he
seated himself in it, laid aside the quiver and bow, pushed off with one
of the oars that lay at the bottom of the boat and pulled with steady
strokes towards the long path of light where the moon touched the crest
of each dancing wavelet with unresting tremulous flecks of silver.

There lay the widow's garden. In that small white house must the fair
pale Selene be sleeping, but though he rowed hither and thither,
backwards and forwards, he could not succeed in discovering the window of
which Pollux had spoken. Might it not be possible to find a spot where he
could disembark and then make his way into the garden? He could see two
little boats, but they lay in a narrow walled canal and this was closed
by an iron railing. Beyond, was a, terrace projecting into the sea, and
surrounded by an elegant balustrade of little columns, but it rose
straight out of the sea on smooth high walls. But there--what was that
gleaming under the two palm-trees which, springing from the same root,
had grown together tall and slender--was not that a flight of marble
steps leading down to the sea?

Antinous dipped his right oar in the waves with a practised hand to alter
the head of the boat and was in the act of pulling his hand up to make
his stroke against the pressure of the waves--but he did not complete the
movement, nay he counteracted the stroke by a dexterous reverse action; a
strange vision arrested his attention. On the terrace, which lay full in
the bright moonlight, there appeared a white-robed figure with long
floating hair.

How strangely it moved! It went now to one side and now to the other,
then again it stood still and clasped its head in its hands. Antinous
shuddered, he could not help thinking of the Daimons of which Hadrian so
often spoke. They were said to be of half-divine and half-human nature,
and sometimes appeared in the guise of mortals.

Or was Selene dead and was the white figure her wandering shade? Antinous
clutched the handles of the oars, now merely floating on the water, and
bending forward gazed fixedly and with bated breath at the mysterious
being which had now reached the balustrade of the terrace, now--he saw
quite plainly--covered its face with both hands, leaned far over the
parapet, and now as a star falls through the sky on a clear night, as a
fruit drops from the tree in autumn, the white form of the girl dropped
from the terrace. A loud cry of anguish broke the silence of the night
which vei