scorching day.

As she now again stood still, straining her eyes which were growing more
accustomed to the darkness, to discover one of the temples at the end of
the alley of sphinxes, suddenly and unexpectedly at her right hand a
solemn and many-voiced hymn of lamentation fell upon her ear. This was
from the priests of Osiris-Apis who were performing the sacred mysteries
of their god, at midnight, on the roof of the temple. She knew the hymn
well--a lament for the deceased Osiris which implored him with urgent
supplication to break the power of death, to rise again, to bestow new
light and new vitality on the world and on men, and to vouchsafe to all
the departed a new existence.

The pious lament had a powerful effect on her excited spirit. Her parents
too perhaps had passed through death, and were now taking part in the
conduct of the destiny of the world and of men in union with the life
giving God. Her breath came fast, she threw up her arms, and, for the
first time since in her wrath she had turned her back on the holy of
holies in the temple of Serapis, she poured forth her whole soul with
passionate fervor in a deep and silent prayer for strength to fulfil her
duty to the end,--for some sign to show her the way to save Irene from
misfortune, and Publius from death. And as she prayed she felt no longer
alone--no, it seemed to her that she stood face to face with the
invincible Power which protects the good, in whom she now again had
faith, though for Him she knew no name; as a daughter, pursued by foes,
might clasp her powerful father's knees and claim his succor.

She had not stood thus with uplifted arms for many minutes when the moon,
once more appearing, recalled her to herself and to actuality. She now
perceived close to her, at hardly a hundred paces from where she stood,
the line of sphinxes by the side of which lay the tombs of Apis near
which she was to await Publius. Her heart began to beat faster again, and
her dread of her own weakness revived. In a few minutes she must meet the
Roman, and, involuntarily putting up her hand to smooth her hair, she was
reminded that she still wore Glaucus' hat on her head and his cloak
wrapped round her shoulders. Lifting up her heart again in a brief prayer
for a calm and collected mind, she slowly arranged her dress and its
folds, and as she did so the key of the tomb-cave, which she still had
about her, fell under her hand. An idea flashed through her brain--she
c