“Then try first to release your people, and afterward embark on my ship.  It shall be ready for you.  Melissa will use it, I know.—­My veil, child!  The chariot waits for me at the Temple of Isis.—­You will accompany me there, Alexander, and we will drive to the harbor.  There I will introduce you to the captain.  It will be wise.  Your father and brother are dearer to you than your sister; she is more important to me.  If only I could go away myself—­away from here, from the desolate house, and take her with me!”

And she raised her arm, as if she would throw a stone into the distance.

She impetuously embraced the young girl, took leave of her sister-in-law, and left the room with Alexander.

Directly Euryale was alone with Melissa, she comforted the girl in her kind, composed manner; for the unhappy matron’s gloomy presentiments had filled Melissa with fresh anxieties.

And what had she not gone through during the day!

Soon after her perilous interview with Caracalla, Timotheus, with the chief of the astrologers from the Serapeum, and the emperor’s astronomer, had come to her, to ask her on what day and at what hour she was born.  They also inquired concerning the birthdays of her parents, and other events of her life.  Timotheus had informed her that the emperor had ordered them to cast her nativity.

Soon after dinner she had gone, accompanied by the lady Berenike, who had found her at the chief priest’s house, to visit her lover in the sick-rooms of the Serapeum.  Thankful and happy, she had found him with fully recovered consciousness, but the physician and the freedman Andreas, whom she met at the door of the chamber, had impressed on her the importance of avoiding all excitement.  So it had not been possible for her to tell him what had happened to her people, or of the perilous step she had taken in order to save them.  But Diodoros had talked of their wedding, and Andreas could confirm the fact that Polybius wished to see it celebrated as soon as possible.

Several pleasant subjects were discussed; but between whiles Melissa had to dissemble and give evasive answers to Diodoros’s questions as to whether she had already arranged with her brother and friends who should be the youths and maidens to form the wedding procession, and sing the hymeneal song.

As the two whispered to one another and looked tenderly at each other—­for Diodoros had insisted on her allowing him to kiss not only her hands but also her sweet red lips—­Berenike had pictured her dead daughter in Melissa’s place.  What a couple they would have been!  How proudly and gladly she would have led them to the lovely villa at Kanopus, which her husband and she had rebuilt and decorated with the idea that some day Korinna, her husband, and—­if the gods should grant it—­their children, might inhabit it!  But even Melissa and Diodoros made a fine couple, and she tried with all her heart not to grudge her all the happiness that she had wished for her own child.