While at Archon’s table he had determined to place his cure in the hands of higher powers.  This was the will of Fate; for the guest whose cushion he shared was Silanus, the host’s son, and the first thing he learned from him was the news that he was going the next day, with several friends, to the oracle of Amon in the Libyan Desert, to ask it what should be done for his mother, who had been for several years an invalid whom no physician could help.  He had heard from many quarters that the counsel of the god, who had greeted Alexander the Great as his son, was infallible.

Then Hermon had been most urgently pressed by the young man to accompany him.  Every comfort would be provided.  One of his father’s fine ships would convey them to Paraetonium, where tents, saddle horses, and guides for the short land journey would be ready.

So he had promised to go with Silanus, and his decision was warmly approved by his uncle, Daphne, and the gray-haired Pelusinian couple.  Perhaps the god would show the blind man the right path to recovery.  He would always be able to call the skill of the Alexandrian leeches to his aid.

Soon after Hermon went on board Archon’s splendidly equipped vessel and, instead of a tiresome journey, began a new and riotous period of festivity.

Lavish provision had been made for gay companions of both sexes, merry entertainment by means of dancing, music, and song, well filled dishes and mixing vessels, and life during the ride through the coast and desert regions was not less jovial and luxurious than on the ship.

It seemed to the blind man like one vast banquet in the dark, interrupted only by sleep.

The hope of counsel from the gods cheered the depressed mood which had weighed upon him for several weeks, and rich young Silanus praised the lucky fate which had enabled him to find a travelling companion whose intellect and wit charmed him and the others, and often detained them over the wine until late into the night.

Here, too, Hermon felt himself the most distinguished person, the animating and attracting power, until it was said that the voyage was over, and the company pitched their tents in the famous oasis near the Temple of Amon.

The musicians and dancers, with due regard to propriety, had been left behind in the seaport of Paraetonium.  Yet the young travellers were sufficiently gay while Silanus and Hermon waited for admission to the place of the oracle.  A week after their arrival it was opened to them, yet the words repeated to them by the priest satisfied neither Hermon nor Archon’s son, for the oracle advised the latter to bring his mother herself to the oasis by the land road if she earnestly desired recovery, while to Hermon was shouted the ambiguous saying: 

    “Only night and darkness spring from the rank marsh of pleasure;
     Morning and day rise brightly from the starving sand.”

Could Silanus’s mother, who was unable to move, endure the desert journey?  And what was the meaning of the sand, from which morning and day—­which was probably the fresh enjoyment of the light—­were to rise for Hermon?  The sentence of the oracle weighed heavily upon him, as well as on Archon’s son, who loved his mother, and the homeward journey became to the blind man by no means a cheerful but rather a very troubled dream.