He longed to give to the woman he loved again and again, and it would have seemed to him a favour of fortune if the flames had consumed even the last drachm of her wealthy father.

Completely engrossed by these reflections, he forgot the horrors before him, but when he raised his eyes and saw the archers continuing their terrible work he shuddered.

The admiral’s galley lay so near the shore that he distinguished the figures of the Gauls separately.  Some, obeying the instinct of self preservation, fled from the places which could be reached by the arrows of the archers on the ships, but others pressed toward the shafts.  A frightful, heart-rending spectacle, yet how rich in food for the long-darkened eyes of the artist!  Two brothers of unusual height, who, nude like all their comrades in death, offered their broad, beautifully arched chests to the arrows, would not leave his memory.  It was a terrible sight, yet grand and worthy of being wrested from oblivion by art, and it impressed itself firmly on his mind.

After noon Eumedes could at last devote himself to his young friend.  Although the wind drove showers of fine rain before it, the admiral remained on deck with the sculptor.  What cared they for the inclement weather, while one was recalling to mind and telling his friend how the hate of an offended woman had unchained the gloomy spirits of revenge upon him, the other, who had defied death on land water, listened to his story, sometimes in surprise, sometimes with silent horror?

After the examination to which she had been subjected, Eumedes had believed Ledscha to be as Hermon described her.  He found nothing petty in this beautiful, passionate creature who avenged the injustice inflicted upon her as Fate took vengeance, who, with unsparing energy, anticipated the Nemesis to whom she appealed, compelled men’s obedience, and instead of enriching herself cast away the talents extorted to bring down fresh ruin upon the man who had transformed her love to hate.

While the friends consulted together with lowered voices, their conjecture became conviction that it was the Biamite’s inextinguishable hate which had led her to the Gauls and induced her to share the attack upon the capital.

The assault upon the houses of Archias and Myrtilus was a proof of this, for the latter was still believed to be Hermon’s property.  She had probably supposed that the merchant’s palace sheltered Daphne, in whom, even at Tennis, she had seen and hated her successful rival.

Only the undeniable fact that Ledscha was the bridge-builder’s companion presented an enigma difficult to solve.  The freedman Bias had remained on Philippus’s galley, and could not now be appealed to for a confirmation of his assertions, but Hermon distinctly remembered his statement that Ledscha had allowed the Gaul, after he had received the money intended for him, to take her from Pitane to Africa.