maniples. Fate was stalking on its way, and no one could give
it pause.

The evening brought no coolness, and when it was already quite dark, as
her grandmother had not yet called her, Gorgo could no longer control
her increasing anxiety, so, after knocking in vain at the door of the
observatory, she went in. Her old nurse preceded her with a lamp,
and the two women stood dumb with consternation, for the old lady lay
senseless on the ground. Her head was thrown back against the seat of
the chair off which she had slipped, and her pale face was lifeless and
horrible to look at, with its half-closed eyes and dropped jaw.
Wine, water, and strong essences were all at hand, and they laid the
unconscious woman on a couch intended for the occasional use of the
wearied observer. In a few minutes they had succeeded in reviving the
old lady; but her eyes rested without recognition on the girl who knelt
by her side, and she murmured to herself: "The ravens--where are they
gone? Ravens!"

Her glance wandered round the room, to the tablets and rolls which had
been tossed off the couch and the table to make room for her, and for
the lamps and medicaments. They lay in disorder on the floor, and the
sight of this confusion produced a favorable excitement and reaction;
she succeeded in expressing herself in husky accents and broken, hardly
intelligible sentences, so far as to scold them sharply for their
irreverence for the precious documents, and for the disorder they had
created. The waiting-woman proceeded to pick them up: but Damia again
became unconscious. Gorgo bathed her brow and tried to pour some
wine between her teeth, but she clenched them too firmly, till the
slave-woman came to her assistance and they succeeded in making Damia
swallow a few drops. The old woman opened her eyes, smacking her tongue
feebly; but she took the cup into her own hand to hold it to her lips;
and though she trembled so that half the contents were spilt, she drank
eagerly till it was quite empty. "More," she gasped with the eagerness
of intense thirst, "more--I want drink!"

Gorgo gave her a second and a third draught which Damia drank with equal
eagerness; then, with a deep breath, she looked up fully conscious, at
her granddaughter.

"Thank you, child," she said. "Now I shall do very well for a little
while. The material world and all that belongs to it weighs us down and
clings to us like iron fetters. We may long and strive to be free, but
i