into the lane leading to the sea, for the only little abode which stood
on the eastern side of it belonged to a fisherman whose wife sold thin
potations of Pelusium beer.

Antinous went down the green alley overarched with boughs of fig, to call
the negroes who were sitting in the dull light of a smoky oil-lamp. Here
it was dark, but at the end of the alley the sea shone and sparkled in
the moonlight; the splashing of the waves tempted him onwards and he
loitered clown to the stone-bound shore. There he spied a boat dancing
on the water between two piles and it came into his head that it might be
possible to see the house where Selene was sleeping, from the sea.

He undid the rope which secured the boat without any difficulty; he
seated himself in it, laid aside the quiver and bow, pushed off with one
of the oars that lay at the bottom of the boat and pulled with steady
strokes towards the long path of light where the moon touched the crest
of each dancing wavelet with unresting tremulous flecks of silver.

There lay the widow's garden. In that small white house must the fair
pale Selene be sleeping, but though he rowed hither and thither,
backwards and forwards, he could not succeed in discovering the window of
which Pollux had spoken. Might it not be possible to find a spot where
he could disembark and then make his way into the garden? He could see
two little boats, but they lay in a narrow walled canal and this was
closed by an iron railing. Beyond, was a, terrace projecting into the
sea, and surrounded by an elegant balustrade of little columns, but it
rose straight out of the sea on smooth high walls. But there--what was
that gleaming under the two palm-trees which, springing from the same
root, had grown together tall and slender--was not that a flight of
marble steps leading down to the sea?