o discover a weapon, and before it completed the circuit Hermon had
already grasped the bronze anchor with the long rod twined with leaves
and the teeth turned downward. Only one of the three little vessels
filled with oil that hung from it was burning. Before swinging the heavy
standard aloft, he freed it from the lamps, which struck the floor with a
clanging noise.

The man to whom he dealt a blow with this ponderous implement would
forget to rise. Then, as if running for a prize in the gymnasium, he
rushed through the darkness to the staircase, and with breathless haste
groped his way down the narrow, ladderlike steps. He felt himself an
avenging, punishing power, like the Nemesis who had pursued him in his
dreams. He must wrest the friend who was to him the most beloved of
mortals from the rioters. To defeat them himself seemed a small matter.
His shout--"I am coming, Myrtilus! Snuphis, Bias, Dorcas, Syrus! here,
follow me!" was to summon the old Egyptian doorkeeper and the slaves, and
inform his friend of the approach of a deliverer.

The loudest uproar echoed from his own studio. Its door stood wide open,
and black smoke, mingled with the deep red and yellow flames of burning
pitch, poured from it toward him.

"Myrtilus!" he shouted at the top of his voice as he leaped across the
threshold into the tumult which filled the spacious apartment, at the
same time clashing the heavy iron anchor down upon the head of the
broad-shouldered, half-naked fellow who was raising a clumsy lance
against him.

The pirate fell as though struck by lightning, and he again shouted
"Myrtilus!" into the big room, so familiar to him, where the conflict was
raging chaotically amid a savage clamour, and the smoke did not allow him
to distinguish a single individual.

For the second time he swung the terrible weapon, and it struck to the
floor the monster with a blackened face who had rushed toward him, but at
the same time the anchor broke in two.

Only a short metal rod remained in his hand, and, while he raised his
arm, determined to crush the temples of the giant carrying a torch who
sprang forward to meet him, it suddenly seemed as if a vulture with
glowing plumage and burning beak was attacking his face, and the terrible
bird of prey was striking its hard, sharp, red-hot talons more and more
furiously into his lips, cheeks, and eyes.

At first a glare as bright as sunshine had flashed before his gaze; then,
where he had just s