e in the narrative when she
listened to Eumedes's first brief report.

Only specimens of the gold and ivory, spices and rare woods, juniper
trees and skins of animals which the ships brought home could be borne
past their Majesties, and the black and brown men who carried them moved
at a breathless rate.

The sun was still far from the meridian when the royal couple and their
train withdrew from the scene of the reception ceremonial, and drove, in
a magnificent chariot drawn by four horses, to the neighbouring city
of Pithoin, where new entertainments and a long period of rest awaited
them. Hermon had seen, as if through a veil of white mists, the objects
that aroused the enthusiasm of the throng, and so, he said to himself,
it had been during the whole course of his life. Only the surface of the
phenomena on which he fixed his eyes had been visible to him; he had
not learned to penetrate further into their nature, fathom them to their
depths, until he became blind.

If the gods fulfilled his hope, if he regained his vision entirely, and
even the last mists had vanished, he would hold firmly to the capacity
he had gained, and use it in life as well as in art.

CHAPTER XIV.

The messenger from Philippus appeared in the afternoon. It was the young
hipparch who had studied in Athens and accompanied the commandant of
Pelusium to Tennis the year before. He came charged with the commission
to convey the artist, in the carriage of the gray-haired comrade of
Alexander, to the neighbouring city of Pithom, where Philippus, by the
King's command, was now residing.

On the way the hipparch told the sculptor that the Lady Thyone had
recently done things unprecedented for a woman of her age.

She had been present at the founding of the city of Arsinoe, as well
as at the laying of the corner stone of the temple which was to be
consecrated to the new god Serapis in the neighbourhood. The day before
she had welcomed her returning son before the entry of the fleet into
the canal, and to-day had remained from the beginning to the end of his
reception by the King, without being unduly wearied.

Her first thought, after the close of the ceremony, had concerned
her convalescing young friend. New entertainments, in which the Queen
commanded her to participate, awaited her in Pithom, but pleasure at the
return of her famous son appeared to double her power of endurance.

Pithom was the sacred name of the temple precincts of the