but regret that you have incurred
such risk, for it is always hazardous for a pretty young girl to venture
into this palace at a late hour, and particularly just now, for the
courts are swarming not only with Philometor's fighting men but with
those of his brother, who have come here for their sovereign's birthday
festival. The people have been liberally entertained, and the soldier
who has been sacrificing to Dionysus seizes the gifts of Eros and
Aphrodite wherever he may find them. I will at once take charge of my
brother's letter to the Roman Publius Cornelius Scipio, but when you
have received his answer you will do well to let yourself be escorted
to my wife or my sister, who both live in the city, and to remain till
to-morrow morning with one or the other. Here you cannot remain a minute
unmolested while I am away--Where now--Aye! The only safe shelter I
can offer you is the prison down there; the room where they lock up
the subaltern officers when they have committed any offence is quite
unoccupied, and I will conduct you thither. It is always kept clean, and
there is a bench in it too."

Klea followed her friend who, as his hasty demeanor plainly showed, had
been interrupted in important business. In a few steps they reached the
prison; she begged Glaucus to bring her the Roman's answer as quickly as
possible, declared herself quite ready to remain in the dark--since she
perceived that the light of a lamp might betray her, and she was not
afraid of the dark--and suffered herself to be locked in.

As she heard the iron bolt creak in its brass socket a shiver ran
through her, and although the room in which she found herself was
neither worse nor smaller than that in which she and her sister lived
in the temple, still it oppressed her, and she even felt as if an
indescribable something hindered her breathing as she said to herself
that she was locked in and no longer free to come and to go. A dim light
penetrated into her prison through the single barred window that opened
on to the court, and she could see a little bench of palm-branches on
which she sat down to seek the repose she so sorely needed. All sense
of discomfort gradually vanished before the new feeling of rest and
refreshment, and pleasant hopes and anticipations were just beginning
to mingle themselves with the remembrance of the horrors she had just
experienced when suddenly there was a stir and a bustle just in front
of the prison--and she could he