ed that the merchant's palace sheltered Daphne, in whom,
even at Tennis, she had seen and hated her successful rival.

Only the undeniable fact that Ledscha was the bridge-builder's companion
presented an enigma difficult to solve. The freedman Bias had
remained on Philippus's galley, and could not now be appealed to for
a confirmation of his assertions, but Hermon distinctly remembered his
statement that Ledscha had allowed the Gaul, after he had received the
money intended for him, to take her from Pitane to Africa.

When the short November day was drawing to a close, and the friends had
strengthened themselves with food and drink, the rain ceased and, as
the sun set, its after-glow broke through the rifts and fissures in the
black wall of clouds in the western horizon like blazing flames in the
conflagration of a solid stone building. Yet the glow vanished swiftly
enough. The darkness of night spread over the sea and the arid strip of
land in the south, but the greedy croaking of the ravens and vultures
echoed more and more loudly from the upper air. From time to time the
outbursts of rage and agony of despairing men, and horrible jeering
laughter, drowned the voices of the flocks of birds and the roaring
of the tempestuous sea. Sometimes, too, a sharp word of command, or a
signal heard for a long distance, pierced through the awful sounds.

Here and there, and at last everywhere on the squadron, which surrounded
the tongue of land in a shallow curve, dim lights began to appear on the
masts and prows of the ships; but darkness brooded over the coast. Only
in the three fortified guardhouses, which had been hastily erected here,
the feeble light of a lantern illumined the gloom.

Twinkling lights also appeared in the night heavens between the swiftly
flying clouds. One star after another began to adorn the blue islands in
the cloudy firmament, and at last the full moon burst through the heavy
banks of dark clouds, and shone in pure brilliancy above their heads,
like a huge silver vessel in the black catafalque of a giant.

At the end of the first hour after sunset Eumedes ordered the boat to be
manned.

Armed as if for battle, he prepared for the row to the scene of misery,
and requested Hermon to buckle a coat of mail under his chlamys and
put on the sword he gave him. True, a division of reliable Macedonian
warriors was to accompany them, and Ledscha was in a well-guarded
place, yet it might perhaps be necessary