During this speech the younger man had exchanged meaning glances with his mother.  He now interrupted Karnis, saying in a tone of encouragement: 

“Never mind, father; we have something good in view.”

“You have?” said the old man with an incredulous shrug, while his wife served him with a small roast chicken, on a stool which did duty for a table.

“Yes father, we!” the lad went on, laying aside his knife.  “You know we vowed an offering to Dionysus for our escape, since he himself once fell into the hands of pirates, so we went at once to his temple.  Mother knew the way; and as we—­she, I mean, and Dada and myself. . .”

“Heh! what is this?” interrupted Karnis, now for the first time noticing the dish before him.  “A fowl—­when we are so miserably poor?  A whole fowl, and cooked with oil?” He spoke angrily, but his wife, laying her hand on his shoulder, said soothingly: 

“We shall soon earn it again.  Never a sesterce was won by fretting.  Enjoy to-day’s gifts and the gods will provide for to-morrow.”

“Indeed?” asked Karnis in an altered key.  “To be sure when a roast fowl flies into one’s mouth instead of a pigeon ...  But you are right as usual, Herse, as usual, only—­here am I battening like a senator while you—­I lay a wager you have drunk nothing but milk all day and eaten nothing but bread and radishes.  I thought so?  Then the chicken must pretend to be a pheasant and you, wife, will eat this leg.  The girls are gone to bed?  Why here is some wine too!  Fill up your cup, boy.  A libation to the God!  Glory to Dionysus !” The two men poured the libation on the floor and drank; then the father thrust his knife into the breast of the bird and began his meal with a will, while Orpheus, the son, went on with his story: 

“Well, the temple of Dionysus was not to be found, for Bishop Theophilus has had it destroyed; so to what divinity could we offer our wreath and cake?  Here in Egypt there is none but the great Mother Isis.  Her sanctuary is on the shore of Lake Mareotis and mother found it at once.  There she fell into conversation with a priestess who, as soon as she learnt that my mother belonged to a family of musicians—­though Dame Herse was cautious in announcing this fact—­and hoped to find employment in Alexandria, led her away to a young lady who was closely veiled.  This lady,” Orpheus went on—­he not only played the flute but took the higher parts for a man’s voice and could also strike the lyre—­“desired us to go to her later at her own house, where she would speak with us.  She drove off in a fine carriage and we, of course followed her orders; Agne was with us too.  A splendid house!  I never saw anything handsomer in Rome or Antioch.  We were kindly received, and with the lady there were another very old lady and a tall grave man, a priest I should fancy or a philosopher, or something of that kind.”

“Not some Christian trap?” asked Karnis suspiciously.  “You do not know this place, and since the edict. . .”