Myrtilus, however, earnestly entreated him not to deprive himself on his account of a pleasure which he would gladly have shared.  There was plenty of time to pack the statues.  As for himself, nothing would do him more good just now than complete rest in his beloved solitude, which, as Hermon knew, was more welcome to him than the gayest society.  Nothing was to be feared for him now.  The thunderstorm had purified the air, and another one was not to be expected soon in this dry region.  He had always been well here in sunny weather.  Storms, which were especially harmful to him, never came at this season of the year.

Myrtilus secretly thought that Hermon’s departure would be desirable, because the slave Bias had confided to him what dangers threatened his friend from the incensed Biamite husbands.

Finally, Myrtilus turned to the others and begged them not to let Hermon leave Pelusium quickly.

When, at parting, he was alone with him, he embraced him and said more tenderly than usual:  “You know how easy it will be for me to depart from life; but it would be easier still if I could leave you behind without anxiety, and that would happen if the hymeneal hymns at your marriage to Daphne preceded the dirges which will soon resound above my coffin.  Yesterday I first became sure that she loves you, and, much good as you have in your nature, you owe the best to her.”

Hermon clasped him in his arms with passionate affection, and after confessing that he, too, felt drawn with the utmost power toward Daphne, and urging him to anticipate complete recovery instead of an early death, he held out his hand to his friend; but Myrtilus clasped it a long time in his own, saying earnestly:  “Only this one frank warning:  An Arachne like the model which Althea presented yesterday evening would deal the past of your art a blow in the face.  No one at Rhodes—­and this is just what I prize in you—­hated imitation more, yet what would using the Arachne on the pedestal for a model be except showing the world not how Hermon, but how Althea imagines the hapless transformed mortal?  Even if Ledscha withdraws from you, hold fast to her image.  It will live on in your soul.  Recall it there, free it from whatever is superfluous, supply whatever it lacks, animate it with the idea of the tireless artist, the mocking, defiant mortal woman who ended her life as the weaver of weavers in the insect world, as you have so often vividly described her to me.  Then, my dear fellow, you will remain loyal to yourself, and therefore also to the higher truth, toward which every one of us who labours earnestly strives, and, myself included, there is no one who wields hammer and chisel in Greece who could contest the prize with you.”

CHAPTER XV.

When the sun was approaching the western horizon the travellers started.

Light mists veiled the radiant right eye of the goddess of heaven.  The blood of the contending spirits of light and darkness, which usually dyed the west of Egypt crimson at the departure of the great sun god, to-day vanished from sight.