o
the orchestra below, and rushed across the space to the foot of the
platform.

'Pelagia! Sister! My sister! Have mercy on me! on yourself! I will hide
you! save you! and we will flee together out of this infernal place!
this world of devils! I am your brother! Come!'

She looked at him one moment with wide, wild eyes--The truth flashed on
her--

'Brother!'

And she sprang from the platform into his arms.... A vision of a lofty
window in Athens, looking out over far olive-yards and gardens, and the
bright roofs and basins of the Piraeus, and the broad blue sea, with the
purple peaks of Aegina beyond all.... And a dark-eyed boy, with his
arm around her neck, pointed laughing to the twinkling masts in the far
harbour, and called her sister.... The dead soul woke within her; and
with a wild cry she recoiled from him in an agony of shame, and covering
her face with both her hands, sank down among the blood-stained sand.

A yell, as of all hell broke loose, rang along that vast circle--

'Down with him!' 'Away with him!' 'Crucify the slave!' 'Give the
barbarian to the beasts!' 'To the beasts with him, noble Prefect!' A
crowd of attendants rushed upon him, and many of the spectators sprang
from their seats, and were on the point of leaping down into the
orchestra.

Philammon turned upon them like a lion at bay; and clear and loud his
voice rose through the roar of the multitude.

'Ay! murder me as the Romans murdered Saint Telemachus! Slaves as
besotted and accursed as your besotted and accursed tyrants! Lower than
the beasts whom you employ as your butchers! Murder and lust go fitly
hand in hand, and the throne of my sister's shame is well built on the
blood of innocents! Let my death end the devil's sacrifice, and fill up
the cup of your iniquity!'

'To the beasts!' 'Make the elephant trample him to powder!'

And the huge brute, goaded on by the attendants, rushed on the youth,
while Eros leaped from his neck, and fled weeping up the slope.

He caught Philammon in his trunk and raised him high in air. For an
instant the great bellowing ocean of heads spun round and round. He
tried to breathe one prayer, and shut his eyes--Pelagia's voice rang
sweet and clear, even in the shrillness of intense agony--

'Spare him! He is my brother! Forgive him, men of Macedonia! For
Pelagia's sake-- Your Pelagia! One boon--only this one!'

And she stretched her arms imploringly toward the spectators, and then
clasping the h