o, and yet the two could never have heard of each
other. Or, to take a more supreme example, what could the Emperor
Augustus Caesar know of a certain Carpenter's shop wherein there worked a
dreamy-eyed boy who was destined to change the whole face of the world?
It may be, however, that sometimes these great contemporary forces did
approach, touch, and separate--each unaware of the true meaning of the
other. So it was in the instance which is now narrated.

It was evening in the port of Tyre, some eleven hundred years before
the coming of Christ. The city held, at that time, about a quarter of a
million of inhabitants, the majority of whom dwelt upon the mainland,
where the buildings of the wealthy merchants, each in its own tree-girt
garden, extended for seven miles along the coast. The great island,
however, from which the town got its name, lay out some distance from
the shore, and contained within its narrow borders the more famous of
the temples and public buildings. Of these temples the chief was that of
Melmoth, which covered with its long colonnades the greater part of that
side of the island which looked down upon the Sidonian port, so called
because only twenty miles away the older city of Sidon maintained a
constant stream of traffic with its rising offshoot.

Inns were not yet in vogue, but the poorer traveller found his quarters
with hospitable citizens, while men of distinction were frequently
housed in the annex of the temples, where the servants of the priests
attended to their wants. On that particular evening there stood in the
portico of the temple of Melmoth two remarkable figures who were the
centre of observation for a considerable fringe of Ph[oe]nician idlers.
One of these men was clearly by his face and demeanour a great
chieftain. His strongly-marked features were those of a man who had led
an adventurous life, and were suggestive of every virile quality from
brave resolve to desperate execution. His broad, high brow and
contemplative eyes showed that he was a man of wisdom as well as of
valour. He was clad, as became a Greek nobleman of the period, with a
pure white linen tunic, a gold-studded belt supporting a short sword,
and a purple cloak. The lower legs were bare, and the feet covered by
sandals of red leather, while a cap of white cloth was pushed back upon
his brown curls, for the heat of the day was past and the evening breeze
most welcome.

His companion was a short, thick-set man, b