fro by the
wind, steeped the horizon and the outer edge of the dark water in the
harbour with moving masses of light which irradiated the gloomy distance,
sometimes faintly, anon more brilliantly.

Spite of the late hour, the harbour was full of bustle, though the wind
often blew the men's cloaks over their heads, and the women were obliged
to gather their garments closely around them. True, at this hour commerce
had ceased; but many had gone to the port in search of news, or even to
greet before others the first ship returning from the victorious fleet;
for that Antony had defeated Octavianus in a great battle was deemed
certain.

Guards were watching the harbour, and a band of Syrian horsemen had just
passed from the barracks in the southern part of the Lochias to the
Temple of Poseidon.

Here the galleys lay at anchor, not in the harbour of Eunostus, which was
separated from the other by the broad, bridge-like dam of the
Heptastadium, that united the city and the island of Pharos. Near it were
the royal palaces and the arsenal, and any tidings must first reach this
spot. The other harbour was devoted to commerce, but, in order to prevent
the spread of false reports, newly arrived ships were forbidden to enter.

True, even at the great harbour, news could scarcely be expected, for a
chain stretching from the end of the Pharos to a cliff directly opposite
in the Alveus Steganus, closed the narrow opening. But it could be raised
if a state galley arrived with an important message, and this was
expected by the throng on the shore.

Doubtless many came from banquets, cookshops, taverns, or the nocturnal
meeting-places of the sects that practised the magic arts, yet the weight
of anxious expectation seemed to check the joyous activity, and wherever
Archibius glanced he beheld eager, troubled faces. The wind forced many
to bow their heads, and, wherever they turned their eyes, flags and
clouds of dust were fluttering in the air, increasing the confusion.

As the galley put off from the shore, and the flutes summoned the oarsmen
to their toil, its owner felt so disheartened that he did not even
venture to hope that he was going in quest of good tidings.

Long-vanished days had, as it were, been called from the grave, and many
a scene from the past rose before him as he lay among the cushions on the
poop, gazing at the sky, across which dark, swiftly sailing clouds
sometimes veiled the stars and again revealed them.