He thrummed his thyrsus as though he struck the strings of a lyre, and, having ended the dumb prelude, he sang: 

     “Wherein hath the knave Caracalla outdone Alexander? 
     He killed a brother, the hero a friend, in his rage.”

These lines, however, met with no applause; for they were not so lightly improvised as the former distich, and it was clumsy and tasteless, as well as dangerous thus to name, in connection with such a jest, the potentate at whom it was aimed.  And the fears of the jovial party were only too well founded, for a tall, lean Egyptian suddenly stood among the Greeks as if he had sprung from the earth.  They were sobered at once, and, like a swarm of pigeons on which a hawk swoops down, they dispersed in all directions.

Melissa beckoned to her brother to follow her; but the Egyptian intruder snatched the mantle, quick as lightning, from Alexander’s shoulders, and ran off with it to the nearest pine-torch.  The young man hurried after the thief, as he supposed him to be, but there the spy flung the cloak back to him, saying, in a tone of command, though not loud, for there were still many persons among the graves: 

“Hands off, son of Heron, unless you want me to call the watch!  I have seen your face by the light, and that is enough for this time.  Now we know each other, and we shall meet again in another place!”

With these words he vanished in the darkness, and Melissa asked, in great alarm: 

“In the name of all the gods, who was that?”

“Some rascally carpenter, or scribe, probably, who is in the service of the night-watch as a spy.  At least those sort of folks are often built askew, as that scoundrel was,” replied Alexander, lightly.  But he knew the man only too well.  It was Zminis, the chief of the spies to the night patrol; a man who was particularly inimical to Heron, and whose hatred included the son, by whom he had been befooled and misled in more than one wild ploy with his boon companions.  This spy, whose cruelty and cunning were universally feared, might do him a serious mischief, and he therefore did not tell his sister, to whom the name of Zminis was well known, who the listener was.

He cut short all further questioning by desiring her to come at once to the mortuary hall.

“And if we do not find him there,” she said, “let us go home at once; I am so frightened.”

“Yes, yes,” said her brother, vaguely.  “If only we could meet some one you could join.”

“No, we will keep together,” replied Melissa, decisively; and simply assenting, with a brief “All right,” the painter drew her arm through his, and they made their way through the now thinning crowd.

CHAPTER IV.