“Life with him has at any rate taught you patient endurance,” her brother broke in with a sullen shrug.

“Yes, life,” she replied, firmly:  “life, which shows us the right way better than all your books.  Who can tell what may have detained Argutis?  I wilt wait no longer.  The sun will have set before long, and this evening Caesar is to sup with Seleukus, the father of Korinna.  I happen to know it from Samonicus, who is one of the guests.  Seleukus and his wife have a great regard for Alexander, and will do for him all that lies in their power.  The lady Berenike, he told me, is a noble dame.  It should be your part to entreat her help for our father and brother; but you must not venture where Caesar is.  So I will go, and I shall have no rest till Korinna’s mother listens to me and promises to aid us.”

At this Philip exclaimed, in horror:  “What! you will dare to enter the house where Caracalla is feasting with the rabble he calls his friends?  You, an inexperienced girl, young, beautiful, whose mere appearance is enough to stir their evil passions?  Sooner than allow that, I will myself find my way into the house of Seleukus, and among the spies who surround the tyrant.”

“That my father may lose another son, and I my only remaining brother?” Melissa observed, with grave composure.  “Say no more, Philip.  I am going, and you must wait for me here.”

The philosopher broke out at this in despotic wrath: 

“What has come over you, that you have suddenly forgotten how to obey?  But I insist; and rather than allow you to bring on us not trouble merely, but shame and disgrace, I will lock you into your room!”

He seized her hand to drag her into the adjoining room.  She struggled with all her might; but he was the stronger, and he had got her as far as the door, when the Gaul Argutis rushed, panting and breathless, into the work-room through the anteroom, calling out to the struggling couple: 

“What are you doing?  By all the gods, you have chosen the wrong time for a quarrel!  Zminis is on the way hither to take you both prisoners; he will be here in a minute!  Fly into the kitchen, girl!  Dido will hide you in the wood-store behind the hearth.-You, Philip, must squeeze into the henhouse.  Only be quick, or it will be too late!”

“Go!” cried Melissa to her brother.  “Out through the kitchen window you can get into the poultry-yard!”

She threw herself weeping into his arms, kissed him, and added, hastily:  “Whatever happens to us, I shall risk all to save my father and Alexander.  Farewell!  The gods preserve us!”

She now seized Philip’s wrist, as he had before grasped hers, to drag him away; but he freed himself, saying, with an indifference which terrified her:  “Then let the worst come.  Ruin may take its course.  Death rather than dishonor!”

“Madman!” the slave could not help exclaiming; and the faithful fellow, though wont to obey, threw his arms round his master’s son to drag him away into the kitchen, while Philip pushed him off, saying: