en were
absorbed in convincing each other, by a hundred arguments which they had
picked up during the last day or two, how inevitably the earth must be
annihilated if the statue of Serapis should be overthrown. In the warmth
of their discussion they paid no heed to the young girl, who was sitting
on a fallen Hermes by the road-side. Her vigorous and lively temperament
rendered her little apt to dream, or even meditate, in broad daylight;
but the heat and the recent excitement had overwrought her and she felt
into a drowsy reverie. Now and again, as her heavy head drooped on her
breast, she fancied the Serapeum had actually fallen; then, as she raised
it again, she recovered her consciousness that it was hot, that she had
lost her home, and that she must, however unwillingly, return with
Medius. But at length her eyelids closed, and as she sat in the full
blaze of the sun, a rosy light filled her eyes and a bright vision
floated before her: Marcus took the modius--the corn measure--from the
head of the statue of Serapis and offered it to her; it was quite full of
lilies and roses and violets, and she was delighted with the flowers and
thanked him warmly when he set the modius down before her. He held out
his hands to her calmly and kindly, and she gave him hers, feeling very
happy under the steady, compassionate gaze of his large eyes which had
often watched her, on board ship, for some minutes at a time. She longed
to say something to him, but she could not speak; and she looked on quite
unmoved as the statue of the god and the hall in which it stood were
wrapt in flames. No smoke mingled with this clear and genial blaze, but
it compelled her to shade her dazzled eyes; and as she lifted her hand
she woke to see Medius standing in front of her.

He desired her to come home with him at once, and she rose to obey,
listening in silence to his assurances that the lives of Karnis and
Orpheus would not be worth a sesterce if they fell into the hands of the
Roman soldiers.

She walked on, more hopeless and depressed than she had ever felt in her
life before, past the unfinished hulks in the ship-yard where no one was
at work to-day when, coming down the lane that divided the wharf from the
temple precincts, she saw an old man and a little boy. She had not time
to ask herself whether she saw rightly or was mistaken before the child
caught sight of her, snatched his hand away from that of his companion,
and flew towards her, sho