"But she did not go in among them?" asked Antinous eagerly.
"She did, in spite of my warnings. In her companion I recognized an old acquaintance."
'An old one?"
"At any rate older than myself. We had met in Athens when we still were young. At that time he was one of the school of Plato and the most zealous, nay, perhaps the most gifted of us all."
"How came such a man among the plague-stricken people of Besa? Is he become a physician?"
"No. But at Athens he sought fervently and eagerly for the truth, and now he asserts that he has found it."
"Here, among the Egyptians?"
"In Alexandria among the Christians."
"And the lame girl who accompanied the philosopher—does she too believe in the crucified God?"
"Yes. She is a sick-nurse or something of the kind. Indeed there is something grand in the ecstatic craze of these people."