which
they yielded up their breath. By this time Fotis, the maid, had been
aroused by the din of battle, and still panting and perspiring freely I
slipped in through the opening door, and, as weary as though I had
fought with the three-formed Geryon instead of those pugnacious
thieves, I yielded myself at one and the same moment to bed and to
slumber.

Soon rosy-fingered Dawn, shaking the purple reins, was guiding her
steeds across the path of heaven; and, snatched from my untroubled
rest, night gave me back to day. Dismay seized my soul at the
recollection of my deeds of the past evening. I sat there, crouching on
my bed, with my interlaced fingers hugging my knees, and freely gave
way to my distress; I already saw in fancy the court, the jury, the
verdict, the executioner. How could I hope to find any judge so mild,
so benevolent as to pronounce me innocent, soiled as I was with a
triple murder, stained with the blood of so many citizens? Was this the
glorious climax of my travels that the Chaldean, Diophanes, had so
confidently predicted for me? Again and again I went over the whole
matter bewailing my hard lot.

Hereupon there came a pounding at our doors and a steadily growing
clamor on the threshold. No sooner was admission given than, with an
impetuous rush, the whole house was filled with magistrates, police,
and the motley crowd that followed. Two officers, by order of the
magistrates, promptly laid hands upon me, and started to drag me off,
though resistance was the last thing I should have thought of. By the
time we had reached the first cross street the entire city was already
trailing at our heels in an astonishingly dense mass. And I marched
gloomily along with my head hanging down to the very earth--I might
even say to the lower regions below the earth.

At length after having made the circuit of every city square, in
exactly the way that the victims are led around before a sacrifice
meant to ward off evil omens, I was brought into the forum and made to
confront the tribunal of justice. The magistrates had taken their seats
upon the raised platform, the court crier had commanded silence, when
suddenly everyone present, as if with one voice, protested that in so
vast a gathering there was danger from the dense crowding, and demanded
that a case of such importance should be tried instead in the public
theater. No sooner said than the entire populace streamed onward,
helter-skelter, and in a marvelously