mple. They had
been too busy with other matters to-day, and now they needed all hands in
heaping the bodies together. The men whose voices sounded across to her
from the race-course had already begun the work. On--she must hurry on!

But it was not so easy as last night. Her light sandals were wet through,
and there was ever a fresh impediment in her way. She knew what it was
that had wetted her foot--blood--noble, human blood--and every obstacle
against which she stumbled was a human body. But she would not let
herself dwell upon it, and hurried on as though they were but water and
stones, ever seeing before her the image of the wounded youth who leaned
against the basin.

Thus she reached the east side of the temple. Already she could hear the
splashing of the fountain, she saw the marble gleaming through the
darkness, and began seeking for the spot where she had seen her lover.
She suddenly stopped short; at the same time as herself, lights faint and
bright were coming along from the south, from the entrance of the street
that led to Rhakotis, and down to the water. She was in the middle of the
street, without a possibility of concealing herself except in one of the
niches of the Serapeum.

Should she abandon him? She must go on, and to seek protection in the
outer wall of the temple meant turning back. So she stood still and held
her breath as she watched the advancing lights. Now they stopped. She
heard the rattle of arms and men's voices. The lantern-bearers were being
detained by the watch. They were the first soldiers she had seen, the
others being engaged in drinking, or in the work on the race-course.
Would the soldiers find her, too? But, no! They moved on, the
torch-bearers in front, toward the street of Hermes.

Who were those people who went wandering about among the slain, turning
first to this side and then to that, as if searching for something?

They could not be robbing the dead, or the watch would have seized them.

Now they came quite close to her, and she trembled with fright, for one
of them was a soldier. The light of the lantern shone upon his armor. He
went before a man and two lads who were following a laden ass, and in one
of them Melissa recognized with beating heart a garden slave of Polybius,
who had often done her a service.

And now she took courage to look more closely at the man--and it
was--yes, even in the peasant's clothes he wore he could not deceive her
quick eyes--it was A