'Why, daughter, there he is, conversing with that sweet maid of Smyrna! Let us crowd all sail, and bear down on his weather. Quickly! I like that boy, and, if my reckoning be correct, thou dost not dislike him. Am I right?'
'Well, I like him, and I like him not. He has mixed much with the people of the new faith, and ever as he goes that way his mind becomes o'erclouded with gloom. He is strangely abstracted, scarce a word escapes his lips. Were it not for this strange faith which spells him, I should say he loved, and, if 'twere love, I should not be the idol of his choice.'
'Who, then?'
'I know not;' and a painful sorrow passed across her brow, but Lucius saw it not.
The night came down, and beacon fires glared out on every hill and mountain-top. Coressus and Pion were aflame, great torches whirled and rushed wildly up and down the mountain-side, and moved in fiery lines throughout the city streets.
The lamps were lit within, and windows made of richly-coloured glass, amber, blue, and ruby, shone forth in lovely harmony and glorious hues, until the myrtle-trees, with their great white blossoms and perfumed breath, seemed quivering with delight. Merry songs, with laughter and rippling music, floated on the lazy air. Joy ran riot in the house of Lucius, and the meanest slave had for a time a share of happiness. The hours rolled on in pleasure, like a stately ship on a sunny sea.
Down deep in the heart of Nika joy was mockery.
The guests departed, and she retired to her chamber. Throwing herself on a couch, she wept great tears of anguish, a tide of tears no joy could stay.
She arose and gazed out into the darkness, and saw the looming of the great Temple rearing its majestic form in sable gloom, darker than the night; and she looked into the great unfathomable depths of the skies, and sighed like the deep moaning of the wind. But the heavens were as brass, and the great sigh died without becoming a prayer.
Moving back silently to her couch, she lay down, but not to sleep, for she heard strange sounds arise from the sacred grove, and she knew the songs of the night came up from the Temple of Hecate.