night she had dreams, but tonight they were almost exclusively sad in
character, and so terrifying that she woke herself repeatedly with her
own groaning, or disturbed Arsinoe's peaceful sleep by loud cries.

These cries did not disturb her father, he--to-night, as every night--had
begun to snore soon after he had gone to rest, never to cease till it was
time to rise again.

Selene was always busy in the house before any one, even before the
slaves; and the approach of day this time seemed to the sleepless girl a
real release. When she rose it was still perfectly dark, but she knew
that the rising of the December sun could not be long to wait for.

Without paying any heed to the sleepers, or making any special effort to
tread noiselessly, or to do what she had to do without disturbing them,
she lighted her little lamp, at the night-lamp, washed herself, arranged
her hair, and then knocked at the doors of the old slaves.

As soon as they had yawned out "directly," or a sleepy "very well," she
went into her father's room and took his jug to fetch him fresh water in
it. The best well in the palace was on a small terrace on the west side;
it was supplied by the city aqueducts, and was constructed of five marble
monsters, bearing up on twisted fishtails a huge shell, in which sat a
bearded river-god. Their horse-shaped heads poured water into a vast
basin, which, in the lapse of centuries, had grown full of a green and
filmy vegetation.

In order to reach this fountain, Selene had to go along the corridor
where lay the rooms occupied by the Emperor and his followers. She only
knew that an architect from Rome had taken up his quarters at Lochias,