especially the young man, as if spellbound. As soon as the three were
far enough off not to hear her, the girl asked with a shiver, as if some
desert-spectre had passed by-and in a low voice "Grandmother, who was
that?"

The old woman raised her veil, laid her hand on her grandchild's mouth,
and whispered:

"It was he."

"The Emperor?"

The old woman answered with a significant nod, but the girl squeezed
herself up, against her grandmother, with vehement curiosity stretching
out her dusky head to see better, and asked softly: "The young one?"

"Silly child! the one in front with a grey beard."

"He? Oh, I wish the young one was the Emperor!"

It was in fact Hadrian, the Roman Emperor, who walked on in silence
before his escort, and it seemed as though his advent had given life to
the desert, for as he approached the reed-swamp, the kites flew up in the
air, and from behind a sand-hill on the edge of the broader road which
Hadrian had avoided, came two men in priestly robes. They both belonged
to the temple of Baal of Kariotis, a small structure of solid stone,
which faced the sea, and which the Emperor had yesterday visited.

"Do you think he has lost his way?" said one to the other, in the
Phoenician tongue.