s contentment was gone. Before she even crossed the threshold,
where the friendly word "Rejoice" greeted her in brown mosaic, she called
the old woman by name. No answer.

She went into the kitchen to find Dido; for she, according to her
invariable habit of postponing evil as long as possible, had fled to the
hearth. There she stood, though the fire was out, weeping bitterly, and
covering her wrinkled face with her hands, as though she quailed before
the eyes of the girl she must so deeply grieve. One glance at the woman,
and the tears which trickled through her fingers and down her lean arms
told Melissa that something dreadful had happened. Very pale, and
clasping her hand to her heaving bosom, she desired to be told all; but
for some time Dido was quite unable to speak intelligibly. And before she
could make up her mind to it, she looked anxiously for Argutis, whom she
held to be the wisest of mankind, and who, she knew, would reveal the
dreadful thing that must be told more judiciously than she could. But the
Gaul was not to be seen; so Dido, interrupted by sobs, began the
melancholy tale.

Heron had come home between midnight and sunrise and had gone to bed.
Next morning, while he was feeding the birds, Zminis, the captain of the
night-watch, had come in with some men-at-arms, and had tried to take the
artist prisoner in Caesar's name. On this, Heron had raved like a bull,
had appealed to his Macedonian birth, his rights as a Roman citizen, and
much besides, and demanded to know of what he was accused. He was then
informed that he was to be held in captivity by the special orders of the
head of the police, till his son Alexander, who was guilty of
high-treason, should surrender to the authorities. But her master, said
Dido, sobbing, had knocked down the man who had tried to bind him with a
mighty blow of his fist. At last there was a fearful uproar, and in fact
a bloody fight. The starling shouted his cry through it all, the birds
fluttered and piped with terror, and it was like the abode of the damned
in the nether world; and strangers came crowding about the house, till
Skopas arrived and advised Heron to go with the Egyptian.

"But even at the door," Dido added, "he called out to me that you,
Melissa, could remain with Polybius till he should recover his liberty.
Philip was to appeal for help to the prefect Titianus, and offer him the
gems--you know them, he said. And, last of all," and again she began to
cry,