he Gods.

The Wanderer answered:

"I go up to the Temple of the Hathor, for thou dost remember it is
to-day that she stands upon the pylon brow and calls the people to her.
Comest thou also, Rei?"

"Nay, nay, I come not, Eperitus. I am old indeed, but yet the blood
creeps through these withered veins, and, perchance, if I came and
looked, the madness would seize me also, and I too should rush to my
slaying. There is a way in which a man may listen to the voice of the
Hathor, and that is to have his eyes blindfolded, as many do. But even
then he will tear the bandage from his eyes, and look, and die with the
others. Oh, go not up, Eperitus--I pray thee go not up. I love thee--I
know not why--and am little minded to see thee dead. Though, perchance,"
he added, as though to himself, "it would be well for those I serve if
thou wert dead, thou Wanderer, with the eyes of Fate."

"Have no fear, Rei," said the Wanderer, "as it is doomed so shall I die
and not otherwise. Never shall it be told," he murmured in his heart,
"that he who stood in arms against Scylla, the Horror of the Rock,
turned back from any form of fear or from any shape of Love."

Then Rei wrung his hands and went nigh to weeping, for to him it seemed
a pitiful thing that so goodly a man and so great a hero should thus
be done to death. But the Wanderer passed out through the city, and Rei
went with him for a certain distance. At length they came to the road
set on either side with sphinxes, that leads from the outer wall of
brick to the garden of the Temple of Hathor, and down this road hurried
a multitude of men of all races and of every age. Here the prince
was borne along in his litter; here the young noble travelled in his
chariot. Here came the slave bespattered with the mud of the fields;
here the cripple limped upon his crutches; and here was the blind man
led by a hound. And with each man came women: the wife of the man, or
his mother, or his sisters, or she to whom he was vowed in marriage.
Weeping they came, and with soft words and clinging arms they strove to
hold back him whom they loved.

"Oh, my son! my son!" cried a woman, "hearken to thy mother's voice. Go
not up to look upon the Goddess, for if thou dost look then shalt thou
die, and thou alone art left alive to me. Two brothers of thine I bore,
and behold, both are dead; and wilt thou die also, and leave me, who
am old, alone and desolate? Be not mad, my son, thou art the dearest
of al