Spendius squatted down at the edge of the fountain and washed his bloodstained hands.  The women slept.  The emerald vine shone.  They resumed their advance.

But something was running behind them under the trees; and Matho, who bore the veil, several times felt that it was being pulled very gently from below.  It was a large cynocephalus, one of those which dwelt at liberty within the enclosure of the goddess.  It clung to the mantle as though it had been conscious of the theft.  They did not dare to strike it, however, fearing that it might redouble its cries; suddenly its anger subsided, and it trotted close beside them swinging its body with its long hanging arms.  Then at the barrier it leaped at a bound into a palm tree.

When they had left the last enclosure they directed their steps towards Hamilcar’s palace, Spendius understanding that it would be useless to try to dissuade Matho.

They went by the street of the Tanners, the square of Muthumbal, the green market and the crossways of Cynasyn.  At the angle of a wall a man drew back frightened by the sparkling thing which pierced the darkness.

“Hide the zaimph!” said Spendius.

Other people passed them, but without perceiving them.

At last they recognised the houses of Megara.

The pharos, which was built behind them on the summit of the cliff, lit up the heavens with a great red brightness, and the shadow of the palace, with its rising terraces, projected a monstrous pyramid, as it were, upon the gardens.  They entered through the hedge of jujube-trees, beating down the branches with blows of the dagger.

The traces of the feast of the Mercenaries were everywhere still manifest.  The parks were broken up, the trenches drained, the doors of the ergastulum open.  No one was to be seen about the kitchens or cellars.  They wondered at the silence, which was occasionally broken by the hoarse breathing of the elephants moving in their shackles, and the crepitation of the pharos, in which a pile of aloes was burning.

Matho, however, kept repeating: 

“But where is she?  I wish to see her!  Lead me!”

“It is a piece of insanity!” Spendius kept saying.  “She will call, her slaves will run up, and in spite of your strength you will die!”

They reached thus the galley staircase.  Matho raised his head, and thought that he could perceive far above a vague brightness, radiant and soft.  Spendius sought to restrain him, but he dashed up the steps.

As he found himself again in places where he had already seen her, the interval of the days that had passed was obliterated from his memory.  But now had she been singing among the tables; she had disappeared, and he had since been continually ascending this staircase.  The sky above his head was covered with fires; the sea filled the horizon; at each step he was surrounded by a still greater immensity, and he continued to climb upward with that strange facility which we experience in dreams.