ndreas!

She felt that every breath that came from her young bosom must be a
prayer of thanksgiving; nor was it long before the freedman recognized
Melissa in the light-footed black boy who seemed to spring from the earth
in order to show them the way, and he, too, felt as if a miracle had been
wrought.

Like fair flowers that spring up round a scaffold over which the hungry
ravens croak and hover, so here, in the midst of death and horror, joy
and hope began to blossom in thankful hearts. Diodoros lived! No
word-only a fleeting pressure of the hand and a quick look passed between
the elderly man and the maiden--who looked like a boy scarcely passed his
school-days--to show what they felt as they knelt beside the wounded
youth and bound up the deep gash in his shoulder dealt by the sword that
had felled him.

A little while afterward, Andreas drew from the basket which the ass
carried, and from which he had already taken bandages and medicine, a
light litter of matting. He then lifted Melissa on to the back of the
beast of burden, and they all moved onward.

The sights that surrounded them as long as they were near the Serapeum
forced her to close her eyes, especially when the ass had to walk round
some obstruction, or when it and its guide waded through slimy pools. She
could not forget that they were red, nor whence they came; and this ride
brought her moments in which she thought to expire of shuddering horror
and sorrow and wrath.

Not till they reached a quiet lane in Rhakotis, where they could advance
without let or hindrance, did she open her eyes. But a strange, heavy
pain oppressed her that she had never felt before, and her head burned so
that she could scarcely see Andreas and the two slaves, who, strong in
the joy of knowing that their young lord was alive, carried Diodoros
steadily along in the litter. The soldier--it was the centurion
Martialis, who had been banished to the Pontus--still accompanied them,
but Melissa's aching head pained her so much that she did not think of
asking who he was or why he was with them.

Once or twice she felt impelled to ask whither they were taking her, but
she had not the power to raise her voice. When Andreas came to her side
and pointed to the centurion, saying that without him he would never have
succeeded in saving her beloved, she heard it only as a hollow murmur,
without any consciousness of its meaning. Indeed, she wished rather that
the freedman would keep s