minutes the door was opened with a rattling of iron
bolts, and it was with a sigh of relief that they saw the old man come in
and none attempt to follow him.

When Horapollo entered the council-chamber he found the senators sitting
on their ivory chairs with as much dignified calm as though the meeting
had been uninterrupted; but at a sign from the president they all rose to
receive the old man, and he returned their greeting with reserve, as
homage due to him. He also accepted the raised seat, which the president
quitted in his honor while he himself took one of the ordinary chairs at
his side.

The negotiation began at once, and was not disturbed by the crowd, though
still from the market-place there came a ceaseless roar, like the
breaking of distant waves and the buzzing of thousands of swarming bees.

The sage began modestly, saying that he, in his simplicity, could not but
despair of finding any help where so many wise men had failed; he was
experienced only in the lore and mysteries of the Fathers, and he had
come thither merely to tell the council what they had considered
advisable in such cases, and to suggest that their example should be
followed.

He spoke low but fluently, and a murmur of approval followed; then, when
the president went on to speak of the low state of the Nile as the root
of all the evil, the old man interrupted him, begging them to begin by
considering the particular difficulties which they might attack by their
own efforts.

The pestilence was in possession of the city; he had just come through
the quarter that had been destroyed by the fire, and had seen above fifty
sick deprived of all care and reduced to destitution. Here something
could be done; here was a way of showing the angry populace that their
advisers and leaders were not sitting with their hands in their laps.

A councillor then proposed that the convent of St. Cecilia, or the now
deserted and dilapidated odeum should be given up to them; but Horapollo
objected explaining very clearly that such a crowd of sick in the midst
of the city would be highly dangerous to the healthy citizens. This
opinion was shared by his friend Philippus, who had indeed commended the
plan he had to propose as the only right one. Whither had their
forefathers transported, not merely their beneficent institutions, but
their vast temples and tomb-buildings which covered so much space? Always
to the desert outside the town. Arrianus had even writ