Book I

THE JOURNEY

I

THE SEA

A hot April sun shone full over the waters to the pencilled line of the southern horizon, where a long circle divided the misty, shimmering dove-color of the Mediterranean from the richer blue of the swelling sky. A path of sun-strewn ripples, broadening as the afternoon advanced, ended at that distant line, and found its starting-point at the rocky base of the Selinuntian acropolis, on the southwestern coast of Sicily. The day was warm, and the air rich with the perfume of sweet alyssum, beneath which delicate flower the whole island lay buried. A light breeze feathered the sea, occasionally sweeping away enough powdered sunshine to disclose the rich sapphire depths of the under-waters. Nevertheless more perfect skies had been, and generally were, at this season of the year; for to-day half the west was hidden by a curtain of short, thick clouds that threatened to hide the usual evening glory of wine-tinted waters and crimson-flooded skies.

Upon the height of the cliff that terminates the broad Selinuntian plain, Selinous, white, Doric city, with her groups of many-columned temples and her well-built walls, sent forth the usual droning murmur of life. White-robed men and women were wont to move in unhurried dignity in their citadels in those days when Æneas was not yet a myth, before Syracuse knew Gelon, when the first Aahmes ruled in Egypt, when Croesus of Lydia and Astyages of Media were paying bitter tribute to the great Elamite just retired from Babylonian plains to his far Rhagæ in the Eastern hills; and here, on the Sicilian coast, the Greek city lay in placid beauty upon her two hills, divided by the philosophically drained valley, bounded upon the right hand by her shining river, while far to the left, in the direction of Acragas, a line of rugged hills rose into the blue. The four bright temples of the acropolis were mirrored in the sea below. On the east hill, at some distance from where the gigantic new sanctuary to Apollo was building, and directly in front of the old temple of Hera, on the very edge of the cliff, drowsing in the sunlight, lay Charmides, a shepherd, surrounded by his flock.

The life of a shepherd in the flood-time of a Sicilian spring was not an arduous one. If it had been, Theron's son would not, in all probability, have followed that calling through the few years that he was required to spend at ordinary labor. For, as his family realized and his appearance too markedly proclaimed, this child of the Spartans did not partake of the spirit of his race. Rarely, singularly beautiful he was, and fair as an Athenian. Apollo himself might have turned envious at sight of this disciple of his as he slept on a drift of wild daisies, his short, white tunic stained with green, the thong that served him for a girdle loosely tied, much-worn sandals bound upon his feet, and a wreath of gray olive-leaves woven into the rumpled hair that fell upon his neck in rings of living gold. Charmides' eyes had the color of the sea. His brows were fine and straight; his mouth not altogether lacking in strength, yet perfect as a woman's. As he slept, one of the youth's sunburned hands grasped a tuft of herbs that grew upon the edge of the slope, while the other, even in his unconsciousness, drew a fleeting harmony from the lyre that lay beside him.

This dalliance with the honored instrument, taken with his unathletic physique, was evidence enough of the chosen profession of the temporary shepherd. Four years ago, at the age of eighteen, Charmides had elected to enter the ranks of that band of rhapsodists known to us now only as the predecessors of fire-winged Pindar and his glorious brethren. Never was the shepherd seen following his flock over the fields without lyre or flute in his hands; and no holiday or festival was quite complete without some lyric chanted in his clear tenor to the accompaniment of those sweet, primitive chords that so fittingly clothed the syllables of the most melodious of all tongues. Charmides' poems, however, were always of one type. Natural beauty, the evening wind, the perfume of a flower, the red of dawn, the silver of moonlight, he would reproduce so perfectly in words that he was left unrivalled in his peculiar field. But greater themes, battle-hymns of Mars and Nike, or idyls of Cythera and the dove-drawn chariot, had not apparently occurred to him as desirable subjects for his art. Either Charmides was what his athlete brother declared him--a woman dressed in too short a tunic--or his true nature was sleeping far beyond its natural period.

The sun hung just above the clouds as the youth sat up and looked about him. His flock, a drove of white, long-haired sheep, whose wool was woven into many a tunic of their herdsman, had wandered out of sight behind the temple of Hera. Charmides unbound his flageolet from the side of his left leg, and, without stirring from his place, lifted the instrument to his lips, playing upon it a quaint, primitive strain full of minor cadences, mournful, but peculiarly pleasing. For two or three minutes this tune was the only sound to be heard. Then, of a sudden, came a distant "Ba-a!" from the direction of the temple, and round its eastern columns appeared a white head, another, and another, till the whole flock was visible. For a moment or two they halted, regarding their keeper with silly, affectionate eyes. Charmides smiled as he watched them, and presently gave a little nod. At sight of it the leader of the company started forward again, and the entire number followed, at a gentle trot. When he was entirely surrounded by his animals, Charmides put his pipe back in its place, caressed with rough tenderness the nearest lamb, and finally, having had enough of afternoon with the sea, sprang to his feet thinking to proceed farther afield. As his eyes met the western horizon, from which his face had for the last few moments been turned, he broke his yawn short off in the middle, and his intent was forgotten. The cloud, which now covered the sun, was no longer gray, but a deep purple, palpitating with inward fire; while far to the west a galley, a little, black patch upon the waters, rose upon the horizon, coming from Mazzara. Charmides saw possibilities of hexameters in the race, and, though its outcome did not affect him in the least, he had a desire to know whether he must have Zeus with his bolts bring vengeance on some disobedient mortal, or whether Father Neptune and his dolphins were to lead the men of the galley safely into the little Selinuntian harbor.

It was not many minutes before the little vessel had become a Phoenician bireme with a huge, brown mainsail hanging loosely on the mast, and barely visible oars churning the water on each side with hasty vigor. By this time the last radiance had been swept from the sky. The distant waters darkened, and their restless, uneasy masses began to show flecks of foam. Presently, for a bare second, through a single rift in the cloud, a thin gleam of sunlight shot out and down to the misty sea, lighting the dark surface to opalescent brightness, and then disappearing in a single breath. As the sky darkened again the air grew cold. Three or four petrels, birds of the storm, rising from the distant sands, veered joyously out over the flattening waters. A faint murmur of angry winds came from the west, and with its first sound Charmides was recalled from the scene in which he was blithely living to his flock, who were upon the verge of a stampede. They had ceased to eat and were standing quiveringly still, heads up, nostrils distended, fore-legs stiffening for the leap and race which would follow the first thunder-clap. Their shepherd was just in time. Putting all thought of the storm behind him, he lifted his lyre and started forward, singing as he went. The sheep followed him, with implicit faith, across the broad pasture and down the long, gentle slope in the direction of their fold and his father's house, till the sea and the galley and the storm were left to the petrels and those on the acropolis to watch.

There, indeed, in front of the basilica, quite a band of citizens had assembled, watching with interest and anxiety the progress of the storm-beset vessel. The little ship had apparently a daring captain. No precautions whatever had been made for the first gust of wind; neither did the ship's course suggest that there would be an effort to gain the inner harbor of the city as speedily as possible. Instead, those that watched realized that she would be a hundred feet off the base of the acropolis cliff when the storm broke. At present the wind had so nearly died away that the main-sail flapped at the mast. The double banks of oars were working rapidly and unevenly, and the main deck of the vessel was, to all appearances, entirely deserted. Evidently an unusual state of affairs prevailed on board of the Phoenician galley.

The pause that preceded the breaking of the storm was unnaturally long. Save for the gleam of an occasional, faintly hissing wave-crest, the waters had grown black. The heart of the storm-cloud seethed in purple, while all the rest of the sky was hung with gray. There came one long moment when the atmosphere sank under a weight of sudden heat. Then the far-distant murmur, which till now had been scarcely audible, rushed upon the silence in a mighty roar, as, up from the south, driven before the gale, came a long line of white waves that rose as they advanced till the very Tritons bent their heads and the nymphs scurried down to greener depths. Now a sudden, zigzag streak of fire shot through the cloud, followed by a crash as of all the bolts of Zeus let off at once. The galley seemed to be scarcely moving. Her sail hung loose upon its mast. Not a soul was to be seen upon the upper deck. Only the oars still creaked in their holes, and the water churned unevenly along the vessel's sides. The wind was nearly upon her. There was a second glare of lightning, a second crash more fearful than the first; and then it was as if the fragile craft, seized by some cyclopean hand, had been lifted entirely from the water to be plunged downward again into the midst of chaos.

The number of spectators of this unusual scene had by this time been greatly augmented. Upon the acropolis, at the point where the street of Victory came to an end upon the edge of the precipitous cliff, stood a crowd of men and women, to whom others were continually coming from the shelter of their houses. Presently Charmides, together with his brother, Phalaris, both breathless from their run across the valley of the Hypsas, arrived on the cliff. The galley was now struggling in the centre of the storm, writhing and shuddering over the waves directly in front of the acropolis. As the only possible salvation, her bow had been pointed directly to the south into the wind, a move which made it necessary for the rowers, backing water with all their strength, to keep her from driving backward upon the great rock, fragments of which were strewn far out through the water from the base of the cliff behind. Through the incessant lightning flashes the violent and uneven use of the oars was clearly visible, and, after watching them in silence for a few moments, Phalaris shook his head.

"The rowers will not endure long under such labor. The boat must be driven ashore."

"As yet they have lost no distance, though."

And this, indeed, was true. Full fifty yards now lay between the first rock and the stern of the galley. It seemed, too, as if the storm had lulled a little. Charmides shouted the idea into his brother's ear, but Phalaris again shook his head, and both looked once more to the vessel, just in time to see her struck by a fresh gust of wind that tore the overstrained sail into ribbons and shreds. At the same instant the oars ceased their work. The boat spun completely round, twice, like a wheel, and a second later was driven, by one great wave, straight towards the huge rocks off the cliff.

"Apollo! What has happened to the rowers?" cried one of the elders.

"And where is the captain of this vessel? Is he a madman?"

"In three minutes more she will be a wreck. Come, Charmides!" shouted Phalaris, starting over the cliff.

Together the brothers climbed down the precipitous descent to the narrow strip of sand at its base. Here was a scene of no little activity. The Theronides found themselves last of a company of their friends to arrive at this point of vantage, where not a few had been standing for half an hour. Several older men were also grouped along the beach, anxiously watching the drama which threatened to terminate in a tragedy. At the moment when the brothers reached the lower shore, the galley, lifted high upon the wave, hung for a second on its summit, and then, as it broke, spun down and forward with sickening speed straight upon two horn-shaped rocks, between which she was presently wedged fast and firmly, twenty yards from shore.

A little cry broke from Charmides' lips. With the next flash he beheld the galley heeled far upon her right side, oars shattered, sides still uncrushed, while on her prow there stood at last a black swarm of men.

By this time a dozen of the young Greeks, stripped of their wet tunics, were making their way out into the breakers, intent upon saving the wrecked sailors from being dashed upon the rocks as they escaped from their ship. Charmides hastily followed the example of his fellows and ran into the chilly water after Phalaris, who stood in, shoulder-deep, fifty feet from the ship. It was nearly impossible to keep a footing there. Breaker after breaker dashed over their heads, and Phalaris, expert swimmer as he was, found himself unable to stand upright, and frequently struggled to his feet choking for breath, with sea-water in his eyes, ears, and nose. Charmides fared worse still. Overbalanced by the second wave that struck him, he was whirled round and round in it, and finally washed up on shore, half drowned. After a moment or two of gasping and reeling, he returned pluckily into the water, this time finding shelter beside a rock which he could also grasp. Phalaris managed to reach his side and share his protection, and there the two of them stood, waiting.

A period of delay and general commotion on the deck of the galley ensued. Three men in the centre of the company of sailors were engaged in some altercation, in which all the rest seemed far more interested than in making an escape from the vessel, which, apparently, was in no immediate danger of breaking up. Presently, however, to Phalaris' immense relief, for the useless battling with breakers was becoming too much, alike for his strength and for his patience, one of the men from the galley was seen to throw a rope over the vessel's side, make it fast upon the bulwark, and begin to lower himself, hand over hand, down to the water. At the rope's end he stopped, hung there for a moment, waiting for a wave to go by, and then slipped lightly in. Like all Phoenicians he was a good swimmer. Phalaris knew, from the manner in which he threw himself forward, that there was little danger of his not reaching the shore. Yet when, presently, a wave dashed violently over him, Charmides gave a little cry at seeing the man hurled helplessly forward, and then roll over and over in the grasp of the sea. Phalaris shouted above the clamor of winds and waters:

"Watch, Charmides, to seize him!"

As the writhing body swirled towards them, both Greeks, leaning forward, caught and held it fast. The man was not drowned nor even unconscious. Accustomed to living more or less in the sea, he had swallowed but little water, and, being set upright again, with his feet touching bottom, he stood still for a moment, said something in Phoenician to his rescuers, and proceeded towards the shore, where most of the young men, less patient and less expert than Theron's sons, now stood.

Phalaris and Charmides, however, perceiving that they were likely to be of real use where they were, held their position; and, exhilarated by the excitement and pleasure of the first rescue, they caught and assisted, one by one, nearly the whole crew of the galley. Phalaris, indeed, was amazed at the way in which his brother bore himself. The rhapsode worked as vigorously as the athlete, showed no fear at the onslaught of the waves, and was almost as successful as the other at catching and holding the distressed swimmers as they came by. At length there remained upon the galley only the three men that had first been engaged in the discussion. Of these, two presently disappeared from sight in the hold of the ship, leaving one alone by the bulwark. As this person, the length of whose tunic showed him to be no common sailor, finally climbed over the ship's side and began to lower himself leisurely to the water, Phalaris turned to look upon his brother. Charmides' form was dimly outlined in the gathering darkness, and his features were indistinguishable. A lightning flash, however, presently revealed the face, pale and drawn with exhaustion. Phalaris perceived it sympathetically.

"For this one man we will wait. Then, if there are not to be two drowned Greeks, we must make our way ashore," he said, hoarsely, and Charmides nodded assent.

The last man, for all his easy bearing, proved to be a far less expert swimmer than his predecessors. He had not accomplished more than a single, uncertain stroke when a wave caught him, rolled over his head, and buried him completely from the straining vision of his would-be rescuer. He was under water for what seemed to Charmides an eternity; and when, finally, by the light of a flash of lightning, the body was seen to reappear from the foam of a broken wave, it tossed there, lifeless, making no effort at resistance. Charmides rushed through the water to the drowning man's side, and, before reaching him, found himself out of his depth. As he sent a despairing shout to Phalaris, the supposed unconscious one addressed him, shouting above the surrounding roar, in Phoenician:

"Save yourself, youth! I shall float--" The sentence was interrupted by a rush of water, which threw Charmides forward, and once more buried the light, limp body of this unusual person.

Acting upon the excellent advice of the floater, the Greek made his difficult way to the shore, arriving on the beach at the same time with Phalaris, and a moment later than the stranger, who had been washed up unhurt and apparently not much disturbed by his contest with the waves.

The two brothers, reaching dry land again, found but few of their friends left on the sand. As the wet and half-drowned sailors arrived, one by one, on the shore, they had been approached by the native Greeks, and, the relations between Carthage and Selinous being as yet of the most amicable nature, hospitably taken up to the city, where warmth, food, and rest were to be had. Among the group of three or four that remained when the last Phoenician was washed up by the waves, was one who hastened to Charmides, as he stood dizzily on the sand looking back into the sea that was in such a furious commotion.

"Charmides, you have been foolhardy enough. Such work is well for Phalaris, perhaps, but--"

"Father, it seems to me that for many months Charmides has been deceiving us. By nature he is an excellent athlete--better than I."

Charmides shook his head and replied, faintly: "Let us go home. There is no more to do."

"But there remain still two men on the galley."

"For them," put in the stranger, speaking in awkward Greek, "you need not fear. They are still below with the slaves, but they will easily reach the shore, if, indeed, they wish to do so. I think they will rather remain where they are to-night."

"The galley does not appear to be breaking up."

"No. Her bottom did not strike. She is only wedged fast between two rocks."

In the little pause which followed, Theron peered through the darkness in an attempt to distinguish the features of the stranger. Night had closed in, however, in intense blackness, and before Charmides had time to put in a second, shivering appeal, his father said:

"Come then, my sons, we will start homeward. Your mother must be waiting our return. And you, O stranger, if you will accept of shelter and food at our hands, such as we have, in the name of Apollo, are yours."

The man from the galley accepted, without hesitation, the proffered hospitality. Then Theron bade good-night to those with whom he had been talking, and the stranger followed in the footsteps of the young men, who were hastening along the sand that skirted the cliff and thence ran into a wider beach that terminated the valley between the two hills.

It was twenty minutes of difficult walking even in daylight to reach the abode of Theron from the acropolis; and to-night, amid the heavy darkness, and in their exhausted condition, both Charmides and his brother were completely spent before the friendly light of their home became visible in front of them. The house was well built, of stone covered with the usual stucco, brightly colored without and prettily frescoed within. The rooms above ground numbered only four; while beneath the living-room, reached by a flight of stone steps, was a cellar stored with a goodly number of amphoræ filled with wine of varied make and excellence--most of it from vines that covered the much-disputed Egestan plain; some, of more celebrated vintage, sent up from Syracuse.

Theron's wife, Heraia, and Doris, the pretty slave, their day's spinning and embroidery ended, were busy preparing the evening meal. Heraia was not a little anxious over the absence of her husband and her two sons through the whole of the storm, and she was particularly uneasy about Charmides, whom she loved more with the tenderness felt for a daughter than for a son. Some time since she had despatched Sardeis, the male slave, to the sheep-run, to see if the rhapsode's flock had been safely housed, and if there were any signs of the shepherd's return. And the matron had herself gone many times to the door and looked forth into the oft-illumined darkness in the hope that the storm was abating. A stew of goat's flesh steamed fragrantly in the kettle by the fire, and Doris kneaded cakes of ground corn that were to be laid before the fire immediately upon Theron's return. Heraia was setting the table with plates and drinking-cups, when suddenly Phalaris threw open the door. His appearance was not reassuring. Doris gave a faint shriek, and Heraia cried, in great anxiety:

"Thy father--and Charmides--where are they? You are half fainting, Phalaris! Come in. What has happened?"

"The others are with me, just behind, bringing up a Phoenician from the galley that went on the rocks below the acropolis. Here they are."

The other three at that moment appeared out of the darkness beyond the door-way. Theron and the stranger in front, Charmides lagging weakly in the rear. Heraia sighed with relief at beholding them, wet, bedraggled, and spent as they were. Phalaris, and the stranger, about whose legs the long, soaked tunic flapped uncomfortably, and Charmides, whose wet skin was of the color and texture of polished ivory, were all three shivering with cold. Theron, then, as the only unspent one of the party, cried out, vigorously:

"Heraia, there must be wine, food, and dry garments for us all, especially for this Phoenician, who, driven from his ship by wind, wave, and rock, seeks shelter at our hands, and is for the night our honored guest. He--"

"--proffers thanks to you and to the protecting gods for rescue from the waters and reception into your home," put in the stranger, gracefully, if with some languor.

Heraia merely smiled her welcome as her eyes flashed once over his swarthy face; and then, as one long accustomed to such demands upon her resources, she took command of the situation. From a carven chest on one side of the room she brought dry raiment for them all, despatching her boys first to their room with it while she stopped the Phoenician for a moment with an apology.

"I have no vestment to offer that can equal yours in texture and color," she said, regretfully, gazing with admiring eyes on the long, yellow tunic, with its deep borders of the wonderful Tyrian purple which no amount of sea-water could dim and no sun of the tropics fade to a paler hue. "But at least it shall be carefully dried and stretched smooth upon the frame. Now if you will but follow Charmides"--she pointed to a door-way leading to the next room--"wine shall be carried to you while you dress, and food will be ready before you are. Go then at once."

Smiling to himself at her woman's tongue, the Phoenician very willingly obeyed her behest, and joined the two young men in their room. Here the three of them rubbed one another back into a glow of warmth, while Theron, in another chamber, doffed his rain-soaked vestment for a gayly bordered tunic, and pretty Doris, in the living-room, still knelt before the fire over her well-kneaded cakes.

Half an hour later the family and their guest, all much refreshed by the combination of wine and warmth, seated themselves on stools round the table, where various dishes were set forth about a big jar of mellow wine. Doris, upon whose graceful figure Phalaris' eyes were often seen to rest, while the stranger glanced at her once or twice in contemplative admiration, poured wine as it was wanted into the wrought-metal cups, and took care that no one lacked for food. Presently Theron, perceiving that his guest's spirits were rising under the genial influence of the Syracusan product, began to question him concerning his voyage.

The Greeks, out of courtesy, spoke in the Phoenician tongue, which, owing to their proximity to the easterly Phoenician settlements, and their constant trading intercourse with the Carthaginians, they spoke with some fluency. The stranger, with equal politeness and with more difficulty, made his replies in the language of his hosts.

"Your race, indeed, are daring travellers. It is said that the Phoenician biremes have been known to pass the pillars of Hercules beyond the setting sun. Tell us, have you ever looked upon that outer stream of water that flows round the plain of earth?"

Kabir laughed. "The sea that lies beyond the Herculean pillars is not part of the stream that surrounds the earth. I have but now come from far beyond those little mountains. We left Tyre seven months ago, at the beginning of the rainy season, touching at Carthage and her colonies on the coast of Hispania. Then we passed the pillars, and sailed away to that far, cold country of savages where we go for a kind of dye-plant with which the natives stain their bodies blue, and for a bright metal which they dig from the earth, but which is not found in the East. The savages there are gentle enough with us. They like our warm, woollen cloth, and our weapons, and brass-work, and our jewelry. This time, when we had finished our trading on their shores, we took one of them on board with us to guide us up the northern sea to the cold land of Boreas. Across this frozen country, through forests and over hills, among fierce native tribes, we Phoenicians have made a road which leads us farther north, to the shores of an inner sea in whose waters are to be found marvellous gems of a bright yellow color, sometimes clear as glass, again thick, like unpolished gold. These we gather and carry home with us, to be cut into ornaments for our princes and their wives, and for our temple-fanes. They sell them to us for our cloth, these dwellers by the sea. Then we return, by the way we came, to our ship. This is the third time that I, master-trader of the _Fish of Tyre_, have, by the favor of Baal and Melkart, accomplished the journey."

The exceptionally modest recital ended in a burst of genuine wonderment and admiration from the auditors. Finally, when the requisite questions and compliments had been passed, Phalaris observed, curiously:

"The sailors of your galley--they have travelled very far. Are they well-disciplined men?"

Kabir nodded. "They are as good at sails and ropes and as fearless in distant seas as they were at ease in the water to-day. You saw them?"

Phalaris gave a chuckle. "If you, master-trader, are as good at making a bargain as you are at floating, then indeed must the savages of the North be rueful after your departure. But your rowers--the slaves--they also are trustworthy and patient?"

Kabir's pale face suddenly flushed. "The dogs! By the hand of Moloch, if I had had my way, every man of them would lie with a slit nose to-night! It was they that wrecked our galley to-day. For a month we have been on the verge of an outbreak from them. They have complained forever about everything--their food, their places, their chains, the length of the voyage, too little rest. Latterly it has been a risk each night when we loosened their bonds to let them sleep. And this afternoon, long before the storm, their insolence had become unbearable. For three hours their master, Sydyk, and Eshmun and I stood whipping them to their work. The wind was on us while we were still below, and Taker, Eshmun's cousin, fool that he was, forbore to have the sail drawn. It was not till we were facing the full gale and those panic-stricken dogs pulling like madmen to keep us off the rocks, that Eshmun went up to see what could be done. At the moment when he reached the deck the sail was blown into shreds, and we were spun round as if Scylla herself had caught us. Hearing a great clamor above them, and feeling the ship suddenly reel under their oars, every slave in the hold fell forward on his face, shrieking out prayers to Baal and giving no heed to the bloody lashes that we still whirled over their heads. Both Sydyk and I foresaw that thing which shortly happened; and at the moment when the galley was first thrown between the rocks, we reached the upper air, finding Eshmun ready to descend once more that he might unchain the slaves, who would otherwise drown during the night at their posts. Sydyk, however, vowed that not one of them should live, in consequence of their rebellious folly. When the dispute between them was thus begun, I, unwisely, interposed, advising speedy escape for ourselves, letting the animals below live or perish as they would. They might certainly survive till morning, since by now we could plainly perceive that the galley could not sink, wedged as she was in the rocks. So the discussion continued, and was in no way concluded between the two of them when you saw me leave the vessel and start for shore. I can float, but I cannot swim as well as most children, and I needed what strength was mine to get me to land. Besides this, I was most wet, most chilled, and fagged enough with the unpleasant events of the afternoon. Therefore let us drink another libation to the gods, who led me to-night under the shadow of your kindly roof."

This short explanation of the trouble on the galley over which the citizens of Selinous had so wondered that afternoon, was listened to with great interest, and received various comments. Phalaris strongly sympathized with Kabir's disgust with the slaves. Theron expressed more temperate ideas; and Heraia gently voiced her pity for the unfortunate wretches. Charmides, who was entirely of his mother's mind, remained silent. When the discussion had lost its vigor, he rose from the table, and, moving rather aimlessly to the door, opened it to look out.

"It will soon be too warm, mother, for your fire," he said. "The clouds have parted, and the great night-star hangs in the heavens."

The chance remark brought silence to the little party, and they sat absently watching the shepherd who had halted in the door-way, his white profile silhouetted against the outer blackness. Kabir, especially, gazed on him in growing admiration.

"By Hercules!" he observed, softly, to Phalaris, "thy brother's form would make a fitting Tammuz for the great Istar of Babylon!"

Charmides chanced to catch the last words of this sentence, and he slowly turned his head. "Istar of Babylon," he asked. "Who is she?"

The Phoenician regarded him intently. "They call you a rhapsode," he said.

Charmides nodded.

"And you have not heard of the living goddess?"

"The living goddess!" came from three mouths at once.

"Listen then. It is a fitting subject for the lyre."

II

THE VOW

Charmides, with a look of unusual curiosity in his face, left his post and crossed to the fireplace, seating himself upon the ground before it. During the story that followed, the shepherd's bright blue eyes sought the ruddiest depths of the leaping flames, while his expressive mouth responded to every passing thought, and the narrator was fascinated by the glory of his hair, which caught the firelight, and tossed off its burning reflection in a thousand dazzling rays, till Charmides' head was surrounded by such a halo as saint has never worn. Theron, Phalaris, and Heraia, who, however incredulous they might be, could not but be struck by the stranger's theme, gathered closer to him, and listened with an intensity flattering enough to spur Kabir to great efforts in his narrative. He, however, well aware that, at his best, he could never dream of rivalling the Greek professional in this art of arts, chose rather to treat his subject in the simplest possible manner.

"Two years ago, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Nabu-Nahid, King of Babylon,[3] men say that Istar, the great goddess--our Astarte--Aphrodite to you--came in the flesh to Babylon. For three days and three nights flames of white fire hung over the temples of Bel, of Marduk, and of Nebo, while the images of the gods in their shrines chanted unceasingly in an unknown tongue. On the morning of the fourth day the hierodules attached to the temple of Istar, ascending her ziggurat to the sanctuary on the seventh stage, found the goddess herself, asleep upon her golden couch.

"How she awoke, what she said to her priestesses, or in what manner she first descended to take up her abode in the temple below, I have never heard. But before a month was past, all Babylon, and in three months all the East, from Sidon to Gaza, and from Ur to Damascus, rang with the wonder of her divinity and her beauty. It is now long since I heard of her, having been so many months away from my country. But formerly every caravan that came from the great city held some that had seen her, or perhaps had heard her speak, and throngs would assemble in the marketplaces to listen to the least story of her personality. It was said--"

"Yes, yes. She was beautiful, you say? How beautiful? How did she look?" interrupted Charmides, in stumbling haste.

Kabir, noting the flush upon the shepherd's cheek, smiled a little to himself. "She is the most fair of any goddess, yet none has ever beheld so much as her face quite clearly, it is said. Always she is surrounded by a dazzling white radiance, an aureole, which the strongest eyes have not been able to pierce. Yet men declare that her face has the clear whiteness of alabaster, her eyes are like the moon, and her hair like a floating, silken veil. More I cannot truthfully say.

"Her vestments have been offered her by the King himself and by the priests of the great gods. They are such as Nitokris never wore and queens might sigh over with envy. Yet they seem too coarse and poor to proffer to such a being.

"The first sign of Istar's divinity is the music that continually follows her presence. They say that those who hear the sounds as she passes are overcome, and fall upon the dust, or reel away like drunken men affected by fumes of wine. What this music is--bells or chords of the lyre or notes from the flute--no man has ever told, for when the sounds cease, every memory of them, save that of the ecstasy of listening, leaves him who has heard. And at sunset every night, when the goddess has retired to her sanctuary to commune with the great gods in solitude, there issue from the ziggurat sounds so marvellous that the priestesses and hierodules flee the neighborhood of the tower in the fear that, hearing, they may lose their reason.

"Istar is possessed of all knowledge. She speaks to each man in his native tongue--Chaldaic, Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician, or Egyptian--and on feast days she converses with the gods, her brothers, in that unknown language spoken by their statues. Bel and Nebo come forth from their shrines to receive her; Marduk and Shamash embrace her, their sister. Sin, her father, sends to her temple blood-offerings and heave-offerings of oxen and of doves."

"And men," asked the shepherd, still staring into the flames--"what do the men who have eyes to look upon her?"

"Of those that have dared, some become as children that know no more what they do. A few, it is said, have died, but these she raises from the kingdom of death and returns again to the world to fulfil their rightful time. Others still have given their manhood in order to join the order of temple-servants attached to her sanctuary.

"For all these reasons the temple of Istar has become more famous than any other in the East, and the name of Istar, the living goddess, is in every mouth. Many Egyptians from Memphis and Thebes have taken the long journey to Babylon for the purpose of beholding her; and in the land of the Nile each man prays that Isis may show her people favor and appear before them incarnate. She has shaken the faith of the Jews in their one God. Phrygia and Lydia send yearly offerings to her in the great city. And in Tyre itself we were to build a new temple to Astarte, where a six months' sacrifice and festival would be held, in the hope that our great goddess of fertility might appear before us in her double form. And that, O Charmides, is all that I can relate to you concerning the Lady of Babylon."

"It seems that Charmides sleeps over the tale, or else that he is drunken with the mere thought of the divine personage. Wake, rhapsode! Tune your lyre and sing for us the inspired ode that hangs upon your lips!" cried Phalaris, rather ill-naturedly, and with a supercilious smile at his brother.

Charmides did not stir. A thoughtful frown puckered his forehead, and he appeared oblivious of Phalaris' mockery. Theron, seeing that the Phoenician was a little crestfallen with the ill-success of his story, made haste to express his interest in it, and to ask a further question or two upon the matter, without, however, infusing much enthusiasm into his tone. Heraia followed her husband's lead with less effort. She had in her the original strain of poetry that had been extended to her younger son, but was entirely lacking in Theron and Phalaris. Therefore, being imaginative and a woman, Heraia had no difficulty in crediting Kabir's words, and she also understood Charmides' present mood as none of the others could.

Now ensued a pause extremely uncomfortable to three of the group. Only Phalaris was undisturbed by, and Charmides oblivious of, its distressing length. The shepherd finally turned his head and shifted his gaze to the Phoenician's face, where his eyes remained fixed for two or three minutes in a contemplative scrutiny. Then he drew a long breath, returned into the present, and, rising, moved slowly to the door again. From there he glanced at his mother, and was about to speak, when Phalaris reached over to the chest near which he sat, drew forth from it a lyre inlaid with ivory, and held it out to his brother.

"A hymn, Charmides, to Astarte. I can read one written in your eyes."

Charmides flushed scarlet. The eyes of the stranger were on him, and he felt a sudden pang of inexpressible shame at the laughter of his brother's tone.

"Have no fear, little athlete!" he responded, slowly, "an ode will be ready for you when you overthrow Theocles in the festival games. But I think I need not hurry in composing it. Morpheus attend you all. I am going to my bed." And, turning upon his heel, without looking at the still proffered instrument, he strode off to the room which he was to share with Phalaris and the stranger.

Charmides' anger always passed as rapidly as it rose. To-night, by the time he had disrobed and made his prayer to Apollo and Father Zeus, his mind was once more in a state of truce with Phalaris, and he determined to make peace with his brother as soon as he found opportunity; for Phalaris felt the sting of a sharp speech till it was healed by the balm of a very humble apology.

Once ready for the night the shepherd drew his light couch under the one unshuttered window of the room, and laid him down so that his eyes might rest upon the heavens before he slept, and where he could watch the rising of the sun when he woke again. By this time the last shred of the storm-cloud had disappeared from on high, and the moon, which was all but in the full, flooded the night with silver. Its luminous radiance melted over the shepherd's face and caused his locks to shine palely. Charmides lay watching the beams with wide-open eyes. In spite of his very unusual exertions of the afternoon, and the nervous strain that he had endured in watching for men from the wreck, he had never been further from sleep than to-night. His mind was unusually active, and, try as he would, he could not turn his thoughts from one subject--the thing that Phalaris had tried to shame away, the incredible tale told by the Phoenician about the Aphrodite of the East. Charmides knew well enough how his father and brother would laugh at him for allowing himself to think seriously for one moment about that idealized being, who, in all probability, lived only in the depths of the trader's imagination. Nevertheless, Kabir's few words had conjured up to Charmides' quick fancy a singularly real shape, and in the solitary night his thoughts played about her continually, now with eager delight, again reluctantly and irresistibly. Once, twice, thrice he tried to escape from her, but she refused to be banished. He saw her slipping down towards him from a great height, on the path of a moonbeam. With a sigh of renunciation he resolutely turned his head. Still she did not go. Nay, flashing in an aureole of white light, her face veiled from him, divinity crying from every curve of her figure, she advanced more definitely than before, from the corners of the room. A quiver of painful delight stirred Charmides' heart. He closed his eyes. Then she came out of the depths of his own brain, in a sea of rainbow mist, with faint chimes of distant bells ringing around her, a veil of silken hair covering her beneath the mantle of light. At last he was quite beneath her spell. Fragments of hexameter, of great beauty and great indistinctness, rose in his mind. And presently, lo! an ode, the first of any depth that had ever come to him, became possible. Here were the first lines of it, lying ready to his tongue. He whispered them once to himself, delightedly, and then banished them with resolution. He must first obtain his form. The structure must be broad enough adequately to express the thought born in him by the secret inspiration of the night.

An hour passed, and the white light of the moon crept slowly over the shepherd's head into the far corners of the room. Charmides lay with closed eyes and lips compressed, the vision growing clearer and his task more intricate. Mere words began to be inadequate. How many men, how many women, how many lifeless things, even, have been extolled in matchless syllables? And how was he as far to surpass all these lines as his subject surpassed the subjects of his predecessors? He grew more and more troubled, and the labor of his mind was painful. Intoxication was gone. The time of work, of unexalted concentration, was upon him. Into the midst of this second stage, however, came Phalaris and Kabir, sleepy, yet talking pleasantly together in unsubdued tones. Charmides clenched his hand, but did not unclose his eyes. For twenty minutes he lay in an agony of broken thought. Then his self-control was rewarded. He was left alone once more in the night, with only the light, regular breathing of two unconscious men to disturb his thoughts.

Through the misty hours sleep did not visit the shepherd, yet neither did he accomplish his desire. He watched the pale moon faint from the sky and the white stars melt, one by one, into the tender dawn. Sunrise found him spent, exhausted, and bitter with disappointment; for the burning night had left no trace of its fever save in deep circles under his eyes and a hungering anxiety over something that he could not name.

Theron and Phalaris were up betimes, and, before they had finished the morning libation, were joined by Charmides and Kabir. During breakfast the stranger talked to Theron about the galley, and the length of time it would take before she could be rendered fit to continue again upon her voyage.

"You were going home?" asked the Selinuntian.

"Yes. We should stop at the Sikelian cities as far as Syracuse, passing then eastward through the islands, touching at Crete, Naxos, perhaps, and Cyprus. Our voyage had been too long already."

"Well, if you are ready," observed Theron, rising, "we will go down to the shore at once to find out the condition of the galley. And while you remain in Selinous, Kabir, we beg that you will make our hearth your home."

The Phoenician gratefully expressed his thanks. Then, as Theron and Phalaris moved together towards the door, evidently expecting him to follow them, Kabir turned to Charmides, who remained in the background.

"Do you not come with us?" he asked.

The Greek hurriedly shook his head. "I take the flock to pasture," he explained; and so the Phoenician turned away.

By the time the three men reached the shore below the city, the sun was two hours high and the beach was lined with Selinuntians and Tyrians, all talking together about the best method for pulling the galley from between the two rocks where she still lay, fast wedged. As soon as Kabir made his appearance a tall fellow, in a deep-red robe, hurried up to him with expressions of delight. Kabir saluted him as an equal, and presently brought him up to Theron and Phalaris, introducing him as Eshmun, captain of the _Fish of Tyre_. Then followed among the four of them an earnest conversation as to the length of time needed for repairs after the ship was once more in clear water.

"Prayers and libations to Melkart and Baal have been offered up," observed Eshmun, piously, "and men in the city are already at work making new oars. Yonder on the beach are all the small boats, which are to be manned by our sailors and the young men of the city. They, proceeding to the _Fish_, will lay hold of her stern with ropes, and, all pulling in the same direction, by the aid of the gods we shall hope to get her out."

"And the galley-slaves?" queried Kabir. "What has been done with them?"

"May Bacchus confound them! Last night, before leaving the ship, I persuaded Sydyk into loosening their chains, and when Sydyk, at sunrise, reached the galley, he found every man of them sprawled out on deck in a drunken sleep. They had used up four casks of the best Massilian wine! Sydyk had them whipped back to their places, where they are now chained, waiting to help push the ship off with their unbroken oars."

Up to this point Theron and his son stood beside Kabir, listening attentively to the Phoenician tongue, which was just unfamiliar enough to demand close attention. But now Phalaris, seeing that the small boats were being rapidly manned, went off to join one of them. Theron walked leisurely after his son towards a group of elders, leaving Kabir with Eshmun. For ten or fifteen minutes the Tyrians continued their conversation, and then, the fleet of rowboats being ready to put off, the captain hurried away to take command of the operations, and his companion was left alone upon the shore.

Kabir, as master-trader of the vessel, was under no obligation to do anything towards the assistance of the wreck. Few men, perhaps, would have considered this freedom as a reason for actually taking no part in the affair of the moment. But Kabir was one of these few. He was by nature a true Phoenician, and by cultivation a true merchant: thoroughly indolent where his immediate advantage was not concerned; good-natured because good-nature made men more pliable to his secret will; keen as a knife-blade, and quite indefatigable in any matter that concerned his or his employer's profit; indifferent to the weal or woe of his nearest friend, so long as by that woe or weal his own comfort was unconcerned. He stood now on the beach below the acropolis, content to be alone, sufficiently occupied with the scenes of beauty and activity before him. There, far to the south and east, stretched the sea, smooth and blue, sprinkled with sun-sparkles, a lolling roll half-concealed in its mischievous depths, otherwise bearing not a trace of last night's spasm of rage. From the very edge of the beach out to a distance of two hundred yards from shore, was a jumble of brown rocks, large and small, between which the water ran in little, opalescent eddies, forming a dangerous and threatening boundary to the west side of the otherwise peaceful harbor. Between two of these horned rocks lay the barnacled, dismasted ship, which had ventured so far into distant, perilous seas, to be brought to bay at last, wounded and weary, by the shock of a merry Sicilian thunderstorm. Half-way between ship and shore thirty small boats, plied vigorously by friendly Greek and anxious Tyrian, were making a flashing progress to the galley's side; while all along the shore white-robed Selinuntian elders and fair-faced Doric women watched with high interest the movements of the boats.

Once and again Kabir overlooked the scene. Then, tired of standing, and undesirous of spending the whole morning inactively, he turned and looked around him, up the rocky height of the temple-crowned acropolis. An ascent into the city seemed the most feasible method of amusement. Therefore he proceeded leisurely towards the nearest upward path, when, somewhat to his amazement, he perceived the figure of Charmides coming rapidly towards him along the beach. The moment his eyes met those of the youth the shepherd's pace grew perceptibly slower.

"I will avoid him, then," thought the Phoenician, calmly, and thereupon, with a distant salutation, he started forward once more to the upward path. To his further surprise this act brought Charmides hastily to his side.

"Where is thy flock, O rhapsode?" inquired Kabir, lightly, in the manner of Phalaris.

"In care of Sardeis. I was seeking you."

"And your purpose? What may I do?"

"N--nothing. I thought you might desire, perhaps, to see the city. Shall I conduct you to the agora? Would you like to see our temples?--and the statues?--and the new pediment that Eumenides is making for the basilica?"

"Very much. I was, indeed, just about to go alone up to the city," replied Kabir, courteously. But while the youth began abruptly to ascend the path in front of him, Kabir was wondering, in rather a puzzled way, what could be the reason for the young Greek's sudden solicitude for his amusement, and for the want of interest in what should have been his first object of inquiry--the galley's rescue from the rocks.

The two of them passed in silence through the well-kept street that led to the agora from the west, and had almost reached the height of the acropolis before a further word was spoken between them. Kabir's curiosity was turning to amusement, and he was inclined to put the shepherd down as half-witted, when the boy turned on him and burst out, as if driven to the speech:

"Kabir, tell me, was that that you were saying last night--about the goddess of Babylon--true or not? Is there such a being, or is she but an invention of your mind? I conjure you, if you have pity, tell me the truth!"

As he spoke, Charmides, from being very pale, had flushed crimson, and his young eyes burned with unquenchable fire. A sudden, unique revelation was borne in upon the Phoenician, and he willingly passed over the blunt suggestion in the shepherd's question, in the pleasure of finding what was, to him, an entirely novel bent of mind. While they proceeded, then, on their way to the market-place, Kabir replied to the substance of Charmides' new queries.

"I told you the truth last evening, shepherd; as much truth, indeed, as I knew. I myself have never been in Babylon, and therefore have not, with mine own eyes, seen the goddess. But others, my friends, on returning to Tyre from the great city, have been able to talk of nothing but Istar, this living divinity. Yet it is many months since I was at home. By now she may have returned to the skies, from which, they say, she came. But that there was once such a being on earth I know; else I and all men of the East are gone suddenly demented."

"But her face--how do you imagine it? Her form--is it like a woman's? Tell me, Kabir! Tell me more of her!"

"How can I, never having looked upon her? How shall I imagine what no man, seeing, knows?"

"Surely you know of the music that surrounds her. Whence does it appear to come? Is it the sound of lyre or flute; or perhaps of many instruments together? Perhaps some hint of its melody is--"

"Shepherd, shepherd! Have I not told you that I know nothing of it? Said I not last night that that music drove mad those that listened? Lyres! Flutes! How could I know? How should I guess?"

"It is unbearable, this yearning. I am kept from sleep. I cannot eat. I am haunted by a face that I cannot see, lines that will not rise out of the chaos in which they lie. And no man will tell me what he knows. No man--no man."

The shepherd muttered these words to himself so incoherently that Kabir could scarcely distinguish one from another. Suddenly, however, Charmides lifted his head and looked at the Phoenician with a deep sadness in his eyes. "Kabir!" he exclaimed, softly, "I am possessed!"

"Truly, I think you are!" growled the trader to himself. But with Charmides he abruptly changed the subject of conversation, and said, in a very different tone, with a phlegmatic smile: "It is my turn for questioning now. We are here in the agora, and you have told me as yet nothing of the temples, which are, so far as I can judge, most worthy of their gods."

Charmides restrained a sigh of impatience, but his disappointment showed plainly in his face. However, his native courtesy and his training in hospitality did not desert him, and for the next hour he devoted himself to his task so successfully that Kabir was well pleased with him. The boy's effort to keep his mind fixed upon immediate matters did not escape the Phoenician, who, before the morning was over, conceived a very different idea of the shepherd's character. On the whole, the last half of the morning was much more enjoyable to him than the first.

At this time, in the spring of the five hundred and thirty-ninth year before the birth of Christ, the Hyblean city was in the height of its prosperity as an independent Doric colony; and its citizens had taken a generous and a reverent pride in the adornment of their acropolis and of the opposite hill, both of which were wreathed with temples which, in conception and erection, will never be surpassed. Kabir looked appreciatively at the agora, surrounded as it was with the fluted columns of the sanctuaries of Demeter, Apollo, and Zeus, and the somewhat too square basilica. The market-place teemed with life. A sacrifice and prayer to Father Zeus was in progress, and white-robed priests passed to and fro among the youths and maids of the open school, the slaves who came for water from the central fountain, or the venders of grains, fruit, and flowers that accosted one at every step. Passing out of the agora, after a considerable time spent in viewing its pleasant gayety, the stranger and his shepherd guide went back to examine the stone fort which rendered this eminence utterly impregnable upon its north side; and then they followed the high stone wall southward along the edge of the cliff till they reached the southeastern gate of Hystaspes. Through this Charmides passed rapidly, and led the way along well-paved streets down into the valley of the Hypsas River, which separated the acropolis from the east hill. Crossing the little bridge on foot, the two began their second ascent up the eminence where stood Charmides' home, near which were three other temples--one to Hecate, one to Hera, and the third, half finished, dedicated to the patron god of the city, Apollo, and destined to be the largest temple of them all and the third largest in the Greek world.

The walk had proved long, and the last part of the way was difficult. Kabir was glad enough to sit and rest in the portico of Hera's shrine, looking out over the brow of the hill down to the rocky harbor where the galley still obstinately stuck. Charmides had ceased to talk, and his companion asked no more questions about the city. It was in perfect amicability, yet in perfect silence, that the two finished their short walk to Theron's house. The young Greek had fallen into a reverie from which it would have been difficult to rouse him; and he moved with his eyes fixed sometimes in the clouds, more often on the ground, while his mouth drooped and his expression grew more and more grave. Kabir glanced occasionally at his companion, needing no interpreter to determine the subject of his thoughts, but himself far more interested in the question as to whether there would be meat, or merely bread, cheese, wine, and fruit at the noon meal to which they were going.

As it turned out, there was mutton, well spitted, and done to a turn, a double portion of which was easily obtainable, for Phalaris did not come up from the harbor, and Charmides sat staring absently into space, while Theron, Heraia, and their guest ate and discussed the events of the morning. The galley, it appeared, had been moved a little, but was not yet completely out of the clutches of the rocks. It was hoped, however, that by nightfall she would, by the combined strength of the oars and the small boats, be got off and safely beached in a spot where the carpenters could begin work upon her crushed sides and torn bottom.

"It will be a matter of fifteen days, however, before she can continue her voyage. There is far more to be done upon her than we thought at first. Meantime, O Kabir, our dwelling is yours."

"May the gods duly requite your hospitality, good friends!" returned Kabir, as the four of them rose from the table.

After the meal Kabir went down into the harbor with his host, and Charmides sought the fields with his flock, not returning till an hour after sunset. The family was seated at supper when he appeared. His unusual tardiness elicited a remark or two from his father; but Heraia, reading the weariness in his eyes, forbore to question him. It required forbearance, indeed, for she found something in the shepherd's face that had not been there before; and on the meaning of it she speculated in vain.

In spite of the fact that he had eaten little at noon, and that his afternoon had been unusually long, Charmides took nothing to-night. Kabir watched him discreetly, interested in his state, the cause of which he alone so much as suspected. Phalaris was weary after his long day at the oars, and showed his displeasure with his brother for making no inquiry as to the galley's progress by utterly ignoring Charmides after the first word of greeting. The rather uncomfortable meal at an end, Heraia ventured a customary request.

"Come, Charmides, get thy lyre or flute, and play to us. The sheep have been hearing thee all afternoon. Give us, also, music to-night."

None of the others echoed the request. Theron rarely encouraged either son in his chosen profession, though he was as interested in their success as they themselves. Phalaris still sulked, unnoticed; and the Phoenician was too anxious for an opportunity of judging his new protégé's ability to risk protest by undue urging. He was fortunate in choosing the passive course. At his mother's request, Charmides rose at once and brought out his well-strung lyre. Seating himself in a corner of the open door-way, and looking out upon the night, he struck two or three thin, minor chords. Then, in a voice whose limpid tenor Kabir had never heard equalled, he sang. It was a melody well known to all Greeks, but transposed from the major to the minor key. The words were Charmides' own--of exquisite simplicity--twenty lines on the grief and weariness of a lost Pleiad. It rose gradually to a plaintive climax, and ended in a tired pianissimo. There was no applause. None of his audience and neither of the slaves cared to break silence as the shepherd rose and returned the instrument to its place. Kabir thirsted for more; and presently Theron, with a little effort, asked, softly:

"Why do you stop?"

"Father, I am tired. Grant me permission to go to my bed."

"Permission need not be asked. Get thee away, and the gods send you dreamless sleep."

Half an hour later Phalaris and the Phoenician followed the shepherd's example, and Theron and his wife also sought a willing rest. The athlete made quick work of preparing for the night, and, almost upon the instant of his lying down, fell fast asleep. Kabir was slower. He had disrobed as promptly as his companion, but he did not immediately lay him down. As on the previous evening, the window was open, and the moonlight streamed over Charmides' bed. Kabir stole across the room to look out upon the night, moving noiselessly, that he might not disturb the shepherd, who, since the others entered the room, had lain motionless. The Phoenician, standing over him, brought his eyes slowly from the moon to the fair face below him, and gave a quick, unfeigned start to find Charmides' eyes wide open, staring up at him. Neither of them spoke. Kabir, in unaccountable confusion, quickly returned to his own couch and lay down upon it, far wider awake than he had been ten minutes before.

Now ensued a period of silence and of uneasiness. The shepherd, his form flooded with silver light, lay immovable, eyes still unclosed, hands clenched, brain on fire, listening mechanically to the regular breathing of Phalaris, and waiting eagerly, anxiously, tensely, for the same sound from the couch of the Phoenician. His nerves, too highly strung, twitched and pulled. His body gradually grew numb. And still, while he waited, ears pricked, eyes brilliant, Kabir refused to sleep. The moon rode in mid-heavens before the sign came. At last the faint snores sounded like muffled drum-taps, one--two--three--four--five. A long sigh escaped Charmides' lips. For one blessed instant his muscles relaxed. Then he rose swiftly, drew on his day tunic, threw about him the chlamys that Phalaris had worn, and slipped noiselessly from the room. For a moment after his disappearance everything remained quiet behind him. Then, suddenly, Kabir's snores ceased, and he sat cautiously up. Yes, Charmides was really gone. The Phoenician rose and passed over to the door. The living-room was empty and the outer door open to the night. Throwing on as much clothing as he needed in the mild air, the trader hurried outside and looked about him, first towards the sea, then along the path to the city. Upon this, walking swiftly, and already far on his moonlit way, went the shepherd. Kabir, with a kind of wonderment at his own curiosity, started at a half-run to follow.

Evidently Charmides was bound for a definite spot. He moved straight along through the rank grass, gorse, and wild onion that here took the place of near-growing daisies and sweet alyssum, and, looking neither to the right nor left, passed along the path to the acropolis.

The shepherd was acting on what was hardly an impulse. His strange action had been irresistibly impelled by some force emanating from his own mind, and yet _not_ of himself. He wished to be upon consecrated ground, in the precincts of a temple, where, it seemed to him, the burning thirst of his imagination might be quenched. In obedience to his guiding voice, he left behind him the temples of the hill on which he lived, and made his way towards the abode of his patron god of the Silver Bow, who had for years been worshipped on the acropolis, and whose immense temple on the other hill was still unfinished. Charmides had brought with him his lyre, again obeying the impulse, though without any idea of how he was to use it. He accomplished most of his journey, indeed, without thought of any kind; and not till the last, sharp ascent up the acropolis road was begun did it occur to him that, at this hour of the night, he might not pass the guard at the gate. The thought, when it came, scarcely troubled him. He would go at least as far as he could. He passed rapidly up the steep slope, Kabir following noiselessly; and, as they drew near the gate of Dawn, the southeastern opening in the defending wall, Charmides saw a strange thing. The guard, one of a long-trained company for whom discovered slumber at his post meant death, sat squat upon the ground, his helmeted head bowed between his knees, sunk in a deep sleep. The passage into the agora was open. Charmides and the other passed into the empty square, finally pausing before the portico of the temple of Apollo.

A scene of supernal beauty confronted them. The great market-place, filled from dawn to dusk with murmurous life of the city, was robed by night in ineffable stillness. All around, the white columns rose in shadowy beauty to their high architraves; while the ground below was barred with fluted shadows. The warm, perfume-laden air was heavy with the essence of spring. Below, on the sides of the hill, the city lay asleep; and the only sound that broke the universal silence was the distant, musical swish of the rising tide.

In the midst of this Charmides stood, half panting, his overwrought mind in a state of blankness. Then, still passively obeying his guiding impulse, he ascended the two steps that led into the portico of the temple of Apollo, and, after hesitating for a moment, entered the open door-way. By the light of the two sacred torches that burned throughout the night by the altar of the god, the youth made his way to the high-walled fane, within which was the celebrated statue of the Patron of Selinous. Here, in the dim, bluish light, with the cool stillness above and around him, and the divine presence very near, the shepherd fell upon one knee and bowed his head in a prayer, the words of which rose to his lips without any effort of thought on his part, and were more beautiful than any that he had ever heard spoken by priest or poet.

When he had finished he did not rise. It seemed to him that, if he but dared to lift his eyes, he should see the Lord of the Silver Bow above him, in all his blinding radiance. Charmides' head swam. A cloud of faintest incense enveloped him. His parted lips drank in air that affected him like rare old wine. A fine intoxication stole upon all his senses. He waited, breathlessly, for that which he knew at last was to come. Yet in the beginning of the miracle his heart for a long moment ceased to beat, and he swayed forward till he lay prone upon the marble pavement.

A sound, a long note, thin and bright and finely drawn as silver wire, was quivering down from the dusk of the uppermost vault. On it spun, and on, over the head of the listener, whose every nerve quivered beneath the spell of its vibration. Time had ceased for him, and he did not know whether it was a moment or an hour before the single note became two, then three, and gradually many more, which mingled and melted together in a stream of delicious harmony, so strange, so marvellous, that the shepherd strained ears and brain in an agony lest he should fail to catch a single tone. But the low Æolian chimes grew fainter after a little while; and then, at the pianissimo, there entered into their midst something that no man of earth had as yet dreamed of--a mighty organ note, that rose and swelled through the moving air in a peal of such majesty that Charmides, trembling with his temerity, rose to his feet and looked up. Nothing unusual was to be seen in the temple room. Half-way down, between the frescoed columns, burned the two torches before the empty altar. Yes, and there, in the shadow of the wall, stood Kabir, the Phoenician, watching quietly the movements of the shepherd. Charmides perceived him, but failed to wonder at his presence. It was natural that any one should wish to be here to-night. Yet how could any living man stand unmoved in the midst of such a glory of sound as whirled about him now? The lyre music rose anew to a great fortissimo, high above the deeply resonant chords of the sky-organ. Flutes and trumpets, and the minor notes of myriad plaintive flageolets, and a high-pealing chime of silver-throated bells joined in swinging harmony, finally resolving into such a pæan of praise that Charmides was carried back to the memories of many a former dream. Shaking the dripping sweat from his forehead, he stepped forward a pace or two, and, lifting his lyre, joined its tones and those of his pygmy voice to the mighty orchestra. Though he was unaware of it, he had never sung like this before. The inspiration of his surroundings was upon him. His voice rang forth, clear as a trumpet-call. Strange and beautiful words poured from his lips; words that he had always known, yet uttered now for the first time. He was drawn far from life. He was on the threshold of another world, into which he could see dimly. There, before him, poised in ether, shining ever more distinctly through the rosy cloud that enveloped her, was the statue-like, veil-swathed form of a woman. Tall, lithe, round was the shape that he beheld--the body of a woman of earth, and yet more, and less, than that. Neither feature nor flesh could he perceive through the radiance that surrounded and emanated from her. He knew, in his heart, that this was a goddess, she whom his soul sought.

"Ishtar! Ishtar! Ishtar kâ Babilû!"

Once, twice, thrice he cried her name, in descending minor thirds, while all the bells of heaven pealed round them both.

"Ishtar of Babilû, I come to seek your city! Where you are, there I shall find you. Great Apollo, Lord of the Silver Bow, son of Latona and of Father Zeus, hear me and heed my words: I will seek the living goddess where she dwells in the land of the rising sun. To her I will proffer my homage ere the year be gone. If I fulfil not this vow, made here within thy holy temple, take thou my body for the dogs to feed upon, and let my spirit cross the river into the darkest cavern of Hades. Lord Son of Latona, hear my vow!"

With the last words Charmides sank again upon his knees, his face still uplifted to the spot whence his vision had faded into blackness. The celestial music ceased. The passionate ecstasy was gone. Weak and exhausted in body and mind, the shepherd rose, trembling, and began to move towards the entrance of the temple. The light from the sinking moon streamed white through the open door. Presently, from the shadows behind him, Kabir glided gently up to the youth, who was groping blindly forward.

"I heard the vow," said the Phoenician, almost in a whisper. "Will you, then, sail with us when we depart again in our galley, to Tyre, on your way into Babylon of the East?"

For a moment Charmides stared at the man in wonderment. He was coming back to life. Then he nodded slowly, and with dry lips answered:

"You heard the vow. You have said it."

III

INTO THE EAST

Next morning Kabir opened his eyes earlier than might have been expected, considering his nocturnal exercise and the hour at which he had finally retired. Charmides was performing ablutions with water from an earthen jar, and talking amicably, if absent-mindedly, with his brother, who was ready dressed. The Phoenician rose hastily, and began his usual toilet, while Phalaris, after giving him morning greeting, and bidding the shepherd have a care not to drown himself, left them for the more satisfying charms of breakfast.

On their way back from the acropolis, on the previous night, Kabir and Charmides had not spoken to each other. Therefore the one question and answer before they left the temple was the only conversation they had had on the subject of the inspiration and its result. This morning, then, the moment that Phalaris disappeared, Charmides set down the water-jar, turned sharply about, and, looking searchingly into his companion's face, asked:

"Kabir--have I dreamed?"

"Dreamed? Where? How?"

A sudden light sprang into the shepherd's face. "You were not with me, then, last night, in the temple of Apollo?"

"Certainly I was--and heard the hymn you sang to the Babylonian goddess. That was an inspiration, Charmides. Can you recall the words and the rhythm this morning?"

But Charmides shrank from the question. He had become very pale. After a long silence, during which Kabir, much puzzled, strove to understand his mood, he asked again, faintly:

"And the vow? I vowed to Apollo--"

"To seek the Babylonian goddess; to proffer her homage before the year had fallen, or--" The Phoenician stopped. Charmides held up his hand with such an imploring gesture that a sudden light broke in upon the trader. He realized now that regret for his emotional folly was strong upon the youth, and he saw no reason for not helping him to be rid of its consequences.

"You have lost the desire, O Charmides, to fulfil that vow?" he asked.

Charmides bent his head in shamed acquiescence.

"Why, then, keep it? You may trust me. I shall say not a word of the matter to any one. None but I saw you. The guard at the gate was asleep. You are safe. Forget the matter, and be--" again he paused. Charmides was regarding him with open displeasure.

"None _saw_! What of the god, Phoenician? What of the god Apollo--my patron?"

Kabir perceived the shepherd's earnestness, and the corners of his mouth twitched. Phoenician polytheism had crossed swords, long ago, with Phoenician practicality; and the gods, it must be confessed, had been pretty well annihilated in the series of contests. Nevertheless, Kabir knew very well that he could not scoff at another's religion. He was puzzled. He tried argument, persuasion, entreaty, every form of rhetoric that occurred to him as holding out possibilities of usefulness; but all alike failed to move in the slightest degree Charmides' abject determination. The unprofitable conversation was finally ended by the shepherd's sensible proposal:

"I will lay the matter before my father this morning, Kabir, and by his decision I will abide."

The Phoenician nodded approval. It was a simple solution of a puzzle which, after all, did not really concern him. As a matter of fact it would have been hard enough for him to tell why he was taking such an unaccountable interest in this impulsive and irresponsible shepherd-boy--he, a man who had cared for neither man nor woman all his life through, whose whole interest had hitherto been centred in material things. But he was, as many others had been and would be, under the influence of the peculiar charm of the young Greek, a charm that emanated not more from the incomparable beauty of his physique than from the frank and ingenuous sincerity of his manner.

At the conclusion of their peculiar conversation, the two men passed into the living-room, to find their morning meal just ready and Theron and his son sitting down to table, while Heraia still bent over the hearth where bread was baking.

Charmides gave his usual morning salutation to his father and mother, and then seated himself in silence. During the meal he said not a word, though Phalaris was in a lively mood, and conversation flowed easily enough among the others. When the athlete had risen, however, and Kabir was detaining the others by making a pretence of eating in order to watch the shepherd, Charmides turned to his father and asked, boldly:

"Father, may one break a vow made within his temple to Apollo?"

Theron looked at his son carefully. "You know that he may not. Why have you asked?"

"Because I have made such a vow. Last night, after a great vision, it was wrung from me."

Phalaris came back and seated himself quietly at the table. Then Heraia leaned forward, looking at her son as if something long expected, long hoped for, had come to pass.

"A vision? Of what? Where?"

"At midnight, unable to sleep for the chaos of my thoughts, I went to the acropolis and entered into the temple of my god. There I heard the music of the gods, most marvellous, most incomprehensible; and there a great vision was before me--a silver cloud in which the goddess Istar of Babylon appeared to me and called to me. Thereupon I vowed to Apollo to set forth into the East, seeking her to whom, ere the year be fallen, I must proffer my homage."

Buoyed up by the pleasure and sympathy in his mother's eyes, Charmides had spoken quite cheerfully. Looking into her face after his last words, however, he found there something that caused his head to droop in new-found dejection, while he waited for his father's decision. It did not come. There was a heavy silence, finally broken by Phalaris, who said, a little contemptuously:

"You had a dream, Charmides. You did not leave the room in which I slept last night."

Heraia raised her head in sudden hope, but here Theron broke in:

"Nay--even if it were but a dream, the gods have more than once appeared to favored mortals in sleep."

"But this, Theron, was no dream. I followed Charmides to the temple. It is true that I saw no vision, and all the music that came to my ears was made by Charmides himself, who sang an inspired hymn to the goddess. But his vow to Apollo was most certainly made. The shepherd has spoken truth."

There was another pause. Then Theron sighed heavily and spoke. "He must abide by the vow. You, O Phoenician, will you take him in the galley to your far city, on his way to the abode of the goddess?"

"That I promised him last night."

"But," interrupted Phalaris, still incredulous, "how did you both pass the guard at the gate by which you entered the acropolis?"

"He slept!" replied Charmides and Kabir, in the same breath.

Heraia let a faint sigh that was more than half sob escape her; and Charmides drew a hand across his brow. "You bid me go, father?" he said.

Theron hesitated. Finally, in a tone of grave reproval, he replied, "It is not I that can bid you go. You yourself owe obedience to your patron god and to the strange goddess that put this thing into your heart. Though I shall lose you, though the heart of your mother is faint at the thought of your departure, yet I dare not command you to break the vow. Yes, Charmides--you must go."

A momentary spasm of pain crossed Charmides' young face, and was gone as it had come. Only by his straightened mouth could one have guessed that he was not as usual. Heraia's eyes were bright with tears which she did not allow to fall; and even Phalaris, the true Spartan of the family, who was a little scornful of his brother for permitting his feelings to betray themselves even for a moment, himself felt an unlooked-for quiver at the heart when he thought of a life empty of his girlish brother's presence. Both he and his mother sat absently looking at the rhapsode, till Theron, seeing danger of weakness in the scene, abruptly rose:

"Come, Phalaris, we will go down together to the galley. I will speak with Eshmun on behalf of Charmides. Perhaps you, also, Kabir, will care to come?"

"And I. I will work now upon the ship till she sails again. Sardeis can take the flock."

"Eager to be gone, boy?" asked Theron, smiling rather sadly; but his question needed no other answer than his son's expression. So, presently, the four men left the house, and Heraia was left alone to face this all-unexpected grief that had come to her--the loss of the child that had made her life beautiful.

The next ten days flew by on wings--wings of grief and dread foreboding for those in Theron's house. Work on the galley proceeded vigorously. Down from the hills, far to the east of the city, a long, tapering cedar-tree was brought. Its branches were hewn off, its bark stripped away, and the bare trunk set up in the place of the old, broken mast. New sails were an easy matter of provision, for the Selinuntians were adepts at making them, and three days sufficed for the shaping and sewing of these. Oars took more time, for strong wood was hard to procure around Selinous, and only two or three men in the city had any idea of the manner of carving out these heavy and unshapely things. The mending of the torn bottom of the ship and the replacing of her crushed bulwarks and sides required many days of skilful carpentry; and when all this was done, the heavy-clinging barnacles were carefully scraped from their comfortable abiding-place, and the good ship set right side up once more. Finally, on the last day of April, Eshmun declared her ready for the new launching, and sent word to all his crew that in forty-eight hours more their journey would be recommenced, and that on the evening before their start prayers and a sacrifice for a safe journey would be made at an altar erected on the sands.

Charmides had worked well and steadily at the remantling of the ship; and in this way became acquainted with her captain and all the crew, who, when they learned that he was to sail with them for Tyre, took some pains to show him courtesy. During this fortnight of labor Charmides' thoughts were busier than his hands, and they moved not wholly through regretful ways. It would have been wonderful had his young imagination not been excited by the prospect before him, that of strange lands and peoples, of pleasures and dangers with which he was to become acquainted. His fancy strayed often through pleasant paths, so that sometimes half a day went by before a remembrance of the coming separation from his home and from his mother brought a shadow across his new road.

The prospect of departure was, too, far easier for Charmides to contemplate than it would have been for Phalaris, with all the athlete's affected stoicism. Up to this time Charmides had led a lonely life; no tastes that rendered him companionable towards others, or, rather, holding within himself resources that enabled him to lead a life in which the presence of others was unnecessary and undesirable. The existence that his imagination conjured up from the lands of the unreal had become dearer to him than that of actualities. He had created a world for himself, and peopled it with creatures of his fancy. With these he walked and held converse, and no one but Heraia, his mother, could have understood how completely they satisfied his every need of companionship. Thus he was able to take away with him almost all of his former life; and Charmides and Heraia both realized, in their secret hearts, that the way of another in his place would have been far harder than it promised to be for him.

During the last week before the sailing of the ship, Charmides held one or two long and serious talks with his father and brother. Theron, with grave, undemonstrative affection, gave him good counsel and excellent advice as to his dealings with men, and his behavior in various possible situations with them. Theron was not a poor man, neither was he an ungenerous one; and the bag of silver coins given the shepherd to carry away with him contained enough to transport him to the gates of the great city itself. Regarding the object of that journey, the father, after the first morning, said not one word. He felt that Charmides knew best what he intended to do; and it must be confessed that, despite his piety and his reverence for the gods of his race, the Selinuntian felt his credulity much taxed when it came to Istar, the living goddess of Babylon, of whose existence Kabir was their single witness, and at that a witness only at second hand, according to the Tyrian's own admission. Phalaris shared his father's views on this point; but, to his credit be it said, not the least suggestion of this feeling ever escaped him in his brother's presence after Charmides' decision to go had been finally and irrevocably made.

Kabir, in the mean time, found his admiration of the shepherd increasing. Charmides now held many a talk with him on practical things, and the Phoenician found his prospective companion by no means lacking in common-sense. The young Greek very soon read enough of the other's nature to realize that poetry and imagination held small places in his category of desirable characteristics; and the young man ceased to lay before the older one any pretty notions regarding sea-myths in which he was indulging himself when contemplating the long, eastward voyage. Now and then they spoke of Istar, and Tyre, and Babylon, which Kabir knew well by hearsay. But legends of mischievous Tritons and dangerous Sirens, of fair Nymphs and hideous sea-monsters, and stories of Delos and Naxos, of Crete and Halicarnassus, the rhapsode kept for himself and his lyre.

At length came the dawning of the last day of the shepherd's old life. The galley was launched and ready to sail. Food and water were stowed away on board; and the libations and sacrifices had taken place on the beach the evening before. Now, on this last afternoon, Charmides sat alone, a little way in front of the house, looking off upon the seas to which, to-morrow, he was to trust himself for safe convoy to such distant lands. It was a fair afternoon, and very warm. The rhapsode, basking in the sunlight, felt his emotions dulled under the beauty around him. His blue eyes wandered slowly over the familiar and yet ever-changing scene. His mind was almost at rest. Indeed, his eyelids had begun to droop with suspicious heaviness, when a gentle hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he turned to find his mother at his side.

"Charmides!" she said, in a strained voice. And then again: "My Charmides!"

"My mother!" And she was held close in his arms, her tears raining down upon his face, his head drawn close upon her breast.

"Charmides! My boy, my beloved, my companion! How can I give thee up?"

The shepherd stood still and silent while her hands caressed his shining hair and her breath came and went in a vain effort to re-establish her self-control. After two or three minutes, in which his thoughts spun dizzily, he took both her hands in his own and lifted them to his lips.

"Mother," he said, rather brokenly, "Apollo will forgive, will release me from the vow. I will not go away. I will not leave thee here--alone." He kissed the hand again. "Come with me to the temple of the god, and I will absolve myself from the vow."

Heraia drew the boy still closer, and put her lips to the hair that clustered about his ear. "The gods bless thee, my dear one. Apollo will hardly forgive my weakness. Nay, Charmides, I did not come here to grieve over you, but to talk with you on many things that a mother has in her heart to say to her children. Let us sit here together and look off upon the sea--the sea that I must hereafter watch alone."

Thus speaking, she drew him down upon the ground beside her, into one of the daisy drifts, and they sat in silence for a little, looking off together over the far expanse of shimmering blue, with the turquoise horizon-line melting into the still bluer tint of the sky above. And when Heraia began again to talk, her tone was so low and so even that the words seemed to her listener to mingle with the afternoon, becoming at length so entirely a part of their surroundings that in his memory of the scene, as his mind held it in later years, her voice was forever accompanied by the shining of bright waters and the faint fragrance of the carpet of flowers surrounding her.

"Your father, my Charmides, has talked with you of your long and lonely journey, of men, the ways of men, and your dealings with them. Obey his wishes in all these things, for his advice is that of one who has lived long and wisely in the world. But I, dear son, must speak to you in another way, of things which, were you not as you are, I should not mention before you. But you are young, and you are very pure; and your nature, with its hidden joys and hidden woe, I understand through my own.

"Your face and form, my Charmides, are beautiful--more beautiful and more strange than those of any man I have ever seen." She paused for a moment to look wistfully into that face, with its golden frame of hair, while the boy, astonished and displeased, muttered, resentfully:

"My face is that of a woman!"

His mother smiled at his disgust. "Nay, child, thy face has the man in it most plainly written. There is in it what women love--and it is of this that I would speak.

"Excepting myself, Charmides, you have known no woman well; and the feeling of a man for his mother is never his feeling for any other of her sex. Woman's nature is as yet, I think, closed to your understanding. In this long journey upon which you are faring forth, I do not doubt that you will encounter women, more than one, who will seek you for the beauty of your face. For women love beauty in men, as men desire it in them.

"In your connection with women, whether the acquaintance be of their seeking or of yours, remember this one thing, that I most firmly believe: All women, all in the world, of any land, I think, have in them two natures--one that is evil, and one that is good. It will rest with you alone which one you choose to look upon. For there is no woman so degraded, so lost to virtue, that she cannot remember a time of purity which you can reawaken in her. And there is no woman so good that, for the man she truly loves with her heart and with her soul, she will not fall; for so men have taught them, through the ages, to love. Therefore, my son, may the greatest of all humiliations come upon you if, knowing what I say to be true, you treat any woman with other than reverence and honor. For a woman who clings in dishonor to the man she loves is not to be blamed by the gods so much as the man she has trusted. For a man is strong and should have control over all his senses; but to a woman love is life; and it is decreed that life is all in all to us.

"Yours, Charmides, is a white soul, a soul as beautiful as the body that holds it. As yet it is unspotted by a single act of wrong-doing. That you keep that soul pure throughout your life is my one prayer for you. I give you up to the wide world--to poverty, to wretchedness, to suffering perhaps--but in this I trust you to keep faith with me. Remember that I hold your honor as my own. Though Apollo may not vouchsafe that I see you again after to-morrow--ever; though the memory of me shall grow dim in your after-life; yet remember--strive to remember always--my last words, spoken out of my great, my aching love for you. For in these words my motherhood reaches its end. Your manhood has begun."

She kept her voice steady, her tears from falling, till the end. Not so the boy. When the last word had left her lips and she had bowed her head under her weight of sorrow, Charmides could not speak for the straining of his throat; and his eyes, brimming with salt tears, looked blindly upon the flushing clouds. For many minutes they were silent, sitting together for the last time, while the sunset hour drew on and the golden shadows fell athwart the daisies, and Heraia's words sank deeper into the shepherd's heart. Finally they rose, and moved, hand in hand, in the deepening twilight, back through the field to Theron's house. There Charmides passed once more through the door-way of his youth.

The evening was long and very sad. After the forlorn supper the little group sat close together, saying little, yet loath to make a proposal of bed, for it had come home poignantly to all of them how very empty life would seem with Charmides taken away. After a time Kabir thoughtfully left them and went out to walk alone in the starlight. Then the two slaves, Doris and Sardeis, crept in and seated themselves in a distant corner of the living-room. Doris' wide eyes were tinged with red, and her mien was as dejected as Heraia's; for Charmides had been her comrade always. He had helped her in her tasks, had sung his shepherd songs to her from the fields, had not seldom procured pardon for her for some neglect of duty. And Sardeis, the skilful but rather churlish slave, who hated Phalaris and all his ways, and treated Theron with respect only because it meant a whipping if he failed to do so, had never once objected in his own heart to taking Charmides' flock from him as often as the youth desired lazy freedom, or to performing numberless little kindnesses for him that no beating could have drawn forth for the athlete. He, too, on this eve of the boy's departure, was beyond speech.

After nearly an hour of cheerless silence, Phalaris, with a desperate effort to relieve the general strain, brought out his brother's lyre and put it into Charmides' hands. There was a little repressed sob from Heraia, but the rhapsode's face brightened. For a few seconds he lovingly fingered the instrument. Then, lifting up his voice, he sang a song to the sea, a quaintly rhymed little melody, in his invariable minor. Finishing it, he began again, improvising as he went, with an ease and carelessness that produced wonderfully happy combinations. Now, as always, he found consolation for every grief in his incomparable talent. And when, after a last merry little tune that rose continually from its first tones till it ran out of his range at the end, he finally put the instrument away, Heraia and the slave alike had ceased to weep, Phalaris was smiling, and Theron rose cheerfully:

"Now, Charmides, you must rise at dawn; therefore I bid you go to rest. Be up with the earliest light, and I will go with you to the temple, where, before Archemides, you will renew your vow and offer sacrifice of the youngest lamb in our fold. Kabir will join us there after the service is ended, and with him you will go down to the ship. Good-night. The gods grant you sleep."

Before Charmides had left the room Kabir came in again, and presently went off to his couch with the brothers.

Charmides' rest was broken, filled with dreams of far countries and with uncertain visions of her whom he was to seek. Disconnected sounds of music, bells, and phrases of charmed melody rang through his unconsciousness. Only in the last hour before dawn did he sink into untroubled slumber, from which, with the first glimmer of day, he rose. His mind was at rest, his heart filled with peace in the inward knowledge that what he was going forth alone to seek was no chimera, but a marvellous reality. It was, then, with a great, confident joy written upon his face that, at the rising of the sun, he stood before the altar of Apollo, and, in the presence of Archemides, the high-priest, surrounded by his father, brother, and the elders of Selinous, renewed his solemn vow and offered prayer and sacrifice to the Olympian of the Silver Bow.

The hour following the ceremony was painful enough. As the boy looked back upon it afterwards, it was only a haze of tears, filled with his mother's incoherent words, his father's irrelevant advice, Phalaris' poor attempts at laughing at the rest: all of these things finally ending in a choked prayer and kiss from Heraia. Her last embrace, given as they stood upon the shore beside the little boat that was to row him out to the galley, sent a sharp pang through his heart. He knew that his father gently loosened her arms from his neck. He had a decided memory of the last mighty grip of Phalaris' fingers. Then he and the Phoenician, each with his bundle of clothes and money, stepped into the boat and were pulled over the smooth waters to the side of the _Fish of Tyre_, resplendent in her new rigging and furnishing.

They were the last to go on board. Eshmun awaited them anxiously, wishing to get away at once, into the fresh easterly breeze that was bellying out the ready-hoisted sail. Thus the pain of lingering in sight of the city, his home, was not protracted for the rhapsode. Ten minutes after he had stepped upon the deck of the ship her anchor was weighed, the tiller was pushed hard down, the sails sprang full, and the shore and rocky heights of the Greek city began slowly to recede from view.

Now came, for Charmides, twelve days of pure delight. He was alive and he was living upon the sea, that moving plain, every aspect of which was one of new beauty. From dawn to dusk, and back again in dreams to dawn, he fed his mind upon the all-abiding peace, the stillness made more still by the music of the ripples. Perfect freedom was his. He was as in the very centre of the world, the sea around him unbroken, as far as eye could reach, or perhaps some low-hanging, faintly olive-green cloud that others called an island, just touching the distant horizon-line, west or south. It was here and now, only, that the image of Istar, as he conceived her, took absolute possession of his soul. By day he walked with her, by night she watched over his light sleep. He talked to her, believing that she answered him. He sang to her and dreamed of her and prayed to her as something especially his own. Yet, near as was this image of his mind, Charmides never looked straight upon her face unveiled. Dimly, many times, he conjured up her features. Her eyes shone upon him out of the spangled night, but their color he did not know. Her cheek, smooth, warm, semi-transparent, tinted as the petal of the asphodel, was near his lips, but never desecrated by them. And while she thus moved near him, drawing him onward with intenser desire towards her far abiding-place, she was forever the goddess, in that she kept him always from all desire of a more human approach than this mystic, half-mental companionship.

During the voyage the sailors regarded Charmides with a curiosity tinged with dislike. Eshmun himself was at a loss to comprehend the unsociable and idle existence of the youth, who lay all day long on the high stern, under the awning, singing to his lyre and watching the sea. And Kabir passed a good deal of time studying this intense phase of the shepherd's malady, and seeking to think out its cure. Considering the trader's eminent practicality, he conceived, with remarkable penetration, the workings of a poetically unbalanced mind. Only he, out of all the ship's company, cared to listen to the rhapsode's music. Only he lay awake by night to listen to and piece together the strange words that Charmides spoke in his sleep. But even he, it must be confessed, did not respect the effeminate romance that could lead a grown man into such ecstasies over a divine ideal.

The _Fish of Tyre_ took her course down the high coast of southern Sicily, halting once at Akragas and again at the easternmost point, Syracuse, where more water was taken on, and purchase made of a number of jars of a rosier, sweeter liquid. Then away to sea they sailed again, southward, round the heel of Italy, and north once more to the shores of Mother Greece herself, stopping finally at many-storied Crete, where the long sand-stretches on the coast yielded every year to the Phoenicians a store of their wonderful little dye-mollusks. Leaving the city of tyrant kings, the galley entered upon the waters that formed a setting for those jewels of the Mediterranean, the Grecian Isles, that rose like so many emeralds upon their amethystine waters, shot with gold by day, lying dim and murmurous by night under the dome of lapis-lazuli pricked with diamond stars. The galley, homeward bound, carrying her burden of homesick men, made no halt between Crete and Cyprus, which last was, to Tyrians, a second home. Charmides witnessed, with a little tug at his heart-strings, the great joy of his comrades, even Kabir and Eshmun, at once more beholding the familiar shores. A night was spent in the Karchenian harbor, for it was but one day's journey now to Tyre herself.

During that last night, while they were at anchor, Charmides, in his accustomed place on the deck, lay wide awake. The moon, half-grown, set about midnight over the land. The night was still and sweet, and the air warm with approaching summer. The planets shone like little moons, more radiant than Charmides had ever known them before. Now and then, from the town on shore, came the baying of a dog. The Greek's heart swelled with a painful longing that he could not define. It was the first twinge of homesickness, the first realization of the greatness of the world around him, and his own insignificance within it. Istar, the goddess, might indeed be near him; but the shepherd longed less for divinity than for the clasp of a warm human hand upon his own.

It was better when the dawn, red-robed, came up out of the east. There was a bustle of sailors on deck, a creaking of ropes, and a flapping of sail-cloth. Then came the hoarse shouts of Sydyk, rousing the slaves from their chained slumber, bidding them bend cheerily to their oars, for the end of their eight months of agony and toil was near its end. The little ship sped out of the friendly harbor, gallantly distancing the waves, sending forth two hissing curls of foam off her prow, her rudder cutting a deep, pale line in the smooth wake. As the morning star died on the crimson of the east, the breeze freshened. The whole long horizon was shot with rosy clouds and topped by a line of gold that paled into delicate green as it melted towards the fair blue of the upper sky, in which the white stars had now long since hidden themselves away.

Charmides let his lyre rest as he stood by one of the bulwarks watching a bird float away from the ship, back towards the receding Cyprenian shore. Presently Kabir came to join him, and the two sat down together, cross-legged, on the deck. In one hand the Phoenician had brought a platter of cooked fish and some bread, while in the other he had a small jar of sweet wine.

"Food, my poet; food for the morning. Pray Apollo to make it sweet."

"You should be returning thanks to Melkart and Baal for the approaching end of the voyage," returned the Greek, speaking Phoenician in rather a subdued voice.

Kabir smiled to himself, but made no answer other than to hold out food to Charmides, who helped himself not too bountifully. The rhapsode, indeed, was in danger of falling into a melancholy reverie at this the very beginning of the day. But, after ten minutes' silence, his self-appointed friend fortunately broke in upon him.

"Aphrodite's rites you practise, Charmides. Istar of the Babylonians you have come to seek. But our Nature goddess, our divinity of fertility and beauty, you know nothing of. In Tyre, before you move farther to the east, you must let me show you how we are accustomed to worship Ashtoreth. Across the bay, on the mainland opposite the great Sidonian harbor, she has a vast sanctuary. We shall go there together, you and I, and you shall learn--" Kabir stopped speaking, and regarded the boy contemplatively.

"Learn--what?" asked Charmides, turning towards him slightly.

"Many things, Charmides, that it will be well for you to know. Will you drink of this? And there is new bread, also."

But the Greek refused more food, and was not sufficiently interested in the conversation begun to question Kabir further on the things that he should learn. The sun was rising now--a great, fiery wheel, burnished and dripping, sending its rays of dazzling drops high up the curved way, while it came on more slowly, more surely, till it rolled clear of the horizon, in a cloud of glorious, blinding flame.

Charmides prayed silently till the day was well begun, and sea and sky were resolved into their ordinary hues of blue and white and gold. Then, Kabir having gone again, the rhapsode, spent with his wakeful night, and sorrowful at heart with longing for his distant home, lay down upon the planks and slept. It was near noon when he woke again; and over all the ship one could feel the vibrations of excitement at thought of the nearness of Tyre, the home city. It should show along the horizon by sunset, and for that hour every soul on board was eagerly, impatiently waiting.

To Charmides, standing forlornly near the prow, it appeared, at last, in a dream-like mist of scarlet and gold. Rushing water and green eddies and that marvellous, blinding haze mingled together and melted away to make room for the long-dreamed-of cloud picture that rose, like a conjured vision, out of the east. It was a mirrored city of white walls and drooping cypress-trees that stood far out in front of the gradually heightening coast-line behind them. It was Tyre, the city of the rising sun, viewed thus for the first time at the day's end. It was the gate of the new world. Charmides had stood long before its closed door, waiting, watching for admittance. Now, at last, the key was in his hand.

"It is fair, my home," observed Kabir, coming to stand at his shoulder, his tone fraught with suppressed joy and pride.

Charmides assented quietly. "Oh yes, Kabir. It is, indeed, fair. Very--fair."

IV

ASHTORETH

Not until an hour after sunset did Charmides at last set foot on shore and stand, in the dim evening crimson, on the western strand of the island city. His bundle of clothing and money was on his back. His lyre hung from his waist by a thong; and on his head, over its usual fillet, he wore a peaked cap of crimson cloth, cut after the Tyrian fashion. He was waiting for Kabir, who lingered to indulge in a round of chaff with half a dozen loquacious fellows on a small barge that was just about to put off for the galley. Kabir had, in the friendliest way, invited the shepherd to share his own lodging at the house of his brother in the city; but, notwithstanding this, the rhapsode felt forlorn enough as he stood looking out across the darkening waters in the direction of his home. It was a sudden and most untoward emotion that made the Greek blind to his appearance when Kabir finally came to his side. For not till the Phoenician's hand fell upon his shoulder, and the rather raucous voice sounded close in his ear, did Charmides turn, with a start, to follow his guide out into the streets of Tyre.

They were narrow, these streets, and twisting, and very dirty. Moreover, though the business of the day was finished, the thoroughfares were still a wriggling mass of litters, chariots, camels, asses, dogs, and men. Charmides slipped through patches of filth, and stumbled over animals that lay in his path, while he looked about him in dull displeasure at the buildings of stone and clay-brick and dried mud, sumptuous or wretched beyond belief, that lined these lanes. On all sides rose the clamor of rude, Phoenician voices and the mouthing of ungraceful words. Here and there a fire of sticks, burning in some court-yard and visible through an open door-way, cast an uncertain light across their path. Kabir walked rapidly, and in silence. His momentary feeling of excitement at being again in his native city had passed, and he had regained his usual placid indifference--the indifference that Charmides before now had found unexpectedly sympathetic.

After nearly half an hour's walk the Phoenician halted before a very fair-sized wooden house, and, knocking ponderously upon the closed, brass-bound door, turned to Charmides with a slight smile, saying:

"It is the house of my brother, where I, also, make my home when I am here. You will be welcome in my family."

Charmides had no time to make a fitting reply, for the door was quickly opened by some one who, after peering for a moment or two into the darkness at the waiting figures, gave a sudden, loud shout of delight and seized Kabir by the girdle. For the next ten minutes the young Greek stood in the background, watching the general mêlée that ensued upon the shout. Four children, besides the half-grown boy who had opened the door, made a speedy appearance; and they were followed by a quiet-looking woman who manifested extreme pleasure at sight of Kabir. Finally, out of the gloom of the interior, drawn by the hubbub of excitement at the door, appeared a dignified and well-dressed man, who, on perceiving Kabir, gave a quick exclamation, and, brushing away the clinging children, embraced his brother with every sign of delighted affection.

Half an hour later the whole party were seated in a well-furnished room, Charmides and Kabir partaking of supper, while the Phoenicians sat close about them, listening eagerly to the story of the long voyage, the disaster on the rocks of Selinous, and the account of Charmides and his family.

"So you fare on to Babylon, stranger?" observed Abdosir, Kabir's brother. "It is well that you reached Tyre no later. The last caravan of the summer leaves for the East in three days, under charge"--he turned to his brother--"under charge of Hodo, whom you, Kabir, will surely remember. A month ago he came up from the great city, has now finished his business, and returns homeward by way of Damascus. The Greek will do well in his care."

"Yes, that is excellent.--Hodo! One could have asked no better master of the caravan." Kabir turned to Charmides with a smile; but the youth sat silent, his eyes still fixed on the face of Abdosir, his expression containing little enough of joy.

"You have heard what my brother says," continued Kabir, in Greek. "This Hodo is a Babylonian, and well known to us. He is a shrewd merchant and an excellent comrade. We will recommend you to him to-morrow. If your caravan starts in three days' time you will reach the city of Istar easily enough in another month."

Charmides tried hard to answer this speech in a proper spirit, but he found it an effort to speak at all. At the present moment the only wish of his heart was that any communication with distant Babylon might be found impossible, and that he himself might be at liberty to turn his face once more to the west. Perhaps this mood was partly induced by weariness. If so, Kabir knew his companion better than the Greek knew himself; for, after finishing their meat and wine, and talking for a few minutes with his nephews and nieces, Kabir quietly suggested to his sister-in-law that the Greek be shown a sleeping-apartment to which he might retire when he would, which proved to be immediately.

The room in which Charmides finally fell asleep was one that boasted of greater luxury than he had ever known before. Walled with painted tiles, hung with embroideries, carpeted with rugs from far Eastern looms, and lighted by a hanging-lamp of wrought bronze, it presented to the Greek an appearance of comfort that drew from him a long sigh of content; and he sank to sleep on the soft couch with the name of Zeus on his lips and the image of his mother in his heart.

He awoke alone. Kabir's bed, across the room, had been slept on, but was empty now. The daylight about him was dim enough, but the half-light gave no hint of the hour; for the single window in the room was scarcely so large as a man's hand. Sounds of life were to be heard in the city outside, and from the house around him. Once really awake, then, and conscious of his whereabouts, Charmides rose in haste, dressed, smoothed his hair, looked for water but found none, and proceeded with some hesitation into the living-room. This he found to be occupied only by one of the children, a little girl, who greeted him shyly, and bade him eat of the food that had been left for him upon the table. Charmides, as timid as the child, forbore to ask for the water without which he felt it impious to begin the day, and sat down, as he was bid, to a repast of millet bread, buffalo milk, and lentils. These things he finished, to the satisfaction of the little Phoenician, and then looked about him wondering what to do. It was evidently late. By a question or two he learned that Kabir and Abdosir had been gone from the house for an hour or more, that Zarada was out on a visit, and that, in all probability, it would be noon before any one returned to the house. With this knowledge Charmides sought his mantle and cap, and went forth into the city to learn something of Tyre for himself.

Tyre by daylight was no less unlovely but rather more interesting than Tyre at night. Charmides, accustomed to the well-ordered dignity of life in his distant Doric city, was amazed and bewildered here, in the midst of this labyrinth of narrow streets choked with men and animals. Having some idea of direction, he felt no dread of losing his way, but wandered on at will, hurried and pushed from one side of a street to the other, always too diverted by what he saw to resent the interferences. He chanced presently on a broader thoroughfare, one fairly well kept, stretching in a straight line from north to south. This, as he guessed, was the principal street of the city, terminating, as he could not know, on the north, in the great agenorium, or open mart, east of the Sidonian harbor, and, on the south, in the grove and temple of Melkart. Charmides moved along up this street, admiring the solid stone buildings that lined it on either side; watching the graceful chariots drawn by richly caparisoned horses, and driven by men who, from their dress, were evidently rulers in the oligarchy; and constantly annoyed by the importunities of beggars or venders of cheap wares that were to be found everywhere through the city, but most of all on this street. He had walked farther than he knew, for at length he came in sight of the sea that stretched out before him from the other side of a great, open square running down to the water's edge.

Open square it had been, no doubt, at the time of its planning; but, in all probability, since the day of completion, no one had ever seen it empty. Just now, certainly, there was not a spare foot of pavement in its entire area, and Charmides looked about him with the wonderment and pleasure of a child. Directly before him were the shoe and sandal venders, who occupied about a quarter of an acre of space. Shoes were an article that Charmides had never seen worn. Their purpose was easy to divine, however, and he fell to admiring the cleverness of their invention and the beauty of their ornamentation. Beyond this interesting spot came the silk and cloth merchants, then the leather venders, brass and metal workers, and dealers in Egyptian and Sidonian jewelry. To the left of these was the market, where grain, fish, fruits, meat, and wines were to be had; while down the whole eastern edge of the space lay a row of dirty, supercilious-looking camels, half of them for sale, half of them owned by sellers in the mart.

Charmides had not yet begun to thread a path through the tangle of men and merchandise when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to find Kabir at his side.

"So you are here, my Charmides! Have you come to seek us out? Who directed you hither?"

"I came by chance to this place, not knowing you were here. It is wonderful! I have not seen anything like it before."

"No. Selinous certainly has no such place. Here, indeed, we are well met. Desert needs of yours may be supplied before we leave the market. Now, Charmides, you must be made known to him who will lead you farther into the East. Hodo the Babylonian is with me. Hodo! Here!"

Kabir looked round and beckoned to a little fellow who had left him to examine the goods of a cloth merchant near by. At Kabir's call, however, he turned, and, seeing Charmides, came over to his friend's side. Charmides beheld a small man, hardly five feet high, swathed from head to heels in white garments of rich texture. Well as they were worn, however, they could not conceal the semi-deformity of the little fellow. He was altogether crooked: crooked in his legs, in his back, in his nose, in his expression--an ugly little man with an ugly little face that had in it a singularly infectious gleam of humor.

Hodo looked at Charmides, and his ugliness gathered and broke into a delighted smile that transformed every feature of his face. Charmides looked at Hodo and could not refrain from answering the smile with a gay laugh. Thenceforward Hodo felt that he had Charmides for a friend.

"Now, Theronides, Hodo will go with us into the mart here and will tell us what you need for the desert journey, that we may buy."

"But what things should I need? I have all necessary garments, as many as I can carry with me, now."

"What to wear on the head for dust?" demanded Hodo, speaking Phoenician in a deep and rather rich voice.

"This cap--and my fillet. In the heat I shall not need even those."

"Hump!" Hodo grinned, crookedly. "I have crossed the desert nineteen times, young Greek, and I will tell you what you must wear. See--you are a yellow man, and your skin is as thin as a Phrygian's, while mine is like leather. Your hair is too fine to shield you at all from the fierce rays of Shamash. There must be a square of silk to wind about your head, and two thicknesses of muslin to protect your neck in the back. Then, if you think me versed in desert knowledge, you will leave off that short tunic and get a single linen garment that will cover you down to your heels. You will want a light cloak, perhaps, for night, for comfort; but you will not often wear it. The rains are over. Summer is upon us. None will suffer from cold upon the desert."

Charmides listened closely to this speech, yet was not able to understand all that the Babylonian said, for he spoke Phoenician as thickly as a Phoenician spoke Greek. The rhapsode, therefore, turned appealingly to Kabir, who explained the words at length; and then, Charmides having very sensibly put himself into Hodo's hands, the three proceeded to make the necessary purchases, for which Kabir paid, while Charmides repaid him from his bag at Kabir's abode. On their return walk Charmides questioned Hodo as to when and whence their caravan was to start, and he found that it would be but two days before men and camels assembled on the mainland, in a little square opposite the Egyptian harbor.

"And we do not go straight to Babylon?"

"As straight as will be well in this season. Damascus first, then out and over the desert. It is the easiest route--twenty days' ride from the gate of Six Thieves."

"And you come now from Babylon?"

"Two months ago I was there, Greek. Kabir knoweth it."

Charmides nodded apologetically and said no more. Kabir watched for the light to come into his eyes, and waited for a certain question. But the youth kept silent, and, after a pause, the Babylonian took the words out of Kabir's mouth and rushed in upon the young man's thoughts.

"It is said, Greek, that you take this long journey for the sake of our goddess, the lady Istar, queen of the gods of Babylon."

Kabir kept his eyes fixed on those of Charmides, but failed to see any interest come into the youth's expression. Instead, a frown spread itself over the fair forehead, and the young mouth straightened ominously.

"The object of my journey matters little," was his low-voiced reply.

Hodo's eyes stretched open. He sent a grimace of astonishment to Kabir, and silence followed Charmides' last words. The three walked on uncomfortably, till there came sounds of a surprising chuckle from the Babylonian, who, as both his companions turned towards him, exclaimed, irrepressibly:

"The thought of Ishtar brings me to another. Kabir--to-morrow, I remember, is the day of the semi-yearly rites of Ashtoreth--at her sanctuary on the mainland."

For a second or two Kabir did not reply. He was musing--on a subject relative to Charmides' girlish purity. Finally he said: "Yes. The yearly festival of Tammuz took place a month ago. To-morrow is the festival of the virgin rites. We will go--all three. You, Charmides, shall see the ceremonies of our Aphrodite, Astarte of the Mazzarines. She is our Tyrian Istar."

Charmides looked at him with new animation. "Do they offer sacrifice?"

"Yes--in the grove--doves and lambs, and one young bullock. But the real ceremony takes place within the temple. Knowing but little of our Eastern customs, you will do well to see that."

Charmides nodded acquiescence, and Hodo chuckled to himself again. But the silence that followed lasted till they had once more reached the house of Abdosir.

During the remainder of that day Charmides made no remark on the subject of the amusement promised for the morrow. Kabir tried to draw him to it by talking of the great temples of Melkart, Baal, and the Olympian Zeus that were on the island. But Charmides seemed to be developing a surprising and unnecessary taciturnity, for which the Phoenician, regarding him as extraordinarily young, would hardly have given him credit; and, before the evening was over, Kabir was moved to consider, a little more closely, how much depth of character really lay behind that open and ingenuous personality.

As a matter of fact, Charmides' silence was the result of a chance remembrance of his last talk with his mother, mingled with a prophetic intuition of what the morrow would bring forth. When the morrow arrived, however, and Hodo, gay in red embroideries, came with it, Charmides appeared in his holiday garments, and seemed as ready as his companions to set forth to the holy place.

The grove and temple of Ashtoreth, or Astarte, of Tyre, were outside the city proper, and lay on the mainland, south of the Egyptian harbor. From the spot where ferry-boats left one after the passage of the narrow channel, there was a walk of nearly a mile southward to the entrance of the grove. This was marked by open gates and two ill-carved stone statues, the subjects of which Charmides regarded with haughty displeasure. His first impression, however, was ameliorated by the great beauty of the wood, where cedar and cypress trees grew at will, while the shaded ground was kept clear of leaves and brush, and was covered with a rare velvet turf. The coolness and shade to be found beneath the great branches, after the pitiless sunshine through which they had been walking, was delicious; and the Greek would willingly have given the afternoon to wandering here, watching the golden shadows and exploring the sinuous paths that wound everywhere before him. He did not, however, venture to suggest this course. There was now a stream of men passing and following them to the temple. Hodo was half running in his eagerness, and Kabir himself had perceptibly quickened his pace. Neither of them spoke, and the Greek was free to watch the people around him, to marvel at the richness of their garments, the profusion of their jewelry, and the extreme animation of their faces. He caught glimpses, also, of three stone altars, carved in indistinguishable bas-relief, covered with offerings, and attended by yellow-robed priestesses, with whom, indeed, the way to the temple was thronged. It was ten minutes' walk from the entrance of the grove before the temple itself was reached.

A broad, low, badly proportioned building of stone, colonnaded with pillars of Assyrian design and startlingly disagreeable to the Greek eye, frieze and pediment carved with gross caricatures of the Phoenician pantheon, and a sloping, square door-way of Egyptian style, was the sight that met Charmides' eyes--the far-famed sanctuary of Ashtoreth of Tyre. The crowd of men assembling at this door-way from every part of the grove made it necessary to wait one's turn before entering. Hodo, Kabir, and Charmides had difficulty in keeping together in the crush, but finally found themselves inside.

Here was darkness, odorous with stale incense, dotted with glimmering lights, moving with men. Once within, Kabir and Hodo performed some prostrations and muttered a prayer or two, to the words of which Charmides listened rather blankly. Then the three of them passed from the entrance hall into the great room of the temple. This was lighted from the roof by hundreds of swinging lamps; and, Charmides' eyes having become accustomed to the softened light, he was able to see everything distinctly.

The entire company of spectators halted at the upper end of the room. Opposite them, in the farther wall, was the shrine of the goddess, in which her statue stood. About this shrine hung bronze lamps of beautiful workmanship, in which burned perfumed oil and frankincense. In front of the shrine, which was paved with African marble, was a slab of smooth granite, eight feet long, six broad, and about four in height. Around this knelt a company of priestesses, all but one of whom were robed in yellow. The one, whose bowed head could hardly be seen, was clad in a single garment of white veiling; and her hair, unbound, fell in a brown curtain to the floor on either side of her. Charmides, taking his eyes from the group of worshippers, looked again around the room. About it, built into the walls behind the pillars, were half a hundred dim niches, shadowy, unlighted, of indeterminable depth, the purpose of which he failed to divine. Except for these, the pillars, the shrine, and the altar, there was nothing to look at in the room, for the walls were bare of inscriptions, and there were no other statues than the one of Ashtoreth in her sanctum.

This survey finished, Charmides turned all his attentions to the group of priestesses at the end of the room. They were now chanting aloud; and, from the restlessness among the company of men, Charmides decided that the ceremony was approaching a point of interest. Presently Kabir seized his hand and the two of them followed in the wake of Hodo, who was eagerly forcing a passage into the front rank.

All those in the first row were, whether by chance or design Charmides could not know, young, more or less comely, and dressed with extreme elegance. As the rhapsode gained his new position he felt upon him the eyes of half the company; and not a few whispers relative to his fair skin and his fine physique reached his ears. His speculation as to the reason for this was presently forgotten, however, for the women down the room had formed into a semicircular phalanx, in the very centre of which stood the white-robed, unveiled girl. Then, to the sound of a processional chant, all of them began a slow advance up the hall towards the orderly ranks of men. The Greek caught a new order of whispers, now, that rose about him on all sides. Of these he understood here and there a phrase: "Beautiful this time!" "Her hair is her veil!" "Ashtoreth will that she choose me!" "Baal did well to let her come!" And then, as the chant ended and the women halted ten feet from the front row of men, every sound ceased. After a short pause the priestesses separated into two groups, and from their midst the white virgin came slowly forth. At her appearance every man dropped upon one knee, Kabir pulling the wide-eyed Greek down beside him. Again there was a pause, during which Charmides felt his heart beating uncomfortably. The maiden was regarding the ranks of men before her. Slowly, fearfully, her eyes moved along from face to face, their passage marked here and there by a sharply drawn breath from some one before her. Charmides, entirely ignorant of the meaning of this rite, watched her with tentative interest. She was young, her face as white as her robe, her big, half-terrified eyes of a dove-gray color. Pretty--very pretty--she was, as pretty as Doris--but not beautiful. Charmides had, of late, been picturing too divine a beauty to feel any tremor of eagerness before this gentle priestess of Ashtoreth.

All at once her eyes flashed to his. He drew back, earnestly hoping that she would pass him by. But this was not to be. The gray orbs halted at the blue ones, moved languidly over his perfect face, descended to his shoulders--arms--body--and at last a faint tinge of red crept into her deathly cheeks. She nodded once to him, murmuring half a dozen indistinguishable words. Instantly Charmides felt two violent shoves, the one from Kabir on the right, the other from Hodo on the left.

"Rise! Rise to your feet!" Kabir whispered, peremptorily.

Charmides obeyed.

"Go forward to her. The hierodules will take you."

Charmides went towards the girl. Before he had reached her two of the other women advanced to his side and took him by the hands, at the same time recommencing their chant. Thereupon the whole company, women and men, began a slow march back towards the shrine. Charmides was still in the maze of his first surprise. He walked mechanically between his conductresses, his eyes fixed on the back of the sacrificial maiden who moved in front of him. At twenty paces from the altar the general company stopped. Only Charmides, the girl, and two priestesses advanced till they stood directly in front of the shrine with the altar behind them. Then a hush fell upon the multitude, and Charmides experienced a sudden tremor--a dread of what was to happen next. He had no idea whatever for what purpose he had been chosen, whether it threatened his life, endangered his freedom, or gave promise of honor. Kabir had been eager for him to go, however; and it was evident that many had desired his place. At any rate, the blood in his veins was Greek--and Doric Greek. This thought brought tranquillity, and he stood with renewed indifference till a move was made that struck him like a blow. At a certain phrase in the chant the two women stepped to either side of the white virgin, unclasped the two wrought pins that held her robe upon the shoulders, and, with a quick twist, let the garment fall to the floor.

There was an impulsive quickening in the song. Slowly the girl faced Charmides, her head drooping, her hands clasped before her, her brown hair falling about her shoulders. Supported on either side, she moved towards him till her knee touched his tunic. Charmides took a hasty step backwards, not hearing the faint sigh that escaped her lips. Then one of the priestesses frowned.

"Take her up to Ashtoreth!" she said, pointing from the girl to the stone altar.

Now at last Charmides understood, and he turned white with wrath. For an instant he let his eyes rest in utter scorn, utter disgust, upon the three women in front of him. Then he hurled at them a Greek phrase, fortunately incomprehensible to the multitude. Lastly, unheeding the look of abject terror that was overspreading the face of the girl, he turned upon his heel and began to walk rapidly down the long hall to the door.

By this time the chant had given place to a rising chorus of astonishment and wrath on the part of the men, and of woe on the side of the women. Still the Greek, absorbed in his own displeasure, kept on his way, and would presently have been outside the building, when Kabir, darting from the throng, seized him roughly by the shoulders.

"Charmides! Thou fool! What do you?"

The rhapsode, frowning angrily, tried to shake off his companion, but Kabir's hands were strong.

"Know you, I say, what you do?"

Charmides turned upon him. "I will not dishonor her, neither myself!" he said, in a voice husky with repression.

"Dishonor--in the rites of Ashtoreth! Nay, you would kill her, rather, then?"

Charmides shrugged.

"You have refused her after the presentation. That is a sign that she is displeasing to the goddess. She will now be offered up upon the altar of death. Her blood must wash away the shame you put on her. Her heart will be cut out and thrown to the dogs to eat."

The young Greek shivered and stood passive. His eyes wandered aimlessly over the scene before him. Kabir dropped his hold, but Charmides made no move to go on. He seemed to be considering. The company was eying him in an anxious silence that had something of respect in it. But the eyes of the doomed girl burned upon his back in mute, despairing entreaty. Every murmur had died away, and a deadly hush settled over the great hall. The lights burned calmly from above, and the odor of fresh incense became overpowering. Still the shepherd did not move. One instant more and Aris, the high-priestess, would send the order for the sacrificial knife. The Greek's thoughts wavered vaguely between his mother and his own natural instincts of purity on the one hand; and, on the other, the exigencies of the Phoenician religion. The struggle was fierce. Heraia's memory was infinitely dear, and the Greek idea of manhood strong within him. Still, death--death was terrible to his mind; and the death of this young girl--

His meditations were interrupted here. Something had suddenly clasped his feet, something lay twisted on the floor before him. A white body, half covered with the long locks of dishevelled hair that flowed from a lowered head, lay there on the stones. Two strained arms caught at his knees. A faint voice, choked with the tears of despair, was begging incoherently for the life that he could give. All of a sudden he melted. He bent his head, drawing a long breath of resignation. Then he stooped, lifted the girl in his arms, and carried her rapidly over to the altar of Ashtoreth. And the great bacchanal that followed upon his act the youth neither saw nor heard.

* * * * *

Kabir and Hodo were both of them abjectly respectful to Charmides next day. For all his defeat, the youth had been left their master, and he knew it. The name of Ashtoreth was not spoken before him in Abdosir's house; no mention ever after did either Phoenician or Babylonian make of the affair of yesterday; and in one day more Charmides had looked his last upon the city of the sea.

It was in a state of mental chaos that Charmides began his journey to Babylon. In the glare of midday the long row of well-watered camels, heavy laden with riches of the West, swayed to their feet, on the mainland of Tyre, and turned their heads in the direction of Damascus. Charmides had said good-bye to Kabir an hour before, and now sat his animal with an eager light in his eyes and a clutch of regret in his heart--desire for the new, love for the old. He tried hard that day to fix his mind on the great object of his journey, the goddess of Babylon, whom he was so soon to see. But all things around him were new, all things fair, and soon he gave up the attempt at abstraction to watch what went on around him. Far ahead, upon the foremost camel, was Hodo, the leader of the caravan, who, with his desert costume, had also donned an undeniable dignity of demeanor. Before and behind Charmides, in the very centre of the line, sat solemn Orientals whose nationality he did not know. Far to the right stretched flat, fertile fields of grain. To the left, at no great distance, the river Leontes flashed a tumultuous, sunlit course down to the sea. Eastward, in front, rose an uneven line of jutting hills, bathed in the luminous, tranquil light of intensely pure air. The day was hot, the motion of the camel so far rather soothing. Charmides' turbaned head drooped. His eyelids closed. Thoughts of Istar were mingled with memories of the white virgin. Presently, then, he fell asleep.

V

TO THE GATE OF GOD

Five days later the camels of a shortened caravan passed out of the Hittite city and turned their faces towards the southeast. It was early morning. Before them the sky was radiant with promise of the coming of the lord of day. Behind them, Damascus slept. Far to the right, a mere olive-colored shadow on the horizon, was the line of verdure that marked the course of the river Jordan, the eastern boundary of Phoenicia. Ahead, and on every side for endless miles, in infinite, sparkling, yellow waves, stretched the desert, a vast, silent plain of death, dreaded by man and beast; a foe that Assyrian armies had found more terrible than all the strength of Egypt; that Babylon in her mighty decadence knew to be a safer guard against plundering hoards than all her towering walls; that the wandering Hittites, Damascenes born of the burning sand, themselves would not venture upon at this season of the growing year. And into this, light-hearted, went Charmides the Greek, for the final proof of his steadfastness, the final trial of his strength, for which the reward was to be a sight of the great goddess--Ish-tar--kâ--Bab-i-lû.

Now, indeed, at this early hour, when night's sweetness had not yet been dispelled, Charmides, bareheaded, sat smiling at the sunrise, at the novelty of the sand-plain, at the steady, awkward trot of his camel, at the solemnity of the turbaned Babylonians before and behind him, and at Hodo's crooked little figure at the head of the line. There were twenty camels, well packed with articles of Tyrian and Damascene manufacture, and a man to add to each load. On the back of every animal, where the sight of it would not continually tantalize the desert traveller, hung a water-skin, still dripping from contact with the well, but not to be replenished for five weary days. Before their departure, Hodo had explained to the Greek the best hours for, and the most satisfying methods of, drinking; for these things had been reduced to a minute system by traders, in seasons when wells might go dry and water was in any case scarce. In consequence of his instructions, and the determination to obey them rigidly, Charmides found himself from the very first in a state of thirst. In the freshness of the morning this was not difficult to bear; but by noon, when the whole sky blazed like molten gold and the desert was a plain of fire, the desire for drink increased till it became a torture before which he weakened and fell. He took more than a cupful of water from his skin before the tents were pitched for the mid-day rest, and he felt himself an object of censure for the entire caravan; though, in truth, there was no trader of them all but had done the same thing many times, before long training had hardened him to endurance.

This caravan was the last to cross the desert that year; and the heat bore with it one compensation. The strong guard of soldiers, or fighting-men, that generally accompanied a caravan to guard it from plunder by the wild desert tribes, had been dispensed with. The forefathers of the modern Bedâwin were not hardier than their descendants, and they made no dwelling-place in the Syrian desert at this season. It was, indeed, dangerously late for the passage; and each succeeding day brought a fiercer sun and shorter hours of darkness. The rest at noon was long, but there was no halt at all by night. Oases wells were low, and there must be no lagging by the way. Hodo held daily council in his tent with the three eldest traders, to make sure of the best course to keep, and to save the few miles possible to save. At one of these conferences, some days out, the man that rode behind Charmides, Ralchaz by name, spoke to Hodo of the young Greek, suggesting that Charmides was bearing the journey hardly, and would need care if he were to cross the desert alive. Hodo, a little conscience-smitten with the knowledge of neglect, hastened off to the tent occupied by Charmides and two of the younger men. Here he found that it was, indeed, high time to attend to the rhapsode's condition.

Charmides was lying, face down, on the rug that covered the sand in the tent. Motionless, his body rigid, his hands clasped in front of him, making no sound, breathing inaudibly, he lay; while at a little distance his two companions, Babylonians, squatted together over their meal of locust-beans, bread, and dates, now and then regarding the youth with a kind of wistful helplessness.

Hodo, scarcely looking at the other two, ran to Charmides' side, knelt by him, and, placing a hand on his shoulder, cried out:

"Charmides! Charmides! Speak! What demon of sickness has got you?"

He spoke in Chaldaic, using the idiom that a Greek would not understand. The entreaty, however, had its effect. Charmides made an effort, rolled upon his back, and looked up at the master of the caravan. Hodo gave a quick exclamation of dismay and cried out:

"Tirutû! Bring me some water!"

One of the men sprang to his feet. "Gladly! Yet he will not drink."

"Not drink! Allât help us! Why?"

"He has emptied his own skin and will not accept of water from ours."

Hodo nodded his understanding. "Go, then, to my tent, and bring one of the skins of extra water, together with a jar of the wine of Helbon--and see that you move like Râman!"

Charmides understood not a word of this conversation, but he surmised its trend, and essayed to say something in Phoenician. Coherent speaking, however, had become impossible; for his tongue was swollen out of all shape, and his mouth was on fire with fever. Hodo laid a gentle hand upon his forehead, smoothed the hair back from it, noted the inflamed and pitiable condition of the wide, blue eyes, the brilliant fever-flush that burned upon the fair cheeks, and his face grew graver still.

"The journey will go hard with him," he muttered.

Tirutû presently returned with the damp pigskin on his shoulder, and a small, glazed stone flask in his right hand. Ustanni, the second of Charmides' fellow-tentsmen, was already at Hodo's side with a bronze cup. This they filled with a mixture of water and wine, and then Hodo, lifting the Greek's head upon his arm, held the drink to his lips. Charmides' nostrils quivered like an animal's. The tears started to his eyes, and there was a convulsive working of the saliva glands in his mouth. For one agonized moment he resisted the temptation; and then, with the abandon of a creature half crazed, he drank at a gulp all that the cup contained, and begged guiltily, with his fevered eyes, for more. Hodo let him take all that he wanted. Then food--bread, dates, and cooked sesame--was fed him. Next his eyes, rendered almost useless by the desert glare, were rubbed with a balm brought from Hodo's tent, which reduced their fever and inflammation in a miraculous way. Two hours later, at the forming of the caravan, Charmides' camel was led out and fastened next to Hodo's at the head of the line; and when the Greek, walking more easily than for three days past, came to mount, he found a full water-skin strapped upon the animal's back, and two little jars of Hodo's rare wine balancing each other on either side of its neck. Venturing to remonstrate feebly at this lavish generosity, the rhapsode was silenced by a flood of angry eloquence from Hodo, who finished his tirade by saying:

"Drink as often as yours is the desire, for I tell you this truly: Shamash is pitiless to those who pray not to Mermer; and, in drinking of his gift, you will do honor to the god of Rains. I will not leave you behind me in the desert, Charmides; and yet I cannot carry your dead body on to Babylon. Therefore you will do well to live. For I think that the Lady Istar will be displeased if, when you are so near, you desert her for the Queen of Death. So, Charmides, again I bid you drink; shut your eyes to the sun; eat and sleep as you can. See that you heed these words." And with a little chuckle at his own advice, Hodo mounted his beast, and, after the usual tumultuous rising, with many shouts and much wielding of his hide-whip, set the caravan once more in motion.

For forty-eight hours more Charmides, making a strong effort, stubbornly refusing to admit that he was still sick, made an appearance of recovery from his indisposition. He talked with Hodo, asking welcome questions about trade, life, and home. He spoke to those members of the caravan from whom hitherto he had held aloof. And he made a desperate effort to learn from the leader a few phrases in the Babylonish tongue. This last, however, proved a Herculean task. The Greek race was notoriously the least apt of any nation at learning foreign tongues. Phoenician had been difficult enough; but when it came to the harsh, thick accents, the many syllables, and the curious construction of this other language, the language of the people of Istar, Charmides found it an apparently hopeless task, from which, in his present condition, he shrank miserably.

The desert days crept on. The hours from red dawn to redder twilight were filled with fainting prayers for night and darkness. And when night came, and with it the golden moon, it seemed that the heat scarcely lessened; for up from the yellow sands rose a burning stream of day-gathered fire that made the very camels wince, and called forth many a smothered curse and groan from the long-seasoned men. Yet these nights were wonderful things. The high moon overshadowed all her lesser lights, so that the sky around was strung with few stars; but these glittered with dazzling radiance against their luminous background. And when the dread dawn approached, and the moon grew great on the western horizon, balanced by the long, palpitating lines of light in the east, the sight, to any but desert travellers, was a thing to pray to. Charmides, indeed, in spite of his condition, did marvel at the miracles of the sky. But his lyre was heavy in his hands, his voice too cracked for song, and he could but sit, drooping, on his camel, head throbbing, body on fire, drinking in the golden fire, and wondering vaguely if he should ever find the Babylon that he sought, or whether Apollo had destined him for a different and a higher place.

Another besides the Greek had begun to speculate on the same subject. Hodo, with his Babylonish idea of the dreary after-life, watched his charge with an anxiety and a grief that betrayed a surprising affection for the youth. Though Charmides suffered no longer from thirst, though Hodo's own food was prepared for him, though the best camel in the caravan was at his disposal, he grew weaker and yet more weak, and his fever increased till the desert sands themselves were no hotter than his skin. On the eighteenth day of the journey Charmides was lifted from his animal at the noon halt, talking incoherently of Selinous, of Heraia, of Kabir, and Apollo. He showed no sign of recognizing Hodo and the pitying traders that clustered about the tent where he lay. Rather, he gave them strange names which they had never heard; he talked to them in his own language; and he tried continually to sing in his cracked, harsh voice. Hodo watched him doubtfully for a time; then his lips straightened out and his crooked face grew grim. He dismissed every one from his tent, and set himself to watch over the sick man alone. Gradually Charmides sank into a drowsy state, and, five hours later, when the camels were reloaded and placed in line for the long night march, he was still but half conscious. Hodo had him lifted upon his camel and strapped there, since he showed himself unable to sit upright. A moment or two later the cry for the march was given, and the little procession started forward at its usual trot. Next morning Charmides lay limply forward upon his animal's neck, in a state of irresistible coma; and Hodo mentally prepared to bury him there in the sand before another dawn. All day, indeed, the Greek hovered on the borderland of death; yet, since he had not passed it when the halt was ended, he went on again with the rest in the late afternoon.

For twelve hours now the rhapsode had been unconscious. It was, perhaps, the sudden renewal of motion, after the mid-day rest, that roused him. At all events, the caravan was scarcely moving before his eyes lost their glazed stare, and he half closed them while he looked about him. It was a pleasant hour of the afternoon. Behind him the sun was nearing the horizon, and in the sky overhead floated two or three feathery shreds of cloud--a gladsome sight. With an effort, in which he discovered how very weak he had become, the rhapsode turned himself till he lay in such a position that he could watch the sunset. He had almost an hour to wait--a long, hot, drowsy hour, during which, however, he did not drop back into torpor. As the sun sank, a ridge of white, billowy clouds, such as are almost never to be seen in those skies in summer, rose to catch the falling globe. And when the fire reached them, Charmides quivered with delight to see the flood of color--scarlet and purple, and pale, pinkish gold--that ran over the white mass. A valley between two of these lofty hills received the central stream of blood-fire, and on this blinding spot the Greek fixed his eyes and gazed, till his brain reeled with the seething glory. When the sun had left the world and the other lights grew pale, this one place retained all its brightness. The watcher was too feeble even to wonder at the phenomenon; nor did he marvel when, out of this bank of fire, a figure began to resolve--a figure human in form and yet most splendidly divine. There was a face that glowed with the hues of the evening, framed in short, waving locks of auburn red, still fiery with the sunset, and crowned with a circlet of silver stars that burned radiantly through the coming dusk. Then Charmides perceived that all the clouds had formed into a flowing garment that enveloped the body of the apparition. When the glow was quite gone, and purple shadows had stolen softly through the whole sky, the mighty figure stood out clearly and more clear, till every fold in the royal vestment was distinct, till the two bright streaks that had stretched out on either side of the shoulders had become wings of silver, and the patch of gold low on the right was a lyre, ready-strung. The vision was complete. Charmides, now but half sensible, scarcely noting the cool breath of the descending night, watched and thirsted for what he knew must come.

He had not long to wait. As the first, faint star came out into the evening, the heavenly figure moved, floating in stately swiftness upon his outstretched wings towards the wormlike caravan that crawled across the sands. And as he moved he lifted the lyre, drawing his hand across its strings. Charmides gave a faint gasp. It was as if his body had been plunged into a running stream. Allaraine's music swept across his senses, now in the faintest, long-drawn vibration, that drew the soul to one's lips and let it hang there, seeking to follow the flight of the sound; now in broad chords that swept like the storm-wind over the plain; again, melting into melody that bore one to the shore of the sunlit sea. The Heavenly One played on while the shepherd, in helpless ecstasy, lay back, unnerved and numb, held to the camel only by the thongs with which Hodo had bound him there. It was a long time, though how long the rhapsode could not tell, before he was roused by a warm thrill, to find that the bard of the skies floated beside him, one of the effulgent wings spreading out over his body, the light from it bathing his whole figure in a stream of strength-giving fire. And even in his amazement Charmides wondered why he heard no sound from any member of the caravan. All was still around him. Star-spangled darkness was over them all. The moon had not yet risen. Hodo was nodding on his camel, and many of the traders were in their first sleep. Only he, only the Charmides whom they had thought dying, was awake to welcome the messenger of the gods that honored them by his coming. The Greek, lying under the shadow of the silver wing, felt that a prayer or some other fitting acknowledgment of the presence should be made. So he struggled to an upright position and raised his face to that of the god. Slowly the star-crowned head turned to him, and a pair of deeply glowing eyes, filled with benign pity, and great with suffering, looked upon the youth. Charmides' lids fell shut in sudden, ecstatic terror, and, while his head was bent, he felt upon his hair the touch of the god. Instantly he fell back. Then, once upon his left eye and once upon his right, came the imprint of the divine mouth. With the kisses blackness rolled over him. His spirit slept.

Morning, clear, cloudless, infinitely stifling, swept over the desert. Hodo, who had drowsed through the night, lifted his head and looked about him, trying to define the sense of weight at his heart. He realized it presently, and, reluctant with fear, turned and looked behind him. Yes. The dread was justified. Charmides lay white and limp upon his camel. They must bury him that day under the yellow sand of this godless waste. Hodo's crooked little face screwed up spasmodically. Then he gave the long, quavering cry that meant, "Halt the caravan." With some little difficulty the camels were reined up, and all watched Hodo make the dismount and run to the side of the animal on which the Greek was bound. Then they understood; and a long, low, minor wail, the greeting to death, rose from every throat. It stopped with extreme suddenness when Hodo gave a sudden shout of amazement. Every trader saw Charmides suddenly sit up, and a few directly behind heard his voice, stronger than for a week past, cry to his friend a Phoenician greeting.

"Charmides is not dead!" shouted the leader, in unmistakable delight. "It is a miracle! He is well again! The fever is gone!"

The rhapsode smiled, and spoke his thanks to Hodo for all the past care; but of how he had been made well he said not a word, for he knew that the miracle had been for him alone. At the noon halt the merchants one by one came up to him, pressing his hand to their breasts and giving every expression of friendly joy at his recovery. And fully recovered he was, indeed. During the succeeding days his fever did not return; nor did the long hours of the march tire him as hitherto. He returned now to the tent that he had at first occupied; and, as he ate and slept with his Babylonish comrades, he tried again, with more success, to acquire a few phrases in the new tongue. He found his companions willing and patient teachers. And, truly, patience was necessary. The lips that could so aptly form the melodious syllables of the most beautiful of languages were awkward beyond belief at mouthing out the thick words and strangely constructed phrases of the Semitic tongue.

In the days that followed his recovery Charmides passed the hours of the march in profound reveries, which, as the days went by, became troubled. One afternoon, after long deliberation, he made his way to Hodo's tent. That little fellow was sitting cross-legged on a rug, drinking khilbum from a bronze cup, and blinking thoughtfully at the stretch of yellow sand before him. Hodo gave cordial greeting to the Greek, proffered him wine, and then sank once more into silence. Charmides disposed of his beverage at a draught, and, after a little hesitancy, looked at his companion and asked:

"Hodo, how many gods do thy people worship?"

The Babylonian looked up quickly. "Twelve--of the great gods, without Asshur, whom the Assyrians brought among us, besides many demons, many spirits, and Mulge and Allât of the under-world. Why do you ask?"

"Because I would learn which it is among your gods that is winged with silver, crowned with stars, dressed in a purple vesture, and carries in his right hand a lyre of gold."

Hodo screwed his face into a puzzled knot. "Stars--wings--purple vesture--lyre--I do not know. Never have I heard that any of the gods carried a lyre. It is not an instrument much known to us. In the sacred scriptures Bel is said to carry a staff, and I have seen him on the walls of the temple with wings. So also Namtar flies. But the rest--how do you know these things?"

"This god appeared to me in a dream," replied the rhapsode.

Hodo found nothing to say to this, and Charmides also was silent. The Babylonian refilled their wine-cups, and, after they had been emptied, the Greek rose and left the tent, unsatisfied, yet deterred by an indefinable feeling from talking further on the subject of the vision.

So the weeks went by, and the moon waned and grew young again, until, upon the twenty-first day after leaving Damascus, they were but forty-eight hours out of the Great City. That afternoon, just after the start was made, when the camels, after more water than usual, were moving briskly over the sand, Charmides' eyes, wandering to the distant horizon, encountered something that set his heart wildly throbbing.

"Hodo! Hodo!" he shouted. "It is the city! Look! The Great City!"

From Hodo, in front, there came, after a minute's look, a ringing laugh. "Yes, it is the ghost of the false city. We see it often here in the desert, as we see lakes and trees that are not. Truly it is a strange thing."

Charmides heard him incredulously. Before his eyes was certainly a vision of mighty walls, and square towers, and gates, and many-roofed palaces outlined against the heat-blurred sky. They kept their places, too, seeming to grow more and more distinct as the caravan proceeded. The rhapsode closed his eyes and opened them again. It was still there. Yes, he could now see the groups of palm-trees and faint outlines of olive foliage around the walls; and presently, when a broad, blue river was to be seen winding its way from east to west through the plain, Charmides turned on his camel and called to Tirutû behind:

"Is not yonder city indeed Babylon, Tirutû?"

But the trader smiled and slowly shook his head, and Charmides, half angry and wholly unconvinced, turned again to the sight that entranced him. Clear and straight, for ten minutes more, it stood out against the sky. Then, of a sudden, the city vanished in one quiver, and, where it had been, only the dark horizon-line, straight and unbroken, stretched away as usual. Charmides was sad that the dream had vanished; but he could laugh at himself when Hodo turned to look at him with good-natured amusement. Still, the picture remained with him, and came to seem, in after years, his first impression of the far-famed city that was to be his home.

The march that night was more rapid than usual, and the halt next day not made till the heat was past bearing. At the noon meal mirth ran high, and wine and water were drunk with an abandon possible only to men who had for three weeks practised a cruel restraint. Twenty-four hours more would bring them to Babylon, and already they were on the borders of civilization and fertility.

On this day Charmides sat apart from his companions, feeling no desire to join in their loud joy. When finally the company lay down to rest, the Greek felt that sleep was impossible for him, and he went off alone to the little tent where formerly a guard had been stationed, but which was empty now. Here he sat down upon the sand and let his thoughts hold unbridled sway. For he was standing on the threshold of his new world, and he could not but pause for a moment to think of all that he had left behind him. It was a melancholy time, but not a long, before Hodo's voice was to be heard giving the signal for the last mount. Quickly the tents were struck and bound upon the camels; and then the little procession moved away towards the line of green that bounded the yellow sands.

By morning they found on all sides fertile fields of grain, already ripening. And Charmides' sand-weary eyes rested with untold delight on the rows of wheat, millet, and sesame, barred here and there with little streams of water conducted from the broad canals that ran everywhere through the land, and filled all the year round by the great mother-stream, Euphrates. Now and then the caravan passed a mud-village set in the midst of a broad field of grass where goats, sheep, and bullocks herded and donkeys and camels were tethered side by side. The people of these villages were of the lowest Chaldaic type, nearly black, thick-lipped, large-nosed, and short of stature. Charmides regarded them with dismay. He had seen one or two negro slaves brought from northern Africa to Mazzara, and they had seemed to him less than human. Were the men of this new race all like that? Presently, however, they came upon a reassuring sight. The caravan passed one of the large stone wells that stood in the middle of a grain-field. From it a buffalo, at work in his rude tread-mill, was drawing water, and beside the animal, clothed in a long, white garment, bearing a tall jar on her head, one hand upraised, the other on her hip, stood a slight girl with a skin almost as white as Charmides' own. Her eyes and hair were shining black; but as Charmides looked at her she flashed a smile at him, showing a set of pearly teeth, and, a moment later, laughing aloud, a pure, ringing laugh, that in some way set Charmides into a cheery frame of mind for the rest of the day.

He came afterwards to know that it was not a native of Babylonia whom he saw at the well, but one of a captive race resident in this Eastern land since the year when the city of Solomon fell before the armies of the great son of Nabopolassar. But there were Babylonians also as white as the Jews, their Semitic blood having at some time been mingled with that of Aryan races, Persians, Elamites, or, perhaps, Assyrians, whom a thousand years of a colder clime had materially bleached.

This last day became fiercely hot, but no noon halt was made. Each man munched a piece of bread and a handful of dates, and drank a cup of goat's milk purchased on the way, and the camels were given twenty minutes' rest and an armful of fodder in the shade of a palm grove near a canal. Then the march was eagerly resumed, for, even now, many miles away, the gigantic walls of Nimitti-Bel, the outer wall of the city, were to be seen towering up on the horizon. At four o'clock they passed through Borsip, the suburb of Babylon, towards which Hodo cast loving eyes, for it was his home. But it was night before they entered the open gateway of Nimitti-Bel, that incredibly gigantic structure, the fame of which had spread over all the East; and it took nearly an hour to traverse the sparsely inhabited space between that and the smaller, inside wall, Imgur-Bel. And before they had reached this, Hodo, turning, called to the Greek:

"We sleep to-night outside the gate of Bel. It is too late for admission to the city. The sun has set."

Charmides nodded an absent-minded acquiescence. His thoughts had been stunned by the first glimpse of this tremendous city, and the chaos in his mind was too great for him to pay attention to any trivial remark. Hitherto his measure of magnitude of buildings had been the new temple of Apollo at Selinous, with its length of four hundred feet, its width of two hundred, its columns more than fifty feet high: this for a temple, the third largest in the Greek world. Now he was confronted by a wall, a wall of defence, forty miles long, two hundred feet from base to summit,[4] and of such a thickness that upon its top two four-horse chariots could pass with ease. Watch-towers, in which guards lived, rose higher still from the great wall, that was open in a hundred places, each opening provided with a gate of wrought brass, which was closed from sunset to dawn.

As the caravan neared the inner and lesser wall and approached the gate of Bel, Charmides saw that before it was a square space, well paved and arranged with stalls and booths, in which a goodly number of people evidently purposed passing the night. Each of the hundred gates was provided with a sort of customs bureau, where all goods to be sold in the city were appraised and taxed according to a fixed tariff. From this petty fee cattle, grain, and fruits were not exempt; and, since the officer of taxes was off duty from sunset till sunrise, it frequently occurred that, on a market or festival day, each rébit, or square before a gate, was occupied through the night by those that wished to enter the city early in the morning.

As the line of weary camels came to a final halt, and the score of wearier men dismounted for the last time, there was one general, short cry of thanksgiving, in which Charmides joined as heartily as the rest; and then Hodo sought him and took him by the arm, drawing him along the square as he said:

"We will sup together, Charmides--yonder."

In a corner against the wall an enterprising merchant had set up a small restaurant of clever design, where hot wheaten cakes, roast goat's flesh, and cooked sesame, together with various fruits, flasks of fermented liquor, jars of beer, or flagons of goat's milk might be bought at a very reasonable price. Charmides rejoiced at the sight of food, for he was spent with the heat and the journey. And he offered to change one of his silver pieces for such of the food as Hodo and he desired. But this the little Babylonian would not have.

"This night is the last, my Greek. Eat with me. Many a use there will be for that silver of yours. On your first night within Nimitti-Bel you shall be my guest."

Then Charmides tried to thank his friend once more for all the voluntary and unlooked-for kindness that had been shown him since the caravan left Tyre. It was with difficulty, indeed, that the rhapsode found words fittingly sincere for his gratitude. But, long before he had finished, Hodo, with a little, deprecating gesture, stopped him.

"You shall not thank _me_, Charmides," he said, sadly. "Rather bless those gods that gave you a face so fair and a personality so gracious that he who comes in contact with you cannot but love you. Truly, youth, I am loath to part with you; and I hope that you will not rise so high that in after-time your eyes will be above the level of mine."

Charmides' reply to this was simply to press the other's hand to his brow. Then, the two having finished their meal, they wrapped up their cloaks for cushions and sat down, with their backs to the wall, to watch the sights in the square. Charmides held his bundle on his knees, and his lyre lay beside him on the ground. He was bareheaded, and, as he sat in the shadow of the wall, his face was indistinguishable to the passers-by. Hodo was silent, and Charmides felt no inclination to talk. His eyes wandered over the busy square, from which a clatter of talk was rising. To the Greek, looking on, it seemed as if a hundred nationalities were before him, so different were the faces, dress, and manners of the men and women passing on every side. Here a heavy-bearded, coarse-clad goatherd, with his flock around him, lay already asleep. There a company of market-girls, bare-headed, in loosely fluttering robes, stood gossiping together or laughing at the little date-merchant opposite. Before the gate were half a dozen soldiers with permits for entering the city after hours, quaffing beer, or the heavy liquor of the date-cabbage, from their helmets. Farther away a donkey-boy was beating a refractory member of his drove into submission; while, in the very centre of the square, the group of camels belonging to Hodo's caravan lay gazing loftily at the scene before them, their self-satisfied faces showing no trace of the fatigue that three long weeks upon the desert sands must surely have brought them. All these, and infinitely more, the rhapsode watched with increasing interest. New arrivals were frequent, and the square gradually became massed with people.

"To-morrow is the eleventh of the month," observed Hodo, suddenly, from his reverie. "There will be the procession of Nebo and Nergal, and, later, a feast in the temple. That is why _so_ many of the country-folk have come."

Charmides nodded assent. He was watching some one of whom he had caught sight three or four moments before--a young girl, making her way through a drove of donkeys and sheep. She was accompanied by a single large, white goat, that followed her closely, and to which she paid but little attention, seeming sure of its faithfulness. Barefooted, long-haired, raggedly clad, and very young--a mere child of fourteen or so--she was. Yet, as Charmides watched her, he found something in the quiet droop of her eyelids, the pathetic curve of her mouth, and the pallor of her tired face that stayed in his mind through the whole evening. She lingered for a moment or two outside the great gate. Then one of the soldiers, catching sight of her, left his companions to open a small inner door that led into the city. Through this the goat-girl passed, and Charmides once more turned to his companion, who was saying:

"Where do you go to-morrow, Charmides?"

The Greek paused to consider. Finally he answered, rather doubtfully: "I do not know. I seek Istar of Babylon."

Hodo smiled, pityingly. "And after that--?"

Charmides shook his head. "I do not know," he repeated.

"Charmides, you will do well to come with me and stay with me for some days, till you have learned the ways of Babylon. Will you, then--"

But the Greek quickly shook his head. "Again I thank you, Hodo. You are good to me. But Apollo, my Lord, watches over me; and the god of the golden lyre has made me well. With them I shall enter Babylon. With them I go before Istar. Say no more."

Hodo accepted the decision without further protest. Indeed, he rather believed Charmides to be, in some respects, a little more than human. At any rate, after a few moments more of watching the still-moving throng, he wrapped his cloak about him and lay down upon the stones. Charmides shortly followed his example. And then, beneath the towering walls of the Great City, Charmides, in his dreams, knocked again upon the gate of God.