ust rise to secure a favorable
inundation--clambered and played to the delight of their noble father
Nile and of themselves. From the vase which supported the arm of the
venerable god flowed an abundant stream of cold water, which five pretty
lads received in slender alabaster vases, and poured over the head and
the enormously prominent muscles of the breast, the back and the arms of
the young king who was taking his bath.

"More, more--again and again," cried Euergetes, as the boys began to
pause in bringing and pouring the water; and then, when they threw a
fresh stream over him, he snorted and plunged with satisfaction, and
a perfect shower of jets splashed off him as the blast of his breath
sputtered away the water that fell over his face.

At last he shouted out: "Enough!" flung himself with all his force into
the water, that spurted up as if a huge block of stone had been thrown
into it, held his head for a long time under water, and then went up the
marble steps of the bath shaking his head violently and mischievously in
his boyish insolence, so as thoroughly to wet his friends and servants
who were standing round the margin of the basin; he suffered himself to
be wrapped in snowy-white sheets of the thinnest and finest linen, to
be sprinkled with costly essences of delicate odor, and then he withdrew
into a small room hung all round with gaudy hangings.

There he flung himself on a mound of soft cushions, and said with a
deep-drawn breath: "Now I am happy; and I am as sober again as a baby
that has never tasted anything but its mother's milk. Pindar is right!
there is nothing better than water! and it slakes that raging fire which
wine lights up in our brain and blood. Did I talk much nonsense just
now, Hierax?"

The man thus addressed, the commander-in-chief of the royal troops,
and the king's particular friend, cast a hesitating glance at the
bystanders; but, Euergetes desiring him to speak without reserve, he
replied:

"Wine never weakens the mind of such as you are to the point of folly,
but you were imprudent. It would be little short of a miracle if
Philometor did not remark--"

"Capital!" interrupted the king sitting up on his cushions. "You,
Hierax, and you, Komanus, remain here--you others may go. But do not
go too far off, so as to be close at hand in case I should need you. In
these days as much happens in a few hours as usually takes place in as
many years."

Those who were thus dismissed wi