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
Without a word of explanation, Hermon dragged his guide along inbreathless haste. No one stopped them.
The atrium, usually swarming with guards, servants, and officials until afar later hour, was completely deserted when the blind man hurriedthrough it with his friend.
The door leading into the outer air stood open, but Hermon, leaning onthe scholar's arm, had scarcely crossed the threshold and entered thelittle courtyard encircled with ornamental plants, which separated thisportion of the palace from the street, when both were surrounded by aband of armed Macedonian soldiers, whose commander exclaimed: "In thename of the King! Not a sound, if you value your lives!"
Incensed, and believing that there was some mistake, Hermon announcedhimself as a sculptor and Crates as a member of the Museum, but thisstatement did not produce the slightest effect upon the warrior; nay,when the friends answered the officer's inquiry whether they were comingfrom Proclus's banquet in the affirmative; he curtly commanded them to beput in chains.
To offer resistance would have been madness, for even Hermon perceived,by the loud clanking of weapons around them, the greatly superior powerof the enemy, and they were acting by the orders of the King. "To theprison near the place of execution!" cried the officer; and now not onlythe mythograph, but Hermon also was startled—this dungeon opened only tothose sentenced to death.
Was he to be led to the executioner's block? A cold shudder ran throughhis frame; but the next moment he threw back his waving locks, and hischest heaved with a long breath.
What pleasure had life to offer him, the blind man, who was already deadto his art? Ought he not to greet this sudden end as a boon from theimmortals?
Did it not spare him a humiliation as great and painful as could beimagined?
He had already taken care that the false renown should not follow himto the grave, and Myrtilus should have his just due, and he would dowhatever else lay in his power to further this object. Wherever thebeloved dead might be, he desired to go there also. Whatever might awaithim, he desired no better fate. If he had passed into annihilation, he,Hermon, wished to follow him thither, and annihilation certainly meantredemption from pain and misery. But if he were destined to meet hisMyrtilus and his mother in the world beyond the grave, what had he not totell them, how sure he was of finding a joyful reception there from both!The power which delivered him over to death just at that moment was notNemesis—no, it was a kindly deity.
Only his heart grew heavy at the thought of leaving Daphne to thetireless wooer Philotas or some other—everything else from which it isusually hard to part seemed like a burden that we gladly cast aside.
"Forward!" he called blithely and boldly to the officer; while Crates,with loud lamentations, was protesting his innocence to the warrior whowas putting fetters upon him.
A chain was just being clasped around Hermon's wrists also when hesuddenly started. His keen ear could not deceive him, and yet a demonmust be mocking him, for the voice that had called his name was