en of darker presage.

But Beryllus gazed at her with a pitying smile, which so roused the
expectations of the others that the overseer of the litter and baggage
porters, who were talking loudly together, hoarsely shouted, "Silence!"

Soon no sound was heard in the open space save the shrill whistling of
the wind, a word of command to the harbour-guards, and the freedman's
voice, which he lowered to increase the charm of the mysterious events he
was describing.

He began with the most fulsome praise of Cleopatra and Antony, reminding
his hearers that the Imperator was a descendant of Herakles. The
Alexandrians especially were aware that their Queen and Antony claimed
and desired to be called "The new Isis" and "The new Dionysus." But every
one who beheld the Roman must admit that in face and figure he resembled
a god far more than a man.

The Imperator had appeared as Dionysus, especially to the Athenians. In
the proscenium of the theatre in that city was a huge bas-relief of the
Battle of the Giants, the famous work of an ancient sculptor--he,
Beryllus, had seen it--and from amid the numerous figures in this piece
of sculpture the tempest had torn but a single one--which? Dionysus, the
god as whose mortal image Antony had once caroused in a vine-clad arbour
in the presence of the Athenians. The storm to-night was at the utmost
like the breath of a child, compared with the hurricane which could wrest
from the hard marble the form of Dionysus. But Nature gathers all her
forces when she desires to announce to short-sighted mortals the approach
of events which are to shake the world.

The last words were quoted from his master who had studied in Athens.
They had escaped from his burdened soul when he heard of another portent,
of which a ship from Ostia had brought tidings. The flourishing city
Pisaura--

Here, however, he was interrupted, for several of those present had
learned, weeks before, that this place had sunk in the sea, but merely
pitied the unfortunate inhabitants.

Beryllus quietly permitted them to free themselves from the suspicion
that people in Alexandria had had tidings of so remarkable an event later
than those in Pelusium, and at first answered their query what this had
to do with the war merely by a shrug of the shoulders; but when the
overseer of the porters also put the question, he went on "The omen made
a specially deep impression upon our minds, for we know what Pisaura is,
or rather how it