"Possession!" interrupted Dion in a loud, excited tone. "The corpse cast
ashore by the waves might as well boast possession of the sea!"

The dim torchlight was sufficient to reveal Philostratus's pallor to the
bystanders. For a moment the orator seemed to lose his self-control, but
he quickly recovered himself, and shouted: "Fellow-citizens, dear
friends! I was about to make you witnesses of the misery which a woman,
whose wickedness is even greater than her beauty, brought upon an
inexperienced--"

But he went no further; for his hearers--many of whom knew the brilliant,
generous Dion, and Barine, the fair singer at the last Adonis festival--
gave the orator tokens of their indignation, which were all the more
pitiless because of the pleasure they felt in seeing an expert vanquished
by an untrained foe. The wordy war would not have ended so quickly,
however, had not restlessness and alarm taken possession of the crowd.
The shout, "Back! disperse!" ran through the multitude, and directly
after the trampling of hoofs and the commands of the leader of a troop of
Libyan cavalry were heard. The matter at stake was not sufficiently
important to induce the populace to offer an armed force resistance which
might have entailed serious danger. Besides, the blustering war of
tongues had reached a merry close, and loud laughter blended with the
shouts of fear and warning; for the surging throng had swept with
unexpected speed towards the fountain and plunged Philostratus into the
basin. Whether this was due to the wrath of some enemy, or to mere
accident, could not be learned; the vain efforts of the luckless man to
crawl out of the water up the smooth marble were so comical, and his
gestures, after helping hands had dragged him dripping upon the pavement
of the square, were so irresistibly funny, that more laughing than angry