a good many things before other people did--what
was going on out there, and I succeeded in having the daughters of
Philotas secretly brought to this temple, and preserved from sharing
their parents' fate. That is now five years ago, and now you know how it
happens, that the daughters of a man of rank carry water for the altar of
Serapis, and that I would rather an injury should be done to me than to
them, and that I would rather see Eulaeus eating some poisonous root than
fragrant peaches."

"And is Philotas still working in the mines?" asked the Roman, clenching
his teeth with rage.

"Yes, Publius," replied the anchorite. "A 'yes' that it is easy to say,
and it is just as easy too to clench one's fists in indignation--but it
is hard to imagine the torments that must be endured by a man like
Philotas; and a noble and innocent woman--as beautiful as Hera and
Aphrodite in one--when they are driven to hard and unaccustomed labor
under a burning sun by the lash of the overseer. Perhaps by this time
they have been happy enough to die under their sufferings and their
daughters are already orphans, poor children! No one here but the
high-priest knows precisely who they are, for if Eulaeus were to learn
the truth he would send them after their parents as surely as my name is
Serapion."

"Let him try it!" cried Publius, raising his right fist threateningly.

"Softly, softly, my friend," said the recluse, "and not now only, but
about everything which you under take in behalf of the sisters, for a man
like Eulaeus hears not only with his own ears but with those of thousand
others, and almost everything that occurs at court has to go through his
hands as epistolographer. You say the queen is well-disposed towards you.
That is worth a great deal, for her husband is said to be guided by her
will, and such a thing as Eulaeus cannot seem particularly estimable in
Cleopatra's eyes if princesses are like other women--and I know them
well."

"And even if he were," interrupted Publius with glowing cheeks, "I would
bring him to ruin all the same, for a man like Philotas must not perish,
and his cause henceforth is my own. Here is my hand upon it; and if I am
happy in having descended from a noble race it is above all because the
word of a son of the Cornelii is as good as the accomplished deed of any
other man."

The recluse grasped the right hand the young man gave him and nodded to
him affectionately, his eyes radiant, though mois