Gorgius was silent and plunged in thought.
At that moment the sound of church-singing came from behind the trees.
"What is that?" asked Julian.
"The monks," answered the priest. "Monks praying over a dead Galilean."
"What, a Galilean in the wood sacred to Apollo?'"
"Yes; they call him the martyr Babylas. Ten years ago the brother of the Emperor Julian, Cæsar Gallus, transferred the bones of this Babylas from Antioch into this wood, and had a superb sarcophagus made for him. From that day the oracle ceased. The temple was sullied and the god departed."
"What sacrilege!" exclaimed the Emperor indignantly.
"That year the virgin sibyl Diotima gave birth to a deaf-mute child, a bad omen. Only one sacred spring was left us and did not dry up, the spring called Tears of the Sun ... over there, where the child is now sitting...."
Julian turned round. The boy was sitting in front of the mossy rock, motionless, and in his open palm receiving the falling drops. Julian almost imagined he saw two transparent wings trembling behind the divinely beautiful child. So sad, so pale, so enchanting his look, that the Emperor mused—
"He must be Eros, the little god of love, dying in our century of Galilean moroseness, and in his hand receiving the last drops, the last tears of love, tears of the god over Daphne, over the vanished beauty of Daphne!"