nothing false!  And she, who was accustomed never to hear a word from the
men who surrounded her without asking herself with what aim it was
spoken, and how much of it was dissimulation or downright falsehood,
trusted the Roman, and was so happy in her trust that, full of gracious
gaiety, she herself invited Publius to give her the recluse's petition
to read.  The Roman at once gave her the roll, saying that since it
contained so much that was sad, much as he hoped she would make herself
acquainted with it, he felt himself called upon also to give her some
pleasure, though in truth but a very small one.  Thus speaking he
produced the gems, and she showed as much delight over this little work
of art as if, instead of being a rich queen and possessed of the finest
engraved gems in the world, she were some poor girl receiving her first
gift of some long-desired gold ornament.

"Exquisite, splendid!"  she cried again and again.  "And besides, they
are an imperishable memorial of you, dear friend, and of your visit to
Egypt.  I will have them set with the most precious stones; even diamonds
will seem worthless to me compared with this gift from you.  This has
already decided my sentence as to Eulaeus and his unhappy victims before
I read your petition.  Still I will read that roll, and read it
attentively, for my husband regards Eulaeus as a useful--almost an
indispensable-tool, and I must give good reasons for my verdict and for
the pardon.  I believe in the innocence of the unfortunate Philotas, but
if he had committed a hundred murders, after this present I would procure
his freedom all the same."

The words vexed the Roman, and they made her who had spoken them in order
to please him appear to him at that moment more in the light of a
corruptible official than of a queen.  He found the time hang heavy that
he spent with Cleopatra, who, in spite of his reserve, gave him to
understand with more and more insistence how warmly she felt towards him;
but the more she talked and the more she told him, the more silent he
became, and he breathed a sigh of relief when her husband at last
appeared to fetch him and Cleopatra away to their mid-day meal.

At table Philometor promised to take up the cause of Philotas and his
wife, both of whom he had known, and whose fate had much grieved him;
still he begged his wife and the Roman not to bring Eulaeus to justice
till Euergetes should have left Memphis, for, during his brother's
presence, beset as he was with difficulties, he could not spare him; and
if he might judge of Publius by himself he cared far more to reinstate
the innocent in their rights, and to release them from their miserable
lot--a lot of which he had only learned the full horrors quite recently
from his tutor Agatharchides--than to drag a wretch before the judges
to-morrow or the day after, who was unworthy of his anger, and who at
any rate should not escape punishment.

Before the letter from Asclepiodorus--stating the mistaken hypothesis
entertained by the priests of Serapis that Irene had been carried off by
the king's order--could reach the palace, Publius had found an
opportunity of excusing himself and quitting the royal couple.  Not even
Cleopatra herself could raise any objection to his distinct assurance
that he must write to Rome today on matters of importance.  Philometor's
favor was easy to win, and as soon as he was alone with his wife he could
not find words enough in praise of the noble qualities of the young man,
who seemed destined in the future to be of the greatest service to him
and to his interests at Rome, and whose friendly attitude towards himself
was one more advantage that he owed--as he was happy to acknowledge--to
the irresistible talents and grace of his wife.

When Publius had quitted the palace and hurried back to his tent, he felt
like a journeyman returning from a hard day's labor, or a man acquitted
from a serious charge; like one who had lost his way, and has found the
right road again.

The heavy air in the arbors and alleys of the embowered gardens seemed to
him easier to breathe than the cool breeze that fanned Cleopatra's raised
roof.  He felt the queen's presence to be at once exciting and
oppressive, and in spite of all that was flattering to himself in the
advances made to him by the powerful princess, it was no more gratifying
to his taste than an elegantly prepared dish served on gold plate, which
we are forced to partake of though poison may be hidden in it, and which
when at last we taste it is sickeningly sweet.

Publius was an honest man, and it seemed to him--as to all who resemble
him--that love which was forced upon him was like a decoration of honor
bestowed by a hand which we do not respect, and that we would rather
refuse than accept; or like praise out of all proportion to our merit,
which may indeed delight a fool, but rouses the indignation rather than
the gratitude of a wise man.  It struck him too that Cleopatra intended
to make use of him, in the first place as a toy to amuse herself, and
then as a useful instrument or underling, and this so gravely incensed
and discomfited the serious and sensitive young man that he would
willingly have quitted Memphis and Egypt at once and without any leave-
taking.  However, it was not quite easy for him to get away, for all his
thoughts of Cleopatra were mixed up with others of Klea, as inseparably
as when we picture to ourselves the shades of night, the tender light of
the calm moon rises too before our fancy.

Having saved Irene, his present desire was to restore her parents to
liberty; to quit Egypt without having seen Klea once more seemed to him
absolutely impossible.  He endeavored once more to revive in his mind the
image of her proud tall figure; he felt he must tell her that she was
beautiful, a woman worthy of a king--that he was her friend and hated
injustice, and was ready to sacrifice much for justice's sake and for her
own in the service of her parents and herself.  To-day again, before the
banquet, he purposed to go to the temple, and to entreat the recluse to
help him to an interview with his adopted daughter.

If only Klea could know beforehand what he had been doing for Irene and
their parents she must surely let him see that her haughty eyes could
look kindly on him, must offer him her hand in farewell, and then he
should clasp it in both his, and press it to his breast.  Then would he
tell her in the warmest and most inspired words he could command how
happy he was to have seen her and known her, and how painful it was to
bid her farewell; perhaps she might leave her hand in his, and give him
some kind word in return.  One kind word--one phrase of thanks from
Klea's firm but beautiful mouth--seemed to him of higher value than a
kiss or an embrace from the great and wealthy Queen of Egypt.

When Publius was excited he could be altogether carried away by a sudden
sweep of passion, but his imagination was neither particularly lively nor
glowing.  While his horses were being harnessed, and then while he was
driving to the Serapeum, the tall form of the water-bearer was constantly
before him; again and again he pictured himself holding her hand instead
of the reins, and while he repeated to himself all he meant to say at
parting, and in fancy heard her thank him with a trembling voice for his
valuable help, and say that she would never forget him, he felt his eyes
moisten--unused as they had been to tears for many years.  He could not
help recalling the day when he had taken leave of his family to go to the
wars for the first time.  Then it had not been his own eyes but his
mother's that had sparkled through tears, and it struck him that Klea,
if she could be compared to any other woman, was most like to that noble
matron to whom he owed his life, and that she might stand by the side of
the daughter of the great Scipio Africanus like a youthful Minerva by the
side of Juno, the stately mother of the gods.

His disappointment was great when he found the door of the temple closed,
and was forced to return to Memphis without having seen either Klea or
the recluse.

He could try again to-morrow to accomplish what had been impossible to-
day, but his wish to see the girl he loved, rose to a torturing longing,
and as he sat once more in his tent to finish his second despatch to Rome
the thought of Klea came again to disturb his serious work.  Twenty times
he started up to collect his thoughts, and as often flung away his reed
as the figure of the water-bearer interposed between him and the writing
under his hand; at last, out of patience with himself, he struck the
table in front of him with some force, set his fists in his sides hard
enough to hurt himself, and held them there for a minute, ordering
himself firmly and angrily to do his duty before he thought of anything
else.

His iron will won the victory; by the time it was growing dusk the
despatch was written.  He was in the very act of stamping the wax of the
seal with the signet of his family--engraved on the sardonyx of his ring-
-when one of his servants announced a black slave who desired to speak
with him.  Publius ordered that he should be admitted, and the negro
handed him the tile on which Eulaeus had treacherously written Klea's
invitation to meet her at midnight near the Apis-tombs.  His enemy's
crafty-looking emissary seemed to the young man as a messenger from the
gods; in a transport of haste and, without the faintest shadow of a
suspicion he wrote, "I will be there," on the luckless piece of clay.

Publius was anxious to give the letter to the Senate, which he had just
finished, with his own hand, and privately, to the messenger who had
yesterday brought him the despatch from Rome; and as he would rather have
set aside an invitation to carry off a royal treasure that same night
than have neglected to meet Klea, he could not in any case be a guest at
the king's banquet, though Cleopatra would expect to see him there in
accordance with his promise.  At this juncture he was annoyed to miss his
friend Lysias, for he wished to avoid offending the queen; and the
Corinthian, who at this moment was doubtless occupied in some perfectly
useless manner, was as clever in inventing plausible excuses as he
himself was dull in such matters.  He hastily wrote a few lines to the
friend who shared his tent, requesting him to inform the king that he had
been prevented by urgent business from appearing among his guests that
evening; then he threw on his cloak, put on his travelling-hat which
shaded his face, and proceeded on foot and without any servant to the
harbor, with his letter in one hand and a staff in the other.

The soldiers and civic guards which filled the courts of the palace,
taking him for a messenger, did not challenge him as he walked swiftly
and firmly on, and so, without being detained or recognized, he reached
the inn by the harbor, where he was forced to wait an hour before the
messenger came home from the gay strangers' quarter where he had gone to
amuse himself.  He had a great deal to talk of with this man, who was to
set out next morning for Alexandria and Rome; but Publius hardly gave
himself the necessary time, for he meant to start for the meeting place
in the Necropolis indicated by Klea, and well-known to himself, a full
hour before midnight, although he knew that be could reach his
destination in a very much shorter time.

The sun seems to move too slowly to those who long and wait, and a planet
would be more likely to fail in punctuality than a lover when called by
love.

In order to avoid observation he did not take a chariot but a strong mule
which the host of the inn lent him with pleasure; for the Roman was so
full of happy excitement in the hope of meeting Klea that he had slipped
a gold piece into the small, lightly-closed fingers of the innkeeper's
pretty child, which lay asleep on a bench by the side of the table,
besides paying double as much for the country wine he had drunk as if it
had been fine Falernian and without asking for his reckoning.  The host
looked at him in astonishment when, finally, he sprang with a grand leap
on to the back of the tall beast, without laying his hand on it; and it
seemed even to Publius himself as though he had never since boyhood felt
so fresh, so extravagantly happy as at this moment.

The road to the tombs from the harbor was a different one to that which
led thither from the king's palace, and which Klea had taken, nor did it
lead past the tavern in which she had seen the murderers.  By day it was
much used by pilgrims, and the Roman could not miss it even by night, for
the mule he was riding knew it well.  That he had learned, for in answer
to his question as to what the innkeeper kept the beast for he had said
that it was wanted every day to carry pilgrims arriving from Upper Egypt
to the temple of Serapis and the tombs of the sacred bulls; he could
therefore very decidedly refuse the host's offer to send a driver with
the beast.  All who saw him set out supposed that he was returning to the
city and the palace.

Publius rode through the streets of the city at an easy trot, and, as the
laughter of soldiers carousing in a tavern fell upon his ear, he could
have joined heartily in their merriment.  But when the silent desert lay
around him, and the stars showed him that he would be much too early at
the appointed place, he brought the mule to a slower pace, and the nearer
he came to his destination the graver he grew, and the stronger his heart
beat.  It must be something important and pressing indeed that Klea
desired to tell him in such a place and at such an hour.  Or was she like
a thousand other women--was he now on the way to a lover's meeting with
her, who only a few days before had responded to his glance and accepted
his violets?

This thought flashed once through his mind with importunate distinctness,
but he dismissed it as absurd and unworthy of himself.  A king would be
more likely to offer to share his throne with a beggar than this girl
would be to invite him to enjoy the sweet follies of love-making with her
in a secret spot.

Of course she wanted above all things to acquire some certainty as to her
sister's fate, perhaps too to speak to him of her parents; still, she
would hardly have made up her mind to invite him if she had not learned
to trust him, and this confidence filled him with pride, and at the same
time with an eager longing to see her, which seemed to storm his heart
with more violence with every minute that passed.

While the mule sought and found its way in the deep darkness with slow
and sure steps, he gazed up at the firmament, at the play of the clouds
which now covered the moon with their black masses, and now parted,
floating off in white sheeny billows while the silver crescent of the
moon showed between them like a swan against the dark mirror of a lake.

And all the time he thought incessantly of Klea--thinking in a dreamy way
that he saw her before him, but different and taller than before, her
form growing more and more before his eyes till at last it was so tall
that her head touched the sky, the clouds seemed to be her veil, and the
moon a brilliant diadem in her abundant dark hair.  Powerfully stirred by
this vision he let the bridle fall on the mule's neck, and spread open
his arms to the beautiful phantom, but as he rode forwards it ever
retired, and when presently the west wind blew the sand in his face, and
he had to cover his eyes with his hand it vanished entirely, and did not
return before he found himself at the Apis-tombs.

He had hoped to find here a soldier or a watchman to whom he could
entrust the beast, but when the midnight chant of the priests of the
temple of Osiris-Apis had died away not a sound was to be heard far or
near; all that lay around him was as still and as motionless as though
all that had ever lived there were dead.  Or had some demon robbed him of
his hearing?  He could hear the rush of his own swift pulses in his ears-
not the faintest sound besides.

Such silence is there nowhere but in the city of the dead and at night,
nowhere but in the desert.

He tied the mule's bridle to a stela of granite covered with
inscriptions, and went forward to the appointed place.  Midnight must be
past--that he saw by the position of the moon, and he was beginning to
ask himself whether he should remain standing where he was or go on to
meet the water-bearer when he heard first a light footstep, and then saw
a tall erect figure wrapped in a long mantle advancing straight towards
him along the avenue of sphinxes.  Was it a man or a woman--was it she
whom he expected? and if it were she, was there ever a woman who had come
to meet a lover at an assignation with so measured, nay so solemn,
a step?  Now he recognized her face--was it the pale moonlight that made
it look so bloodless and marble-white?  There was something rigid in her
features, and yet they had never--not even when she blushingly accepted
his violets--looked to him so faultlessly beautiful, so regular and so
nobly cut, so dignified, nay impressive.

For fully a minute the two stood face to face, speechless and yet quite
near to each other.  Then Publius broke the silence, uttering with the
warmest feeling and yet with anxiety in his deep, pure voice, only one
single word; and the word was her name "Klea."

The music of this single word stirred the girl's heart like a message and
blessing from heaven, like the sweetest harmony of the siren's song, like
the word of acquittal from a judge's lips when the verdict is life or
death, and her lips were already parted to say 'Publius' in a tone no
less deep and heartfelt-but, with all the force of her soul, she
restrained herself, and said softly and quickly:

"You are here at a late hour, and it is well that you have come."

"You sent for me," replied the Roman.

"It was another that did that, not I," replied Klea in a slow dull tone,
as if she were lifting a heavy weight, and could hardly draw her breath.
"Now--follow me, for this is not the place to explain everything in."

With these words Klea went towards the locked door of the Apis-tombs, and
tried, as she stood in front of it, to insert into the lock the key that
Krates had given her; but the lock was still so new, and her fingers
shook so much, that she could not immediately succeed.  Publius meanwhile
was standing close by her side, and as he tried to help her his fingers
touched hers.

And when he--certainly not by mistake--laid his strong and yet trembling
hand on hers, she let it stay for a moment, for she felt as if a tide of
warm mist rose up in her bosom dimming her perceptions, and paralyzing
her will and blurring her sight.

"Klea," he repeated, and he tried to take her left hand in his own; but
she, like a person suddenly aroused to consciousness after a short dream,
immediately withdrew the hand on which his was resting, put the key into
the lock, opened the door, and exclaimed in a voice of almost stern
command, "Go in first."

Publius obeyed and entered the spacious antechamber of the venerable
cave, hewn out of the rock and now dimly lighted.  A curved passage of
which he could not see the end lay before him, and on both sides, to the
right and left of him, opened out the chambers in which stood the
sarcophagi of the deceased sacred bulls.  Over each of the enormous stone
coffins a lamp burnt day and night, and wherever a vault stood open their
glimmer fell across the deep gloom of the cave, throwing a bright beam of
light on the dusky path that led into the heart of the rock, like a
carpet woven of rays of light.

What place was this that Klea had chosen to speak with him in.

But though her voice sounded firm, she herself was not cool and
insensible as Orcus--which this place, which was filled with the fumes of
incense and weighed upon his senses, much resembled--for he had felt her
fingers tremble under his, and when he went up to her, to help her, her
heart beat no less violently and rapidly than his own.  Ah! the man who
should succeed in touching that heart of hard, but pure and precious
crystal would indeed enjoy a glorious draught of the most perfect bliss.

"This is our destination," said Klea; and then she went on in short
broken sentences.  "Remain where you are.  Leave me this place near the
door.  Now, answer me first one question.  My sister Irene has vanished
from the temple.  Did you cause her to be carried off?"

"I did," replied Publius eagerly.  "She desired me to greet you from her,
and to tell you how much she likes her new friends.  When I shall have
told you--"

"Not now" interrupted Klea excitedly.  "Turn round--there where you see
the lamp-light."  Publius did as he was desired, and a slight shudder
shook even his bold heart, for the girl's sayings and doings seemed to
him not solemn merely, but mysterious like those of a prophetess.  A
violent crash sounded through the silent and sacred place, and loud
echoes were tossed from side to side, ringing ominously throughout the
grotto.  Publius turned anxiously round, and his eye, seeking Klea, found
her no more; then, hurrying to the door of the cave, he heard her lock it
on the outside.

The water-bearer had escaped him, had flung the heavy door to, and
imprisoned him; and this idea was to the Roman so degrading and
unendurable that, lost to every feeling but rage, wounded pride, and the
wild desire to be free, he kicked the door with all his might, and called
out angrily to Klea:

"Open this door--I command you.  Let me free this moment or, by all the
gods--"

He did not finish his threat, for in the middle of the right-hand panel
of the door a small wicket was opened through which the priests were wont
to puff incense into the tomb of the sacred bulls--and twice, thrice,
finally, when he still would not be pacified, a fourth time, Klea called
out to him:

"Listen to me--listen to me, Publius."  Publius ceased storming, and she
went on:

"Do not threaten me, for you will certainly repent it when you have heard
what I have to tell you.  Do not interrupt me; I may tell you at once
this door is opened every day before sunrise, so your imprisonment will
not last long; and you must submit to it, for I shut you in to save your
life--yes, your life which was in danger.  Do you think my anxiety was
folly?  No, Publius, it is only too well founded, and if you, as a man,
are strong and bold, so am I as a woman.  I never was afraid of an
imaginary nothing.  Judge yourself whether I was not right to be afraid
for you.

"King Euergetes and Eulaeus have bribed two hideous monsters to murder
you.  When I went to seek out Irene I overheard all, and I have seen with
my own eyes the two horrible wolves who are lurking to fall upon you, and
heard with these ears their scheme for doing it.  I never wrote the note
on the tile which was signed with my name; Eulaeus did it, and you took
his bait and came out into the desert by night.  In a few minutes the
ruffians will have stolen up to this place to seek their victim, but they
will not find you, Publius, for I have saved you--I, Klea, whom you first
met with smiles--whose sister you have stolen away--the same Klea that
you a minute since were ready to threaten.  Now, at once, I am going into
the desert, dressed like a traveller in a coat and hat, so that in the
doubtful light of the moon I may easily be taken for you--going to give
my weary heart as a prey to the assassins' knife."

"You are mad!"  cried Publius, and he flung himself with his whole weight
on the door, and kicked it with all his strength.  "What you purpose is
pure madness open the door, I command you!  However strong the villains
may be that Euergetes has bribed, I am man enough to defend myself."

"You are unarmed, Publius, and they have cords and daggers."

"Then open the door, and stay here with me till day dawns.  It is not
noble, it is wicked to cast away your life.  Open the door at once, I
entreat you, I command you!"

At any other time the words would not have failed of their effect on
Klea's reasonable nature, but the fearful storm of feeling which had
broken over her during the last few hours had borne away in its whirl all
her composure and self-command.  The one idea, the one resolution, the
one desire, which wholly possessed her was to close the life that had
been so full of self-sacrifice by the greatest sacrifice of all--that of
life itself, and not only in order to secure Irene's happiness and to
save the Roman, but because it pleased her--her father's daughter--
to make a noble end; because she, the maiden, would fain show Publius
what a woman might be capable of who loved him above all others;
because, at this moment, death did not seem a misfortune; and her mind,
overwrought by hours of terrific tension, could not free itself from the
fixed idea that she would and must sacrifice herself.

She no longer thought these things--she was possessed by them; they had
the mastery, and as a madman feels forced to repeat the same words again
and again to himself, so no prayer, no argument at this moment would have
prevailed to divert her from her purpose of giving up her young life for
Publius and Irene.  She contemplated this resolve with affection and
pride as justifying her in looking up to herself as to some nobler
creature.  She turned a deaf ear to the Roman's entreaty, and said in a
tone of which the softness surprised him:

"Be silent Publius, and hear me further.  You too are noble, and
certainly you owe me some gratitude for having saved your life."

"I owe you much, and I will pay it," cried Publius, "as long as there is
breath in this body--but open the door, I beseech you, I implore you--"

"Hear me to the end, time presses; hear me out, Publius.  My sister Irene
went away with you.  I need say nothing about her beauty, but how bright,
how sweet her nature is you do not know, you cannot know, but you will
find out.  She, you must be told, is as poor as I am, but the child of
freeborn and noble parents.  Now swear to me, swear--no, do not interrupt
me--swear by the head of your father that you will never, abandon her,
that you will never behave to her otherwise than as if she were the
daughter of your dearest friend or of your own brother."

"I swear it and I will keep my oath--by the life of the man whose head is
more sacred to me than the names of all the gods.  But now I beseech you,
I command you open this door, Klea--that I may not lose you--that I may
tell you that my whole heart is yours, and yours alone--that I love you,
love you unboundedly."

"I have your oath," cried the girl in great excitement, for she could now
see a shadow moving backwards and forwards at some distance in the
desert.  "You have sworn by the head of your father.  Never let Irene
repent having gone with you, and love her always as you fancy now, in
this moment, that you love me, your preserver.  Remember both of you the
hapless Klea who would gladly have lived for you, but who now gladly dies
for you.  Do not forget me, Publius, for I have never but this once
opened my heart to love, but I have loved you Publius, with pain and
torment, and with sweet delight--as no other woman ever yet revelled in
the ecstasy of love or was consumed in its torments."  She almost shouted
the last words at the Roman as if she were chanting a hymn of triumph,
beside herself, forgetting everything and as if intoxicated.

Why was he now silent, why had he nothing to answer, since she had
confessed to him the deepest secret of her breast, and allowed him to
look into the inmost sanctuary of her heart?  A rush of burning words
from his lips would have driven her off at once to the desert and to
death; his silence held her back--it puzzled her and dropped like cool
rain on the soaring flames of her pride, fell on the raging turmoil of
her soul like oil on troubled water.  She could not part from him thus,
and her lips parted to call him once more by his name.

While she had been making confession of her love to the Roman as if
it were her last will and testament, Publius felt like a man dying of
thirst, who has been led to a flowing well only to be forbidden to
moisten his lips with the limpid fluid.  His soul was filled with
passionate rage approaching to despair, and as with rolling eyes he
glanced round his prison an iron crow-bar leaning against the wall met
his gaze; it had been used by the workmen to lift the sarcophagus of the
last deceased Apis into its right place.  He seized upon this tool, as a
drowning man flings himself on a floating plank: still he heard Klea's
last words, and did not lose one of them, though the sweat poured from
his brow as he inserted the metal lever like a wedge between the two
halves of the door, just above the threshold.

All was now silent outside; perhaps the distracted girl was already
hurrying towards the assassins--and the door was fearfully heavy and
would not open nor yield.  But he must force it--he flung himself on the
earth and thrust his shoulder under the lever, pushing his whole body
against the iron bar, so that it seemed to him that every joint
threatened to give way and every sinew to crack; the door rose--once more
he put forth the whole strength of his manly vigor, and now the seam in
the wood cracked, the door flew open, and Klea, seized with terror, flew
off and away--into the desert--straight towards the murderers.

Publius leaped to his feet and flung himself out of his prison; as he saw
Klea escape he flew after her with, hasty leaps, and caught her in a few
steps, for her mantle hindered her in running, and when she would not
obey his desire that she should stand still he stood in front of her and
said, not tenderly but sternly and decidedly:

"You do not go a step farther, I forbid it."

"I am going where I must go," cried the girl in great agitation.  "Let me
go, at once!"

"You will stay here--here with me," snarled Publius, and taking both
her hands by the wrists he clasped them with his iron fingers as with
handcuffs.  "I am the man and you are the woman, and I will teach you
who is to give orders here and who is to obey."

Anger and rage prompted these quite unpremeditated words, and as Klea--
while he spoke them with quivering lips--had attempted with the exertion
of all her strength, which was by no means contemptible, to wrench her
hands from his grasp, he forced her--angry as he still was, but
nevertheless with due regard for her womanliness--forced her by a gentle
and yet irresistible pressure on her arms to bend before him, and
compelled her slowly to sink down on both knees.

As soon as she was in this position, Publius let her free; she covered
her eyes with her aching hands and sobbed aloud, partly from anger, and
because she felt herself bitterly humiliated.

"Now, stand up," said Publius in an altered tone as he heard her weeping.
"Is it then such a hard matter to submit to the will of a man who will
not and cannot let you go, and whom you love, besides?"  How gentle and
kind the words sounded!  Klea, when she heard them, raised her eyes to
Publius, and as she saw him looking down on her as a supplicant her anger
melted and turned to grateful emotion--she went closer to him on her
knees, laid her head against him and said:

"I have always been obliged to rely upon myself, and to guide another
person with loving counsel, but it must be sweeter far to be led by
affection and I will always, always obey you."

"I will thank you with heart and soul henceforth from this hour!" cried
Publius, lifting her up.  "You were ready to sacrifice your life for me,
and now mine belongs to you.  I am yours and you are mine--I your
husband, you my wife till our life's end!"

He laid his hands on her shoulders, and turned her face round to his; she
resisted no longer, for it was sweet to her to yield her will to that of
this strong man.  And how happy was she, who from her childhood had taken
it upon herself to be always strong, and self-reliant, to feel herself
the weaker, and to be permitted to trust in a stronger arm than her own.
Somewhat thus a young rose-tree might feel, which for the first time
receives the support of the prop to which it is tied by the careful
gardener.

Her eyes rested blissfully and yet anxiously on his, and his lips had
just touched hers in a first kiss when they started apart in terror, for
Klea's name was clearly shouted through the still night-air, and in the
next instant a loud scream rang out close to them followed by dull cries
of pain.

"The murderers!"  shrieked Klea, and trembling for herself and for him
she clung closely to her lover's breast.  In one brief moment the self-
reliant heroine--proud in her death-defying valor--had become a weak,
submissive, dependent woman.




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Created the world out of nothing for no other purpose
Dreamless sleep after a day brimful of enjoyment
Man must subjugate matter and not become subject to it
No one believes anything that can diminish his self-esteem
Praise out of all proportion to our merit
Save them the trouble of thinking for themselves
She no longer thought these things--she was possessed by them
Taken it upon herself to be always strong, and self-reliant
The most terrible of all the gods, are women
The sun seems to move too slowly to those who long and wait
We seek for truth; the Jews believe they possess it entirely
Who always think at second-hand
Why so vehement, sister?  So much zeal is quite unnecessary






THE SISTERS

By Georg Ebers

Volume 5.



CHAPTER XXII.

On the roof of the tower of the pylon by the gate of the Serapeum stood
an astrologer who had mounted to this, the highest part of the temple, to
observe the stars; but it seemed that he was not destined on this
occasion to fulfil his task, for swiftly driving black clouds swept again
and again across that portion of the heavens to which his observations
were principally directed.  At last he impatiently laid aside his
instruments, his waxed tablet and style, and desired the gate-keeper--
the father of poor little Philo--whose duty it was to attend at night on
the astrologers on the tower, to carry down all his paraphernalia, as the
heavens were not this evening favorable to his labors.

"Favorable!" exclaimed the gate-keeper, catching up the astrologer's
words, and shrugging his shoulders so high that his head disappeared
between them.

"It is a night of horror, and some great disaster threatens us for
certain.  Fifteen years have I been in my place, and I never saw such a
night but once before, and the very next day the soldiers of Antiochus,
the Syrian king, came and plundered our treasury.  Aye--and to-night is
worse even than that was; when the dog-star first rose a horrible shape
with a lion's mane flew across the desert, but it was not till midnight
that the fearful uproar began, and even you shuddered when it broke out
in the Apis-cave.  Frightful things must be coming on us when the sacred
bulls rise from the dead and butt and storm at the door with their horns
to break it open.  Many a time have I seen the souls of the dead
fluttering and wheeling and screaming above the old mausoleums, and rock-
tombs of ancient times.  Sometimes they would soar up in the air in the
form of hawks with men's heads, or like ibises with a slow lagging
flight, and sometimes sweep over the desert like gray shapeless shadows,
or glide across the sand like snakes; or they would creep out of the
tombs, howling like hungry dogs.  I have often heard them barking like
jackals or laughing like hyenas when they scent carrion, but to-night is
the first time I ever heard them shrieking like furious men, and then
groaning and wailing as if they were plunged in the lake of fire and
suffering horrible torments.

"Look there--out there--something is moving again!  Oh!  holy father,
exorcise them with some mighty bann.  Do you not see how they are growing
larger?  They are twice the size of ordinary mortals."  The astronomer
took an amulet in his hand, muttered a few sentences to himself, seeking
at the same time to discover the figures which had so scared the gate-
keeper.

"They are indeed tall," he said when he perceived them.  "And now they
are melting into one, and growing smaller and smaller--however, perhaps
they are only men come to rob the tombs, and who happen to be
particularly tall, for these figures are not of supernatural height."

"They are twice as tall as you, and you are not short," cried the gate-
keeper, pressing his lips devoutly to the amulet the astrologer held in
his hand, "and if they are robbers why has no watchman called out to stop
them?  How is it their screams and groans have not waked the sentinels
that are posted there every night?  There--that was another fearful cry!
Did you ever hear such tones from any human breast?  Great Serapis, I
shall die of fright!  Come down with me, holy father, that I may look
after my little sick boy, for those who have seen such sights do not
escape unstricken."

The peaceful silence of the Necropolis had indeed been disturbed, but the
spirits of the departed had no share in the horrors which had been
transacted this night in the desert, among the monuments and rocktombs.
They were living men that had disturbed the calm of the sacred place,
that had conspired with darkness in cold-blooded cruelty, greater than
that of evil spirits, to achieve the destruction of a fellow-man; but
they were living men too who, in the midst of the horrors of a most
fearful night, had experienced the blossoming in their own souls of the
divinest germ which heaven implants in the bosom of its mortal children.
Thus in a day of battle amid blood and slaughter may a child be born that
shall grow up blessed and blessing, the comfort and joy of his family.

The lion-maned monster whose appearance and rapid disappearance in the
desert had first alarmed the gate-keeper, had been met by several
travellers on its way to Memphis, and each and all, horrified by its
uncanny aspect, had taken to flight or tried to hide themselves--and yet
it was no more than a man with warm pulses, an honest purpose, and a true
and loving heart.  But those who met him could not see into his soul, and
his external aspect certainly bore little resemblance to that of other
men.

His feet, unused to walking, moved but clumsily, and had a heavy body to
carry, and his enormous beard and the mass of gray hair on his head--
which he turned now this way and now that--gave him an aspect that might
well scare even a bold man who should meet him unexpectedly.  Two stall-
keepers who, by day, were accustomed to offer their wares for sale near
the Serapeum to the pilgrims, met him close to the city.

"Did you see that panting object?"  said one to the other as they looked
after him.  "If he were not shut up fast in his cell I could declare it
was Serapion, the recluse."

"Nonsense," replied the other.  "He is tied faster by his oath than by
chains and fetters.  It must be one of the Syrian beggars that besiege
the temple of Astarte."

"Perhaps," answered his companion with indifference.  "Let us get on now,
my wife has a roast goose for supper this evening."

Serapion, it is true, was fast tied to his cell, and yet the pedler had
judged rightly, for he it was who hurried along the high-road frightening
all he met.  After his long captivity walking was very painful to him;
besides, he was barefoot, and every stone in the path hurt the soles of
his feet which had grown soft; nevertheless he contrived to make a by no
means contemptible pace when in the distance he caught sight of a woman's