you look at her the lovelier she is--and yet she is still a mere child-
though a child certainly who no longer loves staying at home, who has
dreams of splendor, and enjoyment, and freedom while she is kept shut up
in a dismal, dark place, and left to starve.

"The poor creatures may never quit the temple excepting for a procession,
or before sunrise. It sounded too delightful when she said that she was
always so horribly tired, and so glad to go to sleep again after she was
waked, and had to go out at once just when it is coldest, in the twilight
before sunrise. Then she has to draw water from a cistern called the
Well of the Sun."

"Do you know where that cistern lies?" asked Publius.

"Behind the acacia-grove," answered Lysias. "The guide pointed it out to
me. It is said to hold particularly sacred water, which must be poured
as a libation to the god at sunrise, unmixed with any other. The girls
must get up so early, that as soon as dawn breaks water from this cistern
shall not be lacking at the altar of Serapis. It is poured out on the
earth by the priests as a drink-offering."

Publius had listened attentively, and had not lost a word of his friend's
narrative. He now quitted him hastily, opened the tent-door, and went
out into the night, looking up to discover the hour from the stars which
were silently pursuing their everlasting courses in countless thousands,
and sparkling with extraordinary brilliancy in the deep blue sky. The
moon was already set, and the morning-star was slowly rising--every night
since the Roman had been in the land of the Pyramids he had admired its
magnificent size and brightness.