"Then," replied the Magian, "he will help me, with his triumphant
dialectics, to win Caesar over to the same conviction; and then we shall
be able to satisfy the emperor's desire to hold intercourse with the
dead; and for that I count on your power of making voices proceed from
any person present."

He said no more. The little man looked up at him approvingly, and said,
modestly: "You are indeed wise, Serapion, and I will do my best to help
you. The next thing to be done is to seek representatives of the great
Alexander, of Apollonius of Tyana, and of Caesar's brother, father-in-
law, and wife."

"Not forgetting Papinian, the noblest of his victims," added the Magian.
"Back again already, Castor?"

These words were addressed to a tall and apparently elderly man in a long
white robe, who had slipped in without a sound. His demeanor was so
grave and dignified that he looked precisely like a Christian priest
impressed with the sanctity of his office; but hardly had he got into the
room, and greeted the Magian with much unction, than he pulled the white
garment off over his head, rubbed from his cheeks the lines which gave
him twenty added years, stretched his lithe limbs, and exclaimed with
delight:

"I have got her! Old Dorothea will bring her to your theatre!"--and the
young fellow's mobile face beamed with the happy radiance of success.

It almost seemed as though fermenting wine flowed in the man's veins
instead of blood; for, when he had made his report to the Magian, and had