CHAPTER XXII.
A Letter From Sicily.
“... How beautiful,
Sublimely beautiful, thou hoverest
High in the vacant air! Thou seemest uplifted
From all of earth, and like an island floating
Away in heaven. How pure are the eternal snows
That crown thee!”
James Gates Percival.
Ever since Zopyrus had seen again the girl whom he had rescued from the Persian soldiery, he could think of little else. She filled his conscious thoughts and at night he dreamed of her, but he had made up his mind with stern resolution that he would be true to his promise to Eumetis who seemed to love him devotedly. The wedding had been postponed from the end of the Mystery celebrations to the third night of the full moon.
An idea came to Zopyrus while he was in the library copying manuscripts for Pasicles the afternoon following his eavesdropping near the Acropolis. If the marriage ceremonies were celebrated one night before, that is on the second night of the full moon, Corinna could not go to Naxos with the stranger, for she would be obliged to attend the nuptials of her sister. The idea had just impressed him as the best way to save Corinna, when Pasicles entered the library and placed in Zopyrus’ hands a missive, bearing upon its exterior the stamp of Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse.