Her cousins, the young sculptors, to please her, had gone out, too, but the sport did not last long; for when the market place of Tennis, just between the morning and noontide hours, was most crowded, the little boats which the hunters had used again touched the shore.

With them and Daphne’s servants seafaring men also left the boats—­Biamite fishermen and boatmen, who knew the breeding places and nests of the feathered prey—­and before them, barking loudly and shaking their dripping bodies, the young huntress’s brown and white spotted dogs ran toward the tents.

Dark-skinned slaves carried the game, which had been tied in bunches while in the boats, to the white house, where they laid three rows of large water fowl, upon the steps leading to the entrance.

Daphne’s arrows were supposed to have killed all these, but the master of the hunt had taken care to place among his mistress’s booty some of the largest pelicans and vultures which had been shot by the others.

Before retiring to her tent, she inspected the result of the shooting expedition and was satisfied.

She had been told of the numbers of birds in this archipelago, but the quantity of game which had been killed far exceeded her greatest expectations, and her pleasant blue eyes sparkled with joy as she began to examine the birds which had been slaughtered in so short a time.

Yet, ere she had finished the task, a slight shadow flitted over her well-formed and attractive though not beautiful features.

The odour emanating from so many dead fowls, on which the sun, already high in the heavens, was shining, became disagreeable to her, and a strong sense of discomfort, whose cause, however, she did not seek, made her turn from them.

The movement with which she did so was full of quiet, stately grace, and the admiring glance with which Hermon, a tall, black-bearded young man, watched it, showed that he knew how to value the exquisite symmetry of her figure.

The somewhat full outlines of her form and the self-possession of her bearing would have led every one to think her a young matron rather than a girl; but the two artists who accompanied her on the shooting party had been intimate with her from childhood, and knew how much modesty and genuine kindness of heart were united with the resolute nature of this maiden, who numbered two and twenty years.

Fair-haired Myrtilus seemed to pay little heed to the game which Gras, Archias’s Bithynian house steward, was counting, but black-bearded Hermon had given it more attention, and when Daphne drew back he nodded approvingly, and pointing to the heap of motionless inhabitants of the air, exclaimed with sincere regret:  “Fie upon us human wretches!  Would the most bloodthirsty hyena destroy such a number of living creatures in a few hours?  Other beasts of prey do not kill even one wretched sparrow more than they need to appease their hunger.  But we