"I swear to you I know nothing of this place!" he cried--"I never
saw it before! Some trick has been played on me ... who brought me
here? Where is Elzear the hermit? ... the Ruins of Babylon? ...
where is, ... Good God! ... what fearful freak of fate is this!"

The soldiers laughed again,--their commander looked at him a
little curiously.

"Nay, art THOU one of the escaped of Lysia's lovers?" he asked,
suspiciously--"And has the Silver Nectar failed of its usual
action, and driven thy senses to the winds, that thou ravest thus?
For if thou art a stranger and knowest naught of us, how speakest
thou our language? ... Why wearest thou the garb of our citizens?"

Alwyn shrank and shivered as though he had received a deadening
blow,--an awful, inexplicable chill horror froze his blood. It was
true! ... he understood the language spoken! ... it was perfectly
familiar to him,--more so than his own native tongue,--stop! what
WAS his native tongue?

He tried to think--and, the sick fear at his heart grew stronger,
--he could not remember a word of it! And his dress! ... he glanced
at it dismayed and appalled,--he had not noticed it till now. It
bore some resemblance to the costume of ancient Greece, and
consisted of a white linen tunic and loose upper vest, both
garments being kept in place by a belt of silver. From this belt
depended a sheathed dagger, a square writing tablet, and a pencil-
shaped implement which he immediately recognized as the antique
form of stylus. His feet were shod with sandals--his arms were
bare to the shoulder, and clasped at the upper part by two broad