orning and noontide hours, was most crowded, the little
boats which the hunters had used again touched the shore.

With them and Daphne's servants seafaring men also left the
boats--Biamite fishermen and boatmen, who knew the breeding places and
nests of the feathered prey--and before them, barking loudly and shaking
their dripping bodies, the young huntress's brown and white spotted dogs
ran toward the tents.

Dark-skinned slaves carried the game, which had been tied in bunches
while in the boats, to the white house, where they laid three rows of
large water fowl, upon the steps leading to the entrance.

Daphne's arrows were supposed to have killed all these, but the master of
the hunt had taken care to place among his mistress's booty some of the
largest pelicans and vultures which had been shot by the others.

Before retiring to her tent, she inspected the result of the shooting
expedition and was satisfied.

She had been told of the numbers of birds in this archipelago, but the
quantity of game which had been killed far exceeded her greatest
expectations, and her pleasant blue eyes sparkled with joy as she began
to examine the birds which had been slaughtered in so short a time.

Yet, ere she had finished the task, a slight shadow flitted over her
well-formed and attractive though not beautiful features.

The odour emanating from so many dead fowls, on which the sun, already
high in the heavens, was shining, became disagreeable to her, and a
strong sense of discomfort, whose cause, however, she did not seek, made
her turn from them.

The movement with which she did so was full of quiet, stately grace, and
the admiring glance with which Hermon, a tall, black-bearded young man,
watched it, showed that he knew how to value the exquisite symmetry of
her figure.

The somewhat full outlines of her form and the self-possession of her
bearing would have led every one to think her a young matron rather than
a girl; but the two artists who accompanied her on the shooting party had
been intimate with her from childhood, and knew how much modesty and
genuine kindness of heart were united with the resolute nature of this
maiden, who numbered two and twenty years.

Fair-haired Myrtilus seemed to pay little heed to the game which Gras,
Archias's Bithynian house steward, was counting, but black-bearded Hermon
had given it more attention, and when Daphne drew back he nodded
approvingly, and pointing to the heap of motionl