The mobile features which had just smiled so radiantly expressed mortal terror, and the pirate, to whom even the name “Niobe” was unfamiliar, looked around him for the terrible danger threatening the innocent child, from which the woman on the pedestal was protecting it with loving devotion.

The mortal terror of a mother robbed by a higher power of her child could scarcely be more vividly depicted, and yet haughty defiance hovered around her slightly pouting lips; the uplifted hands seemed not only anxiously to defend, but also to defy an invisible foe with powerless anger.

The pirate’s eyes rested on this spectacle as if spellbound, and the man who in Pontus had dragged hundreds of young creatures—­boys and girls—­on his ship to sell them into slavery, never thinking of the tears which he thereby caused in huts and mansions, clinched his rough hand to attack the base wretch who was robbing the poor mother of her lovely darling.

But just as Hanno was rising to look around him for the invisible evildoer, the loud shouts of many voices startled him.  He glanced toward the pedestal; but now, instead of the hapless mother, he found there the bold woman whom he had previously seen, as radiant as if some great piece of good fortune had befallen her, bowing and waving her hand to the other Greeks, who were thanking her with loud applause.

The sorely threatened boy, bowing merrily, sprang to the ground; but Hanno put his hand on Ledscha’s arm, and in great perplexity whispered, “What did that mean?”

“Hush!” said the girl softly, stretching her slender neck toward the illuminated square, for the performer had remained standing upon the pedestal, and Chrysilla, Daphne’s companion, sat erect on her couch, exclaiming, “If it is agreeable to you, beautiful Althea, show us Nike crowning the victor.”

Even the Biamite’s keen ear could not catch the reply and the purport of the rapid conversation which followed; but she guessed the point in question when the young men who were present rose hastily, rushed toward the pedestal, loosed the wreaths from their heads, and offered them to the Greek girl whom Chrysilla had just called “beautiful Althea.”

Four Hellenic officers in the strong military force under Philippus, the commandant of the “Key of Egypt,” as Pelusium was justly called, had accompanied the old Macedonian general to visit his friend Archias’s daughter at Tennis; but Althea rejected their garlands with an explanation which seemed to satisfy them.

Ledscha could not hear what she said, but when only Hermon and Myrtilus still stood with their wreaths of flowers opposite the “beautiful Althea,” and she glanced hesitatingly from one to the other, as if she found the choice difficult, and then drew from her finger a sparkling ring, the Biamite detected the swift look of understanding which Hermon exchanged with her.

The girl’s heart began to throb faster, and, with the keen premonition of a jealous soul, she recognised in Althea her rival and foe.