here."

"And her adopted daughter, Selene?"

"She is gone with her into Upper Egypt. Have you any message for her?"

"No," said the lad, quite confounded.

"When did they go?"

"The day before yesterday."

"And they are not coming back."

"For the next few years, certainly not. Later may be, if it is the Lord's
pleasure."

Antinous left the garden by the public gate, unmolested. He was very
pale, and he felt like a wanderer in the desert who finds the spring
choked where he had hoped to find a refreshing draught.

Next day, at the first moment he could dispose of, Antinous again knocked
at the carpenter's door to inquire in what town of Upper Egypt the
travellers proposed to settle and the artisan told him frankly, "In
Besa."

Antinous had always been a dreamer, but Hadrian had never seen him so
listless, so vaguely brooding as in these days. When he tried to rouse
him and spur him to greater energy his favorite would look at him
beseechingly, and though he made every effort to be of use to him and to
show him a cheerful countenance it was always with but brief success.
Even on the hunting excursions into the Libyan desert which the Emperor
frequently made, Antinous remained apathetic and indifferent to the
pleasures of the sport to which he had formerly devoted himself with
enjoyment and skill.

The Emperor had remained in Alexandria longer than in any other place,
and was weary of festivities and banquets, of the wordy war with the
philosophers of the Museum, of conversing with the ecstatic mystics, the
soothsayers; astrologers and empirics with whom the place swarmed. And
the short audiences which he accorded to the heads of the different
religious communities, and the inspection of the factories and workshops
of this centre of industry, began to annoy him. One day he announced his
intention of visiting the southern provinces of the Nile valley.

The high-priests of the native Egyptian faith had craved this favor of
him, and he was prompted, not only by his love of information and passion
for travelling, but also by considerations of state-craft, to gratify
this desire of a hierarchy which was extremely influential in those rich
and important provinces. The prospect of seeing with his own eyes those
marvels of Pharaonic times which attracted so many travellers, was also
an incitement, and his good spirits rose as soon as he observed what a
reviving effect his determination to visit southern Egypt had u