This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
The lady Euryale's silent prayer was interrupted by the return ofAlexander. He brought the clothes which Seleukus's wife had given himfor Melissa. He was already dressed in his best, and crowned like allthose who occupied the first seats in the Circus; but his festal garbaccorded ill with the pained look on his features, from which every tracehad vanished of the overflowing joy in life which had embellished themonly this morning.
He had seen and heard things which made him feel that it would no longerbe a sacrifice to give his life to save his sister.
Sad thoughts had flitted across his cheerful spirit like dark bats, evenwhile he was talking with Melissa and her protectress, for he knew wellhow infinitely hard his father would find it to have to quit Alexandria;and if he himself fled with Melissa he would be obliged to give up thewinning of fair Agatha. The girl's Christian father had indeed receivedhim kindly, but had given him to understand plainly enough that he wouldnever allow a professed heathen to sue for his daughter's hand. Besidesthis, he had met with other humiliations which placed themselves like awall between him and his beloved, the only child of a rich and respectedman. He had forfeited the right of appearing before Zeus as a suitor;for indeed he was no longer such as he had been only yesterday.
The news that Caracalla proposed to marry Melissa had been echoed byinsolent tongues, with the addition that he, Alexander, had ingratiatedhimself with Caesar by serving him as a spy. No one had expressly saidthis to him; but, while he was hurrying through the city in Caesar'schariot, on the ladies' message, it had been made very plain to hisapprehension. Honest men had avoided him—him to whom hitherto every onefor whose regard he cared had held out a friendly hand; and much elsethat he had experienced in the course of this drive had been unpleasantenough to give rise to a change of his whole inner being.
The feeling that every one was pointing at him the finger of scorn,or of wrath, had never ceased to pursue him. And he had been under noillusion; for when he met the old sculptor Lysander, who only yesterdayhad so kindly told him and Melissa about Caesar's mother, as he noddedfrom the chariot his greeting was not returned; and the honest artist hadwaved his hand with a gesture which no Alexandrian could fail tounderstand as meaning, "I no longer know you, and do not wish to berecognized by you."
He had from his childhood loved Diodoros as a brother, and in one of theside streets, down which the chariot had turned to avoid the tumult inthe Kanopic way, Alexander had seen his old friend. He had desired thecharioteer to stop, and had leaped out on the road to speak to Diodorosand give him at once Melissa's message; but the young man had turned hisback with evident displeasure, and to the painter's pathetic appeal,"But, at any rate, hear me!" he answered, sharply: "The less I hear ofyou and yours the better for me. Go on—go on, in Caesar's chariot!"
With this he had turned away and knocked at the door of an architect whowas known to them both; and Alexander, tortured with painful feelings,had gone on, and for the first time the idea had taken possession of himthat he had inde