he
brooch breaks. She vehemently shook herself free of her lover's embrace,
and her eyes glanced from one to another in rapid search.

There stood pretty Ino, who had danced the mazy measure with Alexander.
Panting for breath, she stood leaning her weary head and tangled hair
against the trunk of the tree, a wine-cup upside down in her right hand.
It must be empty; but where was he who had emptied it?

Her neighbor's daughter would surely know. Had the reckless youth
quarreled with the girl? No, no!

One of the tavern-keeper's slaves, Ino told her, had whispered something
to Alexander, whereupon he had instantly followed the man into the
house. Melissa knew that it could be no trivial matter which detained
him there, and hurried after him into the tavern.

The host, a Greek, and his buxom wife, affected not to know for whom she
was inquiring; but, perceiving the anxiety which spoke in every line
of the girl's face, when she explained that she was Alexander's sister,
they at first looked at each other doubtingly, and then the woman, who
had children of her own, who fondly loved each other, felt her heart
swell within her, and she whispered, with her finger on her lips: "Do
not be uneasy, pretty maid; my husband will see him well through."

And then Melissa heard that the Egyptian, who had alarmed her in the
Nekropolis, was the spy Zminis, who, as her old slave Dido had once told
her, had been a rejected suitor of her mother's before she had married
Heron, and who was therefore always glad to bring trouble on all
who belonged to her father's house. How often had she heard of the
annoyances in which this man had involved her father and Alexander, who
were apt to be very short with the man!

This tale-bearer, who held the highest position as guardian of the peace
under the captain of the night-watch, was of all men in the city the
most hated and feared; and he had heard her brother speaking of Caesar
in a tone of mockery which was enough to bring him to prison, to the
quarries, nay, to death. Glaukias, the sculptor, had previously seen the
Egyptian on the bridge, where he had detained those who were returning
home from the city of the dead. He and his followers had already stopped
the poet Argeios on his way, but the thyrsus staves of the Dionysiac
revelers had somewhat spoiled the game for him and his satellites. He
was probably still standing on the bridge. Glaukias had immediately run
back, at any risk, to warn Ale