shadows on the silvered strand-forms like black
visions of crayfish, centipedes, or enormous spiders.

From the town there came not a sound; it lay in the silence of
intoxicated sleep. The Roman troops had cleared the streets, the lights
were dead in every house, and in all the alleys and squares; only the
moon shone over the roofs of Alexandria, while the blazing beacon of
the light-house on the north-eastern point of the island of Pharos shone
like a sun through the darkness.

In a large cabin in the stern of the vessel lay the two girls, on soft
woollen couches and covered with rugs. Agne was gazing wide-eyed into
the darkness; Dada had long been asleep, but she breathed painfully
and her rosy lips were puckered now and then as if she were in some
distress. She was dreaming of the infuriated mob who had snatched the
garland from her hair--she saw Marcus suddenly interfere to protect her
and rescue her from her persecutors--then she thought she had fallen off
the gangway that led from the land to the barge, and was in the water
while old Damia stood on the shore and laughed at her without trying
to help her. Night generally brought the child sound sleep or pleasant
dreams, but now one hideous face after another haunted her.

And yet the evening had brought her a great pleasure. Not long after
their return from their walk the steward had come down to the boat
and brought her a very beautiful dress, with greetings from his old
mistress; he had at the same time brought an Egyptian slave-woman, well
skilled in all the arts of the toilet, who was to wait upon her so long
as she remained in Alexandria. Dada had never owned such a lovely dress!
The under-robe was of soft sea-green bombyx silk, with a broad border,
delicately embroidered, of a garland of roses and buds. The peplos
was of the same color and decorated to match; costly clasps of mosaic,
representing full-blown roses and set in oval gold settings, fastened
it on the shoulders. In a separate case were a gold girdle, a bracelet,
also of gold, in the shape of a snake, a gold crescent with a rose,
like those on the shoulder-clasps, in its centre, and a metal mirror of
spotless lustre.

The slave, a middle-aged woman with a dark cunning face, had helped her
to put on this new garment; she had also insisted on dressing her hair,
and all the time had never ceased praising the charms that nature had
bestowed on her young mistress, with the zeal of a lover.

Agne ha