tracted attention and been dangerous. Courage, young wife of Dion! The
corridor is long, and walking through it is difficult; but compared with
the road to the mines, it is as smooth and easy as the Street of the
King. If you think of your destination, the bats will seem like the
swallows which announce the approach of spring."

Barine nodded gratefully to him; but she kissed the hand of Dion, who was
moving forward painfully, leaning on the arm of his friend. The light of
the torch carried by Gorgias's faithful foreman, who led the way, had
fallen on her blackened arm, and when the little party advanced she kept
behind the others. She thought it might be unpleasant for her lover to
see her thus disfigured, and spared him, though she would gladly have
remained nearer. As soon as the passage grew lower, the wounded man's
friends took him in their arms, and their task was a hard one, for they
were not only obliged to move onward bending low under the heavy burden,
but also to beat off the bats which, frightened by the foreman's torch,
flew up in hosts.

Barine's hair was covered, it is true, but at any other time the hideous
creatures, which often brushed against her head and arms, would have
filled her with horror and loathing. Now she scarcely heeded them; her
eyes were fixed on the recumbent figure in the bearers' arms, the man to
whom she belonged, body and soul, and whose patient suffering pierced her
inmost heart. His head rested on the breast of Gorgias, who walked
directly in front of her; the architect's stooping posture concealed his
face, but his feet were visible and, whenever they twitched, she fancied
he was in pain. Then she longed to press forward to his side, wipe the
perspiration from his brow in the hot, low corridor, and whisper words of
love and encouragement.

This she was sometimes permitted to do when the friends put down their
heavy burden. True, they allowed themselves only brief intervals of rest,
but they were long enough to show her how the sufferer's strength was
failing. When they at last reached their destination, Philotas was forced
to exert all his strength to support the exhausted man, while Gorgias
cautiously opened the door. It led to a flight of sea-washed steps close
to the garden of Didymus, which as a child she had often used with her
brother to float a little boat upon the water.

The architect opened the door only a short distance; he was expected, for
Barine soon heard him wh