Against one of these the Emperor was leaning stroking the blood-hound,
whose prompt and vigorous watchfulness had pleased him greatly. What did
he care for the terrors the dog might have caused a mere girl?

By the other pillar stood Antinous; he had placed his right foot on the
low window-sill, and with his chin resting on his hand and his elbow on
his knee, his figure was well within the room.

"This, Pontius, is really a first-rate man," said Hadrian, pointing to
a tapestry hanging across the narrow end of the room. "This hanging
was copied from a fruit-piece that I painted some time since, and had
executed here in mosaic. Yesterday this room was not even intended for
my use, thus the hanging must have been put up between our arrival and
this morning. And how many other beautiful things I see around me! The
whole place looks habitable, and the eye finds an abundance of objects
on which it can rest with pleasure."

"Have you examined that magnificent cushion?" asked Antinous; "and the
bronze figures, there in the corner, look to me far from bad."

"They are admirable works," said Hadrian. "Still, I would do without
them with pleasure rather than miss this window. Which is the bluer, the
sky or the sea? And what a delicious spring breeze fans us here, in the
middle of December. Which are the more delightful to contemplate, the
innumerable ships in the harbor, which communicate between this flowery
land and other countries, and bless it with wealth, or the buildings
which attract the eye in whichever direction it turns. It is difficult
to know whether most to admire their stately dimensions or the beauty of
their forms."

"And what is that long, huge dyke, which connects the island with the
mainland? Only look! There is a huge trireme passing under one of the
wide arches, on which it is supported--and there comes another."

"That is the great viaduct, called by the Alexandrians the Heptastadion,
because it is said to be seven stadia in length; and in the upper
portion it carries a stone water-course--as an elder tree has in it a
vein of pith-which supplies water to the island of Pharos."

"What a pity it is," said Antinous, "that we cannot overlook from here
the whole of the structure with the men and the vehicles that swarm upon
it like busy ants. That little island and the narrow tongue of land that
runs out into the harbor with the tall slender building at the end of
it, half hide it."

"But they serve to v