“And to me it has so long seemed empty and cold without you, you strange, unique, incomparable creature.”

“But why did you not come sooner, and so give me no time to behave like a fool?”

“Because, because,” said Pontius, gravely, “such a flight towards the sun seemed to me too bold; because I remember that my father’s father—­”

“He was the noblest man that the ancestor of my house attracted to its greatness.”

“He was—­consider it duly at this moment—­he was your grandfather’s slave.”

“I know it, but I also know, that there is not a man on earth who is worthier of freedom than you are, or whom I could ask as humbly as I ask you:  Take me, poor, foolish Balbilla, to be your wife, guide me and make of me whatever you can, for your own honor and mine.”

The brief Nile voyage brought days and hours of the highest happiness to Balbilla and her lover.  Before the fleet sailed into the Mareotic harbor of Alexandria, Pontius revealed his happy secret to the Emperor.  Hadrian smiled for the first time since the death of his favorite, and desired the architect to bring Balbilla to him.

“I was wrong in my interpretation of the Pythian oracle,” said he, as he laid the poetess’s hand in that of Pontius.  “Would you like to know how it runs Pontius—­do not prompt me, my child.  Anything that I have read through once or twice I never forget.  Pythia said: 

  ’That which thou boldest most precious and dear shall be torn from
     thy keeping,
   And from the heights of Olympus, down shalt thou fall in the dust;
   Still the contemplative eye discerns under mutable sand-drifts
   Stable foundations of stone, marble and natural rock.’

“You have chosen well girl.  The oracle guaranteed you a safe road to tread through life.  As to the dust of which it speaks, it exists no doubt in a certain sense, but this hand wields the broom that will sweep it away.  Solemnize your marriage in Alexandria as soon as you will, but then come to Rome, that is the only condition I impose.  A thing I always have at heart is the introduction of new and worthy members into the class of Knights, for it is in that way alone that its fallen dignity can be restored.  This ring, my Pontius, gives you the rank of eques, and such a man as you are, the husband of Balbilla and the friend of Caesar may no doubt by-and-bye find a seat in the Senate.  What this generation can produce in stone and marble, my mausoleum shall bear witness to.  Have you altered the plan of the bridge?”

CHAPTER XXIII.

In Alexandria the news of the nomination of the “sham Eros” to be the Emperor’s successor was hailed with joy, and the citizens availed themselves gladly of his fresh and favorable opportunity to hold one festival after another.  Titianus took care to provide for the due performance of the usual acts of grace, and among others he threw open the prison-gates of Canopus, and the sculptor Pollux was set at liberty.