obably every man thought that, in the same situation, he would have
done the same yet not only justice--nay, compassion--dictated showing the
blind artist that they believed in and would sustain him. The
ill-disposed insisted that Hermon had only done what duty commanded the
meanest man, and the fact that he had deceived all Alexandria still
remained. Not a few joined this party, for larger possession excite envy
perhaps even more frequently than greater fame.

Soon the approving and opposing voices mingled in an actual conflict. But
before the famous sculptor Chares, the great and venerable artist Nicias,
and several younger friends of Hermon quelled this unpleasant disturbance
of the beautiful festival, the blind man, leaning on the arm of his
fellow-artist Soteles, had left the palaestra.

At the exit he, parted from his friend, who had been made happy by the
ability to absolve his more distinguished leader from the reproach of
having become faithless to their common purpose, and who intended to
intercede further in his behalf in the palaestra.

Hermon no longer needed him; for, besides his slave Patran, he found the
steward Gras, who, by his master's order, guided the blind man to
Archias's closed harmamaxa, which was waiting outside the building.

CHAPTER IX.

The sculptor's head was burning feverishly when he entered the vehicle.
He had never imagined that the consequences of his explanation would be
so terrible. During the drive--by no means a long one--to the great
harbour, he strove to collect his thoughts. Groaning aloud, he covered
his ears with his hands to shut out the shouts and hisses from the
palaestra, which in reality were no longer audible.

True, he would not need to expose himself to this uproar a second time,
yet if he remained in Alexandria the witticisms, mockery, and jibes of
the whole city, though in a gentler form, would echo hundreds of times
around him.

He must leave the city. He would have preferred to go on board the
staunch Tacheia and be borne far away with his uncle and Daphne, but he
was obliged to deny himself the fulfilment of this desire. He must now
think solely of regaining his sight.

Obedient to the oracle, he would go to the desert where from the
"starving sand" the radiant daylight was to rise anew for him.

There he would, at any rate, be permitted to recover the clearness of
perception and feeling which he had lost in the delirium of the dissolute
life of pl