His wondering as to why Melissa had returned, had led to many guesses, and had proved fruitless.  “You can know nothing of women,” was the end of his reflections, “if you do not know that what seems most improbable is what is most likely to be true.  This maid is certainly not one of the flute-players or the like.  Who knows what incomprehensible whim or freak may have brought her here?  At any rate, it will be easier for her to keep her eyes open than it is for me.”

He then signed to her and asked her quietly to fetch his cloak out of the next room, for his old body needed warmth; and Melissa gladly complied, and laid the caracalla over the old mans cold feet with obliging care.

She then returned to the side of the sick-bed, to wait for the emperor’s awaking.  He slept soundly; his regular breathing indicated this.  The others also slept, and Adventus’s light snore, mingling with the louder snoring of the physician, showed that he too had ceased to watch.  The slumbering Philostratus now and then murmured incomprehensible words to himself; and the lion, who perhaps was dreaming of his freedom in his sandy home, whined low in his sleep.

She watched alone.

It seemed to her as if she were in the habitation of sleep, and as if phantoms and dreams were floating around her on the unfamiliar noises.

She was afraid, and the thought of being the only woman among so many men caused her extreme uneasiness.

She could not sit still.

Inaudibly as a shadow she approached the head of the sleeping emperor, holding her breath to listen to him.  How soundly he slept!  And she had come that she might talk to him.  If his sleep lasted till sunrise, the pardon for her people would be too late, and her father and Philip, chained to a hard bench, would have to ply heavy oars as galley slaves by the side of robbers and murderers.  How terribly then would her father’s wish to use his strength be granted!  Was Philip, the narrow-chested philosopher, capable of bearing the strain which had so often proved fatal to stronger men?

She must wake the dreaded man, the only man who could possibly help her.

She now raised her hand to lay it on his shoulder, but she half withdrew it.

It seemed to her as if it was not much less wicked to rob a sleeping man of his rest, his best cure, than to take the life of a living being.  It was not too late yet, for the harbor-chain would not be opened till the October sun had risen.  He might enjoy his slumbers a little longer.

With this conclusion she once more sank down and listened to the noises which broke the stillness of the night.

How hideous they were, how revolting they sounded!  The vulgarest of the sleepers, old Adventus, absolutely sawed the air with his snoring.