palaestra.

Hermon no longer needed him; for, besides his slave Patran, he found
the steward Gras, who, by his master's order, guided the blind man to
Archias's closed harmamaxa, which was waiting outside the building.

CHAPTER IX.

The sculptor's head was burning feverishly when he entered the vehicle.
He had never imagined that the consequences of his explanation would
be so terrible. During the drive--by no means a long one--to the great
harbour, he strove to collect his thoughts. Groaning aloud, he covered
his ears with his hands to shut out the shouts and hisses from the
palaestra, which in reality were no longer audible.

True, he would not need to expose himself to this uproar a second time,
yet if he remained in Alexandria the witticisms, mockery, and jibes of
the whole city, though in a gentler form, would echo hundreds of times
around him.

He must leave the city. He would have preferred to go on board the
staunch Tacheia and be borne far away with his uncle and Daphne, but he
was obliged to deny himself the fulfilment of this desire. He must now
think solely of regaining his sight.

Obedient to the oracle, he would go to the desert where from the
"starving sand" the radiant daylight was to rise anew for him.

There he would, at any rate, be permitted to recover the clearness
of perception and feeling which he had lost in the delirium of the
dissolute life of pleasure that he had led in the past. Pythagoras had
already forbidden the folly of spoiling the present by remorse; and
he, too, did not do this. It would have been repugnant to his genuinely
Greek nature. Instead of looking backward with peevish regret, his
purpose was to look with blithe confidence toward the future, and to do
his best to render it better and more fruitful than the months of revel
which lay behind him.

He could no longer imagine a life worth living without Daphne, and the
thought that if his uncle were robbed of his wealth he would become her
support cheered his heart. If the oracle did not fulfil its promise, he
would again appeal to medical skill, and submit even to the most severe
suffering which might be imposed upon him.

The drive to the great harbour was soon over, but the boat which lay
waiting for him had a considerable distance to traverse, for the Tacheia
was no longer at the landing place, but was tacking outside the Pharos,
in order, if the warrant of arrest were issued, not to be stopped at
the channel d