It was the hour above all others most sacred to the daring science of the Egyptian—­the science which would read our changeful destinies in the stars.

He had filled his scroll, he had noted the moment and the sign; and, leaning upon his hand, he had surrendered himself to the thoughts which his calculation excited.

’Again do the stars forewarn me!  Some danger, then, assuredly awaits me!’ said he, slowly; ’some danger, violent and sudden in its nature.  The stars wear for me the same mocking menace which, if our chronicles do not err, they once wore for Pyrrhus—­for him, doomed to strive for all things, to enjoy none—­all attacking, nothing gaining—­battles without fruit, laurels without triumph, fame without success; at last made craven by his own superstitions, and slain like a dog by a tile from the hand of an old woman!  Verily, the stars flatter when they give me a type in this fool of war—­when they promise to the ardour of my wisdom the same results as to the madness of his ambition—­perpetual exercise—­no certain goal!—­the Sisyphus task, the mountain and the stone!—­the stone, a gloomy image!—­it reminds me that I am threatened with somewhat of the same death as the Epirote.  Let me look again.  “Beware,” say the shining prophets, “how thou passest under ancient roofs, or besieged walls, or overhanging cliffs—­a stone hurled from above, is charged by the curses of destiny against thee!” And, at no distant date from this, comes the peril:  but I cannot, of a certainty, read the day and hour.  Well! if my glass runs low, the sands shall sparkle to the last.  Yet, if I escape this peril—­ay, if I escape—­bright and clear as the moonlight track along the waters glows the rest of my existence.  I see honors, happiness, success, shining upon every billow of the dark gulf beneath which I must sink at last.  What, then, with such destinies beyond the peril, shall I succumb to the peril?  My soul whispers hope, it sweeps exultingly beyond the boding hour, it revels in the future—­its own courage is its fittest omen.  If I were to perish so suddenly and so soon, the shadow of death would darken over me, and I should feel the icy presentiment of my doom.  My soul would express, in sadness and in gloom, its forecast of the dreary Orcus.  But it smiles—­it assures me of deliverance.’

As he thus concluded his soliloquy, the Egyptian involuntarily rose.  He paced rapidly the narrow space of that star-roofed floor, and, pausing at the parapet, looked again upon the grey and melancholy heavens.  The chills of the faint dawn came refreshingly upon his brow, and gradually his mind resumed its natural and collected calm.  He withdrew his gaze from the stars, as, one after one, they receded into the depths of heaven; and his eyes fell over the broad expanse below.  Dim in the silenced port of the city rose the masts of the galleys; along that mart of luxury and of labor was stilled the mighty hum.  No lights, save here and there from before the columns