“We are going to Canopus, we are going to Canopus!” cried the women, in joyful chorus. “Quick, Ione, hand me the poppy-rouge! Here, a stick of antimony! I want a blue veil, Ione, and blue lotus-flowers for my hair! Quick, quick, Ione! The master is ready!”
“We are going to Canopus, we are going to Canopus!” Cora cried, joyfully, with the rest. “My lord was like a young god, he looked like Serapis himself! Ione, I must have a net of gold thread and a dreaming-veil of gold thread and pink water-lilies for my hair! I want a wreath of pink water-lilies!”
Lucius from afar beheld this stir, in the reflection of the lamps and torches in the night. Slaves were running to and fro; litters were prepared. He thought only of Ilia. He wanted to wrap himself in the dreaming-veil and to lie on the temple-roof and dream where Ilia was, where she had been carried ... by the pirates. And he stood like a priest, gazing solemnly before him.
Chapter VIII
During those evenings of the summer festival, Alexandria was lighted more brilliantly than Rome itself. The town glittered with hundreds of lights, lamps, lanterns, torches and links; it glittered in its harbours, where the blinding sheaves of light floated from the dome of the light-house; it glittered in its two main streets, which intersected each other; it glittered in the colonnades of the Museum and the Gymnasium, colonnades and stadia themselves restlessly teeming, up to where the multitude were making merry for the festival.
But above all it glittered over Lake Mareotis and the Canopus Canal. The splendid villas on the lake were bright with many-coloured lanterns and balls of fire; the temple of Aphrodite, on the eyot, was silhouetted in flaring lines; and over the golden waters of the lake itself the illuminated boats pressed and crowded, filled with song, filled with dance, full of colour, gladness and joy; streamers flapped and rugs trailed over the sides of the boats down to the water.
Through the lighted streets the bearers hurried and thronged with the litters towards Lake Mareotis. They hurried from the diversorium, with the harpists and the dancing-girls and a great procession of slaves in festive raiment. An army of freedmen followed on horses and mules; and the passers-by pointed to the imposing procession, evidently the household of a very wealthy Roman who was going to Canopus to dream.
The procession reached a landing-stage on the lake. Here a great barge lay moored, a thalamegus which Caleb had succeeded in hiring at the last moment for a vast sum of money. The thalamegus was painted blue and gilded, with blue-and-gilt oars, which stuck out like so many swan’s-legs. Caleb had had her covered with tapestry and adorned with wreaths of flowers and festoons of leaves. The silver statue of Aphrodite stood on the prow, with incense burning before it. The troop of slaves, male and female, and freedmen, with Vettius and Rufus, hastened on board to await the master’s coming.
A dense multitude pressed round to look on greedily. Now a Roman litter approached, recognizable by its square shape; yet another and the master alighted, with the aid of his slaves, male and female. He was accompanied by an old, corpulent kinsman and a grave tutor.