an army of them. They make the chorus in celebrations. This is
their home. Sometimes they wander off to other cities, but all
they make is brought here to enrich the house of the divine
musician. Shall we go now?"

Next minute the two were gone.

Ben-Hur took comfort in the assurance that no one was ever lost
in Daphne, and he, too, set out--where, he knew not.

A sculpture reared upon a beautiful pedestal in the garden attracted
him first. It proved to be the statue of a centaur. An inscription
informed the unlearned visitor that it exactly represented Chiron,
the beloved of Apollo and Diana, instructed by them in the mysteries
of hunting, medicine, music, and prophecy. The inscription also
bade the stranger look out at a certain part of the heavens, at a
certain hour of the clear night, and he would behold the dead alive
among the stars, whither Jupiter had transferred the good genius.

The wisest of the centaurs continued, nevertheless, in the service
of mankind. In his hand he held a scroll, on which, graven in Greek,
were paragraphs of a notice:

"O Traveller!
"Art thou a stranger?

"I. Hearken to the singing of the brooks, and fear not the rain of
the fountains; so will the Naiades learn to love thee.

"II. The invited breezes of Daphne are Zephyrus and Auster;
gentle ministers of life, they will gather sweets for thee;
when Eurus blows, Diana is elsewhere hunting; when Boreas
blusters, go hide, for Apollo is angry.

"III. The shades of the Grove are thine in the day; at night they
belong to Pan and his Dryades. Disturb them not.

"IV. Eat of the Lotus by the brooksides sparingly, unless thou
wouldst have surcease of memory, which is to become a child of
Daphne.

"V. Walk thou round the weaving spider--'tis Arachne at work for
Minerva.

"VI. Wouldst thou behold the tears of Daphne, break but a bud from
a laurel bough--and die.

"Heed thou!
"And stay and be happy."

Ben-Hur left the interpretation of the mystic notice to others
fast enclosing him, and turned away as the white bull was led by.
The boy sat in the basket, followed by a procession; after them again,
the woman with the goats; and behind her the flute and tabret players,
and another procession of gift-bringers.

"Whither go they?" asked a bystander.

Another made answer, "The bull to Father Jove; the goat--"

"Did not Apollo once k