Every one about her was laughing and joking, but for her all mirth was at an end.  Fear, indeed, weighed on her like an incubus, when the car reached the bridge and rattled across it.  It was lined with soldiers and lictors, who looked closely at each one, even at Melissa herself.  But no one spoke to her, and when the water lay behind them she breathed more freely.  But only for a moment; for she suddenly remembered that they would presently have to pass through the gate leading past Hadrian’s western wall into the town.  If Zminis were waiting there instead of on the bridge, and were to search the vehicle, then all would be lost, for he had looked her, too, in the face with those strange, fixed eyes of his; and that where he saw the sister he would also seek the brother, seemed to her quite certain.  Thus her presence was a source of peril to Alexander, and she must at any cost avert that.

She immediately put out her hand to Diodoros, who was walking at her side, and with his help slipped down from her seat.  Then she whispered her fears to him, and begged him to quit the party and conduct her home.

This was a surprising and delightful task for her lover.  With a jesting word he leaped on to the car, and even succeeded in murmuring to Alexander, unobserved, that Melissa had placed herself under his protection.  When they got home, they could tell Heron and Andreas that the youths were safe in hiding.  Melissa could explain, to-morrow morning, how everything had happened.  Then he drew Melissa’s arm through his, loudly shouted, “Iakchos!” and with a swift dance-step soon outstripped the wagon.

Not fifty paces beyond, large pine torches sent bright flames up skyward, and by their light the girl could see the dreaded gateway, with the statues of Hadrian and Sabina, and in front of them, in the middle of the road, a horseman, who, as they approached, came trotting forward to meet them on his tall steed.  His head towered above every one else in the road; and as she looked up at him her heart almost ceased beating, for her eyes met those of the dreaded Egyptian; their white balls showed plainly in his brown, lean face, and their cruel, evil sparkle had stamped them clearly on her memory.

On her right a street turned off from the road, and saying in a low tone, “This way,” she led Diodoros, to his surprise, into the shadow.  His heart beat high.  Did she, whose coy and maidenly austerity before and after the intoxication of the dance had vouchsafed him hardly a kind look or a clasp of the hand-did she even yearn for some tender embrace alone and in darkness?  Did the quiet, modest girl, who, since she had ceased to be a child, had but rarely given him a few poor words, long to tell him that which hitherto only her bright eyes and the kiss of her pure young lips had betrayed?

He drew her more closely to him in blissful expectation; but she shyly shrank from his touch, and before he could murmur a single word of love she exclaimed in terror, as though the hand of the persecutor were already laid on her:  “Fly, fly!  That house will give us shelter.”