ou
to seek them out."

"That is as you please," answered Marcus hotly. "All your mockery will
not prevent my doing my duty."

"Very right, very right," said his brother. "Perhaps this damsel is
unlike all the other singing-girls with whom I used so often to spend
a jolly evening in my younger days. Once, at Barca, I saw a white
raven--but perhaps after all it was only a dove. Your opinion, in this
case, is at any rate better founded than mine, for I never thought twice
about the girl and you did.--But it is late; till to-morrow, Marcus."

The brothers parted for the night, but when Demetrius found himself
alone he walked up and down the room, shaking his head doubtfully.
Presently, when his body-slave came in to pack for him, he called out
crossly:

"Let that alone--I shall stay in Alexandria a few days longer."

Marcus could not go to bed; his brother's scorn had shaken his soul
to the foundations. An inward voice told him that his more experienced
senior might be right, but at the same time he hated and contemned
himself for listening to its warnings at all. The curse that rested on
Dada was that of her position; she herself was pure--as pure as a lily,
as pure as the heart of a child, as pure as the blue of her eyes and
the ring of her voice. He would obey the angel's behest! He could and he
must save her!

In the greatest excitement he went out of the house, through the great
gate, into the Canopic way, and walked on. As he was about to turn down
a side street to go to the lake he found the road stopped by soldiers,
for this street led past the prefect's house where Cynegius, the
Emperor's emissary, was staying; he had come, it was said, to close the
Temples, and the excited populace had gathered outside the building,
during the afternoon, to signify their indignant disapprobation. At
sundown an armed force had been called out and had dispersed the crowd;
but it was by another road that the young Christian at length made his
way to the shore.

CHAPTER VII.

While Marcus was restlessly wandering on the shore of Mareotis, dreaming
of Dada's image and arranging speeches of persuasive eloquence by which
to touch her heart and appeal to her soul, silence had fallen on the
floating home of the singers. A light white mist, like a filmy veil--a
tissue of clouds and moonbeams--hung over the lake. Work was long since
over in the ship-yard, and the huge skeletons of the unfinished ships
threw weird and ghostly