als of
rest, but they were long enough to show her how the sufferer's strength
was failing. When they at last reached their destination, Philotas was
forced to exert all his strength to support the exhausted man, while
Gorgias cautiously opened the door. It led to a flight of sea-washed
steps close to the garden of Didymus, which as a child she had often
used with her brother to float a little boat upon the water.

The architect opened the door only a short distance; he was expected,
for Barine soon heard him whisper, and suddenly the door was flung wide.
A tall man raised Dion and bore him into the open air. While she was
still gazing after him, a second figure of equal size approached her
and, hastily begging her permission, lifted her in his arms like a
child, and as she inhaled the cool night air and felt the water through
which her bearer waded splash up and wet her feet, her eyes sought her
new-made husband--but in vain; the night was very dark, and the lights
on the shore did not reach this spot so far below the walls of the quay.

Barine was frightened; but a few minutes after the outlines of a large
fishing boat loomed through the darkness, dimly illumined by the harbour
lights, and the next instant the giant who carried her placed her on the
deck, and a deep voice whispered: "All's well. I'll bring some wine at
once."

Then Barine saw her husband lying motionless on a couch which had
been prepared for him in the prow of the boat. Bending over him, she
perceived that he had fainted, and while rubbing his forehead with the
wine, raising his head on her lap, cheering him, and afterwards by the
light of a small lantern carefully renewing the bandage on his shoulder,
she did not notice that the vessel was moving through the water until
the boatman set the triangular sail.

She had not been told where the boat was bearing her, and she did not
ask. Any spot that she could share with Dion was welcome. The more
lonely the place, the more she could be to him. How her heart swelled
with gratitude and love! When she bent over him, kissed his forehead,
and felt how feverishly it burned, she thought, "I will nurse you back
to health," and raised her eyes and soul to her favourite god, to whom
she owed the gift of song, and who understood everything beautiful and
pure, to thank Phoebus Apollo and beseech him to pour his rays the next
morning on a convalescent man. While she was still engaged in prayer the
boat touched th