Melissa at last entered
the room of Seleukus's wife.

The matron's voice was full of bitterness as she greeted her young
visitor with the exclamation "You look as if you had fled to escape
persecution! And in my house, too! Or"--and her large eyes flashed
brightly--"or is the blood-hound on the track of his prey? My boat is
quite ready--" When Melissa denied this, and related what had happened,
Berenike exclaimed: "But you know that the panther lies still and gathers
himself up before he springs; or, if you do not, you may see it to-morrow
at the Circus. There is to be a performance in Caesar's honor, the like
of which not even Nero ever saw. My husband bears the chief part cf the
cost, and can think of nothing else. He has even forgotten his only
child, and all to please the man who insults us, robs and humiliates us!
Now that men kiss the hands which maltreat them, it is the part of women
to defy them. You must fly, child! The harbor is now closed, but it will
be open again to-morrow morning, and, if your folks are set free in the
course of the day, then away with you at once! Or do you really hope for
any good from the tyrant who has made this house what you now see it?"

"I know him," replied Melissa, "and I look for nothing but the worst."

At this the elder woman warmly grasped the girl's hand, but she was
interrupted by the waiting woman Johanna, who said that a Roman officer
of rank, a tribune, craved to be admitted.

When Berenike refused to receive him, the maid assured her that he was a
young man, and had expressed his wish to bring an urgent request to the
lady's notice in a becoming and modest manner.

On this the matron allowed him to be shown in to her, and Melissa hastily
obeyed her instructions to withdraw into the adjoining room.

Only a half-drawn curtain divided it from the room where Berenike
received the soldier, and without listening she could hear the loud voice
which riveted her attention as soon as she had recognized it.

The young tribune, in a tone of courteous entreaty, begged his hostess to
provide a room for his brother, who was severely wounded. The sufferer
was in a high fever, and the physician said that the noise and rattle of
vehicles in the street, on which the room where he now lay looked out,
and the perpetual coming and going of the men, might endanger his life.
He had just been told that on the side of the women's apartments there
was a row of rooms looking out on the implu