of it. And how pale your lips are! that comes of long fasting, no
doubt--eat now, as much as you can. But Klea! why do you look at me
so--and look so gloomy and terrible? I cannot bear that look, I cannot
bear it!"

Irene sobbed aloud, and her sister went up to her, stroked her soft hair
from her brow, kissed her kindly, and said:

"I am not angry with you, child, and did not mean to hurt you. If only I
could cry as you do when clouds overshadow my heart, the blue sky would
shine again with me as soon as it does with you. Now dry your eyes, go up
to the temple, and enquire at what hour we are to go to the
singing-practice, and when the procession is to set out."

Irene obeyed; she went out with downcast eyes, but once out she looked up
again brightly, for she remembered the procession, and it occurred to her
that she would then see again the Roman's gay acquaintance, and turning
back into the room she laid her pomegranate-blossom in the little bowl
out of which she had formerly taken the violets, kissed her sister as
gaily as ever, and then reflected as to whether she would wear the flower
in her hair or in her bosom. Wear it, at any rate, she must, for she must
show plainly that she knew how to value such a gift.

As soon as Klea was alone she seized the trencher with a vehement
gesture, gave the roast bird to the gray cat, who had stolen back into
the room, turning away her head, for the mere smell of the pheasant was
like an insult. Then, while the cat bore off her welcome spoils into a
corner, she clutched a peach and raised her hand to fling it away through
a gap in the roof of the room; but she did not carry out her purpose, for
it occurred to her that Irene and little Philo, the son of the
gate-keeper, might enjoy the luscious fruit; so she laid it back on the
dish and took up the bread, for she was painfully hungry.

She was on the point of breaking the golden-brown cake, but acting on a
rapid impulse she tossed it back on the trencher saying to herself: "At
any rate I will owe him nothing; but I will not throw away the gifts of
the gods as he threw away my violets, for that would be a sin. All is
over between him and me, and if he appears to-day in the procession, and
if he chooses to look at me again I will compel my eyes to avoid meeting
his--aye, that I will, and will carry it through. But, Oh eternal gods!
and thou above all, great Serapis, whom I heartily serve, there is
another thing I cannot do without your aid. Help me, oh! help me to
forget him, that my very thoughts may remain pure."

With these words she flung herself on her knees before the chest, pressed
her brow against the hard wood, and strove to pray.

Only for one thing did she entreat the gods; for strength to forget the
man who had betrayed her into losing her peace of mind.

But just as swift clouds float across the sky, distracting the labors of
the star-gazer, who is striving to observe some remote planet--as the
clatter of the street interrupts again and again some sweet song we fain
would hear, marring it with its harsh discords--so again and again the
image of the young Roman came across Klea's prayers for release from that
very thought, and at last it seemed to her that she was like a man who
strives to raise a block of stone by the exertion of his utmost strength,
and who weary at last of lifting the stone is crushed to the earth by its
weight; still she felt that, in spite of all her prayers and efforts, the
enemy she strove to keep off only came nearer, and instead of flying from
her, overmastered her soul with a grasp from which she could not escape.

Finally she gave up the unavailing struggle, cooled her burning face with
cold water, and tightened the straps of her sandals to go to the temple;
near the god himself she hoped she might in some degree recover the peace
she could not find here.

Just at the door she met Irene, who told her that the singing-practice
was put off, on account of the procession which was fixed for four hours
after noon. And as Klea went towards the temple her sister called after
her.

"Do not stay too long though, water will be wanted again directly for the
libations."

"Then will you go alone to the work?" asked Klea; "there cannot be very
much wanted, for the temple will soon be empty on account of the
procession. A few jars-full will be enough. There is a cake of bread and
a peach in there for you; I must keep the other for little Philo."




CHAPTER IV.

Klea went quickly on towards the temple, without listening to Irene's
excuses. She paid no heed to the worshippers who filled the forecourt,
praying either with heads bent low or with uplifted arms or, if they were
of Egyptian extraction, kneeling on the smooth stone pavement, for, even
as she entered, she had already begun to turn in supplication to the
divinity.

She crossed the great hall of the sanctuary, which was open only to the
initiated and to the temple-servants, of whom she was one. Here all
around her stood a crowd of slender columns, their shafts crowned with
gracefully curved flower calyxes, like stems supporting lilies, over her
head she saw in the ceiling an image of the midnight sky with the bright,
unresting and ever-restful stars; the planets and fixed stars in their
golden barks looked down on her silently. Yes! here were the twilight and
stillness befitting a personal communion with the divinity.

The pillars appeared to her fancy like a forest of giant growth, and it
seemed to her that the perfume of the incense emanated from the gorgeous
floral capitals that crowned them; it penetrated her senses, which were
rendered more acute by fasting and agitation, with a sort of
intoxication. Her eyes were raised to heaven, her arms crossed over her
bosom as she traversed this vast hall, and with trembling steps
approached a smaller and lower chamber, where in the furthest and darkest
background a curtain of heavy and costly material veiled the brazen door
of the holy of holies.

Even she was forbidden to approach this sacred place; but to-day she was
so filled with longing for the inspiring assistance of the god, that she
went on to the holy of holies in spite of the injunction she had never
yet broken, not to approach it. Filled with reverent awe she sank down
close to the door of the sacred chamber, shrinking close into the angle
formed between a projecting door-post and the wall of the great hall.

The craving desire to seek and find a power outside us as guiding the
path of our destiny is common to every nation, to every man; it is as
surely innate in every being gifted with reason--many and various as
these are--as the impulse to seek a cause when we perceive an effect, to
see when light visits the earth, or to hear when swelling waves of sound
fall on our ear. Like every other gift, no doubt that of religious
sensibility is bestowed in different degrees on different natures. In
Klea it had always been strongly developed, and a pious mother had
cultivated it by precept and example, while her father always had taught
her one thing only: namely to be true, inexorably true, to others as to
herself.

Afterwards she had been daily employed in the service of the god whom she
was accustomed to regard as the greatest and most powerful of all the
immortals, for often from a distance she had seen the curtain of the
sanctuary pushed aside, and the statue of Serapis with the Kalathos on
his head, and a figure of Cerberus at his feet, visible in the half-light
of the holy of holies; and a ray of light, flashing through the darkness
as by a miracle, would fall upon his brow and kiss his lips when his
goodness was sung by the priests in hymns of praise. At other times the
tapers by the side of the god would be lighted or extinguished
spontaneously.

Then, with the other believers, she would glorify the great lord of the
other world, who caused a new sun to succeed each that was extinguished,
and made life grow up out of death; who resuscitated the dead, lifting
them up to be equal with him, if on earth they had reverenced truth and
were found faithful by the judges of the nether world.

Truth--which her father had taught her to regard as the best possession
of life--was rewarded by Serapis above all other virtues; hearts were
weighed before him in a scale against truth, and whenever Klea tried to
picture the god in human form he wore the grave and mild features of her
father, and she fancied him speaking in the words and tones of the man to
whom she owed her being, who had been too early snatched from her, who
had endured so much for righteousness' sake, and from whose lips she had
never heard a single word that might not have beseemed the god himself.
And, as she crouched closely in the dark angle by the holy of holies, she
felt herself nearer to her father as well as to the god, and accused
herself pitilessly, in that unmaidenly longings had stirred her heart,
that she had been insincere to herself and Irene, nay in that if she
could not succeed in tearing the image of the Roman from her heart she
would be compelled either to deceive her sister or to sadden the innocent
and careless nature of the impressionable child, whom she was accustomed
to succor and cherish as a mother might. On her, even apparently light
matters weighed oppressively, while Irene could throw off even grave and
serious things, blowing them off as it were into the air, like a feather.
She was like wet clay on which even the light touch of a butterfly leaves
a mark, her sister like a mirror from which the breath that has dimmed it
instantly and entirely vanishes.

"Great God!" she murmured in her prayer, "I feel as if the Roman had
branded my very soul. Help thou me to efface the mark; help me to become
as I was before, so that I may look again in Irene's eyes without
concealment, pure and true, and that I may be able to say to myself, as I
was wont, that I had thought and acted in such a way as my father would
approve if he could know it."

She was still praying thus when the footsteps and voices of two men
approaching the holy of holies startled her from her devotions; she
suddenly became fully conscious of the fact that she was in a forbidden
spot, and would be severely punished if she were discovered.

"Lock that door," cried one of the new-comers to his companion, pointing
to the door which led from the prosekos into the pillared hall, "none,
even of the initiated, need see what you are preparing here for us--"

Klea recognized the voice of the high-priest, and thought for a moment of
stepping forward and confessing her guilt; but, though she did not
usually lack courage, she did not do this, but shrank still more closely
into her hiding-place, which was perfectly dark when the brazen door of
the room; which had no windows, was closed. She now perceived that the
curtain and door were opened which closed the inmost sanctuary, she heard
one of the men twirling the stick which was to produce fire, saw the
first gleam of light from it streaming out of the holy of holies, and
then heard the blows of a hammer and the grating sound of a file.

The quiet sanctum was turned into a forge, but noisy as were the
proceedings within, it seemed to Klea that the beating of her own heart
was even louder than the brazen clatter of the tools wielded by Krates;
he was one of the oldest of the priests of Serapis, who was chief in
charge of the sacred vessels, who was wont never to speak to any one but
the high-priest, and who was famous even among his Greek
fellow-countrymen for the skill with which he could repair broken
metal-work, make the securest locks, and work in silver and gold.

When the sisters first came into the temple five years since, Irene had
been very much afraid of this man, who was so small as almost to be a
dwarf, broad shouldered and powerfully knit, while his wrinkled face
looked like a piece of rough cork-bark, and he was subject to a painful
complaint in his feet which often prevented his walking; her fears had
not vexed but only amused the priestly smith, who whenever he met the
child, then eleven years old, would turn his lips up to his big red nose,
roll his eyes, and grunt hideously to increase the terror that came over
her.

He was not ill-natured, but he had neither wife nor child, nor brother,
nor sister, nor friend, and every human being so keenly desires that
others should have some feeling about him, that many a one would rather
be feared than remain unheeded.

After Irene had got over her dread she would often entreat the old
man--who was regarded as stern and inaccessible by all the other dwellers
in the temple--in her own engaging and coaxing way to make a face for
her, and he would do it and laugh when the little one, to his delight and
her own, was terrified at it and ran away; and just lately when Irene,
having hurt her foot, was obliged to keep her room for a few days, an
unheard of thing had occurred: he had asked Klea with the greatest
sympathy how her sister was getting on, and had given her a cake for her.

While Krates was at his work not a word passed between him and the
high-priest. At length he laid down the hammer, and said:

"I do not much like work of this kind, but this, I think, is successful
at any rate. Any temple-servant, hidden here behind the altar, can now
light or extinguish the lamps without the illusion being detected by the
sharpest. Go now and stand at the door of the great hall and speak the
word."

Klea heard the high-priest accede to this request and cry in a chanting
voice: "Thus he commands the night and it becomes day, and the
extinguished taper and lo! it flames with brightness. If indeed thou art
nigh, Oh Serapis! manifest thyself to us."

At these words a bright stream of light flashed from the holy of holies,
and again was suddenly extinguished when the high-priest sang: "Thus
showest thou thyself as light to the children of truth, but dost punish
with darkness the children of lies."

"Again?" asked Krates in a voice which conveyed a desire that the answer
might be 'No.'

"I must trouble you," replied the high-priest. "Good! the performance
went much better this time. I was always well assured of your skill; but
consider the particular importance of this affair. The two kings and the
queen will probably be present at the solemnity, certainly Philometor and
Cleopatra will, and their eyes are wide open; then the Roman who has
already assisted four times at the procession will accompany them, and if
I judge him rightly he, like many of the nobles of his nation, is one of
those who can trust themselves when it is necessary to be content with
the old gods of their fathers; and as regards the marvels we are able to
display to them, they do not take them to heart like the poor in spirit,
but measure and weigh them with a cool and unbiassed mind. People of that
stamp, who are not ashamed to worship, who do not philosophize but only
think just so much as is necessary for acting rightly, those are the
worst contemners of every supersensual manifestation."

"And the students of nature in the Museum?" asked Krates. "They believe
nothing to be real that they cannot see and observe."

"And for that very reason," replied the high-priest, "they are often
singularly easy to deceive by your skill, since, seeing an effect without
a cause, they are inclined to regard the invisible cause as something
supersensual. Now, open the door again and let us get out by the side
door; do you, this time, undertake the task of cooperating with Serapis
yourself. Consider that Philometor will not confirm the donation of the
land unless he quits the temple deeply penetrated by the greatness of our
god. Would it be possible, do you think, to have the new censer ready in
time for the birthday of King Euergetes, which is to be solemnly kept at
Memphis?"

"We will see," replied Krates, "I must first put together the lock of the
great door of the tomb of Apis, for so long as I have it in my workshop
any one can open it who sticks a nail into the hole above the bar, and
any one can shut it inside who pushes the iron bolt. Send to call me
before the performance with the lights begins; I will come in spite of my
wretched feet. As I have undertaken the thing I will carry it out, but
for no other reason, for it is my opinion that even without such means of
deception--"

"We use no deception," interrupted the high-priest, sternly rebuking his
colleague. "We only present to short-sighted mortals the creative power
of the divinity in a form perceptible and intelligible to their senses."

With these words the tall priest turned his back on the smith and quitted
the hall by a side door; Krates opened the brazen door, and as he
gathered together his tools he said to himself, but loud enough for Klea
to hear him distinctly in her hiding-place:

"It may be right for me, but deceit is deceit, whether a god deceives a
king or a child deceives a beggar."

"Deceit is deceit," repeated Klea after the smith when he had left the
hall and she had emerged from her corner.

She stood still for a moment and looked round her. For the first time she
observed the shabby colors on the walls, the damage the pillars had
sustained in the course of years, and the loose slabs in the pavement.

The sweetness of the incense sickened her, and as she passed by an old
man who threw up his arms in fervent supplication, she looked at him with
a glance of compassion.

When she had passed out beyond the pylons enclosing the temple she turned
round, shaking her head in a puzzled way as she gazed at it; for she knew
that not a stone had been changed within the last hour, and yet it looked
as strange in her eyes as some landscape with which we have become
familiar in all the beauty of spring, and see once more in winter with
its trees bare of leaves; or like the face of a woman which we thought
beautiful under the veil which hid it, and which, when the veil is
raised, we see to be wrinkled and devoid of charm.

When she had heard the smith's words, "Deceit is deceit," she felt her
heart shrink as from a stab, and could not check the tears which started
to her eyes, unused as they were to weeping; but as soon as she had
repeated the stern verdict with her own lips her tears had ceased, and
now she stood looking at the temple like a traveller who takes leave of a
dear friend; she was excited, she breathed more freely, drew herself up
taller, and then turned her back on the sanctuary of Serapis, proudly
though with a sore heart.

Close to the gate-keeper's lodge a child came tottering towards her with
his arms stretched up to her. She lifted him up, kissed him, and then
asked the mother, who also greeted her, for a piece of bread, for her
hunger was becoming intolerable. While she ate the dry morsel the child
sat on her lap, following with his large eyes the motion of her hand and
lips. The boy was about five years old, with legs so feeble that they
could scarcely support the weight of his body, but he had a particularly
sweet little face; certainly it was quite without expression, and it was
only when he saw Klea coming that tiny Philo's eyes had lighted up with
pleasure.

"Drink this milk," said the child's mother, offering the young girl an
earthen bowl. "There is not much and I could not spare it if Philo would
eat like other children, but it seems as if it hurt him to swallow. He
drinks two or three drops and eats a mouthful, and then will take no more
even if he is beaten."

"You have not been beating him again?" said Klea reproachfully, and
drawing the child closer to her. "My husband--" said the woman, pulling
at her dress in some confusion. "The child was born on a good day and in
a lucky hour, and yet he is so puny and weak and will not learn to speak,
and that provokes Pianchi."

"He will spoil everything again!" exclaimed Klea annoyed. "Where is he?"

"He was wanted in the temple."

"And is he not pleased that Philo calls him 'father,' and you 'mother,'
and me by my name, and that he learns to distinguish many things?" asked
the girl.

"Oh, yes of course," said the woman. "He says you are teaching him to
speak just as if he were a starling, and we are very much obliged to
you."

"That is not what I want," interrupted Klea. "What I wish is that you
should not punish and scold the boy, and that you should be as glad as I
am when you see his poor little dormant soul slowly waking up. If he goes
on like this, the poor little fellow will be quite sharp and intelligent.
What is my name, my little one?"

"Ke-ea," stammered the child, smiling at his friend. "And now taste this
that I have in my hand; what is it?--I see you know. It is
called--whisper in my ear. That's right, mil--mil-milk! to be sure, my
tiny, it is milk. Now open your little mouth and say it prettily after
me--once more--and again--say it twelve times quite right and I will give
you a kiss--Now you have earned a pretty kiss--will you have it here or
here? Well, and what is this? your ea-? Yes, your ear. And this?--your
nose, that is right."

The child's eyes brightened more and more under this gentle teaching, and
neither Klea nor her pupil were weary till, about an hour later, the
re-echoing sound of a brass gong called her away. As she turned to go the
little one ran after her crying; she took him in her arms and carried him
back to his mother, and then went on to her own room to dress herself and
her sister for the procession. On the way to the Pastophorium she
recalled once more her expedition to the temple and her prayer there.

"Even before the sanctuary," said she to herself, "I could not succeed in
releasing my soul from its burden--it was not till I set to work to
loosen the tongue of the poor little child. Every pure spot, it seems to
me, may be the chosen sanctuary of some divinity, and is not an infant's
soul purer than the altar where truth is mocked at?"

In their room she found Irene; she had dressed her hair carefully and
stuck the pomegranate-flower in it, and she asked Klea if she thought she
looked well.

"You look like Aphrodite herself," replied Klea kissing her forehead.
Then she arranged the folds of her sister's dress, fastened on the
ornaments, and proceeded to dress herself. While she was fastening her
sandals Irene asked her, "Why do you sigh so bitterly?" and Klea replied,
"I feel as if I had lost my parents a second time."




CHAPTER V.

The procession was over.

At the great service which had been performed before him in the Greek
Serapeum, Ptolemy Philometor had endowed the priests not with the whole
but with a considerable portion of the land concerning which they had
approached him with many petitions. After the court had once more quitted
Memphis and the procession was broken up, the sisters returned to their
room, Irene with crimson cheeks and a smile on her lips, Klea with a
gloomy and almost threatening light in her eyes.

As the two were going to their room in silence a temple-servant called to
Klea, desiring her to go with him to the high-priest, who wished to speak
to her. Klea, without speaking, gave her water-jar to Irene and was
conducted into a chamber of the temple, which was used for keeping the
sacred vessels in. There she sat down on a bench to wait. The two men who
in the morning had visited the Pastophorium had also followed in the
procession with the royal family. At the close of the solemnities Publius
had parted from his companion without taking leave, and without looking
to the right or to the left, he had hastened back to the Pastophorium and
to the cell of Serapion, the recluse.

The old man heard from afar the younger man's footstep, which fell on the
earth with a firmer and more decided tread than that of the
softly-stepping priests of Serapis, and he greeted him warmly with signs
and words.

Publius thanked him coolly and gravely, and said, dryly enough and with
incisive brevity:

"My time is limited. I propose shortly to quit Memphis, but I promised
you to hear your request, and in order to keep my word I have come to see
you; still--as I have said--only to keep my word. The water-bearers of
whom you desired to speak to me do not interest me--I care no more about
them than about the swallows flying over the house yonder."

"And yet this morning you took a long walk for Klea's sake," returned
Serapion.

"I have often taken a much longer one to shoot a hare," answered the
Roman. "We men do not pursue our game because the possession of it is any
temptation, but because we love the sport, and there are sporting natures
even among women. Instead of spears or arrows they shoot with flashing
glances, and when they think they have hit their game they turn their
back upon it. Your Klea is one of this sort, while the pretty little one
I saw this morning looks as if she were very ready to be hunted, I
however, no more wish to be the hunter of a young girl than to be her
game. I have still three days to spend in Memphis, and then I shall turn
my back forever on this stupid country."

"This morning," said Serapion, who began to suspect what the grievance
might be which had excited the discontent implied in the Roman's speech,
"This morning you appeared to be in less hurry to set out than now, so to
me you seem to be in the plight of game trying to escape; however, I know
Klea better than you do. Shooting is no sport of hers, nor will she let
herself be hunted, for she has a characteristic which you, my friend
Publius Scipio, ought to recognize and value above all others--she is
proud, very proud; aye, and so she may be, scornful as you look--as if
you would like to say 'how came a water-carrier of Serapis by her pride,
a poor creature who is ill-fed and always engaged in service, pride which
is the prescriptive right only of those, whom privilege raises above the
common herd around them?--But this girl, you may take my word for it, has
ample reason to hold her head high, not only because she is the daughter
of free and noble parents and is distinguished by rare beauty, not
because while she was still a child she undertook, with the devotion and
constancy of the best of mothers, the care of another child--her own
sister, but for a reason which, if I judge you rightly, you will
understand better than many another young man; because she must uphold
her pride in order that among the lower servants with whom unfortunately
she is forced to work, she may never forget that she is a free and noble
lady. You can set your pride aside and yet remain what you are, but if
she were to do so and to learn to feel as a servant, she would presently
become in fact what by nature she is not and by circumstances is
compelled to be. A fine horse made to carry burdens becomes a mere
cart-horse as soon as it ceases to hold up its head and lift its feet
freely. Klea is proud because she must be proud; and if you are just you
will not contemn the girl, who perhaps has cast a kindly glance at
you--since the gods have so made you that you cannot fail to please any
woman--and yet who must repel your approaches because she feels herself
above being trifled with, even by one of the Cornelia gens, and yet too
lowly to dare to hope that a man like you should ever stoop from your
height to desire her for a wife. She has vexed you, of that there can be
no doubt; how, I can only guess. If, however, it has been through her
repellent pride, that ought not to hurt you, for a woman is like a
soldier, who only puts on his armor when he is threatened by an opponent
whose weapons he fears."

The recluse had rather whispered than spoken these words, remembering
that he had neighbors; and as he ceased the drops stood on his brow, for
whenever any thing disturbed him he was accustomed to allow his powerful
voice to be heard pretty loudly, and it cost him no small effort to
moderate it for so long.

Publius had at first looked him in the face, and then had gazed at the
ground, and he had heard Serapion to the end without interrupting him;
but the color had flamed in his cheeks as in those of a schoolboy, and
yet he was an independent and resolute youth who knew how to conduct
himself in difficult straits as well as a man in the prime of life. In
all his proceedings he was wont to know very well, exactly what he
wanted, and to do without any fuss or comment whatever he thought right
and fitting.

During the anchorite's speech the question had occurred to him, what did
he in fact expect or wish of the water-bearer; but the answer was
wanting, he felt somewhat uncertain of himself, and his uncertainty and
dissatisfaction with himself increased as all that he heard struck him
more and more. He became less and less inclined to let himself be thrown
over by the young girl who for some days had, much against his will, been
constantly in his thoughts, whose image he would gladly have dismissed
from his mind, but who, after the recluse's speech, seemed more desirable
than ever. "Perhaps you are right," he replied after a short silence, and
he too lowered his voice, for a subdued tone generally provokes an
equally subdued answer. "You know the maiden better than I, and if you
describe her correctly it would be as well that I should abide by my
decision and fly from Egypt, or, at any rate, from your protegees, since
nothing lies before me but a defeat or a victory, which could bring me
nothing but repentance. Klea avoided my eye to-day as if it shed poison
like a viper's tooth, and I can have nothing more to do with her: still,
might I be informed how she came into this temple? and if I can be of any
service to her, I will-for your sake. Tell me now what you know of her
and what you wish me to do."

The recluse nodded assent and beckoned Publius to come closer to him, and
bowing down to speak into the Roman's ear, he said softly: "Are you in
favor with the queen?" Publius, having said that he was, Serapion, with
an exclamation of satisfaction, began his story.

"You learned this morning how I myself came into this cage, and that my
father was overseer of the temple granaries. While I was wandering abroad
he was deposed from his office, and would probably have died in prison,
if a worthy man had not assisted him to save his honor and his liberty.
All this does not concern you, and I may therefore keep it to myself; but
this man was the father of Klea and Irene, and the enemy by whose
instrumentality my father suffered innocently was the villain Eulaeus.
You know--or perhaps indeed you may not know--that the priests have to
pay a certain tribute for the king's maintenance; you know? To be sure,
you Romans trouble yourselves more about matters of law and
administration than the culture of the arts or the subtleties of thought.
Well, it was my father's duty to pay these customs over to Eulaeus, who
received them; but the beardless effeminate vermin, the glutton--may
every peach he ever ate or ever is to eat turn to poison!--kept back half
of what was delivered to him, and when the accountants found nothing but
empty air in the king's stores where they hoped to find corn and woven
goods, they raised an alarm, which of course came to the ears of the
powerful thief at court before it reached those of my poor father. You
called Egypt a marvellous country, or something like it; and so in truth
it is, not merely on account of the great piles there that you call
Pyramids and such like, but because things happen here which in Rome
would be as impossible as moonshine at mid-day, or a horse with his tail
at the end of his nose! Before a complaint could be laid against Eulaeus
he had accused my father of the peculation, and before the Epistates and
the assessor of the district had even looked at the indictment, their
judgment on the falsely accused man was already recorded, for Eulaeus had
simply bought their verdict just as a man buys a fish or a cabbage in the
market. In olden times the goddess of justice was represented in this
country with her eyes shut, but now she looks round on the world like a
squinting woman who winks at the king with one eye, and glances with the
other at the money in the hand of the accuser or the accused. My poor
father was of course condemned and thrown into prison, where he was
beginning to doubt the justice of the gods, when for his sake the
greatest wonder happened, ever seen in this land of wonders since first
the Greeks ruled in Alexandria. An honorable man undertook without fear
of persons the lost cause of the poor condemned wretch, and never rested
till he had restored him to honor and liberty. But imprisonment, disgrace
and indignation had consumed the strength of the ill-used man as a worm
eats into cedar wood, and he fell into a decline and died. His preserver,
Klea's father, as the reward of his courageous action fared even worse;
for here by the Nile virtues are punished in this world, as crimes are
with you. Where injustice holds sway frightful things occur, for the gods
seem to take the side of the wicked. Those who do not hope for a reward
in the next world, if they are neither fools nor philosophers--which
often comes to the same thing--try to guard themselves against any change
in this.

"Philotas, the father of the two girls, whose parents were natives of
Syracuse, was an adherent of the doctrines of Zeno--which have many
supporters among you at Rome too--and he was highly placed as an
official, for he was president of the Chrematistoi, a college of judges
which probably has no parallel out of Egypt, and which has been kept up
better than any other. It travels about from province to province
stopping in the chief towns to administer justice. When an appeal is
brought against the judgment of the court of justice belonging to any
place--over which the Epistates of the district presides--the case is
brought before the Chrematistoi, who are generally strangers alike to the
accuser and accused; by them it is tried over again, and thus the
inhabitants of the provinces are spared the journey to Alexandria
or--since the country has been divided--to Memphis, where, besides, the
supreme court is overburdened with cases.

"No former president of the Chrematistoi had ever enjoyed a higher
reputation than Philotas. Corruption no more dared approach him than a
sparrow dare go near a falcon, and he was as wise as he was just, for he
was no less deeply versed in the ancient Egyptian law than in that of the
Greeks, and many a corrupt judge reconsidered matters as soon as it
became known that he was travelling with the Chrematistoi, and passed a
just instead of an unjust sentence.

"Cleopatra, the widow of Epiphanes, while she was living and acting as
guardian of her sons Philometor and Euergetes--who now reign in Memphis
and Alexandria--held Philotas in the highest esteem and conferred on him
the rank of 'relation to the king'; but she was just dead when this
worthy man took my father's cause in hand, and procured his release from
prison.

"The scoundrel Eulaeus and his accomplice Lenaeus then stood at the
height of power, for the young king, who was not yet of age, let himself
be led by them like a child by his nurse.

"Now as my father was an honest man, no one but Eulaeus could be the
rascal, and as the Chrematistoi threatened to call him before their
tribunal the miserable creature stirred up the war in Caelo-Syria against
Antiochus Epiphanes, the king's uncle.

"You know how disgraceful for us was the course of that enterprise, how
Philometor was defeated near Pelusium, and by the advice of Eulaeus
escaped with his treasure to Samothrace, how Philometor's brother
Euergetes was set up as king in Alexandria, how Antiochus took Memphis,
and then allowed his elder nephew to continue to reign here as though he
were his vassal and ward.

"It was during this period of humiliation, that Eulaeus was able to evade
Philotas, whom he may very well have feared, as though his own conscience
walked the earth on two legs in the person of the judge, with the sword
of justice in his hand, and telling all men what a scoundrel he was.

"Memphis had opened her gates to Antiochus without offering much
resistance, and the Syrian king, who was a strange man and was fond of
mixing among the people as if he himself were a common man, applied to
Philotas, who was as familiar with Egyptian manners and customs as with
those of Greece, in order that he might conduct him into the halls of
justice and into the market-places; and he made him presents as was his
way, sometimes of mere rubbish and sometimes of princely gifts.

"Then when Philometor was freed by the Romans from the protection of the
Syrian king, and could govern in Memphis as an independent sovereign,
Eulaeus accused the father of these two girls of having betrayed Memphis
into the hands of Antiochus, and never rested till the innocent man was
deprived of his wealth, which was considerable, and sent with his wife to
forced labor in the gold mines of Ethiopia.

"When all this occurred I had already returned to my cage here; but I
heard from my brother Glaucus--who was captain of the watch in the
palace, and who learned a good many things before other people did--what
was going on out there, and I succeeded in having the daughters of
Philotas secretly brought to this temple, and preserved from sharing
their parents' fate. That is now five years ago, and now you know how it
happens, that the daughters of a man of rank carry water for the altar of
Serapis, and that I would rather an injury should be done to me than to
them, and that I would rather see Eulaeus eating some poisonous root than
fragrant peaches."

"And is Philotas still working in the mines?" asked the Roman, clenching
his teeth with rage.

"Yes, Publius," replied the anchorite. "A 'yes' that it is easy to say,
and it is just as easy too to clench one's fists in indignation--but it
is hard to imagine the torments that must be endured by a man like
Philotas; and a noble and innocent woman--as beautiful as Hera and
Aphrodite in one--when they are driven to hard and unaccustomed labor
under a burning sun by the lash of the overseer. Perhaps by this time
they have been happy enough to die under their sufferings and their
daughters are already orphans, poor children! No one here but the
high-priest knows precisely who they are, for if Eulaeus were to learn
the truth he would send them after their parents as surely as my name is
Serapion."

"Let him try it!" cried Publius, raising his right fist threateningly.

"Softly, softly, my friend," said the recluse, "and not now only, but
about everything which you under take in behalf of the sisters, for a man
like Eulaeus hears not only with his own ears but with those of thousand
others, and almost everything that occurs at court has to go through his
hands as epistolographer. You say the queen is well-disposed towards you.
That is worth a great deal, for her husband is said to be guided by her
will, and such a thing as Eulaeus cannot seem particularly estimable in
Cleopatra's eyes if princesses are like other women--and I know them
well."

"And even if he were," interrupted Publius with glowing cheeks, "I would
bring him to ruin all the same, for a man like Philotas must not perish,
and his cause henceforth is my own. Here is my hand upon it; and if I am
happy in having descended from a noble race it is above all because the
word of a son of the Cornelii is as good as the accomplished deed of any
other man."

The recluse grasped the right hand the young man gave him and nodded to
him affectionately, his eyes radiant, though moistened with joyful
emotion. Then he hastily turned his back on the young man, and soon
reappeared with a large papyrus-roll in his hand. "Take this," he said,
handing it to the Roman, "I have here set forth all that I have told you,
fully and truly with my own hand in the form of a petition. Such matters,
as I very well know, are never regularly conducted to an issue at court
unless they are set forth in writing. If the queen seems disposed to
grant you a wish give her this roll, and entreat her for a letter of
pardon. If you can effect this, all is won."

Publius took the roll, and once more gave his hand to the anchorite, who,