The gate-keeper’s outcry had mingled with the pious hymns of the assembled Christians in Paulina’s villa, and some of them had hurried out to help capture the disturber of the peace.  But the young Bithynian was swifter than they and might consider himself perfectly safe when once he had succeeded in mixing with a festal procession.  Half-willingly and half-perforce, he followed the drunken throng which was making its way from the heart of the city towards the lake, where, on a lonely spot on the shore to the east of Nikropolis, they were to celebrate certain nocturnal mysteries.  The goal of the singing, shouting, howling mob with whom Antinous was carried along, was between Alexandria and Canopus and far enough from Lochias; thus it fell out that it was long past midnight when Hadrian’s favorite, dirty, out of breath, and his clothes torn, at last appeared in the presence of his master.

CHAPTER IV.

Hadrian had expected Antinous many hours since, and the impatience and vexation which had been long seething in him were reflected plainly enough in his sternly-bent brow and the threatening fire of his eye.

“Where have you been?” he imperiously asked.

“I could not find you, so I took a boat and went out on the lake.”

“That is false.”

Antinous did not answer, but merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Alone?” asked the Emperor more gently.  “Alone.”

“And for what purpose?”

“I was gazing at the stars.”

“You!”

“And may I not, for once, tread in your footsteps?”

“Why not indeed?  The lights of heaven shine for the foolish as well as for the wise.  Even asses must be born under a good or an evil star.  One donkey serves a hungry grammarian and feeds on used-up papyrus, while another enters the service of Caesar and is fattened up, and finds time to go star-gazing at night.  What a state you are in.”

“The boat upset and I fell into the water.”  Hadrian was startled, and observing his favorite’s tangled hair in which the night wind had dried the salt water, and his torn chiton, he anxiously exclaimed: 

“Go this instant and let Mastor dry you and anoint you.  He too came back with a bruised hand and red eyes.  Everything is upside clown this accursed evening.  You look like a slave that has been hunted by clogs.  Drink a few cups of wine and then lie down.”

“I obey your orders, great Caesar.”

“So formal?  The donkey simile vexed you.”

“You used always to have a kind word for me.”

“Yes, yes, and I shall have them again, I shall have them again.  Only not to-night—­go to bed.”

Antinous left him, but the Emperor paced his room, up and down with long steps, his arms crossed over his breast and his eyes fixed on the ground.  His superstitious soul had been deeply disturbed by a series of evil signs which he had not only seen the previous night in the sky, but had also met on his way to Lochias, and which seemed to be beginning to be fulfilled already.