yet be brought up in time. Gorgo could not share these hopes; a client
of her father's had brought in a rumor that the Biamites, after advancing
as far as Naucratis, had been dispersed by a few of the Imperial
maniples. Fate was stalking on its way, and no one could give it pause.

The evening brought no coolness, and when it was already quite dark,
as her grandmother had not yet called her, Gorgo could no longer control
her increasing anxiety, so, after knocking in vain at the door of the
observatory, she went in. Her old nurse preceded her with a lamp, and
the two women stood dumb with consternation, for the old lady lay
senseless on the ground. Her head was thrown back against the seat of
the chair off which she had slipped, and her pale face was lifeless and
horrible to look at, with its half-closed eyes and dropped jaw. Wine,
water, and strong essences were all at hand, and they laid the
unconscious woman on a couch intended for the occasional use of the
wearied observer. In a few minutes they had succeeded in reviving the
old lady; but her eyes rested without recognition on the girl who knelt
by her side, and she murmured to herself: "The ravens--where are they
gone? Ravens!"

Her glance wandered round the room, to the tablets and rolls which had
been tossed off the couch and the table to make room for her, and for the
lamps and medicaments. They lay in disorder on the floor, and the sight
of this confusion produced a favorable excitement and reaction; she
succeeded in expressing herself in husky accents and broken, hardly
intelligible sentences, so far as to scold them sharply for their
irreverence for the precious documents, and for the disorder they had
created. The waiting-woman proceeded to pick them up: but Damia again
became unconscious. Gorgo bathed her brow and tried to pour some wine
between her teeth, but she clenched them too firmly, till the slave-woman