He had had some difficulty in persuading Glaukias, who had come across the lake with him, to allow him to follow up the fair vision unaccompanied; and his entreaties and prohibitions would probably alike have proved vain, but that Glaukias held taken it into his head to show his latest work, which a slave was carrying, to some friends over a jar of wine.  It was a caricature of Caesar, whom he had seen at the Kanopic Gate, modeled while he was in the house of Polybius, with a few happy touches.

When Alexander woke, he crept into the shadow of the porch opposite to the house into which Korinna’s double had disappeared, and he now had no lack of entertainment.  A man came out of the tall white house and looked into the street, and the moonlight enabled the artist to see all that took place.

The tall youth who had come to the door wore the robe of a Christian priest.  Still, it struck Alexander that he was too young for such a calling; and he soon detected that he was certainly not what he seemed, but that there was some treachery in the wind; for no sooner had a woman joined him, whom he evidently expected, than she blamed him for his want of caution.  To this he laughingly replied that he was too hot in his disguise, and, pulling out a false beard, he showed it to the woman, who was dressed as a Christian deaconess, exclaiming, “That will do it!”

He went on to tell her, in a quick, low tone, much of which escaped the listener, that Serapion had dared much that day, and that the performance had ended badly, for that the Christian girl he had so cleverly persuaded to come from the other side of the lake had taken fright, and had insisted on knowing where she was.

At this the deaconess seemed somewhat dismayed, and poured out endless questions in a low voice.  He, however, cast all the blame on the philosopher, whom his master had got hold of the day before.  Then, as the woman desired more particular information, he briefly told her the story.

The fair Agatha, he said, after being invited by him, at noon, in the name of Bishop Demetrius, to a meeting that evening, had reached the ferryhouse at about sunset.  She had been told that many things of immediate importance were to be announced to the maidens of the Christian congregation; more especially, a discussion was to be held as to the order issued by the prefect for their taking part in a procession in Caesar’s honor when he should quit Alexandria.  Old Dorothea had met the girl at the ferry-house, and had brought her hither.  The woman who had attended her across the lake was certainly none of the wisest, for Dorothea had easily persuaded her to remain in her house during the meeting.

“Once there,” the sham priest went on, “the girl’s waiting-woman must have had some dose in wine or sirup and water, for she is fast asleep at this moment in the ferry-house, or wherever Dorothea took her, as she could not be allowed to wake under Dorothea’s roof.