“Who will represent Iphigenia, Electra, and Polyxena when she is gone?  The handsome Polybia herself will not make such a success as she has done.”

“Life will be dull when her door is closed.”

“She was the bright star, the soft moon of the Alexandrian sky.”

All the most notorious mendicants of the city—­cripples, blind men, and paralytics—­had by this time assembled in the place; and crawling through the remnants of the riches, they groaned—­

“How shall we live when Thais is no longer here to feed us?  Every day the fragments from her table fed two hundred poor wretches, and her lovers, when they quitted her, threw us as they passed handfuls of silver pieces.”

Some thieves, too, also mingled with the crowd, and created a deafening clamour, and pushed their neighbours, to increase disorder, and take advantage of the tumult to filch some valuable object.

Old Taddeus, who sold Miletan wool and Tarentan linen, and to whom Thais owed a large sum of money, alone remained calm and silent in the midst of the uproar.  He listened and watched, and gently stroking his goat-beard, seemed thoughtful.  At last he approached young Cerons, and pulling him by the sleeve, whispered—­

“You are the favoured lover of Thais, handsome youth; show yourself, and do not allow this monk to carry her off.”

“By Pollux and his sister, he shall not!” cried Cerons.  “I will speak to Thais, and without flattering myself, I think she will listen to me rather than to that sooty-faced Lapithan.  Place!  Place, dogs!”

And striking with his fist the men, upsetting the old women and treading on the young children, he reached Thais, and taking her aside—­

“Dearest girl,” he said, “look at me, remember, and tell me truly if you renounce love.”

But Paphnutius threw himself between Thais and Cerons.

“Impious wretch!” he cried, “beware and touch her not; she is sacred—­she belongs to God.”

“Get away, baboon!” replied the young man furiously.  “Let me speak to my sweetheart, or if not I will drag your obscene carcase by the beard to the fire, and roast you like a sausage.”

And he put his hand on Thais.  But, pushed away by the monk with unexpected force, he staggered back four paces and fell at the foot of the pile amongst the scattered ashes.

Old Taddeus, meanwhile, had been going from one to the other, pulling the ears of the slaves and kissing the hands of the masters, inciting each and all against Paphnutius, and had already formed a little band resolutely determined to oppose the monk who would steal Thais from them.

Cerons rose, his face black, his hair singed, and choking with smoke and rage.  He blasphemed against the gods, and threw himself amongst the assailants, behind whom the beggars crawled, shaking their crutches.  Paphnutius was soon enclosed in a circle of menacing fists, raised sticks, and cries of death.