he
desert do you break his neck with the sand-bag. We have plenty of time
yet, for it must still be a good half hour before midnight."

"So much the better," said the other. "Our wine-jar is not nearly empty
yet, and we paid the lazy landlord for it in advance, before he crept
into bed."

"You shall only drink two cups more," said the punier villain. "For this
time we have to do with a sturdy fellow, Setnam is not with us now to
lend a hand in the work, and the dead meat must show no gaping thrusts
or cuts. My teeth are not like yours when you are fasting--even cooked
food must not be too tough for them to chew it, now-a-days. If you soak
yourself in drink and fail in your blow, and I am not ready with the
poisoned stiletto the thing won't come off neatly. But why did not the
Roman let his chariot wait?"

"Aye! why did he let it go away?" asked the other staring open-mouthed
in the direction where the sound of wheels was still to be heard. His
companion mean while laid his hand to his ear, and listened. Both were
silent for a few minutes, then the thin one said:

"The chariot has stopped at the first tavern. So much the better. The
Roman has valuable cattle in his shafts, and at the inn down there,
there is a shed for horses. Here in this hole there is hardly a stall
for an ass, and nothing but sour wine and mouldy beer. I don't like the
rubbish, and save my coin for Alexandria and white Mariotic; that is
strengthening and purifies the blood. For the present I only wish we
were as well off as those horses; they will have plenty of time to
recover their breath."

"Yes, plenty of time," answered the other with a broad grin, and then he
with his companion withdrew into the room to fill his cup.

Klea too could hear that the chariot which had brought her hither,
had halted at the farther tavern, but it did not occur to her that
the driver had gone in to treat himself to wine with half of Irene's
drachma. The horses should make up for the lost time, and they could
easily do it, for when did the king's banquets ever end before midnight?

As soon as Plea saw that the assassins were filling their earthen cups,
she slipped softly on tiptoe behind the tavern; the moon came out from
behind the clouds for a few minutes, she sought and found the short way
by the desert-path to the Apis-tombs, and hastened rapidly along it. She
looked straight before her, for whenever she glanced at the road-side,
and her eye was caught by so