ssed the Egyptian's path.

'Hem! Apaecides,' said Arbaces, recognizing the priest at a glance;
'when last we met, you were my foe. I have wished since then to see
you, for I would have you still my pupil and my friend.'

Apaecides started at the voice of the Egyptian; and halting abruptly,
gazed upon him with a countenance full of contending, bitter, and
scornful emotions.

'Villain and impostor!' said he at length; 'thou hast recovered then
from the jaws of the grave! But think not again to weave around me thy
guilty meshes. Retiarius, I am armed against thee!'

'Hush!' said Arbaces, in a very low voice--but his pride, which in that
descendant of kings was great, betrayed the wound it received from the
insulting epithets of the priest in the quiver of his lip and the flush
of his tawny brow. 'Hush! more low! thou mayest be overheard, and if
other ears than mine had drunk those sounds--why...'

'Dost thou threaten?--what if the whole city had heard me?'

'The manes of my ancestors would not have suffered me to forgive thee.
But, hold, and hear me. Thou art enraged that I would have offered
violence to thy sister. Nay, peace, peace, but one instant, I pray
thee. Thou art right; it was the frenzy of passion and of jealousy--I
have repented bitterly of my madness. Forgive me; I, who never implored
pardon of living man, beseech thee now to forgive me. Nay, I will atone
the insult--I ask thy sister in marriage--start not--consider--what is
the alliance of yon holiday Greek compared to mine? Wealth
unbounded--birth that in its far antiquity leaves your Greek and Roman
names the things of yesterday--science--but that thou knowest! Give me
thy sister, and my whole life shall atone a moment's error.'

'Egyptian, were even I to consent, my sister loathes the very air thou
breathest: but I have my own wrongs to forgive--I may pardon thee that
thou hast made me a tool to thy deceits, but never that thou hast
seduced me to become the abettor of thy vices--a polluted and a perjured
man. Tremble!--even now I prepare the hour in which thou and thy false
gods shall be unveiled. Thy lewd and Circean life shall be dragged to
day--thy mumming oracles disclosed--the fane of the idol Isis shall be a
byword and a scorn--the name of Arbaces a mark for the hisses of
execration! Tremble!'

The flush on the Egyptian's brow was succeeded by a livid paleness. He
looked behind, before, around, to feel assured that none were by;