rooms of the Temple of Isis. I have with me a document requiring
obedience to my orders. Cleopatra herself laid the plans before me,
even the secret portion showing the course of the subterranean chambers.
It will cast some light upon my mysterious sayings if I bear you away
from the enemy through one of the secret corridors. They were right in
concealing from you by how slender a thread, spite of the power of your
example in mathematics, the sword hangs above your head. Now that I see
a possibility of removing it, I can show it to you. Tomorrow you would
have fallen, without hope of rescue, into the hands of cruel foes and
been shamefully abandoned by your own weak uncle, had not the most
implacable of all your enemies permitted himself the infamous pleasure of
laying hands on an old man's house, and the Queen, in consequence of an
agitating message, had the idea suggested of building her own mausoleum.
The corridor"--here he lowered his voice--"of which I spoke leads to the
sea at a spot close beside Didymus's garden, and through it I will guide
you, and, if possible, Barine also, to the shore. This could be
accomplished in the usual way only by the greatest risk. If we use the
passage we can reach a dark place on the strand unseen, and unless some
special misfortune pursues us our flight will be unnoticed. The litters
and your tottering gait would betray everything if we were to enter the
boat anywhere else in the great harbour."

"And we, sensible folk, refuse to believe in miracles!" cried Dion,
holding out his wan hand to the architect. "How shall I thank you, you
dear, clever, most loyal of friends to your male friends, though your
heart is so faithless to fair ones? Add that malicious speech to the
former ones, for which I now crave your pardon. What you intend to
accomplish for Barine and me gives you a right to do and say to me
whatever ill you choose all the rest of my life. Anxiety for her would
surely have bound me to this house and the city when the time came to