t upon the tables of guests, and at an ordinary
time he would certainly have thought it peculiar. The fact was, that
Aurora, whom all day he had inwardly accused of forgetting him, had
placed it there for him with her own hands. She, too, was curious in
books and fond of study. She had very recently bought the volume from a
merchant who had come thus far, and who valued it the least of all his
wares.

She knew that Felix had read and re-read every other scrap of writing
there was in the castle, and thought that this strange book might
interest him, giving, as it did, details of those powers of the air in
which almost all fully believed. Unconscious of this attention, Felix
fell asleep, angry and bitter against her. When, half an hour
afterwards, Oliver blundered into the room, a little unsteady on his
legs, notwithstanding his mighty strength, he picked up the roll,
glanced at it, flung it down with contempt, and without a minute's delay
sought and obtained slumber.

CHAPTER X

THE FEAST

At ten in the morning next day the feast began with a drama from
Sophocles, which was performed in the open air. The theatre was in the
gardens between the wall and the inner stockade; the spectators sat on
the slope, tier above tier; the actors appeared upon a green terrace
below, issuing from an arbour and passing off behind a thick box-hedge
on the other side of the terrace. There was no scenery whatever.

Aurora had selected the Antigone. There were not many dramatists from
whom to choose, for so many English writers, once famous, had dropped
out of knowledge and disappeared. Yet some of the far more ancient Greek
and Roman classics remained because they contained depth and originality
of ideas in small compass. They had been copied in manuscripts by
thoughtful men from the old printed books before they mouldered away,
and their manuscripts being copied again, these works were handed down.
The books which came into existence with printing had never been copied
by the pen, and had consequently nearly disappeared. Extremely long and
diffuse, it was found, too, that so many of them were but enlargements
of ideas or sentiments which had been expressed in a few words by the
classics. It is so much easier to copy an epigram of two lines than a
printed book of hundreds of pages, and hence it was that Sophocles had
survived while much more recent writers had been lost.

From a translation Aurora had arranged several of his d