Gradually the light of this dismal day faded.  Ere the night, which threatened to bring rain and storm, closed in, he again rode on his mule to the Bruchium to overlook the progress of the work in the various buildings and give additional directions, for the labour was to be continued during the night.

The north wind was now blowing so violently from the sea that it was difficult to keep the torches and lamps lighted.  The gale drove the drops of rain into his face, and a glance northward showed him masses of black clouds beyond the harbour and the lighthouse.  This indicated a bad night, and again the boding sense of coming misfortune stole over him.  Yet he set to work swiftly and prudently, helping with his own hands when occasion required.

Night closed in.  Not a star was visible in the sky, and the air, chilled by the north wind, grew so cold that Gorgias at last permitted his body slave to wrap his cloak around him.  While drawing the hood over his head, he gazed at a procession of litters and men moving towards Lochias.

Perhaps the Queen’s children were returning home from some expedition.  But probably they were rather private citizens on their way to some festival celebrating the victory; for every one now believed in a great battle and a successful issue of the war.  This was proved by the shouts and cheers of the people, who, spite of the storm, were still moving to and fro near the harbour.

The last of the torch-bearers had just passed Gorgias, and he had told himself that a train of litters belonging to the royal family would not move through the darkness so faintly lighted, when a single man, bearing in his hand a lantern, whose flickering rays shone on his wrinkled face, approached rapidly from the opposite direction.  It was old Phryx, Didymus’s house slave, with whom the architect had become acquainted, while the aged scholar was composing the inscription for the Odeum which Gorgias had erected.  The aged servant had brought him many alterations of his master’s first sketch, and Gorgias had reminded him of it the previous day.

The workmen by whom the statues had been raised to the pedestal, amid the bright glare of torches, to the accompaniment of a regular chant, had just dropped the ropes, windlasses, and levers, when the architect recognized the slave.

What did the old man want at so late an hour on this dark night?  The fall of the scaffold again returned to his mind.

Was the slave seeking for a member of the family?  Did Helena need assistance?  He stopped the gray-haired man, who answered his question with a heavy sigh, followed by the maxim, “Misfortunes come in pairs, like oxen.”  Then he continued:  “Yesterday there was great anxiety.  Today, when there was so much rejoicing on account of Barine, I thought directly, ’Sorrow follows joy, and the second misfortune won’t be spared us.’  And so it proved.”