is lips gave vent to
some vague and raving sounds.

As he there stood awaiting the coming of those his voice still continued
to summons, perhaps some remorse, some compunctious visitings--for
despite his crimes he was human--haunted the breast of the Egyptian; the
defenceless state of Glaucus--his wandering words--his shattered reason,
smote him even more than the death of Apaecides, and he said, half
audibly, to himself:

'Poor clay!--poor human reason; where is the soul now? I could spare
thee, O my rival--rival never more! But destiny must be obeyed--my
safety demands thy sacrifice.' With that, as if to drown compunction, he
shouted yet more loudly; and drawing from the girdle of Glaucus the
stilus it contained, he steeped it in the blood of the murdered man, and
laid it beside the corpse.

And now, fast and breathless, several of the citizens came thronging to
the place, some with torches, which the moon rendered unnecessary, but
which flared red and tremulously against the darkness of the trees; they
surrounded the spot. 'Lift up yon corpse,' said the Egyptian, 'and
guard well the murderer.'

They raised the body, and great was their horror and sacred indignation
to discover in that lifeless clay a priest of the adored and venerable
Isis; but still greater, perhaps, was their surprise, when they found
the accused in the brilliant and admired Athenian.

'Glaucus!' cried the bystanders, with one accord; 'is it even credible?'

'I would sooner,' whispered one man to his neighbor, 'believe it to be
the Egyptian himself.'

Here a centurion thrust himself into the gathering crowd, with an air of
authority.

'How! blood spilt! who the murderer?'

The bystanders pointed to Glaucus.

'He!--by Mars, he has rather the air of being the victim!

'Who accuses him?'

'I,' said Arbaces, drawing himself up haughtily; and the jewels which
adorned his dress flashing in the eyes of the soldier, instantly
convinced that worthy warrior of the witness's respectability.

'Pardon me--your name?' said he.

'Arbaces; it is well known methinks in Pompeii. Passing through the
grove, I beheld before me the Greek and the priest in earnest
conversation. I was struck by the reeling motions of the first, his
violent gestures, and the loudness of his voice; he seemed to me either
drunk or mad. Suddenly I saw him raise his stilus--I darted
forward--too late to arrest the blow. He had twice stabbed his victim,
and was bending