oved?

Archibius had remarked that Barine would be glad to greet her most
intimate friends--among whom he was included--in her quiet country.

Dion did not doubt this, but he was equally sure that the greeting would
bind him to her and rub him of his liberty, perhaps forever. But would
the Alexandrian possess the lofty gift of freedom, if the Romans
ruled his city as they governed Carthage or Corinth? If Cleopatra were
defeated, and Egypt became a Roman province, a share in the business of
the council, which was still addressed as "Macedonian men," and which
was dear to Dion, could offer nothing but humiliation, and no longer
afford satisfaction.

If a pirate's spear put an end to bondage under the Roman yoke and to
this unworthy yearning and wavering, so much the better!

On this autumn morning, under this grey sky, from which sank a damp,
light fog, with these hopes and fears in his heart, he beheld in both
the present and future naught save shadows.

The Epicurus overtook and captured the fugitive. The slight resistance
the vessel might have offered was relinquished when Archibius's helmsman
shouted that the Epicurus did not belong to the royal navy, and had come
in search of news.

The Cilician took in his oars; Archibius and Dion entered the vessel and
questioned the commander.

He was an old, weather-beaten seaman, who would give no information
until after he had learned what his pursuers really desired.

At first he protested that he had witnessed on the Peloponnesian coast
a great victory gained by the Egyptian galleys over those commanded
by Octavianus; but the queries of the two friends involved him in
contradictions, and he then pretended to know nothing, and to have
spoken of a victory merely to please the Alexandrian gentlemen.

Dion, accompanied by a few men from the crew of the Epicurus, searched
the ship, and found in the little cabin a man bound and gagged, guarded
by one of the pirates.

It was a sailor from the Pontus, who spoke only his native language.
Nothing intelligible could be obtained from him; but there were
important suggestions in a letter, found in a chest in the cabin, among
clothing, jewels, and other stolen articles.

The letter-Dion could scarcely believe his own eyes-was addressed to his
friend, the architect Gorgias. The pirate, being ignorant of writing,
had not opened it, but Dion tore the wax from the cord without delay.
Aristocrates, the Greek rhetorician, who had ac