This tale-bearer, who held the highest position as guardian of the peace under the captain of the night-watch, was of all men in the city the most hated and feared; and he had heard her brother speaking of Caesar in a tone of mockery which was enough to bring him to prison, to the quarries, nay, to death.  Glaukias, the sculptor, had previously seen the Egyptian on the bridge, where he had detained those who were returning home from the city of the dead.  He and his followers had already stopped the poet Argeios on his way, but the thyrsus staves of the Dionysiac revelers had somewhat spoiled the game for him and his satellites.  He was probably still standing on the bridge.  Glaukias had immediately run back, at any risk, to warn Alexander.  He and the painter were now in hiding, and would remain in safety, come what might, in the cellar at the Cock, till the coast was clear again.  The tavern-keeper strongly advised no one to go meddling with his wine-skins and jars.

“Much less that Egyptian dog!” cried his wife, doubling her fist as though the hated mischief-maker stood before her already.

“Poor, helpless lamb!” she murmured to herself, as she looked compasionately at the fragile, town-bred girl, who stood gazing at the ground as if she had been struck by lightning.  She remembered, too, how hard life had seemed to her in her own young days, and glanced with pride at her brawny arms, which were able indeed to work and manage.

But what now?

The drooping flower suddenly raised her head, as if moved by a spring, exclaiming:  “Thank you heartily, thank you!  But that will never do.  If Zminis searches your premises he will certainly go into the cellar; for what can he not do in Caesar’s name?  I will not part from my brother.”

“Then you, too, are a welcome guest at the Cock,” interrupted the woman, and her husband bowed low, assuring her that the Cock was as much her house as it was his.

But the helpless town-bred damsel declined this friendly invitation; for her shrewd little head had devised another plan for saving her brother, though the tavern-keepers, to whom she confided it in a whisper, laughed and shook their heads over it.  Diodoros was waiting outside in anxious impatience; he loved her, and he was her brother’s best friend.  All that he could do to save Alexander he would gladly do, she knew.  On the estate which would some day be his, there was room and to spare to hide the fugitives, for one of the largest gardens in the town was owned by his father.  His extensive grounds had been familiar to her from her childhood, for her own mother and her lover’s had been friends; and Andreas, the freedman, the overseer of Polybius’s gardens and plantations, was dearer to her and her brothers than any one else in Alexandria.

Nor had she deceived herself, for Diodoros made Alexander’s cause his own, in his eager, vehement way; and the plan for his deliverance seemed doubly admirable as proceeding from Melissa.  In a few minutes Alexander and the sculptor were released from their hiding-place, and all further care for them was left to Diodoros.