“Do you still remember when we went with our mother over to Antirhodos, and how she allowed us to gather shells in the little harbor?  If she were alive to-day, what more could we wish for?”

“That the emperor was gone,” exclaimed the girl from the depths of her heart; “that Diodoros were well again; that father could use his hands as he used, and that I might stay with him until Diodoros came to fetch me, and then... oh, if only something could happen to the empire that Caesar might go away-far away, to the farthest hyperborean land!”

“That will soon happen now,” answered Alexander.  “Philostratus says that the Romans will remain at the utmost a week longer.”

“So long?” asked Melissa, startled; but Alexander soon pacified her with the assurance that seven days flew speedily by, and when one looked back on them they seemed to shrink into only as many hours.

“But do not,” he continued, cheerfully, “look into the future!  We will rejoice, for everything is going so well now!”

He stopped here suddenly and gazed anxiously at the sea, which was no longer completely obscured by the vanishing shadows of night.  Melissa looked in the direction of his pointing hand, and when he cried with great excitement, “That is no little boat, it is a ship, and a large one, too!” Melissa added, eagerly, “It is already near the Diabathra.  It will reach the Alveus Steganus in a moment, and pass the pharos.”

“But yonder is the morning star in the heavens, and the fire is still blazing on the tower,” interrupted her brother.  “Not till it has been extinguished will they open the outside chain.  And yet that ship is steering in a northwesterly direction.  It certainly comes out of the royal harbor.”  He then drew his sister on faster, and when, in a few minutes, they reached the harbor gate, he cried out, much relieved: 

“Look there!  The chain is still across the entrance.  I see it clearly.”

“And so do I,” said Melissa, decidedly; and while her brother knocked at the gate-house of the little harbor, she continued, eagerly: 

“No ships dare go out before sunrise, on account of the rocks—­Epagathos said so just now—­and that one near the pharos—­”

But there was no time to put her thoughts into words; for the broad harbor gate was thrown noisily open, and a troop of Roman soldiers streamed out, followed by several Alexandrian men-at-arms.  After them came a prisoner loaded with chains, with whom a leading Roman in warrior’s dress was conversing.  Both were tall and haggard, and when they approached the brother and sister they recognized in them Macrinus the praetorian prefect, while the prisoner was Zminis the informer.

But the Egyptian also noticed the artist and his companion.  His eyes sparkled brightly, and with triumphant scorn he pointed out to sea.

The magician Serapion had persuaded the prefect to let the Egyptian go free.  Nothing was yet known in the harbor of Zminis’s disgrace, and he had been promptly obeyed as usual, when, spurred on by the magician and his old hatred, he gave the order for the galley which carried the sculptor and his son on board to weigh anchor in spite of the early hour.