his wife might, in fact, have Melissa in hiding in that part of the
building to which he was now leading the way. After Macrinus had come
to fetch him he had had no opportunity of inquiring, for the prefect
had not quitted him for a moment, and Euryale was in the town busy with
other women in seeking out and nursing such of the wounded as had been
found alive among the dead.

Caesar triumphed in the changed, gloomy, and depressed demeanor of a
man usually so self-possessed; for he fancied that it betrayed some
knowledge on the part of Timotheus of Melissa's hiding-place; and he
could jest with the priest of Alexander and his favorite Theokritus and
the other friends who attended him, while he ignored the high-priest's
presence and never even alluded to Melissa.

Hardly had they gone past the old man when, just as the kitchen slaves
were shouting "Hail, Caesar!" the lady Euryale, as pale as death,
hurried in, and with a trembling voice inquired whither her husband was
conducting the emperor.

She had turned back when half way on her road, in obedience to the
impulse of her heart, which prompted her, before she went on her
Samaritan's errand, to visit Melissa in her hiding-place, and let her
see the face of a friend at the beginning of a new, lonely, and anxious
day. On hearing the reply which was readily given, her knees trembled
beneath her, and the steward, who saw her totter, supported her and led
her into the laboratory, where essences and strong waters soon restored
her to consciousness. Euryale had known the old pastophoros a long time,
and, noticing his mourning garb, she asked sympathetically: "And you,
too, are bereft?"

"Of both," was the answer. "You were always so good to them--Slaughtered
like beasts for sacrifice--down there in the stadium," and tears flowed
fast down the old man's furrowed cheeks. The lady uplifted her hands as
though calling on Heaven to avenge this outrageous crime; at the same
instant a loud howl of pain was heard from above, and a great confusion
of men's voices.

Euryale was beside herself with fear. If they had found Melissa in her
room her husband's fate was sealed, and she was guilty of his doom.
But they could scarcely yet have opened the chambers, and the girl was
clever and nimble, and might perhaps escape in time if she heard the men
approaching. She eagerly flew to the window. She could see below her the
stone which Melissa must move to get out; but between the wall and