at he
drew back with a shudder, and with hands uplifted could only stammer
out: "Oh! Selene, Selene! do you not know me?" and as he spoke he looked
anxiously in the face of the rescued girl; but she seemed not to hear
him and nothing moved but her eyes which slowly followed his every
movement.

"Selene!" he cried again, and seizing her inanimate hand which hung
down, he pressed it passionately to his lips.

Then she gave a loud cry, a violent shiver shook her in every limb, she
turned aside with sighs and groans, and at the same instant the door
was opened, the little deformed girl entered the room and gave a shrill
scream of terror as she saw Antinous standing by the side of her friend.

The lad himself started and, like a thief who has been caught in the
act, he fled out into the night, through the garden, and as far as the
gate which led into the street without being stopped by any one. Here
the gate-keeper met him, but he threw him aside with a powerful fling,
and while the old man--who had grown gray in his office--caught hold of
his wet chiton he tore the door open and ran on, dragging his pursuer
with him for some paces. Then he flew down the street with long steps as
if he were racing in the Gymnasium, and soon he felt that his pursuer,
in whose hand he had left a piece of his garment, had given up the
chase.

The gate-keeper's outcry had mingled with the pious hymns of the
assembled Christians in Paulina's villa, and some of them had hurried
out to help capture the disturber of the peace. But the young Bithynian
was swifter than they and might consider himself perfectly safe when
once he had succeeded in mixing with a festal procession. Half-willingly
and half-perforce, he followed the drunken throng which was making its
way from the heart of the city towards the lake, where, on a lonely spot
on the shore to the east of Nikropolis, they were to celebrate certain
nocturnal mysteries. The goal of the singing, shouting, howling mob with
whom Antinous was carried along, was between Alexandria and Canopus and
far enough from Lochias; thus it fell out that it was long past midnight
when Hadrian's favorite, dirty, out of breath, and his clothes torn, at
last appeared in the presence of his master.

CHAPTER IV.

Hadrian had expected Antinous many hours since, and the impatience and
vexation which had been long seething in him were reflected plainly
enough in his sternly-bent brow and the threatening fire o