nded the widow's garden-plot on the east and led directly to the
sea, he desired them to stop, got out of the litter and bid the slaves
wait for him. At the garden door he still found two men dressed in white,
and one of the cynic philosophers who had sat by him on the bench near
the Paneum. He paced impatiently up and clown, waiting till these people
should have disappeared, and thus passing again and again under the light
of the torches that were stuck up by the gate.

The dry cynic's prominent eyes were everywhere at once, and as soon as he
perceived the peripatetic Bithynian he flung up his arm, exclaiming, as
he pointed to him with a long, lean, stiff forefinger--half to the
Christians with whom he had been talking and half to the lad himself:

"What does he want. That fop! that over-dressed minion! I know the
fellow; with his smooth face and the silver quiver on his shoulder he
believes he is Eros in person. Be off with you, you house-rat. The women
and girls in here know how to protect themselves against the sort who
parade the streets in rose-colored draperies. Take yourself off, or you
will make acquaintance with the noble Paulina's slaves and clogs. Hi!
gate-keeper, here! keep an eye on this fellow."

Antinous made no answer, but slowly went back to his litter.

"To-morrow perhaps, if I cannot manage it tonight," he thought to himself
as he went; and he never thought of any other means of attaining his end,
much as he longed for it. A hindrance that came in his way ceased to be a
hindrance as soon as he had left it behind him, and after this reflection
he acted on this occasion as on many former ones. The litter was no
longer standing where he had left it; the bearers had carried it into the
lane leading to the sea, for the only little abode which stood on the
eastern side of it belonged to a fisherman whose wife sold thin potations
of Pelusium beer.

Antinous went down the green alley overarched with boughs of fig, to call
the negroes who were sitting in the dull light of a smoky oil-lamp. Here
it was dark, but at the end of the alley the sea shone and sparkled in
the moonlight; the splashing of the waves tempted him onwards and he
loitered clown to the stone-bound shore. There he spied a boat dancing on
the water between two piles and it came into his head that it might be
possible to see the house where Selene was sleeping, from the sea.

He undid the rope which secured the boat without any difficulty;