n body. But she would not
let herself dwell upon it, and hurried on as though they were but water
and stones, ever seeing before her the image of the wounded youth who
leaned against the basin.

Thus she reached the east side of the temple. Already she could hear
the splashing of the fountain, she saw the marble gleaming through the
darkness, and began seeking for the spot where she had seen her lover.
She suddenly stopped short; at the same time as herself, lights faint
and bright were coming along from the south, from the entrance of the
street that led to Rhakotis, and down to the water. She was in the
middle of the street, without a possibility of concealing herself except
in one of the niches of the Serapeum.

Should she abandon him? She must go on, and to seek protection in the
outer wall of the temple meant turning back. So she stood still and held
her breath as she watched the advancing lights. Now they stopped. She
heard the rattle of arms and men's voices. The lantern-bearers were
being detained by the watch. They were the first soldiers she had seen,
the others being engaged in drinking, or in the work on the race-course.
Would the soldiers find her, too? But, no! They moved on, the
torch-bearers in front, toward the street of Hermes.

Who were those people who went wandering about among the slain, turning
first to this side and then to that, as if searching for something?

They could not be robbing the dead, or the watch would have seized them.

Now they came quite close to her, and she trembled with fright, for one
of them was a soldier. The light of the lantern shone upon his armor.
He went before a man and two lads who were following a laden ass, and
in one of them Melissa recognized with beating heart a garden slave of
Polybius, who had often done her a service.

And now she took courage to look more closely at the man--and it
was--yes, even in the peasant's clothes he wore he could not deceive her
quick eyes--it was Andreas!

She felt that every breath that came from her young bosom must be a
prayer of thanksgiving; nor was it long before the freedman recognized
Melissa in the light-footed black boy who seemed to spring from the
earth in order to show them the way, and he, too, felt as if a miracle
had been wrought.

Like fair flowers that spring up round a scaffold over which the hungry
ravens croak and hover, so here, in the midst of death and horror,
joy and hope began to blossom in thankful