'Now, listen, Endora. Your heart is right, but your words are idle. She must be saved, but in another way. I will rescue her. Thou knowest the Temple, and must find where she is lodged. Find out if access is possible; bring me full account, and great reward shall be thine. Canst thou do this?'

'Yes; but not for reward.'

'What then?'

'For love I bear to her.'

'Very well. Be it so. Lose no time. She is already under a sentence of death, and will die. Go! go! Great God! what a death. Oh that I might die for her! The Ephesians gathered together to make sport—to make sport of Saronia the beautiful, my love! Polluted by the touch of a coarse gaoler. A sight to gratify the Romans, a jest for the rabble of Ephesus, and a cruel death ending all. She who has wielded the sceptre of power, highest and brightest among the women of Ionia, commanded spirits in legions from the underworld, stopped the eagles in their flight, turned the courses of the clouds, baring the face of the silvery moon; she who has dropped the sceptre of this power, and robed herself with a trust in God—shall she be forsaken? No, no! It cannot be so. If she could breathe out her life supported by these arms of mine; if I could but close her lovely eyes in death and kiss her whitening brow, then could I fall also asleep and awake to meet her on the other shore.'

'Chios!' said the Proconsul, interrupting the Greek. 'How fares my friend? I have news for thee.'

'Good, or evil?'

'Judge thou. The Roman fleet, under the command of Lucius, is in the offing. Their numbers crowd the sea.'

'Lucius! The fleet! Lucius!' exclaimed Chios.

'True; Lucius is almost here.'