elaxed, as she saw in fancy the young man's beseeching look, and
remembered the praise given him by the recluse, and as--in the middle of
this train of thought--her eyes closed again, slumber once more falling
upon her spirit for a few minutes, she saw in her dream Publius himself,
who approached her with a firm step, took her in his arms like a child,
held her wrists to stop her struggling hands, gathered her up with rough
force, and then flung her into a canoe lying at anchor by the bank of the
Nile.

She fought with all her might against this attack and seizure, screamed
aloud with fury, and woke at the sound of her own voice. Then she got up,
dried her eyes that were wet with tears, and, after laying a freshly
wetted cloth on the child's throat, she went out of doors in obedience to
the physician's advice.

The sun was already at the meridian, and its direct rays were fiercely
reflected from the slabs of yellow sandstone that paved the forecourt. On
one side only of the wide, unroofed space, one of the colonnades that
surrounded it threw a narrow shade, hardly a span wide; and she would not
go there, for under it stood several beds on which lay pilgrims who, here
in the very dwelling of the divinity, hoped to be visited with dreams
which might give them an insight into futurity.

Klea's head was uncovered, and, fearing the heat of noon, she was about
to return into the door-keeper's house, when she saw a young white-robed
scribe, employed in the special service of Asclepiodorus, who came across
the court beckoning eagerly to her. She went towards him, but before he
had reached her he shouted out an enquiry whether her sister Irene was in
the gate-keeper's lodge; the high-priest desired to speak with her, and
she was nowhere to be found. Klea told him that a grand lady from the
queen's court had already enquired for her, and that the last time she
had seen her had been before daybreak, when she was going to fill the
jars for the altar of the god at the Well of the Sun.

"The water for the first libation," answered the priest, "was placed on
the altar at the right time, but Doris and her sister had to fetch it for
the second and third. Asclepiodorus is angry--not with you, for he knows
from Imhotep that you are taking care of a sick child--but with Irene.
Try and think where she can be. Something serious must have occurred that
the high-priest wishes to communicate to her."

Klea was startled, for she remembered I