will let Klea know this very day of all that has happened to you, and
when we have obtained the release of your parents then--but--Help us,
protecting Zeus! Do you see the chariot yonder? I believe those are the
white horses of the Eunuch Eulaeus, and if he were to see us here, all
would be lost! Hold tight, we must go as fast as in a chariot race.
There, now the hill hides us, and down there, by the little temple of
Isis, the wife of your future host is already waiting for you; she is no
doubt sitting in the closed chariot near the palm-trees.

"Yes, certainly, certainly, Klea shall hear all, so that she may not be
uneasy about you! I must say farewell to you directly and then,
afterwards, sweet Irene, will you sometimes think of the unhappy Lysias;
or did Aurora, who greeted him this morning, so bright and full of happy
promise, usher in a day not of joy but of sorrow and regret?" The Greek
drew in rein as he spoke, bringing his horses to a sober pace, and looked
tenderly in Irene's eyes. She returned his gaze with heart-felt emotion,
but her gunny glance was dimmed with tears.

"Say something," entreated the Greek. "Will you not forget me? And may I
soon visit you in your new retreat?"

Irene would so gladly have said yes--and yes again, a thousand times yes;
and yet she, who was so easily carried away by every little emotion of
her heart, in this supreme moment found strength enough to snatch her
hand from that of the Greek, who had again taken it, and to answer
firmly:

"I will remember you for ever and ever, but you must not come to see me
till I am once more united to my Klea."

"But Irene, consider, if now--" cried Lysias much agitated.

"You swore to me by the heads of your nearest kin to obey my wishes,"
interrupted the girl. "Certainly I trust you, and all the more readily
because you are so good to me, but I shall not do so any more if you do
not keep your word. Look, here comes a lady to meet us who looks like a
friend. She is already waving her hand to me. Yes, I will go with her
gladly, and yet I am so anxious--so troubled, I cannot tell you--but I am
so thankful too! Think of me sometimes, Lysias, and of our journey here,
and of our talk, and of my parents: I entreat you, do for them all you
possibly can. I wish I could help crying--but I cannot!"




CHAPTER XV.

Lysias eyes had not deceived him. The chariot with white horses which he
had evaded during his flight with Irene belonged to Eulaeus. The morning
being cool--and also because Cleopatra's lady-in-waiting was with him--he
had come out in a closed chariot, in which he sat on soft cushions side
by side with the Macedonian lady, endeavoring to win her good graces by a
conversation, witty enough in its way.

"On the way there," thought he, "I will make her quite favorable to me,
and on the way back I will talk to her of my own affairs."

The drive passed quickly and pleasantly for both, and they neither of
them paid any heed to the sound of the hoofs of the horses that were
bearing away Irene.

Eulaeus dismounted behind the acacia-grove, and expressed a hope that Zoe
would not find the time very long while he was engaged with the
high-priest; perhaps indeed, he remarked, she might even make some use of
the time by making advances to the representative of Hebe.

But Irene had been long since warmly welcomed in the house of
Apollodorus, the sculptor, by the time they once more found themselves
together in the chariot; Eulaeus feigning, and Zoe in reality feeling,
extreme dissatisfaction at all that had taken place in the temple. The
high-priest had rejected Philometor's demand that he should send the
water-bearer to the palace on King Euergetes' birthday, with a
decisiveness which Eulaeus would never have given him credit for, for he
had on former occasions shown a disposition to measures of compromise;
while Zoe had not even seen the waterbearer.

"I fancy," said the queen's shrewd friend, "that I followed you somewhat
too late, and that when I entered the temple about half an hour after
you--having been detained first by Imhotep, the old physician, and then
by an assistant of Apollodorus, the sculptor, with some new busts of the
philosophers--the high-priest had already given orders that the girl
should be kept concealed; for when I asked to see her, I was conducted
first to her miserable room, which seemed more fit for peasants or goats
than for a Hebe, even for a sham one--but I found it perfectly deserted.

"Then I was shown into the temple of Serapis, where a priest was
instructing some girls in singing, and then sent hither and thither, till
at last, finding no trace whatever of the famous Irene, I came to the
dwelling-house of the gate-keeper of the temple.

"An ungainly woman opened the door, and said that Irene had been gone
from thence for some long time, but that her elder sister was there, so I
desired she might be fetched to speak with me. And what, if you please,
was the answer I received? The goddess Klea--I call her so as being
sister to a Hebe--had to nurse a sick child, and if I wanted to see her I
might go in and find her.

"The tone of the message quite conveyed that the distance from her down
to me was as great as in fact it is the other way. However, I thought it
worth the trouble to see this supercilious water-bearing girl, and I went
into a low room--it makes me sick now to remember how it smelt of
poverty--and there she sat with an idiotic child, dying on her lap.
Everything that surrounded me was so revolting and dismal that it will
haunt my dreams with terror for weeks to come and spoil all my cheerful
hours.

"I did not remain long with these wretched creatures, but I must confess
that if Irene is as like to Hebe as her elder sister is to Hera,
Euergetes has good grounds for being angry if Asclepiodorus keeps the
girl from him.

"Many a queen--and not least the one whom you and I know so
intimately-would willingly give half of her kingdom to possess such a
figure and such a mien as this serving-girl. And then her eyes, as she
looked at me when she rose with that little gasping corpse in her arms,
and asked me what I wanted with her sister!

"There was an impressive and lurid glow in those solemn eyes, which
looked as if they had been taken out of some Medusa's head to be set in
her beautiful face. And there was a sinister threat in them too which
seemed to say: 'Require nothing of her that I do not approve of, or you
will be turned into stone on the spot.' She did not answer twenty words
to my questions, and when I once more tasted the fresh air outside, which
never seemed to me so pleasant as by contrast with that horrible hole, I
had learnt no more than that no one knew--or chose to know--in what
corner the fair Irene was hidden, and that I should do well to make no
further enquiries.

"And now, what will Philometor do? What will you advise him to do?"

"What cannot be got at by soft words may sometimes be obtained by a
sufficiently large present," replied Eulaeus. "You know very well that of
all words none is less familiar to these gentry than the little word
'enough'; but who indeed is really ready to say it?

"You speak of the haughtiness and the stern repellent demeanor of our
Hebe's sister. I have seen her too, and I think that her image might be
set up in the Stoa as a happy impersonation of the severest virtue: and
yet children generally resemble their parents, and her father was the
veriest peculator and the most cunning rascal that ever came in my way,
and was sent off to the gold-mines for very sufficient reasons. And for
the sake of the daughter of a convicted criminal you have been driven
through the dust and the scorching heat, and have had to submit to her
scorn and contemptuous airs, while I am threatened with grave peril on
her account, for you know that Cleopatra's latest whim is to do honor to
the Roman, Publius Scipio; he, on the other hand, is running after our
Hebe, and, having promised her that he will obtain an unqualified pardon
for her father, he will do his utmost to throw the odium of his robbery
upon me.

"The queen is to give him audience this very day, and you cannot know how
many enemies a man makes who, like me, has for many years been one of the
leading men of a great state. The king acknowledges, and with gratitude,
all that I have done for him and for his mother; but if, at the moment
when Publius Scipio accuses me, he is more in favor with her than ever, I
am a lost man.

"You are always with the queen; do you tell her who these girls are, and
what motives the Roman has for loading me with their father's crimes; and
some opportunity must offer for doing you and your belongings some
friendly office or another."

"What a shameless crew!" exclaimed Zoe. "Depend upon it I will not be
silent, for I always do what is just. I cannot bear seeing others
suffering an injustice, and least of all that a man of your merit and
distinction should be wounded in his honor, because a haughty foreigner
takes a fancy to a pretty little face and a conceited doll of a girl."

Zoe was in the right when she found the air stifling in the gate-keeper's
house, for poor Irene, unaccustomed to such an atmosphere, could no more
endure it than the pretentious maid of honor. It cost even Klea an effort
to remain in the wretched room, which served as the dwelling-place of the
whole family; where the cooking was carried on at a smoky hearth, while,
at night, it also sheltered a goat and a few fowls; but she had endured
even severer trials than this for the sake of what she deemed right, and
she was so fond of little Philo--her anxious care in arousing by degrees
his slumbering intelligence had brought her so much soothing
satisfaction, and the child's innocent gratitude had been so tender a
reward--that she wholly forgot the repulsive surroundings as soon as she
felt that her presence and care were indispensable to the suffering
little one.

Imhotep, the most famous of the priest-physicians of the temple of
Asclepius--a man who was as learned in Greek as in Egyptian medical lore,
and who had been known by the name of "the modern Herophilus" since King
Philometor had summoned him from Alexandria to Memphis--had long since
been watchful of the gradual development of the dormant intelligence of
the gate-keeper's child, whom he saw every day in his visits to the
temple. Now, not long after Zoe had quitted the house, he came in to see
the sick child for the third time. Klea was still holding the boy on her
lap when he entered. On a wooden stool in front of her stood a brazier of
charcoal, and on it a small copper kettle the physician had brought with
him; to this a long tube was attached. The tube was in two parts, joined
together by a leather joint, also tubular, in such a way that the upper
portion could be turned in any direction. Klea from time to time applied
it to the breast of the child, and, in obedience to Imhotep's
instructions, made the little one inhale the steam that poured out of it.

"Has it had the soothing effect it ought to have?" asked the physician.

"Yes, indeed, I think so," replied Klea, "There is not so much noise in
the chest when the poor little fellow draws his breath."

The old man put his ear to the child's mouth, laid his hand on his brow,
and said:

"If the fever abates I hope for the best. This inhaling of steam is an
excellent remedy for these severe catarrhs, and a venerable one besides;
for in the oldest writings of Hermes we find it prescribed as an
application in such cases. But now he has had enough of it. Ah! this
steam--this steam! Do you know that it is stronger than horses or oxen,
or the united strength of a whole army of giants? That diligent enquirer
Hero of Alexandria discovered this lately.

"But our little invalid has had enough of it, we must not overheat him.
Now, take a linen cloth--that one will do though it is not very fine.
Fold it together, wet it nicely with cold water--there is some in that
miserable potsherd there--and now I will show you how to lay it on the
child's throat.

"You need not assure me that you understand me, Klea, for you have
hands--neat hands--and patience without end! Sixty-five years have I
lived, and have always had good health, but I could almost wish to be ill
for once, in order to be nursed by you. That poor child is well off
better than many a king's child when it is sick; for him hireling nurses,
no doubt, fetch and do all that is necessary, but one thing they cannot
give, for they have it not; I mean the loving and indefatigable patience
by which you have worked a miracle on this child's mind, and are now
working another on his body. Aye, aye, my girl; it is to you and not me
that this woman will owe her child if it is preserved to her. Do you hear
me, woman? and tell your husband so too; and if you do not reverence Klea
as a goddess, and do not lay your hands beneath her feet, may you
be--no--I will wish you no ill, for you have not too much of the good
things of life as it is!"

As he spoke the gate-keeper's wife came timidly up to the physician and
the sick child, pushed her rough and tangled hair off her forehead a
little, crossed her lean arms at full length behind her back, and,
looking down with out-stretched neck at the boy, stared in dumb amazement
at the wet cloths. Then she timidly enquired:

"Are the evil spirits driven out of the child?"

"Certainly," replied the physician. "Klea there has exorcised them, and I
have helped her; now you know."

"Then I may go out for a little while? I have to sweep the pavement of
the forecourt."

Klea nodded assent, and when the woman had disappeared the physician
said:

"How many evil demons we have to deal with, alas! and how few good ones.
Men are far more ready and willing to believe in mischievous spirits than
in kind or helpful ones; for when things go ill with them--and it is
generally their own fault when they do--it comforts them and flatters
their vanity if only they can throw the blame on the shoulders of evil
spirits; but when they are well to do, when fortune smiles on them of
course, they like to ascribe it to themselves, to their own cleverness or
their superior insight, and they laugh at those who admonish them of the
gratitude they owe to the protecting and aiding demons. I, for my part,
think more of the good than of the evil spirits, and you, my child,
without doubt are one of the very best.

"You must change the compress every quarter of an hour, and between
whiles go out into the open air, and let the fresh breezes fan your
bosom--your cheeks look pale. At mid-day go to your own little room, and
try to sleep. Nothing ought to be overdone, so you are to obey me."

Klea replied with a friendly and filial nod, and Imhotep stroked down her
hair; then he left; she remained alone in the stuffy hot room, which grew
hotter every minute, while she changed the wet cloths for the sick child,
and watched with delight the diminishing hoarseness and difficulty of his
breathing. From time to time she was overcome by a slight drowsiness, and
closed her eyes for a few minutes, but only for a short while; and this
half-awake and half-asleep condition, chequered by fleeting dreams, and
broken only by an easy and pleasing duty, this relaxation of the tension
of mind and body, had a certain charm of which, through it all, she
remained perfectly conscious. Here she was in her right place; the
physicians kind words had done her good, and her anxiety for the little
life she loved was now succeeded by a well-founded hope of its
preservation.

During the night she had already come to a definite resolution, to
explain to the high-priest that she could not undertake the office of the
twin-sisters, who wept by the bier of Osiris, and that she would rather
endeavor to earn bread by the labor of her hands for herself and
Irene--for that Irene should do any real work never entered her mind--at
Alexandria, where even the blind and the maimed could find occupation.
Even this prospect, which only yesterday had terrified her, began now to
smile upon her, for it opened to her the possibility of proving
independently the strong energy which she felt in herself.

Now and then the figure of the Roman rose before her mind's eye, and
every time that this occurred she colored to her very forehead. But
to-day she thought of this disturber of her peace differently from
yesterday; for yesterday she had felt herself overwhelmed by him with
shame, while to-day it appeared to her as though she had triumphed over
him at the procession, since she had steadily avoided his glance, and
when he had dared to approach her she had resolutely turned her back upon
him. This was well, for how could the proud foreigner expose himself
again to such humiliation.

"Away, away--for ever away!" she murmured to herself, and her eyes and
brow, which had been lighted up by a transient smile, once more assumed
the expression of repellent sternness which, the day before, had so
startled and angered the Roman. Soon however the severity of her features
relaxed, as she saw in fancy the young man's beseeching look, and
remembered the praise given him by the recluse, and as--in the middle of
this train of thought--her eyes closed again, slumber once more falling
upon her spirit for a few minutes, she saw in her dream Publius himself,
who approached her with a firm step, took her in his arms like a child,
held her wrists to stop her struggling hands, gathered her up with rough
force, and then flung her into a canoe lying at anchor by the bank of the
Nile.

She fought with all her might against this attack and seizure, screamed
aloud with fury, and woke at the sound of her own voice. Then she got up,
dried her eyes that were wet with tears, and, after laying a freshly
wetted cloth on the child's throat, she went out of doors in obedience to
the physician's advice.

The sun was already at the meridian, and its direct rays were fiercely
reflected from the slabs of yellow sandstone that paved the forecourt. On
one side only of the wide, unroofed space, one of the colonnades that
surrounded it threw a narrow shade, hardly a span wide; and she would not
go there, for under it stood several beds on which lay pilgrims who, here
in the very dwelling of the divinity, hoped to be visited with dreams
which might give them an insight into futurity.

Klea's head was uncovered, and, fearing the heat of noon, she was about
to return into the door-keeper's house, when she saw a young white-robed
scribe, employed in the special service of Asclepiodorus, who came across
the court beckoning eagerly to her. She went towards him, but before he
had reached her he shouted out an enquiry whether her sister Irene was in
the gate-keeper's lodge; the high-priest desired to speak with her, and
she was nowhere to be found. Klea told him that a grand lady from the
queen's court had already enquired for her, and that the last time she
had seen her had been before daybreak, when she was going to fill the
jars for the altar of the god at the Well of the Sun.

"The water for the first libation," answered the priest, "was placed on
the altar at the right time, but Doris and her sister had to fetch it for
the second and third. Asclepiodorus is angry--not with you, for he knows
from Imhotep that you are taking care of a sick child--but with Irene.
Try and think where she can be. Something serious must have occurred that
the high-priest wishes to communicate to her."

Klea was startled, for she remembered Irene's tears the evening before,
and her cry of longing for happiness and freedom. Could it be that the
thoughtless child had yielded to this longing, and escaped without her
knowledge, though only for a few hours, to see the city and the gay life
there?

She collected herself so as not to betray her anxiety to the messenger,
and said with downcast eyes:

"I will go and look for her."

She hurried back into the house, once more looked to the sick child,
called his mother and showed her how to prepare the compresses, urging
her to follow Imhotep's directions carefully and exactly till she should
return; she pressed one loving kiss on little Philo's forehead--feeling
as she did so that he was less hot than he had been in the morning--and
then she left, going first to her own dwelling.

There everything stood or lay exactly as she had left it during the
night, only the golden jars were wanting. This increased Klea's alarm,
but the thought that Irene should have taken the precious vessels with
her, in order to sell them and to live on the proceeds, never once
entered her mind, for her sister, she knew, though heedless and easily
persuaded, was incapable of any base action.

Where was she to seek the lost girl? Serapion, the recluse, to whom she
first addressed herself, knew nothing of her.

On the altar of Serapis, whither she next went, she found both the
vessels, and carried them back to her room.

Perhaps Irene had gone to see old Krates, and while watching his work and
chattering to him, had forgotten the flight of time--but no, the
priest-smith, whom she sought in his workshop, knew nothing of the
vanished maiden. He would willingly have helped Klea to seek for his
favorite, but the new lock for the tombs of the Apis had to be finished
by mid-day, and his swollen feet were painful.

Klea stood outside the old man's door sunk in thought, and it occurred to
her that Irene had often, in her idle hours, climbed up into the dove-cot
belonging to the temple, to look out from thence over the distant
landscape, to visit the sitting birds, to stuff food into the gaping
beaks of the young ones, or to look up at the cloud of soaring doves. The
pigeon-house, built up of clay pots and Nile-mud, stood on the top of the
storehouse, which lay adjoining the southern boundary wall of the temple.

She hastened across the sunny courts and slightly shaded alleys, and
mounted to the flat roof of the storehouse, but she found there neither
the old dove-keeper nor his two grandsons who helped him in his work, for
all three were in the anteroom to the kitchen, taking their dinner with
the temple-servants.

Klea shouted her sister's name; once, twice, ten times--but no one
answered. It was just as if the fierce heat of the sun burnt up the sound
as it left her lips. She looked into the first pigeon-house, the second,
the third, all the way to the last. The numberless little clay tenements
of the brisk little birds threw out a glow like a heated oven; but this
did not hinder her from hunting through every nook and corner. Her cheeks
were burning, drops of perspiration stood on her brow, and she had much
difficulty in freeing herself from the dust of the pigeon-houses, still
she was not discouraged.

Perhaps Irene had gone into the Anubidium, or sanctuary of Asclepius, to
enquire as to the meaning of some strange vision, for there, with the
priestly physicians, lived also a priestess who could interpret the
dreams of those who sought to be healed even better than a certain
recluse who also could exercise that science. The enquirers often had to
wait a long time outside the temple of Asclepius, and this consideration
encouraged Klea, and made her insensible to the burning southwest wind
which was now rising, and to the heat of the sun; still, as she returned
to the Pastophorium--slowly, like a warrior returning from a defeat--she
suffered severely from the heat, and her heart was wrung with anguish and
suspense.

Willingly would she have cried, and often heaved a groan that was more
like a sob, but the solace of tears to relieve her heart was still denied
to her.

Before going to tell Asclepiodorus that her search had been unsuccessful,
she felt prompted once more to talk with her friend, the anchorite; but
before she had gone far enough even to see his cell, the high-priest's
scribe once more stood in her way, and desired her to follow him to the
temple. There she had to wait in mortal impatience for more than an hour
in an ante room. At last she was conducted into a room where
Asclepiodorus was sitting with the whole chapter of the priesthood of the
temple of Serapis.

Klea entered timidly, and had to wait again some minutes in the presence
of the mighty conclave before the high-priest asked her whether she could
give any information as to the whereabouts of the fugitive, and whether
she had heard or observed anything that could guide them on her track,
since he, Asclepiodorus, knew that if Irene had run away secretly from
the temple she must be as anxious about her as he was.

Klea had much difficulty in finding words, and her knees shook as she
began to speak, but she refused the seat which was brought for her by
order of Asclepiodorus. She recounted in order all the places where she
had in vain sought her sister, and when she mentioned the sanctuary of
Asclepius, and a recollection came suddenly and vividly before her of the
figure of a lady of distinction, who had come there with a number of
slaves and waiting-maids to have a dream interpreted, Zoe's visit to
herself flashed upon her memory; her demeanor--at first so over-friendly
and then so supercilious--and her haughty enquiries for Irene.

She broke off in her narrative, and exclaimed:

"I am sure, holy father, that Irene has not fled of her own free impulse,
but some one perhaps may have lured her into quitting the temple and me;
she is still but a child with a wavering mind. Could it possibly be that
a lady of rank should have decoyed her into going with her? Such a person
came to-day to see me at the door-keeper's lodge. She was richly dressed
and wore a gold crescent in her light wavy hair, which was plaited with a
silk ribband, and she asked me urgently about my sister. Imhotep, the
physician, who often visits at the king's palace, saw her too, and told
me her name is Zoe, and that she is lady-in-waiting to Queen Cleopatra."

These words occasioned the greatest excitement throughout the conclave of
priests, and Asclepiodorus exclaimed:

"Oh! women, women! You indeed were right, Philammon; I could not and
would not believe it! Cleopatra has done many things which are forgiven
only in a queen, but that she should become the tool of her brother's
basest passions, even you, Philammon, could hardly regard as likely,
though you are always prepared to expect evil rather than good. But now,
what is to be done? How can we protect ourselves against violence and
superior force?"

Klea had appeared before the priests with cheeks crimson and glowing from
the noontide heat, but at the high-priest's last words the blood left her
face, she turned ashy-pale, and a chill shiver ran through her trembling
limbs. Her father's child--her bright, innocent Irene--basely stolen for
Euergetes, that licentious tyrant of whose wild deeds Serapion had told
her only last evening, when he painted the dangers that would threaten
her and Irene if they should quit the shelter of the sanctuary.

Alas, it was too true! They had tempted away her darling child, her
comfort and delight, lured her with splendor and ease, only to sink her
in shame! She was forced to cling to the back of the chair she had
disdained, to save herself from falling.

But this weakness overmastered her for a few minutes only; she boldly
took two hasty steps up to the table behind which the high-priest was
sitting, and, supporting herself with her right hand upon it, she
exclaimed, while her voice, usually so full and sonorous, had a hoarse
tone:

"A woman has been the instrument of making another woman unworthy of the
name of woman! and you--you, the protectors of right and virtue--you who
are called to act according to the will and mind of the gods whom you
serve--you are too weak to prevent it? If you endure this, if you do not
put a stop to this crime you are not worthy--nay, I will not be
interrupted--you, I say, are unworthy of the sacred title and of the
reverence you claim, and I will appeal--"

"Silence, girl!" cried Asclepiodorus to the terribly excited Klea. "I
would have you imprisoned with the blasphemers, if I did not well
understand the anguish which has turned your brain. We will interfere on
behalf of the abducted girl, and you must wait patiently in silence. You,
Callimachus, must at once order Ismael, the messenger, to saddle the
horses, and ride to Memphis to deliver a despatch from me to the queen;
let us all combine to compose it, and subscribe our names as soon as we
are perfectly certain that Irene has been carried off from these
precincts. Philammon, do you command that the gong be sounded which calls
together all the inhabitants of the temple; and you, my girl, quit this
hall, and join the others."




CHAPTER XVI.

Klea obeyed the high-priest's command at once, and wandered--not knowing
exactly whither--from one corridor to another of the huge pile, till she
was startled by the sound of the great brazen plate, struck with mighty
blows, which rang out to the remotest nook and corner of the precincts.
This call was for her too, and she went forthwith into the great court of
assembly, which at every moment grew fuller and fuller. The
temple-servants and the keepers of the beasts, the gate-keepers, the
litter-bearers, the water-carriers-all streamed in from their interrupted
meal, some wiping their mouths as they hurried in, or still holding in
their hands a piece of bread, a radish, or a date which they hastily
munched; the washer-men and women came in with hands still wet from
washing the white robes of the priests, and the cooks arrived with brows
still streaming from their unfinished labors. Perfumes floated round from
the unwashed hands of the pastophori, who had been busied in the
laboratories in the preparation of incense, while from the library and
writing-rooms came the curators and scribes and the officials of the
temple counting-house, their hair in disorder, and their light
working-dress stained with red or black. The troop of singers, male and
female, came in orderly array, just as they had been assembled for
practice, and with them came the faded twins to whom Klea and Irene had
been designated as successors by Asclepiodorus. Then came the pupils of
the temple-school, tumbling noisily into the court-yard in high delight
at this interruption to their lessons. The eldest of these were sent to
bring in the great canopy under which the heads of the establishment
might assemble.

Last of all appeared Asclepiodorus, who handed to a young scribe a
complete list of all the inhabitants and members of the temple, that he
might read it out. This he proceeded to do; each one answered with an
audible "Here" as his name was called, and for each one who was absent
information was immediately given as to his whereabouts.

Klea had joined the singing-women, and awaited in breathless anxiety a
long-endlessly long-time for the name of her sister to be called; for it
was not till the very smallest of the school-boys and the lowest of the
neat-herds had answered, "Here," that the scribe read out, "Klea, the
water-bearer," and nodded to her in answer as she replied "Here!"

Then his voice seemed louder than before as he read. "Irene, the
water-bearer."

No answer following on these words, a slight movement, like the bowing
wave that flies over a ripe cornfield when the morning breeze sweeps
across the ears, was evident among the assembled inhabitants of the
temple, who waited in breathless silence till Asclepiodorus stood forth,
and said in a distinct and audible voice:

"You have all met here now at my call. All have obeyed it excepting those
holy men consecrated to Serapis, whose vows forbid their breaking their
seclusion, and Irene, the water-bearer. Once more I call, 'Irene,' a
second, and a third time--and still no answer; I now appeal to you all
assembled here, great and small, men and women who serve Serapis. Can any
one of you give any information as to the whereabouts of this young girl?
Has any one seen her since, at break of day, she placed the first
libation from the Well of the Sun on the altar of the god? You are all
silent! Then no one has met her in the course of this day? Now, one
question more, and whoever can answer it stand forth and speak the words
of truth.

"By which gate did this lady of rank depart who visited the temple early
this morning?--By the eastern gate--good.

"Was she alone?--She was.

"By which gate did the epistolographer Eulaeus depart?--By the east.

"Was he alone?--He was.

"Did any one here present meet the chariot either of the lady or of
Eulaeus?"

"I did," cried a car-driver, whose daily duty it was to go to Memphis
with his oxen and cart to fetch provisions for the kitchen, and other
necessaries.

"Speak," said the high-priest.

"I saw," replied the man, "the white horses of my Lord Eulaeus hard by
the vineyard of Khakem; I know them well. They were harnessed to a closed
chariot, in which besides himself sat a lady."

"Was it Irene?" asked Asclepiodorus.

"I do not know," replied the tarter, "for I could not see who sat in the
chariot, but I heard the voice of Eulaeus, and then a woman's laugh. She
laughed so heartily that I had to screw my mouth up myself, it tickled me
so."

While Klea supposed this description to apply to Irene's merry
laugh-which she had never thought of with regret till this moment--the
high-priest exclaimed:

"You, keeper of the eastern gate, did the lady and Eulaeus enter and
leave this sanctuary together?"

"No," was the answer. "She came in half an hour later than he did, and
she quitted the temple quite alone and long after the eunuch."

"And Irene did not pass through your gate, and cannot have gone out by
it?--I ask you in the name of the god we serve!"

"She may have done so, holy father," answered the gate-keeper in much
alarm. "I have a sick child, and to look after him I went into my room
several times; but only for a few minutes at a time-still, the gate
stands open, all is quiet in Memphis now."

"You have done very wrong," said Asclepiodorus severely, "but since you
have told the truth you may go unpunished. We have learned enough. All
you gate-keepers now listen to me. Every gate of the temple must be
carefully shut, and no one--not even a pilgrim nor any dignitary from
Memphis, however high a personage he may be--is to enter or go out
without my express permission; be as alert as if you feared an attack,
and now go each of you to his duties."

The assembly dispersed; these to one side, those to another.

Klea did not perceive that many looked at her with suspicion as though
she were responsible for her sister's conduct, and others with
compassion; she did not even notice the twin-sisters, whose place she and
Irene were to have filled, and this hurt the feelings of the good elderly
maidens, who had to perform so much lamenting which they did not feel at
all, that they eagerly seized every opportunity of expressing their
feelings when, for once in a way, they were moved to sincere sorrow. But
neither these sympathizing persons nor any other of the inhabitants of
the temple, who approached Klea with the purpose of questioning or of
pitying her, dared to address her, so stern and terrible was the solemn
expression of her eyes which she kept fixed upon the ground.

At last she remained alone in the great court; her heart beat faster
unusual, and strange and weighty thoughts were stirring in her soul. One
thing was clear to her: Eulaeus--her father's ruthless foe and
destroyer--was now also working the fall of the child of the man he had
ruined, and, though she knew it not, the high-priest shared her
suspicions. She, Klea, was by no means minded to let this happen without
an effort at defence, and it even became clearer and clearer to her mind
that it was her duty to act, and without delay. In the first instance she
would ask counsel of her friend Serapion; but as she approached his cell
the gong was sounded which summoned the priests to service, and at the
same time warned her of her duty of fetching water.

Mechanically, and still thinking of nothing but Irene's deliverance, she
fulfilled the task which she was accustomed to perform every day at the
sound of this brazen clang, and went to her room to fetch the golden jars
of the god.

As she entered the empty room her cat sprang to meet her with two leaps
of joy, putting up her back, rubbing her soft head against her feet with
her fine bushy tail ringed with black stripes set up straight, as cats
are wont only when they are pleased. Klea was about to stroke the coaxing
animal, but it sprang back, stared at her shyly, and, as she could not
help thinking, angrily with its green eyes, and then shrank back into the
corner close to Irene's couch.

"She mistook me!" thought Klea. "Irene is more lovable than I even to a
beast, and Irene, Irene--" She sighed deeply at the name, and would have
sunk down on her trunk there to consider of new ways and means--all of
which however she was forced to reject as foolish and impracticable--but
on the chest lay a little shirt she had begun to make for little Philo,
and this reminded her again of the sick child and of the duty of fetching
the water.

Without further delay she took up the jars, and as she went towards the
well she remembered the last precepts that had been given her by her
father, whom she had once been permitted to visit in prison. Only a few
detached sentences of this, his last warning speech, now came into her
mind, though no word of it had escaped her memory; it ran much as
follows:

"It may seem as though I had met with an evil recompense from the gods
for my conduct in adhering to what I think just and virtuous; but it only
seems so, and so long as I succeed in living in accordance with nature,