h a person came to-day to see me at the door-keeper's lodge.
She was richly dressed and wore a gold crescent in her light wavy hair,
which was plaited with a silk ribband, and she asked me urgently about
my sister. Imhotep, the physician, who often visits at the king's
palace, saw her too, and told me her name is Zoe, and that she is
lady-in-waiting to Queen Cleopatra."

These words occasioned the greatest excitement throughout the conclave
of priests, and Asclepiodorus exclaimed:

"Oh! women, women! You indeed were right, Philammon; I could not and
would not believe it! Cleopatra has done many things which are forgiven
only in a queen, but that she should become the tool of her brother's
basest passions, even you, Philammon, could hardly regard as likely,
though you are always prepared to expect evil rather than good. But now,
what is to be done? How can we protect ourselves against violence and
superior force?"

Klea had appeared before the priests with cheeks crimson and glowing
from the noontide heat, but at the high-priest's last words the blood
left her face, she turned ashy-pale, and a chill shiver ran through her
trembling limbs. Her father's child--her bright, innocent Irene--basely
stolen for Euergetes, that licentious tyrant of whose wild deeds
Serapion had told her only last evening, when he painted the dangers
that would threaten her and Irene if they should quit the shelter of the
sanctuary.

Alas, it was too true! They had tempted away her darling child, her
comfort and delight, lured her with splendor and ease, only to sink
her in shame! She was forced to cling to the back of the chair she had
disdained, to save herself from falling.

But this weakness overmastered her for a few minutes only; she boldly
took two hasty steps up to the table behind which the high-priest
was sitting, and, supporting herself with her right hand upon it, she
exclaimed, while her voice, usually so full and sonorous, had a hoarse
tone:

"A woman has been the instrument of making another woman unworthy of the
name of woman! and you--you, the protectors of right and virtue--you who
are called to act according to the will and mind of the gods whom you
serve--you are too weak to prevent it? If you endure this, if you do
not put a stop to this crime you are not worthy--nay, I will not be
interrupted--you, I say, are unworthy of the sacred title and of the
reverence you claim, and I will appeal--"

"Silence, girl!" cried Asc