they reached the graveyard. But even now they could not make
their way to the long row of houses where the embalmers dwelt, for an
impenetrable mass of human beings stood pent up in front of them, and
Melissa begged her brother to give her a moment's breathing space.

All she had seen and heard on the way had excited her greatly; but she
had scarcely for a moment forgotten what it was that had brought her out
so late, who it was that she sought, or that it would need her utmost
endeavor to free him from the delusion that had fooled him. In this dense
throng and deafening tumult it was scarcely possible to recover that
collected calm which she had found in the morning at her mother's tomb.
In that, doubt had had no part, and the delightful feeling of freedom
which had shone on her soul, now shrank deep into the shade before a
growing curiosity and the longing for her usual repose.

If her father were to find her here! When she saw a tall figure
resembling his cross the torchlight, all clouded as it was by the dust,
she drew her brother away behind the stall of a seller of drinks and
other refreshments. The father, at any rate, must be spared the distress
she felt about Philip, who was his favorite. Besides, she knew full well
that, if he met her here, he would at once take her home.

The question now was where Philip might be found.

They were standing close to the booths where itinerant dealers sold food
and liquors of every description, flowers and wreaths, amulets and
papyrus-leaves, with strange charms written on them to secure health for
the living and salvation for the souls of the dead. An astrologer, who
foretold the course of a man's life from the position of the planets, had
erected a high platform with large tables displayed to view, and the
instrument wherewith he aimed at the stars as it were with a bow; and his
Syrian slave, accompanying himself on a gayly-painted drum, proclaimed
his master's powers. There were closed tents in which magical remedies
were to be obtained, though their open sale was forbidden by the
authorities, from love-philters to the wondrous fluid which, if rightly
applied, would turn lead, copper, or silver to gold. Here, old women
invited the passer-by to try Thracian and other spells; there, magicians
stalked to and fro in painted caps and flowing, gaudy robes, most of them
calling themselves priests of some god of the abyss. Men of every race
and tongue that dwelt in the north of A