trouble to Klea, who never scolds me for it, you would be far from
comparing me with a goddess.  Little old Krates, too, often compares me
to all sorts of pretty things, but that always sounds so comical that I
cannot help laughing.  I had much rather listen to you when you flatter
me."

"Because I am young and youth suits with youth.  Your sister is older,
and so much graver than you are.  Have you never had a companion of your
own age whom you could play with, and to whom you could tell everything?"

"Oh!  yes when I was still very young; but since my parents fell into
trouble, and we have lived here in the temple, I have always been alone
with Klea.  What do you want to know about my father?"

"That I will ask you by-and-by.  Now only tell me, have you never played
at hide and seek with other girls?  May you never look on at the merry
doings in the streets at the Dionysiac festivals?  Have you ever ridden
in a chariot?"

"I dare say I have, long ago--but I have forgotten it.  How should I have
any chance of such things here in the temple?  Klea says it is no good
even to think of them.  She tells me a great deal about our parents--how
my mother took care of us, and what my father used to say.  Has anything
happened that may turn out favorably for him?  Is it possible that the
king should have learned the truth?  Make haste and ask your questions at
once, for I have already been too long out here."

The impatient steeds neighed again as she spoke, and Lysias, to whom this
chat with Irene was perfectly enchanting, but who nevertheless had not
for a moment lost sight of his object, hastily pointed to the spot where
his horses were standing, and said:

"Did you hear the neighing of those mettlesome horses?  They brought me
hither, and I can guide them well; nay, at the last Isthmian games I won
the crown with my own quadriga.  You said you had never ridden standing
in a chariot.  How would you like to try for once how it feels?  I will
drive you with pleasure up and down behind the grove for a little while."

Irene heard this proposal with sparkling eyes and cried, as she clapped
her hands:

"May I ride in a chariot with spirited horses, like the queen?  Oh!
impossible!  Where are your horses standing?"

In this instant she had forgotten Klea, the duty which called her back to
the temple, even her parents, and she followed the Corinthian with winged
steps, sprang into the two-wheeled chariot, and clung fast to the
breastwork, as Lysias took his place by her side, seized the reins, and
with a strong and practised hand curbed the mettle of his spirited
steeds.

She stood perfectly guileless and undoubting by his side, and wholly at
his mercy as the chariot rattled off; but, unknown to herself, beneficent
powers were shielding her with buckler and armor--her childlike
innocence, and that memory of her parents which her tempter himself
had revived in her mind, and which soon came back in vivid strength.

Breathing deep with excitement, and filled with such rapture as a bird
may feel when it first soars from its narrow nest high up into the ether
she cried out again and again:

"Oh, this is delightful! this is splendid!" and then:

"How we rush through the air as if we were swallows!  Faster, Lysias,
faster!  No, no--that is too fast; wait a little that I may not fall!
Oh, I am not frightened; it is too delightful to cut through the air just
as a Nile boat cuts through the stream in a storm, and to feel it on my
face and neck."

Lysias was very close to her; when, at her desire, he urged his horses to
their utmost pace, and saw her sway, he involuntarily put out his hand to
hold her by the girdle; but Irene avoided his grasp, pressing close
against the side of the chariot next her, and every time he touched her
she drew her arm close up to her body, shrinking together like the
fragile leaf of a sensitive plant when it is touched by some foreign
object.

She now begged the Corinthian to allow her to hold the reins for a little
while, and he immediately acceded to her request, giving them into her
hand, though, stepping behind her, he carefully kept the ends of them in
his own.  He could now see her shining hair, the graceful oval of her
head, and her white throat eagerly bent forward; an indescribable
longing came over him to press a kiss on her head; but he forbore, for he
remembered his friend's words that he would fulfil the part of a guardian
to these girls.  He too would be a protector to her, aye and more than
that, he would care for her as a father might.  Still, as often as the
chariot jolted over a stone, and he touched her to support her, the
suppressed wish revived, and once when her hair was blown quite close to
his lips he did indeed kiss it--but only as a friend or a brother might.
Still, she must have felt the breath from his lips, for she turned round
hastily, and gave him back the reins; then, pressing her hand to her
brow, she said in a quite altered voice--not unmixed with a faint tone of
regret:

"This is not right--please now to turn the horses round."

Lysias, instead of obeying her, pulled at the reins to urge the horses to
a swifter pace, and before he could find a suitable answer, she had
glanced up at the sun, and pointing to the east she exclaimed:

"How late it is already!  what shall I say if I have been looked for, and
they ask me where I have been so long?  Why don't you turn round--nor ask
me anything about my parents?"

The last words broke from her with vehemence, and as Lysias did not
immediately reply nor make any attempt to check the pace of the horses,
she herself seized the reins exclaiming:

"Will you turn round or no?"

"No!" said the Greek with decision.  "But--"

"And this is what you intended!" shrieked the girl, beside herself.
"You meant to carry me off by stratagem--but wait, only wait--"

And before Lysias could prevent her she had turned round, and was
preparing to spring from the chariot as it rushed onwards; but her
companion was quicker than she; he clutched first at her robe and then
her girdle, put his arm round her waist, and in spite of her resistance
pulled her back into the chariot.

Trembling, stamping her little feet and with tears in her eyes, she
strove to free her girdle from his grasp; he, now bringing his horses to
a stand-still, said kindly but earnestly:

"What I have done is the best that could happen to you, and I will even
turn the horses back again if you command it, but not till you have heard
me; for when I got you into the chariot by stratagem it was because I was
afraid that you would refuse to accompany me, and yet I knew that every
delay would expose you to the most hideous peril.  I did not indeed take
a base advantage of your father's name, for my friend Publius Scipio, who
is very influential, intends to do everything in his power to procure his
freedom and to reunite you to him.  But, Irene, that could never have
happened if I had left you where you have hitherto lived."

During this discourse the girl had looked at Lysias in bewilderment, and
she interrupted him with the exclamation:

"But I have never done any one an injury!  Who can gain any benefit by
persecuting a poor creature like me:

"Your father was the most righteous of men," replied Lysias, "and
nevertheless he was carried off into torments like a criminal.  It is not
only the unrighteous and the wicked that are persecuted.  Have you ever
heard of King Euergetes, who, at his birth, was named the 'well-doer,'
and who has earned that of the 'evil doer' by his crimes?  He has heard
that you are fair, and he is about to demand of the high-priest that he
should surrender you to him.  If Asclepiodorus agrees--and what can he do
against the might of a king--you will be made the companion of flute-
playing girls and painted women, who riot with drunken men at his wild
carousals and orgies, and if your parents found you thus, better would it
be for them--"

"Is it true, all  you are  telling me?"  asked Irene with flaming cheeks.

"Yes," answered Lysias firmly.  "Listen Irene--I have a father and a dear
mother and a sister, who is like you, and I swear to you by their heads--
by those whose names never passed my lips in the presence of any other
woman I ever sued to--that I am speaking the simple truth; that I seek
nothing but only to save you; that if you desire it, as soon as I have
hidden you I will never see you again, terribly hard as that would be to
me--for I love you so dearly, so deeply--poor sweet little Irene--as you
can never imagine."

Lysias took the girl's hand, but she withdrew it hastily, and raising her
eyes, full of tears, to meet his she said clearly and firmly:

"I believe you, for no man could speak like that and betray another.
But how do you know all this?  Where are you taking me?  Will Klea follow
me?"

"At first you shall be concealed with the family of a worthy sculptor.
We 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."