His horses began now to neigh loudly as if to greet the steeds of the coming Sun-god.  Lysias hurried to them through the grove, patted their shining necks with soothing words, and stood looking down at the vast city at his feet, over which hung a film of violet mist—­at the solemn Pyramids, over which the morning glow flung a gay robe of rose-color—­on the huge temple of Ptah, with the great colossi in front of its pylons—­on the Nile, mirroring the glory of the sky, and on the limestone hills behind the villages of Babylon and Troy, about which he had, only yesterday, heard a Jew at the king’s table relating a legend current among his countrymen to the effect that these hills had been obliged to give up all their verdure to grace the mounts of the sacred city Hierosolyma.

The rocky cliffs of this barren range glowed at this moment like the fire in the heart of the great ruby which had clasped the festal robe of King Euergetes across his bull-neck, as it reflected the shimmer of the tapers:  and Lysias saw the day-star rising behind the range with blinding radiance, shooting forth rays like myriads of golden arrows, to rout and destroy his foe, the darkness of night.

Eos, Helios, Phoebus Apollo—­these had long been to him no more than names, with which he associated certain phenomena, certain processes and ideas; for he when he was not luxuriating in the bath, amusing himself in the gymnasium, at cock or quail-fights, in the theatre or at Dionysiac processions—­was wont to exercise his wits in the schools of the philosophers, so as to be able to shine in bandying words at entertainments; but to-day, and face to face with this sunrise, he believed as in the days of his childhood—­he saw in his mind’s eye the god riding in his golden chariot, and curbing his foaming steeds, his shining train floating lightly round him, bearing torches or scattering flowers—­he threw up his arms with an impulse of devotion, praying aloud: 

“To-day I am happy and light of heart.  To thy presence do I owe this, O!  Phoebus Apollo, for thou art light itself.  Oh! let thy favors continue—­”

But he here broke off in his invocation, and dropped his arms, for he heard approaching footsteps.  Smiling at his childish weakness—­for such he deemed it that he should have prayed—­and yet content from his pious impulse, he turned his back on the sun, now quite risen, and stood face to face with Irene who called out to him: 

“I was beginning to think that you had got out of patience and had gone away, when I found you no longer by the well.  That distressed me—­but you were only watching Helios rise.  I see it every day, and yet it always grieves me to see it as red as it was to-day, for our Egyptian nurse used to tell me that when the east was very red in the morning it was because the Sun-god had slain his enemies, and it was their blood that colored the heavens, and the clouds and the hills.”

“But you are a Greek,” said Lysias, “and you must know that it is Eos that causes these tints when she touches the horizon with her rosy fingers before Helios appears.  Now to-day you are, to me, the rosy dawn presaging a fine day.”