bed as he was by such thoughts, there is little wonder that the
young Athenian missed his way, and that he unconsciously wandered in a
direction different from that which he had intended to take. The
moonlight also failed him, clouds had arisen, and only now and then a
fitful gleam fell on his path. Lycidas became at last uncertain even
as to the direction in which Jerusalem lay. The young Athenian was
weary, less from physical fatigue than from the effects of strong
excitement upon a sensitive frame. Sometimes he fancied now that he
heard a stealthy step behind him, and stopped to listen, then felt
assured that his senses must have deceived him, and went on his way,
groping through the darkness. What a strange episode in his existence
that night appeared to the Greek--scarcely a mere episode, for it
seemed to him that it absorbed into itself all the true poetry of his
life as regarded the past, and gave him new aspirations and hopes as
regarded the future. To Lycidas the remembrance of his poetical
triumph in the Olympic arena, the plaudits which had then filled his
soul with ecstatic delight, was little more than to a man is the
recollection of the toys which amused his childhood. The Greek had
been brought face to face with life's grand realities, and what had
strongly excited his ambition once, appeared to him now as shadows that
pass away.

"And yet," mused the young poet, "I would fain once more win the leafy
crown, that I might lay it at Zarah's feet. But what would such a
trophy of earthly distinction be to her? not worth one of the flowers,
hallowed by her touch, which she cast into the martyrs' grave! Ha!
again! I fancied that I heard a rustle of garments behind me! How
powerful is the imagination, that mirage of the mind, that makes us
fancy the existence of things that are not!"

Lycidas had now reached a part of the road which bordered an abrupt
descent to the left, the hill along whose side the path wound appearing
to have been scarped in this place, probably to leave wider space for
some vine-clad terrace below. Lights were gleaming in the far
distance, marking the position of the city in which the guests of
Antiochus, preceded by torch-bearers, were wending their way back to
their several homes. Sounds of wild mirth, from those reeling back
from the revels, were faintly borne on the night breeze from the
distant streets.

Lycidas, however, when he reached the point whence the lights were