be overwhelmed by the crash of roofs and walls;
the next day was oppressively hot, and the family cowered in a row in the
scanty shade of a palm and of a fig-tree, the only growth of any size in
the singer's garden. Medius himself, in spite of the scorching sun, could
not be still.

He rushed off to the town again and again, but only to return each time
to enhance the anguish of the household by relating all sorts of horrors
which he had picked up in his wanderings. They were obliged to satisfy
their hunger with bread, cheese, and fruit, for the two slave-women
positively refused to risk their lives by cooking in the house.

Medius' temper varied as he came and went; now he was gentle and
affectionate, and then again he raged like a madman; and his wife outdid
him. At one moment she would abandon him and the children, while she
anointed the household altar and put up prayers; at the next she railed
at the baseness and cruelty of the gods. When her husband brought the
news that the Serapeum was surrounded by the Imperial troops, she scoffed
and spit at the sacred images, and five minutes later she was vowing a
sacrifice to the deities of Olympus. The general confusion was
distracting; as the sun rose, the anguish, physical and mental, of the
whole family greatly increased, and by noon had reached an appalling
pitch.

Dada looked on intensely disgusted, and only shook her head when one or
another of her companions was sure she felt a shock of earthquake or
heard the roll of distant thunder. She could not explain to herself why
she, who was usually timid enough, was exempt from the universal panic
though she felt deeply pitiful towards the terrified women and children.
None of them troubled themselves about her; the day dragged on with
intolerable slowness, quenching all her gay vivacity, while she was
utterly exhausted by the scorching African sun, of which, till now, she
had never known the power. At last, in the afternoon, she found the
little garden, which was by this time heated like an oven, quite
unbearable, and she looked round for Papias. The child was sitting on the
wall looking at the congregation streaming into the basilica of St. Mark.
Dada followed his example, and when the many-voiced psalms rang out of
the open door of the church, she listened to the music, for it seemed
long since she had heard any, and after wiping the perspiration from the
little boy's face with her peplos, she pointed to the building