ly hitherto the Muse had denied him success in awakening
pleasure, and blindness would put an end to creating anything of his
own.

The more vividly he recalled to memory his own work and his friend's,
the more probable appeared his disquieting supposition.

He also saw Myrtilus's figure before him, and in imagination heard his
friend again promise that, with the Arachne, he would wrest the prize
even from him.

During the terrible events of the last hours he had thought but seldom
and briefly of the weaver, whom it had seemed a rare piece of good
fortune to be permitted to represent. Now the remembrance of her took
possession of his soul with fresh power.

The image of Arachne illumined by the lamplight, which Althea had showed
him, appeared like worthless jugglery, and he soon drove it back into
the darkness which surrounded him. Ledscha's figure, however, rose
before him all the more radiantly. The desire to possess her had flown
to the four winds; but he thought he had never before beheld anything
more peculiar, more powerful, or better worth modelling than the
Biamite girl as he saw her in the Temple of Nemesis, with uplifted hand,
invoking the vengeance of the goddess upon him, and there--he discovered
it now--Daphne was not at all mistaken. Images never presented
themselves as distinctly to those who could see as to the blind man
in his darkness. If he was ever permitted to receive his sight, what a
statue of the avenging goddess he could create from this greatest event
in the history of his vision!

After this work--of that he was sure--he would no longer need the
borrowed fame which, moreover, he rejected with honest indignation.

CHAPTER III.

It must be late, for Hermon felt the cool breeze, which in this region
rose between midnight and sunrise, on his burned face and, shivering,
drew his mantle closer round him.

Yet it seemed impossible to return to the cabin; the memory of Ledscha
imploring vengeance, and the stern image of the avenging goddess in the
cella of the little Temple of Nemesis, completely mastered him. In
the close cabin these terrible visions, united with the fear of having
reaped undeserved praise, would have crouched upon his breast like
harpies and stifled or driven him mad. After what had happened, to
number the swift granting of the insulted Biamite's prayer among the
freaks of chance was probably a more arbitrary and foolish proceeding
than, with so many others, to recog