d, and close beside it an old woman
who, at the approach of the three men covered her wrinkled face in alarm
with her dark blue veil.

"That is the reason then!" said the slave to himself with a nod, and
blowing a kiss into the air to a black-haired girl who crouched at the
old woman's feet. But she, for whom the greeting was intended, did not
observe this mute courtship, for her eyes followed the travellers, and
especially the young man, as if spellbound. As soon as the three were
far enough off not to hear her, the girl asked with a shiver, as if some
desert-spectre had passed by-and in a low voice "Grandmother, who was
that?"

The old woman raised her veil, laid her hand on her grandchild's mouth,
and whispered:

"It was he."

"The Emperor?"

The old woman answered with a significant nod, but the girl squeezed
herself up, against her grandmother, with vehement curiosity stretching
out her dusky head to see better, and asked softly: "The young one?"

"Silly child! the one in front with a grey beard."

"He? Oh, I wish the young one was the Emperor!"

It was in fact Hadrian, the Roman Emperor, who walked on in silence
before his escort, and it seemed as though his advent had given life to
the desert, for as he approached the reed-swamp, the kites flew up in
the air, and from behind a sand-hill on the edge of the broader road
which Hadrian had avoided, came two men in priestly robes. They both
belonged to the temple of Baal of Kariotis, a small structure of solid
stone, which faced the sea, and which the Emperor had yesterday visited.

"Do you think he has lost his way?" said one to the other, in the
Phoenician tongue.

"Hardly," was the answer. "Master said that he could always find a road
again by which he had once gone, even in the dark."

"And yet he is gazing more at the clouds than at the road."

"Still, he promised us yesterday."

"He promised nothing for certain," interrupted the other.

"Indeed he did; at parting he called out--and I heard him distinctly:
'Perhaps I shall return and consult your oracle.'"

"Perhaps."

"I think he said 'probably.'"

"Who knows whether some sign he has seen up in the sky may not have
turned him back; he is going to the camp by the sea."

"But the banquet is standing ready for him in our great hall."

"He will find what he needs down there. Come, it is a wretched morning,
and I am being frozen."

"Wait a little longer-look there."

"What?"

"He does no