Did it not spare him a humiliation as great and painful as could be imagined?

He had already taken care that the false renown should not follow him to the grave, and Myrtilus should have his just due, and he would do whatever else lay in his power to further this object.  Wherever the beloved dead might be, he desired to go there also.  Whatever might await him, he desired no better fate.  If he had passed into annihilation, he, Hermon, wished to follow him thither, and annihilation certainly meant redemption from pain and misery.  But if he were destined to meet his Myrtilus and his mother in the world beyond the grave, what had he not to tell them, how sure he was of finding a joyful reception there from both!  The power which delivered him over to death just at that moment was not Nemesis—­no, it was a kindly deity.

Only his heart grew heavy at the thought of leaving Daphne to the tireless wooer Philotas or some other—­everything else from which it is usually hard to part seemed like a burden that we gladly cast aside.

“Forward!” he called blithely and boldly to the officer; while Crates, with loud lamentations, was protesting his innocence to the warrior who was putting fetters upon him.

A chain was just being clasped around Hermon’s wrists also when he suddenly started.  His keen ear could not deceive him, and yet a demon must be mocking him, for the voice that had called his name was the girl’s of whom, in the presence of welcome death, he had thought with longing regret.

Yet it was no illusion that deceived him.  Again he heard the beloved voice, and this time it addressed not only him, but with the utmost haste the commander of the soldiers.

Sometimes with touching entreaty, sometimes with imperious command, she protested, after giving him her name, that this matter could be nothing but an unfortunate mistake.  Lastly, with earnest warmth, she besought him, before taking the prisoners away, to permit her to speak to the commanding general, Philippus, her father’s guest, who, she was certain, was in the palace.  The blood of these innocent men would be on his head if he did not listen to her representations.

“Daphne!” cried Hermon in grateful agitation; but she would not listen to him, and followed the soldier whom the captain detailed to guide her into the palace.

After a few moments, which the blind artist used to inspire the despairing scholar with courage, the girl returned, and she did not come alone.  The gray-haired comrade of Alexander accompanied her, and after a few minutes both prisoners were released from their fetters.  Philippus hastily refused their thanks and, after addressing a few words to the officer, he changed his tone, and his deep voice sounded paternally cordial as he exclaimed to Daphne:  “Fifteen minutes more, you dear, foolhardy girl, and it would have been too late.  To-morrow you shall confess to me who treacherously directed you to this dangerous path.”