In a few minutes the two young men were sitting opposite each other at
the table which stood in the middle of their tent. Publius wrote busily,
and only looked up when his friend, who was reading the anchorite's
document, struck his hand on the table in disgust or sprang from his seat
ejaculating bitter words of indignation. Both had finished at the same
moment, and when Publius had folded and sealed his letter, and Lysias had
flung the roll on to the table, the Roman said slowly, as he looked his
friend steadily in the face: "Well?"

"Well!" repeated Lysias. I now find myself in the humiliating position
of being obliged to deem myself more stupid than you--I must own you in
the right, and beg your pardon for having thought you insolent and
arrogant! Never, no never did I hear a story so infernally scandalous as
that in that roll, and such a thing could never have occurred but among
these accursed Egyptians! Poor little Irene! And how can the dear
little girl have kept such a sunny look through it all! I could thrash
myself like any school-boy to think that I--a fool among fools--should
have directed the attention of Euergetes to this girl, and he, the most
powerful and profligate man in the whole country. What can now be done
to save Irene from him? I cannot endure the thought of seeing her
abandoned to his clutches, and I will not permit it to happen.

"Do not you think that we ought to take the water-bearers under our
charge?"

"Not only we ought but we must," said Publius decisively; "and if we did
not we should be contemptible wretches. Since the recluse took me into
his confidence I feel as if it were my, duty to watch over these girls
whose parents have been stolen from them, as if I were their guardian--