aside even the peplos that covered her shoulders.

Now, almost lean in her slenderness, she stood with downcast eyes; but

suddenly she loosed the double chain, adorned with flashing gems, from

her neck, the circlets from her upper arms and wrists, and, lastly, even

the diadem, a gift bestowed by her relative, Queen Arsinoe, from her

narrow brow.

The female slaves received them, and then with swift movements Althea

divided her thick long tresses of red hair into narrower strands, which

she flung over her back, bosom, and shoulders.

Next, as if delirious, she threw her head so far on one side that it

almost touched her left shoulder, and stared wildly upward toward the

right, at the same time raising her bare arms so high that they extended

far above her head.

It was again her purpose to present the appearance of defending herself

against a viewless power, yet she was wholly unlike the Niobe whom she

had formerly personated, for not only anguish, horror, and defiance,

but deep despair and inexpressible astonishment were portrayed by her

features, which obediently expressed the slightest emotion.

Something unprecedented, incomprehensible even to herself, was

occurring, and to Ledscha, who watched her with an expectation as

passionate as if her own weal and woe depended upon Althea’s every

movement, it seemed as if an unintelligible marvel was happening before

her eyes, and a still greater one was impending; for was the woman up

there really a woman like herself and the others whose eyes were now

fixed upon the hated actress no less intently than her own?

Did her keen senses deceive her, or was not what was occurring actually

a mysterious transformation?

As Althea stood there, her delicate arms seemed to have lengthened and

lost even their slight roundness, her figure to have become even more

slender and incorporeal, and how strangely her thin fingers spread

apart! How stiffly the strands of the parted, wholly uncurled locks

stood out in the air!

Did it not seem as if they were to help her move?

The black shadow which Althea’s figure and limbs cast upon the surface

of the brightly lighted pedestal-no, it was no deception, it not only

resembled the spinner among insects, it presented the exact picture of a

spider.

The Greek’s slender body had contracted, her delicate arms and narrow

braids of hair changed into spider legs, and the many-jointed hands were

already grasping for their prey like a spider, or preparing to wind the

murderous threads around another living creature.

“Arachne, the spider!” fell almost inaudibly from her quivering lips,

and, overpowered by torturing fear, she was already turning away from

the frightful image, when the storm of applause which burst from the

Alexandrian guests soothed her excited imagination.

Instead of the spider, a slender, lank woman, with long, outstretched

bare arms, and fingers spread wide apart, fluttering hair, and wandering

eyes again stood before Ledscha.

But no peace was yet granted to her throbbing heart, for while Althea,

with perspiring brow and quivering lips, descended from the pedestal,

and was received with loud demonstrations of astonishment and delight,

the glare of a flash of lightning burst through the clouds, and a loud

peal of thunder shook the night air and reverberated a long time over

the water.

At the same instant a loud cry rang from beneath the canopy.

Thyone, the wife of Alexander the Great’s comrade, though absolutely

fearless in the presence of human foes, dreaded the thunder by which

Zeus announced his anger. Seized with sudden terror, she commanded a

slave to obtain a black lamb for a sacrifice, and earnestly entreated

her husband and her other companions to go on board the ship with her

and seek shelter in its safe, rain-proof cabin, for already heavy drops

were beginning to fall upon the tensely drawn awning.

“Nemesis!” exclaimed the grammateus.

“Nemesis!” whispered young Philotas to Daphne in a confidential murmur,

throwing his own costly purple cloak around her to shield her from the

rain. “Nowhere that we mortals overstep the bounds allotted to us do we

await her in vain.”

Then bending down to her again, he added, by way of explanation: “The

winged daughter of Night would prove herself negligent if she allowed

me to enjoy wholly without drawback the overwhelming happiness of being

with you once more.”

“Nemesis!” remarked Thoas, an aristocratic young hipparch of the

guards of the Diadochi, who had studied in Athens and belonged to the

Peripatetics there. “The master sees in the figure of this goddess the

indignation which the good fortune of the base or the unworthy use of

good fortune inspires in us. She keeps the happy mean between envy and

malicious satisfaction.” The young soldier looked around him, expecting

applause, but no one was listening; the tempest was spreading terror

among most of the freedmen and slaves.

Philotas and Myrtilus were following Daphne and her companion Chrysilla

as they hurried into the tent. The deep, commanding tones of old

Philippus vainly shouted the name of Althea, whom, as he had bestowed

his hospitality upon her in Pelusium, he regarded as his charge, while

at intervals he reprimanded the black slaves who were to carry his wife

to the ship, but at another heavy peal of thunder set down the litter to

throw themselves on their knees and beseech the angry god for mercy.

Gras, the steward whom Archias had given to his daughter, a Bithynian

who had attached himself to one school of philosophy after an other, and

thereby ceased to believe in the power of the Olympians, lost his quiet

composure in this confusion, and even his usual good nature deserted

him. With harsh words, and no less harsh blows, he rushed upon the

servants, who, instead of carrying the costly household utensils and

embroidered cushions into the tent, drew out their amulets and idols to

confide their own imperilled lives to the protection of higher powers.

Meanwhile the gusts of wind which accompanied the outbreak of the storm

extinguished the lamps and pitch-pans. The awning was torn from the

posts, and amid the wild confusion rang the commandant of Pelusium’s

shouts for Althea and the screams of two Egyptian slave women, who, with

their foreheads pressed to the ground, were praying, while the angry

Gras was trying, by kicks and blows, to compel them to rise and go to

work.

The officers were holding a whispered consultation whether they should

accept the invitation of Proclus and spend the short remnant of the

night on his galley over the wine, or first, according to the counsel

of their pious commandant, wait in the neighbouring temple of Zeus until

the storm was over.

The tempest had completely scattered Daphne’s guests. Even Ledscha

glanced very rarely toward the tents. She had thrown her self on the

ground under the sycamore to beseech the angry deity for mercy, but,

deeply as fear moved her agitated soul, she could not pray, but listened

anxiously whenever an unexpected noise came from the meeting place of

the Greeks.

Then the tones of a familiar voice reached her. It was Hermon’s, and

the person to whom he was speaking could be no one but the uncanny

spider-woman, Althea.

They were coming to have a secret conversation under the shade of the

dense foliage of the sycamore. That was easily perceived, and in an

instant Ledscha’s fear yielded to a different feeling.

Holding her breath, she nestled close to the trunk of the ancient tree

to listen, and the first word she heard was the name “Nemesis,” which

had just reached her from the tent.

She knew its meaning, for Tennis also had a little temple dedicated to

the terrible goddess, which was visited by the Egyptians and Biamites as

well as the Greeks.

A triumphant smile flitted over her unveiled features, for there was no

other divinity on whose aid she could more confidently rely. She could

unchain the vengeance which threatened Hermon with a far more terrible

danger than the thunder clouds above, under the protection--nay, as it

were at the behest of Nemesis.

To-morrow she would be the first to anoint her altar.

Now she rejoiced that her wealthy father imposed no restriction upon her

in the management of household affairs, for she need spare no expense in

choosing the animal she intended to offer as a sacrifice.

This reflection flashed through her mind with the speed of lightning

while she was listening to Althea’s conversation with the sculptor.

“The question here can be no clever play upon the name and the nature

of the daughter of Erebus and Night,” said the Thracian gravely. “I

will remind you that there is another Nemesis besides the just being who

drives from his stolen ease the unworthy mortal who suns himself in

good fortune. The Nemesis whom I will recall to-day, while angry Zeus

is hurling his thunderbolts, is the other, who chastises sacrilege--Ate,

the swiftest and most terrible of the Erinyes. I will invoke her wrath

upon you in this hour if you do not confess the truth to me fully and

entirely.”

“Ask,” Hermon interrupted in a hollow tone. “Only, you strange woman--”

“Only,” she hastily broke in, “whatever the answer may be, I must

pose to you as the model for your Arachne--and perhaps it may come

to that--but first I must know, briefly and quickly, for they will be

looking for me immediately. Do you love Daphne?”

“No,” he answered positively. “True, she has been dear to me from

childhood--”

“And,” Althea added, completing the sentence, “you owe her father a debt

of gratitude. But that is not new to me; I know also how little reason

you gave her for loving you. Yet her heart belongs neither to Philotas,

the great lord with the little brain, nor to the famous sculptor

Myrtilus, whose body is really too delicate to bear all the laurels with

which he is overloaded, but to you, and you alone--I know it.”

Hermon tried to contradict her, but Althea, without allowing him to

speak, went on hurriedly: “No matter! I wished to know whether you loved

her. True, according to appearances, your heart does not glow for her,

and hitherto you have disdained to transform by her aid, at a single

stroke, the poverty which ill suits you into wealth. But it was not

merely to speak of the daughter of Archias that I accompanied you into

this tempest, from which I would fain escape as quickly as possible. So

speak quickly. I am to serve you in your art, and yet, if I understood

you correctly, you have already found here another excellent model.”

“A native of the country,” answered Hermon in an embarrassed tone.

“And for my sake you allowed her to wait for you in vain?”

“It is as you say.”

“And you had promised to seek her?”

“Certainly; but before the appointed hour came I met you. You rose

before me like a new sun, shedding a new light that was full of promise.

Everything else sank into darkness, and, if you will fulfil the hope

which you awakened in this heart--”

Just at that moment another flash of lightning blazed, and, while

the thunder still shook the air, Althea continued his interrupted

protestation: “Then you will give yourself to me, body and soul--but

Zeus, who hears oaths, is reminding us of his presence--and what will

await you if the Biamite whom you betrayed invokes the wrath of Nemesis

against you?”

“The Nemesis of the barbarians!” he retorted contemptuously. “She only

placed herself at the service of my art reluctantly; but you, Althea,

if you will loan yourself to me as a model, I shall succeed in doing my

very best; for you have just permitted me to behold a miracle, Arachne

herself, whom you became, you enchantress. It was real, actual life, and

that--that is the highest goal.”

“The highest?” she asked hesitatingly. “You will have to represent the

female form, and beauty, Hermon, beauty?”

“Will be there, allied with truth,” flamed Hermon, “if you, you

peerless, more than beautiful creature, keep your word to me. But you

will! Let me be sure of it. Is a little love also blended with the wish

to serve the artist?”

“A little love?” she repeated scornfully.

“This matter concerns love complete and full--or none. We will see each

other again to-morrow. Then show me what the model Althea is worth to

you.”

With these words she vanished in the darkness, while the call of her

name again rang from the tents.

“Althea!” he cried in a tone of mournful reproach as he perceived her

disappearance, hurrying after her; but the dense gloom soon forced him

to give up the pursuit.

Ledscha, too, left her place beneath the sycamore.

She had seen and heard enough.

Duty now commanded her to execute vengeance, and the bold Hanno was

ready to risk his life for her.

CHAPTER XIII.

The following day the sun shone radiantly, with scorching brilliancy,

upon Tennis and the archipelago, which at this season of the year

surrounded the little city of weavers.

Young Philotas, without going to rest, had set out at dawn in pursuit of

game, accompanied by a numerous hunting party, to which several of the

Pelusinian officers belonged. He, too, had brought home a great quantity

of booty, with which he had expected to awaken Daphne’s admiration, and

to lay as a token of homage at her feet. He had intended to lead before

her garlanded slaves bearing, tied by ropes, bunches of slaughtered wild

fowl, but his reception was very different from what he had anticipated.

Instead of praising his exploit, he had been indignantly requested to

remove the poor, easily killed victims from her presence; and, wounded

and disappointed, he had retired to his magnificent Nile boat, where,

spent by his sleepless night, he slumbered so soundly on his soft

cushions that he did not appear at the breakfast which the gray-haired

commander of Pelusium had invited him to attend on his galley.

While the others were still feasting there, Daphne was enjoying an hour

alone with her companion Chrysilla.

She had remained absent from Philippus’s banquet, and her pale cheeks

showed the ill effects produced by the excitement of the previous night.

A little before noon Hermon came to see her. He, too, had not gone to

the Pelusinian’s breakfast.

After Althea had left him the evening before he went directly back

to the white house, and, instead of going to rest, devoted himself to

Myrtilus; for the difficulty of breathing, which during his industrious

life in quiet seclusion had not troubled him for several months,

attacked him with twofold violence after the gaiety of the previous

night. Hermon had not left him an instant until day brought the sufferer

relief, and he no longer needed the supporting hand of his kind nurse.

While Hermon, in his own sleeping room, ordered Bias to anoint his hair

and beard and put on festal garments, the slave told him certain things

that destroyed the last remnant of composure in his easily agitated

soul.

With the firm resolution to keep the appointment on Pelican Island,

Hermon had gone at sunset, in response to the Alexandrian’s invitation,

to attend her banquet, and by no means unwillingly, for his parents’

old friends were dear to him, and he knew by experience the beneficial

influence Daphne’s sunny, warmhearted nature exerted upon him.

Yet this time he did not find what he expected.

In the first place, he had been obliged to witness how earnestly

Philotas was pressing his suit, and perceived that her companion

Chrysilla was most eagerly assisting him. As she saw in the young

aristocrat a suitable husband for the daughter of Archias, and it was

her duty to assign the guests their seats at the banquet, she had given

the cushion beside Daphne to Philotas, and also willingly fulfilled

Althea’s desire to have Hermon for her neighbour.

When Chrysilla presented the black-bearded artist to the Thracian, she

would have sworn that Althea found an old acquaintance in the sculptor;

but Hermon treated the far-famed relative of Queen Arsinoe as coldly

and distantly as if he now saw her for the first time, and with little

pleasure.

In truth, he was glad to avoid women of Althea’s stamp. For some time he

had preferred to associate with the common people, among whom he found

his best subjects, and kept far aloof from the court circles to which

Althea belonged, and which, thanks to his birth and his ability as an

artist, would easily have been accessible to him also.

The over-refined women who gave themselves airs of avoiding everything

which imposes a restraint upon Nature, and therefore, in their

transparent robes, treated with contempt all that modest Macedonian

dames deemed worthy of a genuine woman’s consideration, were repulsive

to him--perhaps because they formed so rude a contrast to his noble dead

mother and to Daphne.

Although he had been very frequently in feminine society, Althea’s

manner at first caused him a certain degree of embarrassment; for, in

spite of the fact that he believed he met her here for the first time,

there was something familiar about her, especially in the tone of her

voice, and he fancied that her first words were associated with some

former ones.

Yet no! If he had ever met her, he would surely have remembered her

red-gold hair and the other peculiarities of a personality which was

remarkable in every respect.

It soon proved that they were total strangers, and he wished matters to

remain so.

He was glad that she attracted him so little, for at least she would

scarcely make the early departure to the Biamite, which he considered

his duty, a difficult task.

True, he admired from the first the rare milk-white line of her delicate

skin, which was wholly free from rouge--his artist eye perceived that

and the wonderfully beautiful shape of her hands and feet. The pose of

the head on the neck, too, as she turned toward him seemed remarkably

fine. This slender, pliant woman would have been an admirable model!

Again and again she reminded him of a gay Lesbian with whom he had

caroused for a night during the last Dionysia in Alexandria, yet, on

closer inspection, the two were as different as possible.

The former had been as free and reckless in her conduct as Althea was

reserved. The hair and eyebrows of the Lesbian, instead of reddish

gold, were the deepest black, and her complexion--he remembered it

perfectly--was much darker. The resemblance probably consisted merely in

the shape of the somewhat too narrow face, with its absolutely straight

nose, and a chin which was rather too small, as well as in the sound of

the high voice.

Not a serious word had reached his ears from the wanton lips of the

Lesbian, while Althea at once desired information concerning his art,

and showed that she was thoroughly familiar with the works and the

aspirations of the Alexandrian sculptors. Although aware that Hermon had

begun his career as an artist, and was the leader of a new tendency,

she pretended to belong to the old school, and thereby irritated him to

contradiction and the explanation of his efforts, which were rooted in

the demands of the present day and the life of the flourishing capital.

The Thracian listened to the description of the new art struggling

to present truth, as if these things were welcome surprises, grand

revelations, for which she had waited with eager longing. True, she

opposed every statement hostile to the old beliefs; but her extremely

expressive features soon betrayed to him that he was stirring her to

reflect, shaking her opinions, and winning her to his side.

Already, for the sake of the good cause, he devoted himself with the

utmost zeal to the task of convincing Althea; she, however, did not make

it an easy one, but presented clever arguments against his assertions.

Whenever he or she, by way of example, mentioned any well-known work

of art, she imitated, as if involuntarily, its pose and action with

surprising fidelity, frequently also in admirable caricature, whose

effect was extremely comical. What a woman!

She was familiar with whatever Grecian art had created, and the animated

conversation became a bewitching spectacle. When the grammateus Proclus,

who as Althea’s travelling companion had a certain claim upon her

attention, mingled for a while in the discussion and attracted Althea’s

notice, Hermon felt injured, and answered his sensible remarks with such

rudeness that the elder man, whose social position was so much higher,

angrily turned his back upon him.

Althea had imposed a certain degree of restraint upon herself while

talking to the grammateus, but during the further conversation with

Hermon she confessed that she was decidedly of his opinion, and added to

the old reasons for the deposition of beauty and ideality in favour of

truth and reality new ones which surprised the sculptor. When she at

last offered him her hand for a firm alliance, his brain was fevered,

and it seemed a great honour when she asked eagerly what would occupy

him in the immediate future.

Passionate sympathy echoed in every word, was expressed in every

feature, and she listened as if a great happiness was in store for

herself when he disclosed the hopes which he based upon the statue of

Arachne.

True, as time passed he had spoken more than once of the necessity of

retiring, and before midnight really tried to depart; but he had fallen

under Althea’s thrall, and, in reply to her inquiry what must shorten

these exquisite hours, had informed her, in significant words, what drew

him away, and that his delay threatened him with the loss of a model

such as the favour of fate rarely bestowed upon an artist.

Now the Thracian for the first time permitted her eyes to make frank

confessions. She also bent forward with a natural movement to examine

the artistic work on a silver vase, and as while doing so her peplos

fell over his hand, she pressed it tenderly.

He gazed ardently up at her; but she whispered softly: “Stay! You will

gain through me something better than awaits you there, and not only for

to-day and to-morrow. We shall meet again in Alexandria, and to serve

your art there shall be a beloved duty.”

His power of resistance was broken; yet he beckoned to his slave Bias,

who was busied with the mixing jars, and ordered him to seek Ledscha and

tell her not to wait longer; urgent duties detained him.

While he was giving this direction, Althea had become engaged in the

gay conversation of the others, and, as Thyone called Hermon, and he

was also obliged to speak to Daphne, he could not again obtain an

opportunity for private talk with the wonderful woman who held out far

grander prospects for his art than the refractory, rude Biamite maiden.

Soon Althea’s performance seemed to prove how fortunate a choice he had

made. Her Arachne appeared like a revelation to him. If she kept her

promise, and he succeeded in modelling her in the pose assumed while

imagining the process of transformation, and presented her idea to the

spectators, the great success which hitherto--because he had not

yielded to demands which were opposed to his convictions--he had vainly

expected, could no longer escape him. The Alexandrian fellow-artists who

belonged to his party would gratefully welcome this special work; for

what grew out of it would have nothing in common with the fascination

of superhuman beauty, by which the older artists ensnared the hearts and

minds of the multitude. He would create a genuine woman, who would not

lack defects, yet who, though she inspired neither gratification nor

rapture, would touch, perhaps even thrill, the heart by absolute truth.

While Althea was standing on the pedestal, she had not only represented

the transformation into the spider, but experienced it, and the features

of the spectators revealed that they believed they were witnessing

the sinister event. His aim was now to awaken the same feeling in the

beholders of his Arachne. Nothing, nothing at all must be changed in

the figure of the model, in which many might miss the roundness and

plumpness so pleasing to the eye. Althea’s very defects would perfect

the figure of the restless, wretched weaver whom Athene transformed into

the spider.

While devoting himself to nursing his friend, he had thought far less of

the new love-happiness which, in spite of her swift flight, was probably

awaiting him through Althea than of the work which was to fill his

existence in the immediate future.

His healthy body, steeled in the palaestra, felt no fatigue after the

sleepless night passed amid so many powerful excitements when he retired

to his chamber and committed himself to the hands of his slave.

It had not been possible to hear his report before, but when he at last

received it Hermon was to learn something extremely unpleasant, and not

only because no word of apology or even explanation of his absence had

reached Ledscha.

Bias was little to blame for this neglect, for, in the first place, he

had found no boat to reach the Pelican Island, because half Tennis

was on the road to Tanis, where, on the night of the full moon, the

brilliant festivals of the full eye of Horns and the great Astarte were

celebrated by the mixed population of this place. When a boat which

belonged to Daphne’s galley was finally given to him, the Biamite girl

was no longer at the place appointed for the meeting.

Hoping to find her on the Owl’s Nest with old Tabus, he then landed

there, but had been so uncivilly rebuffed on the shore by a rough fellow

that he might be glad to have escaped with sound limbs. Lastly, he stole

to Ledscha’s home, and, knowing that her father was absent, had ventured

as far as the open courtyard in the centre of the stately dwelling. The

dogs knew him, and as a light was shining from one of the rooms that

opened upon the courtyard, he peeped in and saw Taus, Ledscha’s younger

sister. She was kneeling before the statue of a god at the back of the

room, weeping, while the old housekeeper had fallen asleep with the

distaff in her lap.

He called cautiously to the pretty child. She was awaiting the return of

her sister, who, she supposed, was still detained on the Owl’s Nest by

old Tabus’s predictions; she had sorrowful tidings for her.

The husband of her friend Gula had returned on his ship and learned that

his wife had gone to the Greek’s studio. He had raged like a madman, and

turned the unfortunate woman pitilessly out of doors after sunset. Her

own parents had only been induced to receive her with great difficulty.

Paseth, the jealous husband, had spared her life and refrained from

going at once to kill the artist solely because Hermon had saved his

little daughter at his own peril from the burning house.

“Now,” said Ledscha’s pretty little sister, “it would also be known that

she had gone with Gula to his master, who was certainly a handsome man,

but for whom, now that young Smethis was wooing her, she cared no more

than she did for her runaway cat. All Tennis would point at her, and she

dared not even think what her father would do when he came home.”

These communications had increased Hermon’s anxiety.

He was a brave man, and did not fear the vengeance of the enraged

husband, against whom he was conscious of no guilt except having

persuaded his wife to commit an imprudence. What troubled him was only

the consciousness that he had given her and innocent little Taus every

reason to curse their meeting.

The ardent warmth with which Gula blessed him as the preserver of her

child had given him infinite pleasure. Now it seemed as if he had been

guilty of an act of baseness by inducing her to render a service which

was by no means free from danger, as though he wished to be paid for a

good deed.

Besides, the slave had represented the possible consequences of his

imprudence in the most gloomy light, and, with the assurance of knowing

the disposition of his fellow-countrymen, urged his master to leave

Tennis at once; the other Biamite men, who would bear anything rather

than the interference of a Greek in their married lives, might force

Gula’s husband to take vengeance on him.

He said nothing about anxiety concerning his own safety, but he had good

reason to fear being regarded as a go-between and called to account for

it.

But his warnings and entreaties seemed to find deaf ears in Hermon.

True, he intended to leave Tennis as soon as possible, for what

advantage could he now find here? First, however, he must attend to the

packing of the statues, and then try to appease Ledscha, and make Gula’s

husband understand that he was casting off his pretty wife unjustly.

He would not think of making a hasty departure, he told the slave,

especially as he was to meet Althea, Queen Arsinoe’s art-appreciating

relative, in whom he had gained a friend, later in Alexandria.

Then Bias informed him of a discovery to which one of the Thracian’s

slave women had helped him, and what he carelessly told his master drove

the blood from his cheeks, and, though his voice was almost stifled by

surprise and shame, made him assail him with questions.

What great thing had he revealed? There had been reckless gaiety at

every festival of Dionysus since he had been in the artist’s service,

and the slaves had indulged in the festal mirth no less freely than the

masters. To intoxicate themselves with wine, the gift of the god to whom

they were paying homage, was not only permitted, but commanded, and the

juice of the grape proved its all-equalizing power.

There had been no lack of pretty companions even for him, the bondman,

and the most beautiful of all had made eyes at his master, the tall,

slender man with the splendid black beard.

The reckless Lesbian who had favoured Hermon at the last Dionysia had

played pranks with him madly enough, but then had suddenly vanished. By

his master’s orders Bias had tried to find her again, but, in spite of

honest search, in vain.

Just now he had met, as Althea’s maid, the little Syrian Margula, who

had been in her company, and raced along in the procession of bacchanals

in his, Bias’s, arms. True, she could not be persuaded to make a frank

confession, but he, Bias, would let his right hand wither if Hermon’s

companion at the Dionysia was any other than Althea. His master would

own that he was right if he imagined her with black hair instead of red.

Plenty of people in Alexandria practised the art of dyeing, and it was

well known that Queen Arsinoe herself willingly mingled in the throng at

the Dionysia with a handsome Ephebi, who did not suspect the identity of

his companion.

This was the information which had so deeply agitated Hermon, and then

led him, after pacing to and fro a short time, to go first to Myrtilus

and then to Daphne.

He had found his friend sleeping, and though every fibre of his being

urged him to speak to him, he forced himself to leave the sufferer

undisturbed.

Yet so torturing a sense of dissatisfaction with himself, so keen a

resentment against his own adverse destiny had awaked within him, that

he could no longer endure to remain in the presence of his work, with

which he was more and more dissatisfied.

Away from the studio!

There was a gay party on board the galley of his parents’ old friends.

Wine should bring him forgetfulness, too, bless him again with the sense

of joyous existence which he knew so well, and which he now seemed on

the point of losing.

When he had once talked and drunk himself into the right mood, life

would wear a less gloomy face.

No! It should once more be a gay and reckless one.

And Althea?

He would meet her, with whom he had once caroused and revelled madly

enough in the intoxication of the last Dionysia, and, instead of

allowing himself to be fooled any longer and continuing to bow

respectfully before her, would assert all the rights she had formerly so

liberally granted.

He would enjoy to-day, forget to-morrow, and be gay with the gay.

Eager for new pleasure, he drew a long breath as he went out into the

open air, pressed his hands upon his broad chest, and with his eyes

fixed upon the commandant of Pelusium’s galley, bedecked with flags,

walked swiftly toward the landing place.

Suddenly from the deck, shaded by an awning, the loud laugh of a woman’s

shrill voice reached his ear, blended with the deeper tones of

the grammateus, whose attacks on the previous night Hermon had not

forgotten.

He stopped as if the laugh had pierced him to the heart. Proclus

appeared to be on the most familiar terms with Althea, and to meet

him with the Thracian now seemed impossible. He longed for mirth and

pleasure, but was unwilling to share it with these two. As he dared not

disturb Myrtilus, there was only one place where he could find what he

needed, and this was--he had said so to himself when he turned his back

on his sleeping friend--in Daphne’s society.

Only yesterday he would have sought her without a second thought, but

to-day Althea’s declaration that he was the only man whom the daughter

of Archias loved stood between him and his friend.

He knew that from childhood she had watched his every step with sisterly

affection. A hundred times she had proved her loyalty; yet, dear as she

was to him, willingly as he would have risked his life to save her from

a danger, it had never entered his mind to give the tie that united them

the name of love.

An older relative of both in Alexandria had once advised him, when

he was complaining of his poverty, to seek her hand, but his pride of

manhood rebelled against having the wealth which fate denied flung into

his lap by a woman. When she looked at him with her honest eyes, he

could never have brought himself to feign anything, least of all a

passion of which, tenderly attached to her though he had been for years,

hitherto he had known nothing.

“Do you love her?” Hermon asked himself as he walked toward Daphne’s

tent, and the anticipated “No” had pressed itself upon him far less

quickly than he expected.

One thing was undeniably certain: whoever won her for a wife--even

though she were the poorest of the poor--must be numbered among the most

enviable of men. And should he not recognise in his aversion to every

one of her suitors, and now to the aristocratic young Philotas, a

feeling which resembled jealousy?

No! He did not and would not love Daphne. If she were really his, and

whatever concerned him had become hers, with whom could he have sought

in hours like these soothing, kind, and sensible counsel, comfort that

calmed the heart, and the refreshing dew which his fading courage and

faltering creative power required?

The bare thought of touching clay and wax with his fingers, or taking

hammer, chisel, and file in his hands, was now repulsive; and when, just

outside of the tent, a Biamite woman who was bringing fish to the cook

reminded him of Ledscha, and that he had lost in her the right model for

his Arachne, he scarcely regretted it.

CHAPTER XIV.

Outside the door of the tent Hermon was trying to banish Althea’s image

from his mind. How foolishly he had overestimated last night the

value of this miserable actress, who as a woman had lost all charm for

him--even as a model for his Arachne!

He would rather have appeared before his pure friend with unsightly

stains on his robe than while mastered by yearning for the Thracian.

The first glance at Daphne’s beloved face, the first words of her

greeting, taught him that he should find with her everything for which

he longed.

In simple, truthful words she reproached him for having neglected her

to the verge of incivility the evening before, but there was no trace of

bitterness or resentment in the accusation, and she gave Hermon little

time for apology, but quickly gladdened him with words of forgiveness.

In the opinion of her companion Chrysilla, Daphne ought to have kept

the capricious artist waiting much longer for pardon. True, the cautious

woman took no part in the conversation afterward, but she kept her

charge in sight while she was skilfully knotting the fringe into a cloth

which she had woven herself. On account of her favourite Philotas, it

was well for Daphne to be aware that she was watched.

Chrysilla was acquainted with life, and knew that Eros never mingles

more arbitrarily in the intercourse of a young couple than when, after a

long separation, there is anything whatever to forgive.

Besides, many words which the two exchanged escaped her hearing, for

they talked in low tones, and it was hot in the tent. Often the fatigue

she felt after the sleepless night bowed her head, still comely with its

unwrinkled face, though she was no longer young; then she quickly raised

it again.

Neither Daphne nor Hermon noticed her. The former at once perceived that

something was weighing on the sculptor’s mind, but he did not need any

long inquiry. He had come to confide his troubles to her, and she kindly

lightened the task for him by asking why he had not gone to breakfast

with the Pelusinians.

“Because I am not fit for gay company today,” was the reply.

“Again dissatisfied with Fate?”

“True, it has given me small cause for contentment of late.”

“Put in place of Fate the far-seeing care of the gods, and you will

accept what befalls you less unkindly.”

“Let us stick to us mortals, I entreat you.”

“Very well, then. Your Demeter does not fully satisfy you.”

A discontented shrug of the shoulders was the reply.

“Then work with twofold zeal upon the Arachne.”

“Although one model I hoped to obtain forsook me, and my soul is

estranged from the other.”

“Althea?” she asked eagerly, and he nodded assent.

Daphne clapped her hands joyfully, exclaiming so loudly that Chrysilla’s

head sprang up with a jerk. “It could not help being so! O Hermon!

how anxious I have been! Now, I thought, when this horrible woman

represented the transformation into the spider with such repulsive

accuracy, Hermon will believe that this is the true, and therefore the

right, ideal; nay, I was deceived myself while gazing. But, eternal

gods! as soon as I imagined this Arachne in marble or chryselephantine

work, what a painful feeling overpowered me!”

“Of course!” he replied in an irritated tone. “The thirst for beauty, to

which you all succumb, would not have much satisfaction to expect from

this work.”

“No, no, no!” Daphne interrupted in a louder tone than usual, and with

the earnest desire to convince him. “Precisely because I transported

myself into your tendency, your aspirations, I recognised the danger. O

Hermon! what produced so sinister an effect by the wavering light of

the lamps and torches, while the thunderstorm was rising--the strands of

hair, the outspread fingers, the bewildered, staring blue eyes--do

you not feel yourself how artificial, how unnatural it all was? This

transformation was only a clever trick of acting, nothing more. Before

a quiet spectator, in the pure, truthful light of Apollo, the foe of

all deception, what would this Arachne probably become? Even now--I have

already said so--when I imagine her executed in marble or in gold

and ivory! Beauty? Who would expect to find in the active, constantly

toiling weaver, the mortal daughter of an industrious dyer in purple,

the calm, refreshing charm of divine women? I at least am neither

foolish nor unjust enough to do so. The degree of beauty Althea

possesses would entirely satisfy me for the Arachne. But when I imagine

a plastic work faithful to the model of yesterday evening--though I

have seen a great deal with my own eyes, and am always ready to defer to

riper judgment--I would think, while looking at it: This statue came to

the artist from the stage, but never from Nature. Such would be my view,

and I am not one of the initiated. But the adepts! The King, with his

thorough connoisseurship and fine taste, my father, and the other famous

judges, how much more keenly they would perceive and define it!”

Here she hesitated, for the blood had left Hermon’s cheeks, and she saw

with surprise the deep impression which the candid expression of

her opinion had produced upon the artist, usually so independent and

disposed to contradiction. Her judgment had undoubtedly disturbed, nay,

perhaps convinced him; but at the same time his features revealed such

deep depression that, far from rejoicing in so rare a success, she

patted his arm like an affectionate sister, saying: “You have not yet

found time to realize calmly what yesterday dazzled us all--and you,”

she added in a lower tone, “the most strongly.”

“But now,” he murmured sadly, half to himself, half to, her, “my vision

is doubly clear. Close before the success of which I dreamed failure and

bitter disappointment.”

“If this ‘doubly’ refers to your completed work, and also to the

Arachne,” cried Daphne in the affectionate desire to soothe him, “a

pleasant surprise will perhaps soon await you, for Myrtilus judges your

Demeter much more favourably than you yourself do, and he also betrayed

to me whom it resembles.”

She blushed slightly as she spoke, and, as her companion’s gloomy face

brightened for a short time, went on eagerly: “And now for the Arachne.

You will and must succeed in what you so ardently strive to accomplish,

a subject so exactly adapted to your magnificent virile genius and so

strangely suited to the course which your art has once entered upon.

And you can not fail to secure the right model. You had not found it

in Althea, no, certainly not! O Hermon! if I could only make you see

clearly how ill suited she, in whom everything is false, is to you--your

art, your only too powerful strength, your aspiration after truth--”

“You hate her,” he broke in here in a repellent tone; but Daphne dropped

her quiet composure, and her gray eyes, usually so gentle, flashed

fiercely as she exclaimed: “Yes, and again yes! From my inmost soul I

do, and I rejoice in it. I have long disliked her, but since yesterday I

abhor her like the spider which she can simulate, like snakes and toads,

falsehood and vice.”

Hermon had never seen his uncle’s peaceful daughter in this mood. The

emotions that rendered this kindly soul so unlike itself could only be

the one powerful couple, love and jealousy; and while gazing intently

at her face, which in this moment seemed to him as beautiful as Dallas

Athene armed for battle, he listened breathlessly as she continued:

“Already the murderous spider had half entangled you in her net. She

drew you out into the tempest--our steward Gras saw it--in order, while

Zeus was raging, to deliver you to the wrath of the other gods also

and the contempt of all good men; for whoever yields himself to her she

destroys, sucks the marrow from his bones like the greedy harpies, and

all that is noble from his soul.”

“Why, Daphne,” interrupted Chrysilla, raising herself from her cushions

in alarm, “must I remind you of the moderation which distinguishes the

Greeks from the barbarians, and especially the Hellenic woman--”

Here Daphne indignantly broke in: “Whoever practises moderation in the

conflict against vice has already gone halfway over to evil. She utterly

ruined--how long ago is it?--the unfortunate Menander, my poor Ismene’s

young husband. You know them both, Hermon. Here, of course, you scarcely

heard how she lured him from his wife and the lovely little girl who

bears my name. She tempted the poor fellow to her ship, only to cast him

off at the end of a month for another. Now he is at home again, but he

thinks Ismene is the statue from the Temple of Isis, which has gained

life and speech; for he has lost his mind, and when I saw him I felt as

if I should die of horror and pity. Now she is coming home with Proclus,

and, as the way led through Pelusium, she attached herself to our

friends and forces herself in here with them. What does she care about

her elderly travelling companion? But you--yes, you, Hermon--are the

next person whom she means to capture. Just now, when my eyes closed But

no! It is not only in my dreams; the hideous gray threads which proceed

from this greedy spider are continually floating before me and dim the

light.” Here she paused, for the maid Stephanion announced the coming of

visitors, and at the same time loud voices were heard outside, and the

merry party who had been attending the breakfast given by the commandant

of Pelusium entered the tent.

Althea was among the guests, but she took little notice of Hermon.

Proclus, her associate in Queen Arsinoe’s favour, was again asserting

his rights as her travelling companion, and she showed him plainly that

the attention which he paid her was acceptable.

Meanwhile her eager, bright blue eyes were roving everywhere, and

nothing that was passing around her escaped her notice.

As she greeted Daphne she perceived that her cheeks had flushed during

her conversation with Hermon.

How reserved and embarrassed the sculptor’s manner was now to his

uncle’s daughter, whom only yesterday he had treated with as much

freedom as though she were his sister! What a bungler in dissimulation!

how short-sighted was this big, strong man and remarkable artist! He had

carried her, Althea, in his arms like a child for a whole quarter of an

hour at the festival of Dionysus, and, in spite of the sculptor’s keen

eye, he did not recognise her again!

What would not dyes and a change of manner accomplish!

Or had the memory of those mad hours revived and caused his

embarrassment? If he should know that her companion, the Milesian Nanno,

whom he had feasted with her on oyster pasties at Canopus after she

had given the slip to her handsome young companion was Queen Arsinoe!

Perhaps she would inform him of it some day if he recognised her.

Yet that could scarcely have happened. He had only been told what she

betrayed to him yesterday, and was now neglecting her for Daphne’s sake.

That was undoubtedly the way the matter stood. How the girl’s cheeks

were glowing when she entered!

The obstacle that stood between her and Hermon was the daughter of

Archias, and she, fool that she was, had attracted Hermon’s attention to

her.

No matter!

He would want her for the Arachne, and she needed only to stretch out

her hand to draw him to her again if she found no better amusement in

Alexandria. Now she would awaken his fears that the best of models would

recall her favour. Besides, it would not do to resume the pleasant game

with him under the eyes of Philippus and his wife, who was a follower

of the manners of old times. The right course now was to keep him until

later.

Standing at Proclus’s side, she took part gaily in the general

conversation; but when Myrtilus and Philemon had joined the others, and

Daphne had consented to go with Philippus and Thyone that evening,

in order, after offering sacrifice together to Selene, to sail for

Pelusium, Althea requested the grammateus to take her, into the open

air.

Before leaving the tent, however, she dropped her ostrich-feather fan

as she passed Hermon, and, when he picked it up, whispered with a

significant glance at Daphne, “I see that what was learned of her heart

is turned to account promptly enough.”

Then, laughing gaily, she continued loudly enough to be heard by her

companion also: “Yesterday our young artist maintained that the

Muse shunned abundance; but the works of his wealthy friend Myrtilus

contradicted him, and he changed his view with the speed of lightning.”

“Would that this swift alteration had concerned the direction of his

art,” replied Proclus in a tone audible to her alone.

Both left the tent as he spoke, and Hermon uttered a sigh of relief

as he looked after them. She attributed the basest motives to him, and

Daphne’s opinion of her was scarcely too severe.

He no longer needed to fear her power of attraction, though, now that he

had seen her again, he better understood the spell which she had exerted

over him. Every movement of her lithe figure had an exquisite grace,

whose charm was soothing to the artist’s eye. Only there was something

piercing in her gaze when it did not woo love, and, while making the

base charge, her extremely thin lips had showed her sharp teeth in a

manner that reminded him of the way the she-wolf among the King’s wild

beasts in the Paneum gardens raised her lips when any one went near her

cage.

Daphne was right. Ledscha would have been infinitely better as a model

for the Arachne. Everything in this proud creature was genuine and

original, which was certainly not the case with Althea. Besides, stern

austerity was as much a part of the Biamite as her hair and her hands,

yet what ardent passion he had seen glow in her eyes! The model so

long sought in vain he had found in Ledscha, who in so many respects

resembled Arachne. Fool that he was to have yielded to a swift and false

ebullition of feeling!

Since Myrtilus was again near him Hermon had devoted himself with fresh

eagerness to his artistic task, while a voice within cried more and more

loudly that the success of his new work depended entirely upon Ledscha.

He must try to regain her as a model for the Arachne! But while

pondering over the “how,” he felt a rare sense of pleasure when Daphne

spoke to him or her glance met his.

At first he had devoted himself eagerly to his father’s old friends,

and especially to Thyone, and had not found it quite easy to remain firm

when, in her frank, kindly, cordial manner, she tried to persuade him

to accompany her and the others to Pelusium. Yet he had succeeded in

refusing the worthy couple’s invitation. But when he saw Philotas, whose

resemblance to the King, his cousin, had just been mentioned by one of

the officers, become more and more eager in his attentions to Daphne,

and heard him also invited by Philippus to share the nocturnal

voyage, he felt disturbed, and could not conceal from himself that the

uneasiness which constantly obtained a greater mastery over him arose

from the fear of losing his friend to the young aristocrat.

This was jealousy, and where it flamed so hotly love could scarcely

be absent. Yet, had the shaft of Eros really struck him, how was it

possible that the longing to win Ledscha back stirred so strongly within

him that he finally reached a resolution concerning her?

As soon as the guests left Tennis he would approach the Biamite again.

He had already whispered this intention to Myrtilus, when he heard

Daphne’s companion say to Thyone, “Philotas will accompany us, and on

this voyage they will plight their troth if Aphrodite’s powerful son

accepts my sacrifice.”

He involuntarily looked at the pair who were intended for each other,

and saw Daphne lower her eyes, blushing, at a whisper from the young

Macedonian.

His blood also crimsoned his cheeks, and when, soon after, he asked his

friend whether she cared for his companionship, and Daphne assented in

the most eager way, he said that he would share the voyage to Pelusium.

Daphne’s eyes had never yet beamed upon him so gladly and graciously.

Althea was right. She must love him, and it seemed as if this conviction

awoke a new star of happiness in his troubled soul.

If Philotas imagined that he could pluck the daughter of Archias like a

ripe fruit from a tree, he would find himself mistaken.

Hermon did not yet exactly understand himself, only he felt certain that

it would be impossible to surrender Daphne to another, and that for her

sake he would give up twenty Ledschas, though he cherished infinitely

great expectations from the Biamite for his art, which hitherto had been

more to him than all else.

Everything that he still had to do in Tennis he could intrust to his

conscientious Bias, to Myrtilus, and his slaves.

If he returned to the city of weavers, he would earnestly endeavour

to palliate the offence which he had inflicted on Ledscha, and, if

possible, obtain her forgiveness. Only one thing detained him--anxiety

about his friend, who positively refused to share the night voyage.

He had promised his uncle Archias to care for him like a brother, and

his own kind heart bade him stay with Myrtilus, and not leave him to the

nursing of his very skilful but utterly unreliable body-servant, after

the last night had proved to what severe attacks of his disease he was

still liable.

Myrtilus, however, earnestly entreated him not to deprive himself on

his account of a pleasure which he would gladly have shared. There was

plenty of time to pack the statues. As for himself, nothing would do him

more good just now than complete rest in his beloved solitude, which,

as Hermon knew, was more welcome to him than the gayest society. Nothing

was to be feared for him now. The thunderstorm had purified the air,

and another one was not to be expected soon in this dry region. He had

always been well here in sunny weather. Storms, which were especially

harmful to him, never came at this season of the year.

Myrtilus secretly thought that Hermon’s departure would be desirable,

because the slave Bias had confided to him what dangers threatened his

friend from the incensed Biamite husbands.

Finally, Myrtilus turned to the others and begged them not to let Hermon

leave Pelusium quickly.

When, at parting, he was alone with him, he embraced him and said more

tenderly than usual: “You know how easy it will be for me to depart from

life; but it would be easier still if I could leave you behind without

anxiety, and that would happen if the hymeneal hymns at your marriage

to Daphne preceded the dirges which will soon resound above my coffin.

Yesterday I first became sure that she loves you, and, much good as you

have in your nature, you owe the best to her.”

Hermon clasped him in his arms with passionate affection, and after

confessing that he, too, felt drawn with the utmost power toward Daphne,

and urging him to anticipate complete recovery instead of an early

death, he held out his hand to his friend; but Myrtilus clasped it a

long time in his own, saying earnestly: “Only this one frank warning:

An Arachne like the model which Althea presented yesterday evening would

deal the past of your art a blow in the face. No one at Rhodes--and this

is just what I prize in you--hated imitation more, yet what would using

the Arachne on the pedestal for a model be except showing the world not

how Hermon, but how Althea imagines the hapless transformed mortal? Even

if Ledscha withdraws from you, hold fast to her image. It will live on

in your soul. Recall it there, free it from whatever is superfluous,

supply whatever it lacks, animate it with the idea of the tireless

artist, the mocking, defiant mortal woman who ended her life as the

weaver of weavers in the insect world, as you have so often vividly

described her to me. Then, my dear fellow, you will remain loyal to

yourself, and therefore also to the higher truth, toward which every one

of us who labours earnestly strives, and, myself included, there is no

one who wields hammer and chisel in Greece who could contest the prize

with you.”

CHAPTER XV.

When the sun was approaching the western horizon the travellers started.

Light mists veiled the radiant right eye of the goddess of heaven. The

blood of the contending spirits of light and darkness, which usually

dyed the west of Egypt crimson at the departure of the great sun god,

to-day vanished from sight.

The sultry air was damp and oppressive, and experienced old Philippus,

who had commanded a fleet of considerable size under the first

Ptolemies, agreed with the captain of the vessel, who pointed to several

small dark clouds under the silvery stratus, and expressed the fear that

Selene would hardly illumine the ship’s course during the coming night.

But before the departure the travellers had offered sacrifices to

the foam-born Cyprian Aphrodite and the Dioscuri, the protectors of

mariners, and the conversation took the gayest turn.

In the harbour of the neighbouring seaport Tanis they went aboard of the

commandant’s state galley, one of the largest and finest in the royal

fleet, where a banquet awaited them.

Cushions were arranged on the high poop, and the sea was as smooth as

the silver dishes in which viands were offered to the guests.

True, not a breath stirred the still, sultry air, but the three long

double ranks of rowers in the hold of the ship provided for her swift

progress, and if no contrary wind sprang up she would run into the

harbour of Pelusium before the last goblet was emptied.

Soon after the departure it seemed as if the captain of the little

vessel had erred in his prediction, for the moon burst victoriously

through the black clouds, only its shining orb was surrounded by a dull,

glimmering halo.

Doubtless many a guest longed for a cool breeze, but when the mixed wine

had moistened the parched tongues the talk gained fresh animation.

Every one did his or her part, for the point in question was to induce

Philippus and his wife to visit Alexandria again and spend some time

there as beloved guests with Daphne in her father’s house or in the

palace of Philotas, who jestingly, yet with many reasons, contested the

honour with the absent Archias.

The old warrior had remained away from the capital for several years;

he alone knew why. Now the act which had incensed him and the offence

inflicted upon him were forgotten, and, having passed seventy four

years, he intended to ask the commander in chief once more for the

retirement from the army which the monarch had several times refused,

in order, as a free man, to seek again the city which in his present

position he had so long avoided.

Thyone, it is true, thought that her husband’s youthful vigour rendered

this step premature, but the visit to Alexandria harmonized with her own

wishes.

Proclus eagerly sided with her. “To him,” said the man of manifold

knowledge, who as high priest of Apollo was fond of speaking in an

instructive tone, “experience showed that men like Philippus, who solely

on account of the number of their years withdrew their services from

the state, felt unhappy, and, like the unused ploughshare, became

prematurely rusty. What they lacked, and what Philippus would also

miss, was not merely the occupation, which might easily be supplied by

another, but still more the habit of command. One who had had thousands

subject to his will was readily overcome by the feeling that he was

going down hill, when only a few dozen of his own slaves and his wife

obeyed him.”

This word aroused the mirth of old Philippus, who praised all the good

qualities of Macedonian wives except that of obedience, while Thyone

protested that during her more than forty years of married life her

husband had become so much accustomed to her complete submission than he

no longer noticed it. If Philippus should command her to-morrow to leave

their comfortable palace in Pelusium to accompany him to Alexandria,

where they possessed no home of their own, he would see how willingly

she obeyed him.

While speaking, her bright, clear eyes, which seemed to float in the

deep hollows sunk by age, sparkled so merrily in her wrinkled face that

Philippus shook his finger gaily at her and showed plainly how much

pleasure the jest of the old companion of his wanderings gave him.

Yet he insisted upon his purpose of not entering Alexandria again until

he had resigned his office, and to do this at present was impossible,

since he was bound just now, as if with chains, to the important

frontier fortress. Besides, there had probably been little change in the

capital since the death of his beloved old companion in arms and master,

the late King.

This assertion evoked a storm of contradiction, and even the younger

officers, who usually imposed severe restraint upon themselves in the

general’s presence, raised their voices to prove that they, too, had

looked around the flourishing capital with open eyes.

Yet it was not six decades since Philippus, then a lad of seventeen, had

been present at its foundation.

His father, who had commanded as hipparch a division of cavalry in the

army of Alexander the Great, had sent for the sturdy youth just at that

time to come to Egypt, that he might enter the army. The conqueror

of the world had himself assigned him, as a young Macedonian of good

family, to the corps of the Hetairoi; and how the vigorous old man’s

eyes sparkled as, with youthful enthusiasm, he spoke of the divine

vanquisher of the world who had at that time condescended to address

him, gazed at him keenly yet encouragingly with his all-discerning but

kindly blue eyes, and extended his hand to him!

“That,” he cried, “made this rough right hand precious to me. Often

when, in Asia, in scorching India, and later here also, wounded or

exhausted, it was ready to refuse its service, a spirit voice within

cried, ‘Do not forget that he touched it’; and then, as if I had drunk

the noble wine of Byblus, a fiery stream flowed from my heart into the

paralyzed hand, and, as though animated with new life, I used it again

and kept it worthy of his touch. To have seen a darling of the gods like

him, young men, makes us greater. It teaches us how even we human beings

are permitted to resemble the immortals. Now he is transported among the

gods, and the Olympians received him, if any one, gladly. Whoever shared

the deeds of such a hero takes a small portion of his renown with him

through life and into the grave, and whom he touched, as befell me,

feels himself consecrated, and whatever is petty and base flows away

from him like water from the anointed body of the wrestler. Therefore

I consider myself fortunate above thousands of others, and if there is

anything which still tempts me to go to Alexandria, it is the desire to

touch his dead body once more. To do that before I die is my most ardent

desire.”

“Then gratify it!” cried Thyone with urgent impatience; but Proclus

turned to the matron, and, after exchanging a hasty glance with Althea,

said: “You probably know, my venerable friend, that Queen Arsinoe, who

most deeply honours your illustrious husband, had already arranged to

have him summoned to the capital as priest of Alexander. True, in this

position he would have had the burden of disposing of all the revenues

from the temples throughout Egypt; but, on the other hand, he would

always have his master’s mortal remains near and be permitted to be

their guardian. What influences baffled the Queen’s wish certainly have

not remained hidden from you here.”

“You are mistaken,” replied Philippus gravely. “Not the least whisper of

this matter reached my ears, and it is fortunate.”

“Impossible!” Althea eagerly interrupted; “nothing else was talked of

for weeks in the royal palace. Queen Arsinoe--you might be jealous, Lady

Thyone--has been fairly in love with your hero ever since her last stay

in your house on her way home from Thrace, and she has not yet given up

her desire to see him in the capital as priest of Alexander. It seems

to her just and fair that the old companion of the greatest of the great

should have the highest place, next to her husband’s, in the city

whose foundation he witnessed. Arsinoe speaks of you also with all the

affection natural to her feeling heart.”

“This is as flattering as it is surprising,” replied Thyone. “The

attention we showed her in Pelusium was nothing more than we owed to

the wife of the sovereign. But the court is not the principal attraction

that draws me to the capital. It would make Philippus happy--you have

just heard him say so--to remember his old master beside the tomb of

Alexander.”

“And,” added Daphne, “how amazed you will be when you see the present

form of the ‘Soma’, in which rests the golden coffin with the body

of the divine hero whom the fortunate Philippus aided to conquer the

world!”

“You are jesting,” interrupted the old warrior. “I aided him only as the

drops in the stream help to turn the wheel of the mill. As to his body,

true, I marched at the head of the procession which bore it to Memphis

and thence to Alexandria. In the Soma I was permitted to think of him

with devout reverence, and meantime I felt as if I had again seen him

with these eyes--exactly as he looked in the Egyptian fishing village of

Rhacotis, which he transformed into your magnificent Alexandria. What

a youth he was! Even what would have been a defect in others became a

beauty in him. The powerful neck which supported his divine head was a

little crooked; but what grace it lent him when he turned kindly to

any one! One scarcely noticed it, and yet it was like the bend of a

petitioner, and gave the wish which he expressed resistless power. When

he stood erect, the sharpest eye could not detect it. Would that he

could appear before me thus once more! Besides, the buildings which

surrounded the golden coffin were nearly completed at the time of our

departure.”

“But the statues, reliefs, and mosaic work were lacking,” said Hermon.

“They were executed by Lysippus, Euphranor, and others of our greatest

artists; the paintings by Apelles himself, Antiphilus, and Nicias. Only

those who had won renown were permitted to take part in this work, and

the Ares rushing to battle, created by our Myrtilus, can be seen among

the others. The tomb of Alexander was not entirely completed until three

years ago.”

“At the same time as the Paneum,” added Philotas, completing the

sentence; and Althea, waving her beaker toward the old hero, remarked:

“When you have your quarters in the royal palace with your crowned

admirer, Arsinoe--which, I hope, will be very soon--I will be your

guide.”

“That office is already bestowed on me by the Lady Thyone,” Daphne

quietly replied.

“And you think that, in this case, obedience is the husband’s duty?”

cried the other, with a sneering laugh.

“It would only be the confirmation of a wise choice,” replied Philippus,

who disliked the Thracian’s fawning manner.

Thyone, too, did not favour her, and had glanced indignantly at her when

Althea made her rude remark. Now she turned to Daphne, and her plain

face regained its pleasant expression as she exclaimed: “We really

promised your father to let him show us the way, child; but,

unfortunately, we are not yet in Alexandria and the Paneum.”

“But you would set out to-morrow,” Hermon protested, “if we could

succeed in fitly describing what now awaits you there. There is only one

Alexandria, and no city in the world can offer a more beautiful scene

than is visible from the mountain in the Paneum gardens.”

“Certainly not,” protested the young hipparch, who had studied in

Athens. “I stood on the Acropolis; I was permitted to visit Rhodes and

Miletus--”

“And you saw nothing more beautiful there,” cried Proclus. “The

aristocratic Roman envoys, who left us a short time ago, admitted the

same thing. They are just men, for the view from the Capitol of their

growing city is also to be seen. When the King’s command led me to the

Tiber, many things surprised me; but, as a whole, how shall I compare

the two cities? The older Rome, with her admirable military power:

a barbarian who is just beginning to cultivate more refined

manners--Alexandria: a rich, aristocratic Hellene who, like you, my

young friend, completed her education in Ilissus, and unites to

the elegant taste and intellect of the Athenian the mysterious

thoughtfulness of the Egyptian, the tireless industry of the Jew, and

the many-sided wisdom and brilliant magnificence of the other Oriental

countries.”

“But who disdains to dazzle the eyes with Asiatic splendour,”

interrupted Philotas.

“And yet what do we not hear about the unprecedented luxury in the royal

palace!” growled the gray-haired warrior.

“Parsimony--the gods be praised!--no one need expect from our royal

pair,” Althea broke in; “but King Ptolemy uses his paternal wealth for

very different purposes than glittering gems and golden chambers. If you

disdain my guidance, honoured hero, at least accept that of some genuine

Alexandrian. Then you will understand Proclus’s apt simile. You ought to

begin with the royal palaces in the Brucheium.”

“No, no-with the harbour of Eunostus!” interrupted the grammateus.

“With the Soma!” cried the young hipparch, while Daphne wished to have

the tour begin in the Paneum gardens.

“They were already laid out when we left Alexandria,” said Thyone.

“And they have grown marvellously, as if creative Nature had doubled her

powers in their behalf,” Hermon added eagerly. “But man has also wrought

amazing miracles here. Industrious hands reared an actual mountain. A

winding path leads to the top, and when you stand upon the summit and

look northward you at first feel like the sailor who steps on shore and

hears the people speak a language which is new to him. It seems like a

jumble of meaningless sounds until he learns, not only to understand

the words, but also to distinguish the sentences. Temples and palaces,

statues and columns appear everywhere in motley confusion. Each one,

if you separate it from the whole and give it a careful examination,

is worthy of inspection, nay, of admiration. Here are light, graceful

creations of Hellenic, yonder heavy, sombre ones of Egyptian art, and

in the background the exquisite azure of the eternal sea, which the

marvellous structure of the heptastadium unites to the land; while on

the island of Pharos the lighthouse of Sostratus towers aloft almost to

the sky, and with a flood of light points out the way to mariners who

approach the great harbour at night. Countless vessels are also at

anchor in the Eunostus. The riches of the whole earth flow into both

havens. And the life and movement there and in the inland harbour on

Lake Mareotis, where the Nile boats land! From early until late, what

a busy throng, what an abundance of wares--and how many of the most

valuable goods are made in our own city! for whatever useful, fine, and

costly articles industrial art produces are manufactured here. The roof

has not yet been put on many a factory in which busy workers are already

making beautiful things. Here the weaver’s shuttle flies, yonder gold

is spun around slender threads of sheep guts, elsewhere costly materials

are embroidered by women’s nimble fingers with the prepared gold thread.

There glass is blown, or weapons and iron utensils are forged. Finely

polished knives split the pith of the papyrus, and long rows of workmen

and workwomen gum the strips together. No hand, no head is permitted to

rest. In the Museum the brains of the great thinkers and investigators

are toiling. Here, too, reality asserts its rights. The time for

chimeras and wretched polemics is over. Now it is observing, fathoming,

turning to account, nothing more!”

“Gently, my young friend,” Proclus interrupted the artist. “I know that

you, too, sat at the feet of some of the philosophers in the Museum,

and still uphold the teachings of Straton, which your fellow-pupil, King

Ptolemy, outgrew long ago. Yet he, also, recognised in philosophy, first

of all, the bond which unites the widely sundered acquisitions of the

intellect, the vital breath which pervades them, the touchstone which

proves each true or false. If the praise of Alexandria is to be sung,

we must not forget the library to which the most precious treasures of

knowledge of the East and West are flowing, and which feeds those who

thirst for knowledge with the intellectual gains of former ages and

other nations. Honour, too, to our King, and, that I may be just, to

his illustrious wife; for wherever in the Grecian world a friend of the

Muses appears, whether he is investigator, poet, architect, sculptor,

artist, actor, or singer, he is drawn to Alexandria, and, that he may

not be idle, work is provided. Palaces spring from the earth quickly

enough.”

“Yet not like mushrooms,” Hermon interrupted, “but as the noblest, most

carefully executed creations of art-sculpture and painting provide for

their decoration both without and within.”

“And,” Proclus went on, “abodes are erected for the gods as well as for

men, both Egyptian and Hellenic divinities, each in their own style, and

so beautiful that it must be a pleasure for them to dwell under the new

roof.”

“Go to the gardens of the Paneum, friends!” cried young Philotas;

and Hermon, nodding to Thyone, added gaily: “Then you must climb the

mountain and keep your eyes open while you are ascending the winding

path. You will find enough to do to look at all the new sights. You

will stand there with dry feet, but your soul will bathe in eternal,

imperishable, divine beauty.”

“The foe of beauty!” exclaimed Proclus, pointing to the sculptor with a

scornful glance; but Daphne, full of joyous emotion, whispered to Hermon

as he approached her: “Eternal, divine beauty! To hear it thus praised

by you makes me happy.”

“Yes,” cried the artist, “what else should I call what has so often

filled me with the deepest rapture? The Greek language has no more

fitting expression for the grand and lofty things that hovered before

me, and which I called by that chameleon of a word. Yet I have a

different meaning from what appears before you at its sound. Were I

to call it truth, you would scarcely understand me, but when I conjure

before my soul the image of Alexandria, with all that springs from it,

all that is moving, creating, and thriving with such marvellous freedom,

naturalness, and variety within it, it is not alone the beauty that

pleases the eye which delights me; I value more the sound natural

growth, the genuine, abundant life. To truth, Daphne, as I mean it.”

He raised his goblet as he spoke and drank to her.

She willingly pledged him, but, after removing her lips from the cup,

she eagerly exclaimed: “Show it to us, with the mind which animates

it, in perfect form, and I should not know wherein it was to be

distinguished from the beauty which hitherto has been our highest goal.”

Here the helmsman’s loud shout, “The light of Pelusium!” interrupted

the conversation. The bright glare from the lighthouse of this city

was really piercing the misty night air, which for some time had again

concealed the moon.

There was no further connected conversation, for the sea was now rising

and falling in broad, leaden, almost imperceptible waves. The comfort of

most of Philippus’s guests was destroyed, and the ladies uttered a sigh

of relief when they had descended from the lofty galley and the boats

that conveyed them ashore, and their feet once more pressed the solid

land. The party of travellers went to the commandant’s magnificent

palace to rest, and Hermon also retired to his room, but sleep fled from

his couch.

No one on earth was nearer to his heart and mind than Daphne, and it

often seemed as if her kind, loyal, yet firm look was resting upon him;

but the memory of Ledscha also constantly forced itself upon his mind

and stirred his blood. When he thought of the menacing fire of her dark

eyes, she seemed to him as terrible as one of the unlovely creatures

born of Night, the Erinyes, Apate, and Eris.

Then he could not help recalling their meetings in the grove of Astarte,

her self-forgetting, passionate tenderness, and the wonderfully delicate

beauty of her foreign type. True, she had never laughed in his presence;

but what a peculiar charm there was in her smile! Had he really lost

her entirely and forever? Would it not yet be possible to obtain her

forgiveness and persuade her to pose as the model of his Arachne?

During the voyage to Pelusium he had caught Althea’s eye again and

again, and rejected as an insult her demand to give her his whole love.

The success of the Arachne depended upon Ledscha, and on her alone. He

had nothing good to expect from the Demeter, and during the nocturnal

meditation, which shows everything in the darkest colours, his best plan

seemed to be to destroy the unsuccessful statue and not exhibit it for

the verdict of the judges.

But if he went to work again in Tennis to model the Arachne, did not

love for Daphne forbid him to sue afresh for Ledscha’s favour?

What a terrible conflict of feelings!

But perhaps all this might gain a more satisfactory aspect by daylight.

Now he felt as though he had entangled himself in a snare. Besides,

other thoughts drove sleep from his couch.

The window spaces were closed by wooden shutters, and whenever they

moved with a low creaking or louder banging Hermon started and forgot

everything else in anxiety about his invalid friend, whose suffering

every strong wind brought on again, and often seriously increased.

Three times he sprang up from the soft wool, covered with linen sheets,

and looked out to convince himself that no storm had risen. But, though

masses of black clouds concealed the moon and stars, and the sea beat

heavily against the solid walls of the harbour, as yet only a sultry

breeze of no great strength blew on his head as he thrust it into the

night air.

This weather could scarcely be dangerous to Myrtilus, yet when the

morning relieved him from the torturing anxiety which he had found under

his host’s roof instead of rest and sleep, gray and black clouds were

sweeping as swiftly over the port and the ramparts beside him as if they

were already driven by a tempest, and warm raindrops besprinkled his

face.

He went, full of anxiety, to take his bath, and, while committing the

care of the adornment of his outer man to one of the household slaves,

he determined that unless--as often happened in this country--the sun

gained the victory over the clouds, he would return to Tennis and join

Myrtilus.

In the hall of the men he met the rest of the old hero’s guests.

They received him pleasantly enough, Althea alone barely noticed his

greeting; she seemed to suspect in what way he thought of her.

Thyone and Daphne extended their hands to him all the more cordially.

Philippus did not appear until after breakfast. He had been detained

by important despatches from Alexandria, and by questions and

communications from Proclus. The latter desired to ascertain whether

the influential warrior who commanded the most important fortress in

the country could be persuaded to join a conspiracy formed by Arsinoe

against her royal husband, but he seemed to have left Philippus with

very faint hopes.

Subordinate officers and messengers also frequently claimed the

commandant’s attention. When the market place was filling, however, the

sturdy old soldier kindly fulfilled his duties as host by offering to

show his guests the sights of the fortified seaport.

Hermon also accompanied him at Daphne’s side, but he made it easy for

Philotas to engross her attention; for, though the immense thickness of

the walls and the arrangement of the wooden towers which, crowned with

battlements, rose at long intervals, seemed to him also well worth

seeing, he gave them only partial attention.

While Philippus was showing the guests how safely the archers and

slingers could be concealed behind the walls and battlements and

discharge their missiles, and explaining the purpose of the great

catapults on the outermost dike washed by the sea, the artist was

listening to the ever-increasing roar of the waves which poured into

the harbour from the open sea, to their loud dashing against the strong

mole, to the shrill scream of the sea gulls, the flapping of the sails,

which were being taken in everywhere--in short, to all the sounds

occasioned by the rising violence of the wind.

There were not a few war ships in the port and among them perfect giants

of amazing size and unusual construction, but Hermon had already seen

many similar ones.

When, shortly after noon, the sun for a few brief moments pierced with

scorching rays the dark curtain that shrouded it from sight, and then

suddenly dense masses of clouds, driven from the sea by the tempest,

covered the day star, his eyes and cars were engrossed entirely by the

uproar of the elements.

The air darkened as if night was falling at this noontide hour, and with

savage fury the foaming mountain waves rushed like mad wild beasts in

fierce assault upon the mole, the walls, and the dikes of the fortified

port.

“Home!” cried Thyone, and again entered the litter which she had left to

inspect the new catapults.

Althea, trembling, drew her peplos together as the storm swept her light

figure before it, and, shrieking, struggled against the black slaves who

tried to lift her upon the war elephant which had borne her here.

Philotas gave his arm to Daphne. Hermon had ceased to notice her; he had

just gone to his gray-haired host with the entreaty that he would give

him a ship for the voyage to Tennis, where Myrtilus would need his

assistance.

“It is impossible in such weather,” was the reply.

“Then I will ride!” cried Hermon resolutely, and Philippus scanned the

son of his old friend and companion in arms with an expression of

quiet satisfaction in his eyes, still sparkling brightly, and answered

quickly, “You shall have two horses, my boy, and a guide who knows the

road besides.”

Then, turning swiftly to one of the officers who accompanied him, he

ordered him to provide what was necessary.

When, soon after, in the impluvium, the tempest tore the velarium that

covered the open space from its rings, and the ladies endeavoured to

detain Hermon, Philippus silenced them with the remark:

“A disagreeable ride is before him, but what urges him on is pleasing

to the gods. I have just ventured to send out a carrier dove,” he added,

turning to the artist, “to inform Myrtilus that he may expect you before

sunset. The storm comes from the cast, otherwise it would hardly reach

the goal. Put even if it should be lost, what does it matter?”

Thyone nodded to her old husband with a look of pleasure, and her eyes

shone through tears at Hermon as she clasped his hand and, remembering

her friend, his mother, exclaimed: “Go, then, you true son of your

father, and tell your friend that we will offer sacrifices for his

welfare.”

“A lean chicken to Aesculapius,” whispered the grammateus to Althea.

“She holds on to the oboli.”

“Which, at any rate, would be hard enough to dispose of in this wretched

place unless one were a dealer in weapons or a thirsty sailor,” sighed

the Thracian. “As soon as the sky and sea are blue again, chains could

not keep me here. And the cooing around this insipid rich beauty into

the bargain!”

This remark referred to Philotas, who was just offering Daphne a

magnificent bunch of roses, which a mounted messenger had brought to him

from Alexandria.

The girl received it with a grateful glance, but she instantly separated

one of the most beautiful blossoms from its companions and handed it

to Hermon, saying, “For our suffering friend, with my affectionate

remembrances.”

The artist pressed her dear hand with a tender look of love, intended

to express how difficult it was for him to leave her, and when, just

at that moment, a slave announced that the horses were waiting, Thyone

whispered: “Have no anxiety, my son! Your ride away from her through the

tempest will bring you a better reward than his slave’s swift horse will

bear the giver of the roses.”

CHAPTER XVI.

Hermon, with the rose for his friend fastened in the breast folds of

his chiton, mounted his horse gratefully, and his companion, a sinewy,

bronzed Midianite, who was also to attend to the opening of the fortress

gates, did the same.

Before reaching the open country the sculptor had to ride through the

whole city, with which he was entirely unfamiliar. Fiercely as the storm

was sweeping down the streets and squares, and often as the horseman

was forced to hold on to his travelling hat and draw his chlamys closer

around him, he felt the anxieties which had made his night sleepless

and saddened his day suddenly leave him as if by a miracle. Was it the

consciousness of having acted rightly? was it the friendly farewell

which Daphne had given him, and the hope Thyone had aroused, or the

expectation of seeing Ledscha once more, and at least regaining her

good will, that had restored his lost light-heartedness? He did not know

himself, nor did he desire to know.

While formerly he had merely glanced carelessly about him in Pelusium,

and only half listened to the explanations given by the veteran’s deep

voice, now whatever he saw appeared in clear outlines and awakened his

interest, in spite of the annoyances caused by the storm.

Had he not known that he was in Pelusium, it would have been difficult

for him to determine whether the city he was crossing was an Egyptian,

a Hellenic, or a Syrian one; for here rose an ancient temple of the time

of the Pharaohs, with obelisks and colossal statues before the lofty

pylons, yonder the sanctuary of Poseidon, surrounded by stately rows

of Doric columns, and farther on the smaller temple dedicated to the

Dioscuri, and the circular Grecian building that belonged to Aphrodite.

In another spot, still close to the harbour, he saw the large buildings

consecrated to the worship of the Syrian Baal and Astarte.

Here he was obliged to wait awhile, for the tempest had excited the war

elephants which were returning from their exercising ground, and their

black keepers only succeeded with the utmost difficulty in restraining

them. Shrieking with fear, the few persons who were in the street

besides the soldiers, that were everywhere present, scattered before the

huge, terrified animals.

The costume and appearance of the citizens, too, gave no clew to the

country to which the place belonged; there were as many Egyptians among

them as Greeks, Syrians, and negroes. Asiatics appeared in the majority

only in the market place, where the dealers were just leaving their

stands to secure their goods from the storm. In front of the big

building where the famous Pelusinian xythus beer was brewed, the

drink was being carried away in jugs and wineskins, in ox-carts and on

donkeys. Here, too, men were loading camels, which were rarely seen in

Egypt, and had been introduced there only a short time before.

How forcibly all these things riveted Hermon’s attention, now that no

one was at hand to explain them and no delay was permitted! He scarcely

had time for recollection and expectation.

Finally, the last gate was unlocked, and the ramparts and moats lay

behind him.

Thus far the wind had kept back the rain, and only scattered drops

lashed the riders’ faces; but as soon as they entered the open country,

it seemed as though the pent-up floods burst the barriers which retained

them above, and a torrent of water such as only those dry regions know

rushed, not in straight or slanting lines, but in thick streams, whirled

by the hurricane, upon the marshy land which stretched from Pelusium to

Tennis, and on the horsemen.

The road led along a dike raised above fields which, at this season of

the year, were under water, and Hermon’s companion knew it well.

For a time both riders allowed themselves to be drenched in silence.

The water ran down upon them from their broad-brimmed hats, and their

dripping horses trotted with drooping heads and steaming flanks one

behind the other until, at the very brick-kiln where Ledscha had

recalled her widowed sister’s unruly slaves to obedience, the guide

stopped with an oath, and pointed to the water which had risen to the

top of the dam, and in some places concealed the road from their eyes.

Now it was no longer possible to trot, for the guide was obliged to seek

the traces of the dike with great caution. Meanwhile the force of the

pouring rain by no means lessened--nay, it even seemed to increase--and

the horses were already wading in water up to their fetlocks.

But if the votive stones, the little altars and statues of the gods, the

bushes and single trees along the sides of the dike road were overflowed

while the travellers were in the region of the marsh, they would be

obliged to interrupt their journey, for the danger of sinking into the

morass with their horses would then threaten them.

Even at the brick-kiln travellers, soldiers, and trains of merchandise

had stopped to wait for the end of the cloud-burst.

In front of the farmhouse, too, which Hermon and his companion next

reached, they saw dozens of people seeking shelter, and the Midianite

urged his master to join them for a short time at least. The wisest

course here was probably to yield, and Hermon was already turning his

horse’s head toward the house when a Greek messenger dashed past the

beckoning refuge and also by him.

“Do you dare to ride farther?” the artist shouted in a tone of warning

inquiry to the man on the dripping bay, and the latter, without pausing,

answered: “Duty! On business for the King!”

Then Hermon turned his steed back toward the road, beat the water from

his soaked beard with the edge of his hand, and with a curt “Forward!”

announced his decision to his companion. Duty summoned him also, and

what another risked for the King he would not fail to do for his friend.

The Midianite, shaking his head, rode angrily after him; but, though

the violence of the rain was lessening, the wind began to blow with

redoubled force, beating and lashing the boundless expanse of the

quickly formed lake with such savage fury that it rolled in surges like

the sea, and sweeping over it dense clouds of foam like the sand waves

tossed by the desert tempests.

Sometimes moaning, sometimes whistling, the gusts of the hurricane drove

the water and the travellers before it, while the rain poured from the

sky to the earth, and wherever it struck splashed upward, making little

whirlpools and swiftly breaking bubbles.

What might not Myrtilus suffer in this storm! This thought strengthened

Hermon’s courage to twice ride past other farmhouses which offered

shelter. At the third the horse refused to wade farther in such a

tempest, so there was nothing to be done except spring off and lead it

to the higher ground which the water had not yet reached.

The interior of the peasant hut was filled with people who had sought

shelter there, and the stifling atmosphere which the artist felt at the

door induced him to remain outside.

He had stood there dripping barely fifteen minutes when loud shouts and

yells were heard on the road from Pelusium by which he had come, and

upon the flooded dike appeared a body of men rushing forward with

marvellous speed.

The nearer they came the fiercer and more bewildering sounded the loud,

shrill medley of their frantic cries, mingled with hoarse laughter, and

the spectacle presented to the eyes was no less rough and bold.

The majority seemed to be powerful men. Their complexions were as

light as the Macedonians; their fair, red, and brown locks were thick,

unkempt, and bristling. Most of the reckless, defiantly bold faces were

smooth-shaven, with only a mustache on the upper lip, and sometimes a

short imperial. All carried weapons, and a fleece covered the shoulders

of many, while chains, ornamented with the teeth of animals, hung on

their white muscular chests.

“Galatians,” Hermon heard one man near him call to another. “They came

to the fortress as auxiliary troops. Philippus forbade them to plunder

on pain of death, and showed them--the gods be thanked!--that he was

in earnest. Otherwise it would soon look here as though the plagues of

locusts, flood, and fire had visited us at once. Red-haired men are not

the only sons of Typhon!”

And Hermon thought that he had indeed never seen any human beings

equally fierce, bold to the verge of reckless madness, as these Gallic

warriors. The tempest which swept them forward, and the water through

which they waded, only seemed to increase their enjoyment, for sheer

delight rang in their exulting shouts and yells.

Oh, yes! To march amid this uproar of the elements was a pleasure to the

healthy men. It afforded them the rarest, most enlivening delight. For

a long time nothing had so strongly reminded them of the roaring of the

wind and the rushing of the rain in their northern home. It seemed a

delicious relief, after the heat and dryness of the south, which they

had endured with groans.

When they perceived the eyes fixed upon them they swung their weapons,

arched their breasts with conscious vanity, distorted their faces into

terrible threatening grimaces, or raised bugle horns to their lips, drew

from them shrill, ear-piercing notes and gloated, with childish delight,

in the terror of the gaping crowd, on whom the restraint of authority

sternly forbade them to show their mettle.

Lust of rapine and greed for booty glittered in many a fiery, longing

look, but their leaders kept them in check with the sword. So

they rushed on without stopping, like a thunderstorm pregnant with

destruction which the wind drives over a terrified village.

Hermon also had to take the road they followed, and, after giving the

Gauls a long start, he set out again.

But though he succeeded in passing the marshy region without injury,

there had been delay after delay; here the horses had left the flooded

dike road and floundered up to their knees in the morass, there trees

from the roadside, uprooted by the storm, barred the way.

As night closed in the rain ceased and the wind began to subside, but

dark clouds covered the sky, and the horsemen were still an hour’s ride

from the place where the road ended at the little harbour from which

travellers entered the boat which conveyed them to Tennis.

The way no longer led through the marsh, but through tilled lands, and

crossed the ditches which irrigated the fields on wooden bridges.

On their account, in the dense darkness which prevailed, caution was

necessary, and this the guide certainly did not lack. He rode at a slow

walk in front of the artist, and had just pointed out to him the light

at the landing place of the boat which went to Tennis, when Hermon was

suddenly startled by a loud cry, followed by clattering and splashing.

With swift presence of mind he sprang from his horse and found his

conjecture verified. The bridge had broken down, and horse and rider had

fallen into the broad canal.

“The Galatians!” reached Hermon from the dark depths, and the

exclamation relieved him concerning the fate of the Midianite.

The latter soon struggled up to the road uninjured. The bridge must

have given way under the feet of the savage horde, unless the Gallic

monsters, with brutal malice, had intentionally shattered it.

The first supposition, however, seemed to be the correct one, for as

Hermon approached the canal he heard moans of pain. One of the Gauls

had apparently met with an accident in the fall of the bridge and been

deserted by his comrades. With the skill acquired in the wrestling

school, Hermon descended into the canal to look for the wounded man,

while his guide undertook to get the horses ashore.

The deep darkness considerably increased the difficulty of carrying out

his purpose, but the young Greek went up to his neck in the water he

could not become wetter than he was already. So he remained in the ditch

until he found the injured man whose groans of suffering pierced his

compassionate heart.

He was obliged to release the luckless Gaul from the broken timbers of

the bridge, and, when Hermon had dragged him out on the opposite bank

of the canal, he made no answer to any question. A falling beam had

probably struck him senseless.

His hair, which Hermon’s groping fingers informed him was thick and

rough, seemed to denote a Gaul, but a full, long beard was very rarely

seen in this nation, and the wounded man wore one. Nor could anything be

discovered from the ornaments or weapons of this fierce barbarian.

But to whatever people he might belong, he certainly was not a Greek.

The thoroughly un-Hellenic wrapping up of the legs proved that.

No matter! Hermon at any rate was dealing with some one who was severely

injured, and the self-sacrificing pity with which even suffering animals

inspired him, and which in his boyhood had drawn upon him the jeers of

the companions of his own age, did not abandon him now.

Reluctantly obeying his command, the Midianite helped him bandage the

sufferer’s head, in which a wound could be felt, as well as it could be

done in the darkness, and lift him on the artist’s horse. During this

time fresh groans issued from the bearded lips of the injured warrior,

and Hermon walked by his side, guarding the senseless man from the

danger of falling from the back of the horse as it slowly followed the

Midianite’s.

This tiresome walk, however, did not last long; the landing place

was reached sooner than Hermon expected, and the ferryboat bore the

travellers and the horses to Tennis.

By the flickering light of the captain’s lantern it was ascertained that

the wounded man, in spite of his long dark beard, was probably a Gaul.

The stupor was to be attributed to the fall of a beam on his head, and

the shock, rather than to the wound. The great loss of blood sustained

by the young and powerful soldier had probably caused the duration of

the swoon.

During the attempts at resuscitation a sailor boy offered his

assistance. He carefully held the lantern, and, as its flickering light

fell for brief moments upon the artist’s face, the lad of thirteen or

fourteen asked if he was Hermon of Alexandria.

A curt “If you will permit,” answered the question, considered by the

Hellenes an unseemly one, especially from such a youth; but the sculptor

paid no further attention to him, for, while devoting himself honestly

to the wounded man, his anxiety about his invalid friend increased, and

Ledscha’s image also rose again before him.

At last the ferryboat touched the land, and when Hermon looked around

for the lad he had already leaped ashore, and was just vanishing in the

darkness.

It was probably within an hour of midnight.

The gale was still blowing fiercely over the water, driving the black

clouds across the dark sky, sometimes with long-drawn, wailing sounds,

sometimes with sharp, whistling ones. The rain had wholly ceased, and

seemed to have exhausted itself here in the afternoon.

As Archias’s white house was a considerable distance from the landing

place of the ferryboat, Hermon had the wounded warrior carried to it by

Biamite sailors, and again mounted his horse to ride to Myrtilus at as

swift a trot as the soaked, wretched, but familiar road would permit.

Considerable time had been spent in obtaining a litter for the Gaul, yet

Hermon was surprised to meet the lad who had questioned him so boldly on

the ferryboat coming, not from the landing place, but running toward

it again from the city, and then saw him follow the shore, carrying a

blazing torch, which he waved saucily. The wind blew aside the flame and

smoke which came from the burning pitch, but it shone brightly through

the gloom and permitted the boy to be distinctly seen. Whence had the

nimble fellow come so quickly? How had he succeeded, in this fierce

gale, in kindling the torch so soon into a powerful flame? Was it not

foolish to let a child amuse itself in the middle of the night with so

dangerous a toy?

Hermon hastily thought over these questions, but the supposition that

the light of the torch might be intended for a signal did not occur to

him.

Besides, the boy and the light in his hand occupied his mind only a

short time. He had better things to think of. With what longing Myrtilus

must now be expecting his arrival! But the Gaul needed his aid no less

urgently than his friend. Accurately as he knew what remedies relieved

Myrtilus in severe attacks of illness, he could scarcely dispense with

an assistant or a leech for the other, and the idea swiftly flashed

upon him that the wounded man would afford him an opportunity of seeing

Ledscha again.

She had told him more than once about the healing art possessed by old

Tabus on the Owl’s Nest. Suppose he should now seek the angry girl to

entreat her to speak to the aged miracle-worker in behalf of the sorely

wounded young foreigner?

Here he interrupted himself; something new claimed his attention.

A dim light glimmered through the intense darkness from a bit of rising

ground by the wayside. It came from the Temple of Nemesis--a pretty

little structure belonging to the time of Alexander the Great, which

he had often examined with pleasure. Several steps led to the anteroom,

supported by Ionic columns, which adjoined the naos.

Two lamps were burning at the side of the door leading into the little

open cella, and at the back of the consecrated place the statue of the

winged goddess was visible in the light of a small altar fire.

In her right hand she held the bridle and scourge, and at her feet stood

the wheel, whose turning indicates the influence exerted by her power

upon the destiny of mortals. With stern severity that boded evil, she

gazed down upon her left forearm, bent at the elbow, which corresponds

with the ell, the just measure.

Hermon certainly now, if ever, lacked both time and inclination to

examine again this modest work of an ordinary artist, yet he quickly

stopped his weary horse; for in the little pronaos directly in front of

the cella door stood a slender figure clad in a long floating dark robe,

extending its hands through the cella door toward the statue in fervent

prayer. She was pressing her brow against the left post of the door,

but at her feet, on the right side, cowered another figure, which could

scarcely be recognised as a human being.

This, too, was a woman.

Deeply absorbed in her own thoughts, she was also extending her arms

toward the statue of Nemesis.

Hermon knew them both.

At first he fancied that his excited imagination was showing him a

threatening illusion. But no!

The erect figure was Ledscha, the crouching one Gula, the sailor’s wife

whose child he had rescued from the flames, and who had recently been

cast out by her husband.

“Ledscha!” escaped his lips in a muttered tone, and he involuntarily

extended his hands toward her as she was doing toward the goddess.

But she did not seem to hear him, and the other woman also retained the

same attitude, as if hewn from stone.

Then he called the supplicant’s name loud tone, and the next instant

still more loudly; and now she turned, and, in the faint light of the

little lamp, showed the marvellously noble outlines of her profile. He

called again, and this time Ledscha heard anguished yearning in his deep

tones; but they seemed to have lost their influence over her, for her

large dark eyes gazed at him so repellently and sternly that a cold

tremor ran down his spine.

Swinging himself from his horse, he ascended the steps of the temple,

and in the most tender tones at his command exclaimed: “Ledscha!

Severely as I have offended you, Ledscha--oh, do not say no! Will you

hear me?”

“No!” she answered firmly, and, before he could speak, continued: “This

place is ill chosen for another meeting! Your presence is hateful to me!

Do not disturb me a moment longer!”

“As you command,” he began hesitatingly; but she swiftly interrupted

with the question, “Do you come from Pelusium, and are you going

directly home?”

“I did not heed the storm on account of Myrtilus’s illness,” he answered

quietly, “and if you demand it, I will return home at once; but first

let me make one more entreaty, which will be pleasing also to the gods.”

“Get your response from yonder deity!” she impatiently interrupted,

pointing with a grand, queenly gesture, which at any other time would

have delighted his artist eye, to the statue of Nemesis in the cella.

Meanwhile Gula had also turned her face toward Hermon, and he now

addressed her, saying with a faint tone of reproach: “And did hatred

lead you also, Gula, to this sanctuary at midnight to implore the

goddess to destroy me in her wrath?”

The young mother rose and pointed to Ledscha, exclaiming, “She desires

it.”

“And I?” he asked gently. “Have I really done you so much evil?”

She raised her hand to her brow as if bewildered; her glance fell on the

artist’s troubled face, and lingered there for a short time. Then her

eyes wandered to Ledscha, and from her to the goddess, and finally back

again to the sculptor. Meanwhile Hermon saw how her young figure was

trembling, and, before he had time to address a soothing-word to her,

she sobbed aloud, crying out to Ledscha: “You are not a mother! My

child, he rescued it from the flames. I will not, and I can not--I will

no longer pray for his misfortune!”

She drew her veil over her pretty, tear-stained face as she spoke, and

darted lightly down the temple steps close beside him to seek shelter

in her parents’ house, which had been unwillingly opened to the cast-off

wife, but now afforded her a home rich in affection.

Immeasurably bitter scorn was depicted in Ledscha’s features as she

gazed after Gula. She did not appear to notice Hermon, and when at last

he appealed to her and briefly urged her to ask the old enchantress

on the Owl’s Nest for a remedy for the wounded Gaul, she again leaned

against the post of the cella door, extended both arms with passionate

fervour toward the goddess, and remained standing there motionless, deaf

to his petition.

His blood seethed in his veins, and he was tempted to go nearer and

force her to hear him; but before he had ascended the first of the

flight of steps leading to the pronaos, he heard the footsteps of the

men who were bearing the wounded warrior after him.

They must not see him here with one of their countrywomen at this hour,

and manly pride forbade him to address her again as a supplicant.

So he went back to the road, mounted his horse, and rode on without

vouchsafing a word of farewell to the woman who was invoking destruction

upon his head. As he did so his eyes again rested on the stern face of

Nemesis, and the wheel whose turning determined the destiny of men at

her feet.

Assailed by horrible fears, and overpowered by presentiments of evil, he

pursued his way through the darkness.

Perhaps Myrtilus had succumbed to the terrible attack which must have

visited him in such a storm, and life without his friend would be

bereft of half its charm. Orphaned, poor, a struggler who had gained no

complete victory, it had been rich only in disappointments to him, in

spite of his conviction that he was a genuine artist, and was fighting

for a good cause. Now he knew that he had also lost the woman by whose

assistance he was certain of a great success in his own much-disputed

course, and Ledscha, if any one, was right in expecting a favourable

hearing from the goddess who punished injustice.

He did not think of Daphne again until he was approaching the place

where her tents had stood, and the remembrance of her fell like a ray of

light into his darkened soul.

Yet on that spot had also been erected the wooden platform from which

Althea had showed him the transformation into the spider, and the

recollection of the foolish error into which the Thracian had drawn him

disagreeably clouded the pleasant thought of Daphne.

CHAPTER XVII.

Complete darkness enfolded the white house. Hermon saw only two windows

lighted, the ones in his friend’s studio, which looked out into the open

square, while his own faced the water.

What did this mean?

It must be nearly midnight, and he could no longer expect Myrtilus to be

still at work. He had supposed that he should find him in his chamber,

supported by his slaves, struggling for breath. What was the meaning of

the light in the workrooms now?

Where was his usually efficient Bias? He never went to rest when his

master was to return home, yet the carrier dove must have announced his

coming!

But Hermon had also enjoined the care of Myrtilus upon the slave, and he

was undoubtedly beside the sufferer’s couch, supporting him in the same

way that he had often seen his master.

He was now riding across the open space, and he heard the men who

carried the Gaul talking close behind him.

Was the wounded barbarian the sole acquisition of this journey?

The beat of his horse’s hoofs and the voices of the Biamites echoed

distinctly enough amid the stillness of the night, which was interrupted

only by the roaring of the wind. And this disturbance of the deep

silence around had entered the lighted windows before him, for a figure

appeared at one of them, and--could he believe his own eyes?--Myrtilus

looked down into the square, and a joyous welcome rang from his lips as

loudly as in his days of health.

The darkness of the night suddenly seemed to Hermon to be illumined.

A leap to the ground, two bounds up the steps leading to the house,

an eager rush through the corridor that separated him from the room in

which Myrtilus was, the bursting instead of opening of the door, and, as

if frantic with happy surprise, he impetuously embraced his friend, who,

burin and file in hand, was just approaching the threshold, and kissed

his brow and cheeks in the pure joy of his heart.

Then what questions, answers, tidings! In spite of the torrents of rain

and the gale, the invalid’s health had been excellent. The solitude had

done him good. He knew nothing about the carrier dove. The hurricane had

probably “blown it away,” as the breeders of the swift messengers said.

Question and reply now followed one another in rapid succession, and

both were soon acquainted with everything worth knowing; nay, Hermon had

even delivered Daphne’s rose to his friend, and informed him what had

befallen the Gaul who was being brought into the house.

Bias and the other slaves had quickly appeared, and Hermon soon rendered

the wounded man the help he needed in an airy chamber in the second

story of the house, which, owing to the heat that prevailed in summer so

close under the roof, the slaves had never occupied.

Bias assisted his master with equal readiness and skill, and at last the

Gaul opened his eyes and, in the language of his country, asked a

few brief questions which were incomprehensible to the others. Then,

groaning, he again closed his lids.

Hitherto Hermon had not even allowed himself time to look around his

friend’s studio and examine what he had created during his absence. But,

after perceiving that his kind act had not been in vain, and consuming

with a vigorous appetite the food and wine which Bias set before him,

he obliged Myrtilus--for another day was coming--to go to rest, that the

storm might not still prove hurtful to him.

Yet he held his friend’s hand in a firm clasp for a long time, and,

when the latter at last prepared to go, he pressed it so closely that

it actually hurt Myrtilus. But he understood his meaning, and, with a

loving glance that sank deep into Hermon’s heart, called a last good

night.

After two sleepless nights and the fatiguing ride which he had just

taken, the sculptor felt weary enough; but when he laid his hand on the

Gaul’s brow and breast, and felt their burning heat, he refused Bias’s

voluntary offer to watch the sufferer in his place.

If to amuse or forget himself he had caroused far more nights in

succession in Alexandria, why should he not keep awake when the object

in question was to wrest a young life from the grasp of death? This man

and his life were now his highest goal, and he had never yet repented

his foolish eccentricity of imposing discomforts upon himself to help

the suffering.

Bias, on his part, was very willing to go to rest. He had plenty of

cause for weariness; Myrtilus’s unscrupulous body-servant had stolen

off with the other slaves the night before, and did not return, with

staggering gait, until the next morning, but, in order to keep his

promise to his master, he had scarcely closed his eyes, that he might be

at hand if Myrtilus should need assistance.

So Bias fell asleep quickly enough in his little room in the lower

story, while his master, by the exertion of all his strength of will,

watched beside the couch of the Gaul.

Yet, after the first quarter of an hour, his head, no matter how he

struggled to prevent it, drooped again and again upon his breast. But

just as slumber was completely overpowering him his patient made him

start up, for he had left his bed, and when Hermon, fully roused, looked

for him, was standing in the middle of the room, gazing about him.

The artist thought that fever had driven the wounded warrior from his

couch, as it formerly did his fellow-pupil Lycon, whom, in the delirium

of typhus, he could keep in bed only by force. So he led the Gaul

carefully back to the couch he had deserted, and, after moistening the

bandage with healing balm from Myrtilus’s medicine chest, ordered him to

keep quiet.

The barbarian yielded as obediently as a child, but at first remained in

a sitting posture and asked, in scarcely intelligible broken Greek, how

he came to this place.

After Hermon had satisfied his curiosity, he also put a few questions,

and learned that his charge not only wore a mustache, like his fellow

countrymen, but also a full beard, because the latter was the badge of

the bridge builders, to which class he belonged. While examining the one

crossing the canal, it had fallen in upon him.

He closed his eyes as he spoke, and Hermon wondered if it was not time

for him to lie down also; but the wounded man’s brow was still burning,

and the Gallic words which he constantly muttered were probably about

the phantoms of fever, which Hermon recognised from Lycon’s illness.

So he resolved to wait and continue to devote the night, which he had

already intended to give him, to the sufferer. From the chair at the

foot of the bed he looked directly into his face. The soft light of the

lamp, which with two others hung from a tall, heavy bronze stand in the

shape of an anchor, which Bias had brought, shone brightly enough to

allow him to perceive how powerful was the man whose life he had saved.

His own face was scarcely lighter in hue than the barbarian’s, and how

sharp was the contrast between his long, thick black beard and his white

face and bare arched chest!

Hermon had noticed this same contrast in his own person. Otherwise the

Gaul did not resemble him in a single feature, and he might even have

refused to compare his soft, wavy beard with the harsh, almost bristly

one of the barbarian. And what a defiant, almost evil expression his

countenance wore when--perhaps because his wound ached--he closed his

lips more firmly! The children who so willingly let him, Hermon, take

them in his arms would certainly have been afraid of this savage-looking

fellow.

Yet in build, and at any rate in height and breadth of shoulders, there

was some resemblance between him and the Gaul.

As a bridge builder, the injured man belonged, in a certain sense, to

the ranks of the artists, and this increased Hermon’s interest in his

patient, who was now probably out of the most serious danger.

True, the Greek still cast many a searching glance at the barbarian,

but his eyes closed more and more frequently, and at last the idea took

possession of him that he himself was the wounded man on the couch, and

some one else, who again was himself, was caring for him.

He vainly strove to understand the impossibility of this division of

his own being, but the more eagerly he did so the greater became his

bewilderment.

Suddenly the scene changed; Ledscha had appeared.

Bending over him, she lavished words of love; but when, in passionate

excitement, he sprang from the couch to draw her toward him, she changed

into the Nemesis to whose statue she had just prayed.

He stood still as if petrified, and the goddess, too, did not stir. Only

the wheel which had rested at her feet began to move, and rolled, with

a thundering din, sometimes around him, sometimes around the people

who, as if they had sprung from the ground, formed a jeering company of

spectators, and clapped their hands, laughed, and shouted whenever it

rolled toward him and he sprang back in fear.

Meanwhile the wheel constantly grew larger, and seemed to become

heavier, for the wooden beams over which it rolled splintered, crashing

like thin laths, and the spectators’ shouts of applause sounded ruder

and fiercer.

Then mortal terror suddenly seized him, and while he shouted for help

to Myrtilus, Daphne, and her father Archias, his slave Bias, the old

comrade of Alexander, Philippus, and his wife, he awoke, bathed in

perspiration, and looked about him.

But he must still be under the spell of the horrible dream, for the

rattling and clattering around him continued, and the bed where the

wounded Gaul had lain was empty.

Hermon involuntarily dipped his hand into the water which stood ready to

wet the bandages, and sprinkled his own face with it; but if he had ever

beheld life with waking eyes, he was doing so now. Yet the barbarian had

vanished, and the noise in the house still continued.

Was it possible that rats and mice--? No! That was the shriek of a

terrified human being--that a cry for help! This sound was the imperious

command of a rough man’s voice, that--no, he was not mistaken--that

was his own name, and it came from the lips of his Myrtilus, anxiously,

urgently calling for assistance.

Then he suddenly realized that the white house had been attacked,

that his friend must be rescued from robbers or the fury of a mob of

Biamites, and, like the bent wood of a projectile when released from the

noose which holds it to the ground, the virile energy that characterized

him sprang upward with mighty power. The swift glance that swept the

room was sent to discover a weapon, and before it completed the circuit

Hermon had already grasped the bronze anchor with the long rod twined

with leaves and the teeth turned downward. Only one of the three little

vessels filled with oil that hung from it was burning. Before swinging

the heavy standard aloft, he freed it from the lamps, which struck the

floor with a clanging noise.

The man to whom he dealt a blow with this ponderous implement would

forget to rise. Then, as if running for a prize in the gymnasium, he

rushed through the darkness to the staircase, and with breathless haste

groped his way down the narrow, ladderlike steps. He felt himself an

avenging, punishing power, like the Nemesis who had pursued him in his

dreams. He must wrest the friend who was to him the most beloved of

mortals from the rioters. To defeat them himself seemed a small matter.

His shout--“I am coming, Myrtilus! Snuphis, Bias, Dorcas, Syrus! here,

follow me!” was to summon the old Egyptian doorkeeper and the slaves,

and inform his friend of the approach of a deliverer.

The loudest uproar echoed from his own studio. Its door stood wide open,

and black smoke, mingled with the deep red and yellow flames of burning

pitch, poured from it toward him.

“Myrtilus!” he shouted at the top of his voice as he leaped across the

threshold into the tumult which filled the spacious apartment, at the

same time clashing the heavy iron anchor down upon the head of the

broad-shouldered, half-naked fellow who was raising a clumsy lance

against him.

The pirate fell as though struck by lightning, and he again shouted

“Myrtilus!” into the big room, so familiar to him, where the conflict

was raging chaotically amid a savage clamour, and the smoke did not

allow him to distinguish a single individual.

For the second time he swung the terrible weapon, and it struck to the

floor the monster with a blackened face who had rushed toward him, but

at the same time the anchor broke in two.

Only a short metal rod remained in his hand, and, while he raised his

arm, determined to crush the temples of the giant carrying a torch who

sprang forward to meet him, it suddenly seemed as if a vulture with

glowing plumage and burning beak was attacking his face, and the

terrible bird of prey was striking its hard, sharp, red-hot talons more

and more furiously into his lips, cheeks, and eyes.

At first a glare as bright as sunshine had flashed before his gaze;

then, where he had just seen figures and things half veiled by the

smoke, he beheld only a scarlet surface, which changed to a violet, and

finally a black spot, followed by a violet-blue one, while the vulture

continued to rend his face with beak and talons.

Then the name “Myrtilus!” once more escaped his lips; this time,

however, it did not sound like the encouraging shout of an avenging

hero, but the cry for aid of one succumbing to defeat, and it was soon

followed by a succession of frantic outbursts of suffering, terror, and

despair.

But now sharp whistles from the water shrilly pierced the air and

penetrated into the darkened room, and, while the tumult around Hermon

gradually died away, he strove, tortured by burning pain, to grope his

way toward the door; but here his foot struck against a human body,

there against something hard, whose form he could not distinguish, and

finally a large object which felt cool, and could be nothing but his

Demeter.

But she seemed doomed to destruction, for the smoke was increasing every

moment, and constantly made his open wounds smart more fiercely.

Suddenly a cooler air fanned his burning face, and at the same time he

heard hurrying steps approach and the mingled cries of human voices.

Again he began to shout the names of his friends, the slaves, and the

porter; but no answer came from any of them, though hasty questions in

the Greek language fell upon his ear.

The strategist, with his officers, the nomarch of the district with his

subordinates, and many citizens of Tennis had arrived. Hermon knew most

of them by their voices, but their figures were not visible. The red,

violet, and black cloud before him was all he could see.

Yet, although the pain continued to torture him, and a voice in his soul

told him that he was blinded, he did not allow the government officials

who eagerly surrounded him to speak, only pointed hastily to his eyes,

and then bade them enter Myrtilus’s studio. The Egyptian Chello, the

Tennis goldsmith, who had assisted the artists in the preparation of the

noble metal, and one of the police officers who had been summoned to rid

the old house of the rats and mice which infested it, both knew the way.

They must first try to save Myrtilus’s work and, when that was

accomplished, preserve his also from destruction by the flames.

Leaning on the goldsmith’s arm, Hermon went to his friend’s studio; but

before they reached it smoke and flames poured out so densely that it

was impossible even to gain the door.

“Destroyed--a prey to the flames!” he groaned. “And he--he--he--”

Then like a madman he asked if no one had seen Myrtilus, and where he

was; but in vain, always in vain.

At last the goldsmith who was leading him asked him to move aside, for

all who had flocked to the white house when it was seized by the flames

had joined in the effort to save the statue of Demeter, which they had

found unharmed in his studio.

Seventeen men, by the exertion of all their strength, were dragging the

heavy statue from the house, which was almost on the point of falling

in, into the square. Several others were bearing corpses into the open

air-the old porter Snuphis and Myrtilus’s body servant. Some motionless

forms they were obliged to leave behind. Both the bodies had deep

wounds. There was no trace of Myrtilus and Bias.

Outside the storm had subsided, and a cool breeze blew refreshingly into

Hermon’s face. As he walked arm in arm with the notary Melampus, who had

invited him to his house, and heard some one at his side exclaim, “How

lavishly Eos is scattering her roses to-day!” he involuntarily lifted

the cloth with which he had covered his smarting face to enjoy the

beautiful flush of dawn, but again beheld nothing save a black and

violet-blue surface.

Then drawing his hand from his guide’s arm, he pressed it upon his poor,

sightless, burning eyes, and in helpless rage, like a beast of prey

which feels the teeth of the hunter’s iron trap rend his flesh, groaned

fiercely, “Blind! blind!” and again, and yet again, “Blind!”

While the morning star was still paling, the lad who after Hermon’s

landing had raced along the shore with the burning torch glided into the

little pronaos of the Temple of Nemesis.

Ledscha was still standing by the doorpost of the cella with uplifted

hand, so deeply absorbed in fervent prayer that she did not perceive the

approach of the messenger until he called her.

“Succeeded?” she asked in a muffled tone, interrupting his hasty

greeting.

“You must give the goddess what you vowed,” was the reply. “Hanno sends

you the message. And also, ‘You must come with me in the boat quickly-at

once!’”

“Where?” the girl demanded.

“Not on board the Hydra yet,” replied the boy hurriedly. “First only to

the old man on the Megara. The dowry is ready for your father. But there

is not a moment to lose.”

“Well, well!” she gasped hoarsely. “But, first, shall I find the man

with the black beard on board of one of the ships?”

“Certainly!” answered the lad proudly, grasping her arm to hurry her;

but she shook him off violently, turned toward the cella again, and once

more lifted her hands and eyes to the statue of Nemesis.

Then she took up the bundle she had hidden behind a pillar, drew from

it a handful of gold coins, which she flung into the box intended for

offerings, and followed the boy.

“Alive?” she asked as she descended the steps; but the lad understood

the meaning of the question, and exclaimed: “Yes, indeed! Hanno says the

wounds are not at all dangerous.”

“And the other?”

“Not a scratch. On the Hydra, with two severely wounded slaves. The

porter and the others were killed.”

“And the statues?”

“They-such things can’t be accomplished without some little

blunder-Labaja thinks so, too.”

“Did they escape you?”

“Only one. I myself helped to smash the other, which stood in the

workroom that looks out upon the water. The gold and ivory are on the

ship. We had horrible work with the statue which stood in the room whose

windows faced the square. They dragged the great monster carefully into

the studio that fronts upon the water. But probably it is still standing

there, if the thing is not already--just see how the flames are whirling

upward!--if it is not already burned with the house.”

“What a misfortune!” Ledscha reproachfully exclaimed.

“It could not be helped,” the boy protested. “People from Tennis

suddenly rushed in. The first--a big, furious fellow-killed our Loule

and the fierce Judas. Now he has to pay for it. Little Chareb threw the

black powder into his eyes, while Hanno himself thrust the torch in his

face.”

“And Bias, the blackbeard’s slave?”

“I don’t know. Oh, yes! Wounded, I believe, on board the ship.”

Meanwhile the lad, a precocious fourteen-year-old cabin-boy from the

Hydra, pointed to the boat which lay ready, and took Ledscha’s bundle in

his hand; but she sprang into the light skiff before him and ordered it

to be rowed to the Owl’s Nest, where she must bid Mother Tabus good-bye.

The cabin-boy, however, declared positively that the command could not

be obeyed now, and at his signal two black sailors urged it with swift

oar strokes toward the northwest, to Satabus’s ship. Hanno wished to

receive his bride as a wife from his father’s hand.

Ledscha had not insisted upon the fulfilment of her desire, but as the

boat passed the Pelican Island her gaze rested on the lustreless waning

disk of the moon. She thought of the torturing night, during which she

had vainly waited here for Hermon, and a triumphant smile hovered around

her lips; but soon the heavy eyebrows of the girl who was thus leaving

her home contracted in a frown--she again fancied she saw, where the

moon was just fading, the body of a gigantic, hideous spider. She

banished the illusion by speaking to the boy--spiders in the morning

mean misfortune.

The early dawn, which was now crimsoning the east, reminded her of the

blood which, as an avenger, she must yet shed.

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER I.

While the market place in Tennis was filling, Archias’s white house

had become a heap of smouldering ruins. Hundreds of men and women were

standing around the scene of the conflagration, but no one saw the

statue of Demeter, which had been removed from Hermon’s studio just in

time. The nomarch had had it locked up in the neighbouring temple of the

goddess.

It was rumoured that the divinity had saved her own statue by a miracle;

Pamaut, the police officer, said that he had seen her himself as,

surrounded by a brilliant light, she soared upward on the smoke that

poured from the burning house. The strategist and the nomarch used

every means in their power to capture the robbers, but without the least

success.

As it had become known that Paseth, Gula’s husband, had cast off his

wife because she had gone to Hermon’s studio, the magistrates believed

that the attack had been made by the Biamites; yet Paseth was absent

from the city during the assault, and the innocence of the others could

also be proved.

Since, for two entire years, piracy had entirely ceased in this

neighbourhood, no one thought of corsairs, and the bodies of the

incendiaries having been consumed by the flames with the white house, it

could not be ascertained to what class the marauders belonged.

The blinded sculptor could only testify that one of the robbers was a

negro, or at any rate had had his face blackened, and that the size of

another had appeared to him almost superhuman. This circumstance gave

rise to the fable that, during the terrible storm of the previous clay,

Hades had opened and spirits of darkness had rushed into the studio of

the Greek betrayer.

The strategist, it is true, did not believe such tales, but the

superstition of the Biamites, who, moreover, aided the Greeks

reluctantly to punish a crime which threatened to involve their own

countrymen, put obstacles in the way of his measures.

Not until he heard of Ledscha’s disappearance, and was informed by

the priest of Nemesis of the handsome sum which had been found in the

offering box of the temple shortly after the attack, did he arrive at

a conjecture not very far from the real state of affairs; only it

was still incomprehensible to him what body of men could have placed

themselves at the disposal of a girl’s vengeful plan.

On the second day after the fire, the epistrategus of the whole Delta,

who had accidentally come to the border fortress, arrived at Tennis

on the galley of the commandant of Pelusium, and with him Proclus, the

grammateus of the Dionysian artists, the Lady Thyone, Daphne, and her

companion Chrysilla.

The old hero Philippus was detained in the fortress by the preparations

for war.

Althea had returned to Alexandria, and Philotas, who disliked her, had

gone there himself, as Chrysilla intimated to him that he could hope

for no success in his suit to her ward so long as Daphne had to devote

herself to the care of the blinded Hermon.

The epistrategus proceeded with great caution, but his efforts also

remained futile. He ordered a report to be made of all the vessels which

had entered the harbours and bays of the northeastern Delta, but those

commanded by Satabus and his sons gave no cause for investigation; they

had come into the Tanite arm of the Nile as lumber ships from Pontus,

and had discharged beams and planks for the account of a well-known

commercial house in Sinope.

Yet the official ordered the Owl’s Nest to be searched. In doing this

he made himself guilty of an act of violence, as the island’s right of

asylum still existed, and this incensed the irritable and refractory

Biamites the more violently, the deeper was the reverent awe with which

the nation regarded Tabus, who, according to their belief, was over a

hundred years old. The Biamites honoured her not only as an enchantress

and a leech, but as the ancestress of a race of mighty men. By molesting

this aged woman, and interfering with an ancient privilege, the

epistrategus lost the aid of the hostile fishermen, sailors, and

weavers. Any information from their ranks to him was regarded as

treachery; and, besides, his stay in Tennis could be but brief, as the

King, on account of the impending war, had summoned him back to the

capital.

On the third day after his arrival he left Tennis and sailed from Tanis

for Alexandria. He had had little time to attend to Thyone and her

guests.

Proclus, too, could not devote himself to them until after the departure

of the epistrategus, since he had gone immediately to Tanis, where,

as head of the Dionysian artists of all Egypt, he had been occupied in

attending to the affairs of the newly established theatre.

On his return to Tennis he had instantly requested to be conducted to

the Temple of Demeter, to inspect the blinded Hermon’s rescued work.

He had entered the cella of the sanctuary with the expectation of

finding a peculiar, probably a powerful work, but one repugnant to his

taste, and left it fairly overpowered by the beauty of this noble work

of art.

What he had formerly seen of Hermon’s productions had prejudiced

him against the artist, whose talent was great, but who, instead of

dedicating it to the service of the beautiful and the sublime, chose

subjects which, to Proclus, did not seem worthy of artistic treatment,

or, when they were, sedulously deprived them of that by which, in his

eyes, they gained genuine value. In Hermon’s Olympian Banquet he--who

also held the office of a high priest of Apollo in Alexandria--had even

seen an insult to the dignity of the deity. In the Street Boy Eating

Figs, the connoisseur’s eye had recognised a peculiar masterpiece, but

he had been repelled by this also; for, instead of a handsome boy, it

represented a starving, emaciated vagabond.

True to life as this figure might be, it seemed to him reprehensible,

for it had already induced others to choose similar vulgar subjects.

When recently at Althea’s performance he had met Hermon and saw how

quickly his beautiful travelling companion allowed herself to be induced

to bestow the wreath on the handsome, black-bearded fellow, it vexed

him, and he had therefore treated him with distant coldness, and allowed

him to perceive the disapproval which the direction taken by his art had

awakened in his mind.

In the presence of Hermon’s Demeter, the opinion of the experienced man

and intelligent connoisseur had suddenly changed.

The creator of this work was not only one of the foremost artists of his

day, nay, he had also been permitted to fathom the nature of the deity

and to bestow upon it a perfect form.

This Demeter was the most successful personification of the divine

goodness which rewards the sowing of seed with the harvest. When Hermon

created it, Daphne’s image had hovered before his mind, even if he had

not been permitted to use her as a model, and of all the maidens whom he

knew there was scarcely one better suited to serve as the type for the

Demeter.

So what he had seen in Pelusium, and learned from women, was true. The

heart and mind of the artist who had created this work were not filled

with the image of Althea--who during the journey had bestowed many a

mark of favour upon the aging man, and with whom he was obliged to work

hand in hand for Queen Arsinoe’s plans--but the daughter of Archias, and

this circumstance also aided in producing his change of view.

Hermon’s blindness, it was to be hoped, would be cured.

Duty, and perhaps also interest, commanded him to show him frankly how

highly he estimated his art and his last work.

After the arrival of Thyone and Daphne, Hermon had consented to

accompany them on board the Proserpina, their spacious galley. True, he

had yielded reluctantly to this arrangement of his parents’ old friend,

and neither she nor Daphne had hitherto succeeded in soothing the fierce

resentment against fate which filled his soul after the loss of his

sight and his dearest friend. As yet every attempt to induce him to

bear his terrible misfortune with even a certain degree of composure had

failed.

The Tennis leech, trained by the Egyptian priests at Sais in the art of

healing, who was attached as a pastophorus to the Temple of Isis, in the

city of weavers, had covered the artist’s scorched face with bandages,

and earnestly adjured him never in his absence to raise them, and to

keep every ray of light from his blinded eyes. But the agitation which

had mastered Hermon’s whole being was so great that, in spite of the

woman’s protestations, he lifted the covering again and again to see

whether he could not perceive once more at least a glimmer of the

sunlight whose warming power he felt. The thought of living in darkness

until the end of his life seemed unendurable, especially as now all the

horrors which, hitherto, had only visited him in times of trial during

the night assailed him with never-ceasing cruelty.

The image of the spider often forced itself upon him, and he fancied

that the busy insect was spreading its quickly made web over his blinded

eyes, which he was not to touch, yet over which he passed his hand to

free them from the repulsive veil.

The myth related that because Athene’s blow had struck the ambitious

weaver Arachne, she had resolved, before the goddess transformed her

into a spider, to put an end to her disgrace.

How infinitely harder was the one dealt to him! How much better reason

he had to use the privilege in which man possesses an advantage over the

immortals, of putting himself to death with his own hand when he deems

the fitting time has come! What should he, the artist, to whom his eyes

brought whatever made life valuable, do longer in this hideous black

night, brightened by no sunbeam?

He was often overwhelmed, too, by the remembrance of the terrible end

of the friend in whom he saw the only person who might have given him

consolation in this distress, and the painful thought of his poverty.

He was supported solely by what his art brought and his wealthy uncle

allowed him. The Demeter which Archias had ordered had been partially

paid for in advance, and he had intended to use the gold--a considerable

sum--to pay debts in Alexandria. But it was consumed with the rest of

his property--tools, clothing, mementoes of his dead parents, and a

few books which contained his favourite poems and the writings of his

master, Straton.

These precious rolls had aided him to maintain the proud conviction of

owing everything which he attained or possessed solely to himself. It

had again become perfectly clear to him that the destiny of earth-born

mortals was not directed by the gods whom men had invented after

their own likeness, in order to find causes for the effects which they

perceived, but by deaf and blind chance. Else how could even worse

misfortune, according to the opinion of most people, have befallen

the pure, guiltless Myrtilus, who so deeply revered the Olympians and

understood how to honour them so magnificently by his art, than himself,

the despiser of the gods?

But was the death for which he longed a misfortune?

Was the Nemesis who had so swiftly and fully granted the fervent prayer

of an ill-used girl also only an image conjured up by the power of human

imagination?

It was scarcely possible!

Yet if there was one goddess, did not that admit the probability of the

existence of all the others?

He shuddered at the idea; for if the immortals thought, felt, acted, how

terribly his already cruel fate would still develop! He had denied and

insulted almost all the Olympians, and not even stirred a finger to the

praise and honour of a single one.

What marvel if they should choose him for the target of their resentment

and revenge?

He had just believed that the heaviest misfortune which can befall a man

and an artist had already stricken him. Now he felt that this, too, had

been an error; for, like a physical pain, he realized the collapse of

the proud delusion of being independent of every power except himself,

freely and arbitrarily controlling his own destiny, owing no gratitude

except to his own might, and being compelled to yield to nothing save

the enigmatical, pitiless power of eternal laws or their co-operation,

so incomprehensible to the human intellect, called “chance,” which took

no heed of merit or unworthiness.

Must he, who had learned to silence and to starve every covetous desire,

in order to require no gifts from his own uncle and his wealthy kinsman

and friend, and be able to continue to hold his head high, as the most

independent of the independent, now, in addition to all his other woe,

be forced to believe in powers that exercised an influence over his

every act? Must he recognise praying to them and thanking them as the

demand of justice, of duty, and wisdom? Was this possible either?

And, believing himself alone, since he could not see Thyone and Daphne,

who were close by him, he struck his scorched brow with his clinched

fist, because he felt like a free man who suddenly realizes that a rope

which he can not break is bound around his hands and feet, and a giant

pulls and loosens it at his pleasure.

Yet no! Better die than become for gods and men a puppet that obeys

every jerk of visible and invisible hands.

Starting up in violent excitement, he tore the bandage from his face and

eyes, declaring, as Thyone seriously reprimanded him, that he would go

away, no matter where, and earn his daily bread at the handmill, like

the blind Ethiopian slave whom he had seen in the cabinetmaker’s house

at Tennis.

Then Daphne spoke to him tenderly, but her soothing voice caused him

keener pain than his old friend’s stern one.

To sit still longer seemed unendurable, and, with the intention of

regaining his lost composure by pacing to and fro, he began to walk; but

at the first free step he struck against the little table in front of

Thyone’s couch, and as it upset and the vessels containing water fell

with it, clinking and breaking, he stopped and, as if utterly crushed,

groped his way back, with both arms outstretched, to the armchair he had

quitted.

If he could only have seen Daphne press her handkerchief first to her

eyes, from which tears were streaming, and then to her lips, that

he might not hear her sobs, if he could have perceived how Thyone’s

wrinkled old face contracted as if she were swallowing a colocynth

apple, while at the same time she patted his strong shoulder briskly,

exclaiming with forced cheerfulness: “Go on, my boy! The steed rears

when the hornet stings! Try again, if it only soothes you! We will take

everything out of your way. You need not mind the water-jars. The potter

will make new ones!”

Then Hermon threw back his burning head, rested it against the back of

the chair, and did not stir until the bandage was renewed.

How comfortable it felt!

He knew, too, that he owed it to Daphne; the matron’s fingers could not

be so slender and delicate, and he would have been more than glad

to raise them to his lips and thank her; but he denied himself the

pleasure.

If she really did love him, the bond between them must now be severed;

for, even if her goodness of heart extended far enough to induce her

to unite her blooming young existence to his crippled one, how could he

have accepted the sacrifice without humiliating himself? Whether such a

marriage would have made her happy or miserable he did not ask, but he

was all the more keenly aware that if, in this condition, he became her

husband, he would be the recipient of alms, and he would far rather, he

mentally repeated, share the fate of the negro at the handmill.

The expression of his features revealed the current of his thoughts to

Daphne, and, much as she wished to speak to him, she forced herself to

remain silent, that the tones of her voice might not betray how deeply

she was suffering with him; but he himself now longed for a kind word

from her lips, and he had just asked if she was still there when Thyone

announced a visit from the grammateus Proclus.

He had recently felt that this man was unfriendly to him, and again his

anger burst forth. To be exposed in the midst of his misery to the scorn

of a despiser of his art was too much for his exhausted patience.

But here he was interrupted by Proclus himself, who had entered the

darkened cabin where the blind man remained very soon after Thyone.

Hermon’s last words had betrayed to the experienced courtier how well

he remembered his unkind remarks, so he deferred the expression of

his approval, and began by delivering the farewell message of the

epistrategus, who had been summoned away so quickly.

He stated that his investigations had discovered nothing of importance,

except, perhaps, the confirmation of the sorrowful apprehension that the

admirable Myrtilus had been killed by the marauders. A carved stone had

been found under the ashes, and Chello, the Tennis goldsmith, said he

had had in his own workshop the gem set in the hapless artist’s shoulder

clasp, and supplied it with a new pin.

While speaking, he took Hermon’s hand and gave him the stone, but the

artist instantly used his finger tips to feel it.

Perhaps it really did belong to the clasp Myrtilus wore, for, although

still unpractised in groping, he recognised that a human head was carved

in relief upon the stone, and Mrytilus’s had been adorned with the

likeness of the Epicurean.

The damaged little work of art, in the opinion of Proclus and Daphne,

appeared to represent this philosopher, and at the thought that his

friend had fallen a victim to the flames Hermon bowed his head and

exerted all his strength of will in order not to betray by violent sobs

how deeply this idea pierced his heart.

Thyone, shrugging her shoulders mournfully, pointed to the suffering

artist. Proclus nodded significantly, and, moving nearer to Hermon,

informed him that he had sought out his Demeter and found the statue

uninjured. He was well aware that it would be presumptuous to offer

consolation in so heavy an affliction, and after the loss of his dearest

friend, yet perhaps Hermon would be glad to hear his assurance that he,

whose judgment was certainly not unpractised, numbered his work among

the most perfect which the sculptor’s art had created in recent years.

“I myself best know the value of this Demeter,” the sculptor broke in

harshly. “Your praise is the bit of honey which is put into the mouth of

the hurt child.”

“No, my friend,” Proclus protested with grave decision. “I should

express no less warmly the ardent admiration with which this noble

figure of the goddess fills me if you were well and still possessed your

sight. You were right just now when you alluded to my aversion, or, let

us say, lack of appreciation of the individuality of your art; but this

noble work changes everything, and nothing affords me more pleasure

than that I am to be the first to assure you how magnificently you have

succeeded in this statue.”

“The first!” Hermon again interrupted harshly. “But the second and third

will be lacking in Alexandria. What a pleasure it is to pour the gifts

of sympathy upon one to whom we wish ill! But, however successful my

Demeter may be, you would have awarded the prize twice over to the one

by Myrtilus.”

“Wrong, my young friend!” the statesman protested with honest zeal.

“All honour to the great dead, whose end was so lamentable; but in

this contest--let me swear it by the goddess herself!--you would

have remained victor; for, at the utmost, nothing can rank with the

incomparable save a work of equal merit, and--I know life and art--two

artists rarely or never succeed in producing anything so perfect as this

masterpiece at the same time and in the same place.”

“Enough!” gasped Hermon, hoarse with excitement; but Proclus, with

increasing animation, continued: “Brief as is our acquaintance, you have

probably perceived that I do not belong to the class of flatterers, and

in Alexandria it has hardly remained unknown to you that the younger

artists number me, to whom the office of judge so often falls, among

the sterner critics. Only because I desire their best good do I frankly

point out their errors. The multitude provides the praise. It will soon

flow upon you also in torrents, I can see its approach, and as this

blindness, if the august Aesculapius and healing Isis aid, will pass

away like a dreary winter night, it would seem to me criminal to deceive

you about your own ability and success. I already behold you creating

other works to the delight of gods and men; but this Demeter extorts

boundless, enthusiastic appreciation; both as a whole, and in detail, it

is faultless and worthy of the most ardent praise. Oh, how long it

is, my dear, unfortunate friend, since I could congratulate any other

Alexandrian with such joyful confidence upon the most magnificent

success! Every word--you may believe it!--which comes to you in

commendation of this last work from lips unused to eulogy is sincerely

meant, and as I utter it to you I shall repeat it in the presence of the

King, Archias, and the other judges.”

Daphne, with hurried breath, deeply flushed cheeks, and sparkling

eyes, had fairly hung upon the lips of the clever connoisseur. She knew

Proclus, and his dreaded, absolutely inconsiderate acuteness, and was

aware that this praise expressed his deepest conviction. Had he been

dissatisfied with the statue of Demeter, or even merely superficially

touched by its beauty, he might have shrunk from wounding the

unfortunate artist by censure, and remained silent; but only something

grand, consummate, could lead him to such warmth of recognition.

She now felt it a misfortune that she and Thyone had hitherto been

prevented, by anxiety for their patient, from admiring his work. Had it

still been light, she would have gone to the temple of Demeter at once;

but the sun had just set, and Proclus was obliged to beg her to have

patience.

As the cases were standing finished at the cabinetmaker’s, the statue

had been packed immediately, under his own direction, and carried on

board his ship, which would convey it with him to the capital the next

day.

While this arrangement called forth loud expressions of regret from

Daphne and the vivacious matron, Hermon assented to it, for it would

at least secure the ladies, until their arrival in Alexandria, from a

painful disappointment.

“Rather,” Proclus protested with firm dissent, “it will rob you for some

time of a great pleasure, and you, noble daughter of Archias, probably

of the deepest emotion of gratitude with which the favour of the

immortals has hitherto rendered you happy; yet the master who created

this genuine goddess owes the best part of it to your own face.”

“He told me himself that he thought of me while at work,” Daphne

admitted, and a flood of the warmest love reached Hermon’s ears in her

agitated tones, while, greatly perplexed, he wondered with increasing

anxiety whether the stern critic Proclus had really been serious in the

extravagant eulogium, so alien to his reputation in the city.

Myrtilus, too, had admired the head of his Demeter, and--this he himself

might admit--he had succeeded in it, and yet ought not the figure, with

its too pronounced inclination forward, which, it is true, corresponded

with Daphne’s usual bearing, and the somewhat angular bend of the arms,

have induced this keen-sighted connoisseur to moderate the exalted

strain of his praise? Or was the whole really so admirable that it would

have seemed petty to find fault with the less successful details? At any

rate, Proclus’s eulogy ought to give him twofold pleasure, because his

art had formerly repelled him, and Hermon tried to let it produce this

effect upon him. But it would not do; he was continually overpowered by

the feeling that under the enthusiastic homage of the intriguing Queen

Arsinoe’s favourite lurked a sting which he should some day feel. Or

could Proclus have been persuaded by Thyone and Daphne to help them

reconcile the hapless blind man to his hard fate?

Hermon’s every movement betrayed the great anxiety which filled his

mind, and it by no means escaped Proclus’s attention, but he attributed

it to the blinded sculptor’s anguish in being prevented, after so great

a success, from pursuing his art further.

Sincerely touched, he laid his slender hand on the sufferer’s muscular

arm, saying: “A more severe trial than yours, my young friend, can

scarcely be imposed upon the artist who has just attained the highest

goal, but three things warrant you to hope for recovery--your vigorous

youth, the skill of our Alexandrian leeches, and the favour of the

immortal gods. You shrug your shoulders? Yet I insist that you have won

this favour by your Demeter. True, you owe it less to yourself than to

yonder maiden. What pleasure it affords one whom, like myself, taste and

office bind to the arts, to perceive such a revolution in an artist’s

course of creation, and trace it to its source! I indulged myself in it

and, if you will listen, I should like to show you the result.”

“Speak,” replied Hermon dully, bowing his head as if submitting to the

inevitable, while Proclus began:

“Hitherto your art imitated, not without success, what your eyes showed

you, and if this was filled with the warm breath of life, your work

succeeded. All respect to your Boy Eating Figs, in whose presence you

would feel the pleasure he himself enjoyed while consuming the sweet

fruit. Here, among the works of Egyptian antiquity, there is imminent

danger of falling under the tyranny of the canon of proportions which

can be expressed in figures, or merely even the demands of the style

hallowed by thousands of years, but in a subject like the ‘Fig-eater’

such a reproach is not to be feared. He speaks his own intelligible

language, and whoever reproduces it without turning to the right or left

has won, for he has created a work whose value every true friend of art,

no matter to what school he belongs, prizes highly.

“To me personally such works of living reality are cordially welcome.

Yet art neither can nor will be satisfied with snatches of what is

close at hand; but you are late-born, sons of a time when the two great

tendencies of art have nearly reached the limits of what is attainable

to them. You were everywhere confronted with completed work, and you are

right when you refuse to sink to mere imitators of earlier works, and

therefore return to Nature, with which we Hellenes, and perhaps

the Egyptians also, began. The latter forgot her; the former--we

Greeks--continued to cling to her closely.”

“Some few,” Hermon eagerly interrupted the other, “still think it

worth the trouble to take from her what she alone can bestow. They

save themselves the toilsome search for the model which others so

successfully used before them, and bronze and marble still keep

wonderfully well. Bring out the old masterpieces. Take the head from

this one, the arm from that, etc. The pupil impresses the proportions on

his mind. Only so far as the longing for the beautiful permits do even

the better ones remain faithful to Nature, not a finger’s breadth more.”

“Quite right,” the other went on calmly. “But your objection only

brings one nearer the goal. How many who care only for applause content

themselves to-day, unfortunately, with Nature at second hand! Without

returning to her eternally fresh, inexhaustible spring, they draw from

the conveniently accessible wells which the great ancients dug for

them.”

“I know these many,” Hermon wrathfully exclaimed. “They are the brothers

of the Homeric poets, who take verses from the Iliad and Odyssey to

piece out from them their own pitiful poems.”

“Excellent, my son!” exclaimed Thyone, laughing, and Daphne remarked

that the poet Cleon had surprised her father with such a poem a few

weeks before. It was a marvellous bit of botchwork, and yet there was a

certain meaning in the production, compiled solely from Homeric verses.

“Diomed’s Hecuba,” observed Proclus, “and the Aphrodite by Hippias,

which were executed in marble, originated in the same way, and deserve

no better fate, although they please the great multitude. But, praised

be my lord, Apollo, our age can also boast of other artists. Filled with

the spirit of the god, they are able to model truthfully and faithfully

even the forms of the immortals invisible to the physical eye. They

stand before the spectator as if borrowed from Nature, for their

creators have filled them with their own healthy vigour. Our poor

Myrtilus belonged to this class and, after your Demeter, the world will

include you in it also.”

“And yet,” answered Hermon in a tone of dissent, “I remained faithful to

myself, and put nothing, nothing at all of my own personality, into the

forms borrowed from Nature.”

“What need of that was there?” asked Proclus with a subtle smile. “Your

model spared you the task. And this at last brings me to the goal I

desired to reach. As the great Athenians created types for eternity,

so also does Nature at times in a happy hour, for her own pleasure, and

such a model you found in our Daphne.-No contradiction, my dear young

lady! The outlines of the figure--By the dog! Hermon might possibly have

found forms no less beautiful in the Aphrosion, but how charming and

lifelike is the somewhat unusual yet graceful pose of yours! And then

the heart, the soul! In your companionship our artist had nothing to do

except lovingly to share your feelings in order to have at his disposal

everything which renders so dear to us all the giver of bread, the

preserver of peace, the protector of marriage, the creator and supporter

of the law of moderation in Nature, as well as in human existence. Where

would all these traits be found more perfectly united in a single human

being than in your person, Daphne, your quiet, kindly rule?”

“Oh, stop!” the girl entreated. “I am only too well aware--”

“That you also are not free from human frailties,” Proclus continued,

undismayed. “We will take them, great or small as they may be, into the

bargain. The secret ones do not concern the sculptor, who does not or

will not see them. What he perceives in you, what you enable him to

recognise through every feature of your sweet, tranquillizing face,

is enough for the genuine artist to imagine the goddess; for the

distinction between the mortal and the immortal is only the degree of

perfection, and the human intellect and artist soul can find nothing

more perfect in the whole domain of Demeter’s jurisdiction than is

presented to them in your nature. Our friend yonder seized it, and his

magnificent work of art proves how nearly it approaches the purest and

loftiest conception we form of the goddess whom he had to represent. It

is not that he deified you, Daphne; he merely bestowed on the divinity

forms which he recognised in you.”

Just at that moment, obeying an uncontrollable impulse, Hermon pulled

the bandage from his eyes to see once more the woman to whom this warm

homage was paid.

Was the experienced connoisseur of art and the artist soul in the right?

He had told himself the same thing when he selected Daphne for a model,

and her head reproduced what Proclus praised as the common possession of

Daphne and Demeter. Truthful Myrtilus had also seen it. Perhaps his work

had really been so marvellously successful because, while he was engaged

upon it, his friend had constantly stood before his mind in all the

charm of her inexhaustible goodness.

Animated by the ardent desire to gaze once more at the beloved face, to

which he now owed also this unexpectedly great success, he turned toward

the spot whence her voice had reached him; but a wall of violet mist,

dotted with black specks, was all that his blinded eyes showed him, and

with a low groan he drew the linen cloth over the burns.

This time Proclus also perceived what was passing in the poor artist’s

mind, and when he took leave of him it was with the resolve to do his

utmost to brighten with the stars of recognition and renown the dark

night of suffering which enshrouded this highly gifted sculptor, whose

unexpectedly great modesty had prepossessed him still more in his

favour.