he Queen is
unwilling to use violence towards the old man. She is just, and perhaps
other reasons, of which I am ignorant, influence her. So I promised to
look for another site, though I saw how much she desired to have her
tomb connected with the sanctuary of her favourite goddess Then--I have
already told the clever brown witch--then the immortals, Divinity,
Fate, or whatever we call the power which guides the world and our
lives according to eternal laws and its own mysterious, omnipotent will,
permitted a rascally deed, from which I think may come deliverance for
you and a source of pleasure to the Queen in these days of trial."

"Man, man! Where will this new passion lead you? The horses are stamping
impatiently outside; duty summons the most faithful of men, and he
stands like a prophet, indulging in mysterious sayings!"

"Whose meaning and purport, spite of your calm calculations of existing
circumstances, will soon seem no less wonderful to you than to me, whose
unruly artist nature, according to your opinion, is playing me a trick,"
retorted the architect. "Now listen to this explanation: Didymus's house
will be occupied at once by my workmen, but I shall examine the lower
rooms of the Temple of Isis. I have with me a document requiring
obedience to my orders. Cleopatra herself laid the plans before me, even
the secret portion showing the course of the subterranean chambers. It
will cast some light upon my mysterious sayings if I bear you away
from the enemy through one of the secret corridors. They were right in
concealing from you by how slender a thread, spite of the power of your
example in mathematics, the sword hangs above your head. Now that I see
a possibility of removing it, I can show it to you. Tomorrow you would
have fallen, without hope of rescue, into the hands of cruel foes and
been shamefully abandoned by your own weak uncle, had not the most
implacable of all your enemies permitted himself the infamous pleasure
of laying hands on an old man's house, and the Queen, in consequence
of an agitating message, had the idea suggested of building her own
mausoleum. The corridor"--here he lowered his voice--"of which I spoke
leads to the sea at a spot close beside Didymus's garden, and through
it I will guide you, and, if possible, Barine also, to the shore. This
could be accomplished in the usual way only by the greatest risk. If
we use the passage we can reach a dark place on the strand unseen, and
un