athlete!" he responded, slowly, "an ode will be ready for you when you overthrow Theocles in the festival games. But I think I need not hurry in composing it. Morpheus attend you all. I am going to my bed." And, turning upon his heel, without looking at the still proffered instrument, he strode off to the room which he was to share with Phalaris and the stranger.

Charmides' anger always passed as rapidly as it rose. To-night, by the time he had disrobed and made his prayer to Apollo and Father Zeus, his mind was once more in a state of truce with Phalaris, and he determined to make peace with his brother as soon as he found opportunity; for Phalaris felt the sting of a sharp speech till it was healed by the balm of a very humble apology.

Once ready for the night the shepherd drew his light couch under the one unshuttered window of the room, and laid him down so that his eyes might rest upon the heavens before he slept, and where he could watch the rising of the sun when he woke again. By this time the last shred of the storm-cloud had disappeared from on high, and the moon, which was all but in the full, flooded the night with silver. Its luminous radiance melted over the shepherd's face and caused his locks to shine palely. Charmides lay watching the beams with wide-open eyes. In spite of his very unusual exertions of the afternoon, and the nervous strain that he had endured in watching for men from the wreck, he had never been further from sleep than to-night. His mind was unusually active, and, try as he would, he could not turn his thoughts from one subject—the thing that Phalaris had tried to shame away, the incredible tale told by the Phœnician about the Aphrodite of the East. Charmides knew well enough how his father and brother would laugh at him for allowing himself to think seriously for one moment about that idealized being, who, in all probability, lived only in the depths of the trader's imagination. Nevertheless, Kabir's few words had conjured up to Charmides' quick fancy a singularly real shape, and in the solitary night his thoughts played about her continually, now with eager delight, again reluctantly and irresistibly. Once, twice, thrice he tried to escape from her, but she refused to be banished. He saw her slipping down towards him from a great height, on the path of a moonbeam. With a sigh of renunciation he resolutely turned his head. Still she did not go. Nay, flashing in an aureole of white light, her face veiled from him, divinity crying from every curve of her figure, she advanced more definitely than before, from the corners of the room. A quiver of painful delight stirred Charmides' heart. He closed his eyes. Then she came out of the depths of his own brain, in a sea of rainbow mist, with faint chimes of distant bells ringing around her, a veil of silken hair covering her beneath the mantle of light. At last he was quite beneath her spell. Fragments of hexameter, of great beauty and great indistinctness, rose in his mind. And presently, lo! an ode, the first of any depth that had ever come to him, became possible. Here were the first lines of it, lying ready to his tongue. He whispered them once to himself, delightedly, and then banished them with resolution. He must first obtain his form. The structure must be broad enough adequately to express the thought born in him by the secret inspiration of the night.

An hour passed, and the white light of the moon crept slowly over the shepherd's head into the far corners of the room. Charmides lay with closed eyes and lips compressed, the vision growing clearer and his task more intricate. Mere words began to be inadequate. How many men, how many women, how many lifeless things, even, have been extolled in matchless syllables? And how was he as far to surpass all these lines as his subject surpassed the subjects of his predecessors? He grew more and more troubled, and the labor of his mind was painful. Intoxication was gone. The time of work, of unexalted concentration, was upon him. Into the midst of this second stage, however, came Phalaris and Kabir, sleepy, yet talking pleasantly together in unsubdued tones. Charmides clenched his hand, but did not unclose his eyes. For twenty minutes he lay in an agony of broken thought. Then his self-control was rewarded. He was left alone once more in the night, with only the light, regular breathing of two unconscious men to disturb his thoughts.

Through the misty hours sleep did not visit the shepherd, yet neither did he accomplish his desire. He watched the pale moon faint from the sky and the white stars melt, one by one, into the tender dawn. Sunrise found him spent, exhausted, and bitter with disappointment; for the burning night had left no trace of its fever save in deep circles under his eyes and a hungering anxiety over something that he could not name.

Theron and Phalaris were up betimes, and, before they had finished the morning libation, were joined by Charmides and Kabir. During breakfast the stranger talked to Theron about the galley, and the length of time it would take before she could be rendered fit to continue again upon her voyage.

"You were going home?" asked the Selinuntian.

"Yes. We should stop at the Sikelian cities as far as Syracuse, passing then eastward through the islands, touching at Crete, Naxos, perhaps, and Cyprus. Our voyage had been too long already."

"Well, if you are ready," observed Theron, rising, "we will go down to the shore at once to find out the condition of the galley. And while you remain in Selinous, Kabir, we beg that you will make our hearth your home."

The Phœnician gratefully expressed his thanks. Then, as Theron and Phalaris moved together towards the door, evidently expecting him to follow them, Kabir turned to Charmides, who remained in the background.

"Do you not come with us?" he asked.

The Greek hurriedly shook his head. "I take the flock to pasture," he explained; and so the Phœnician turned away.

By the time the three men reached the shore below the city, the sun was two hours high and the beach was lined with Selinuntians and Tyrians, all talking together about the best method for pulling the galley from between the two rocks where she still lay, fast wedged. As soon as Kabir made his appearance a tall fellow, in a deep-red robe, hurried up to him with expressions of delight. Kabir saluted him as an equal, and presently brought him up to Theron and Phalaris, introducing him as Eshmun, captain of the Fish of Tyre. Then followed among the four of them an earnest conversation as to the length of time needed for repairs after the ship was once more in clear water.

"Prayers and libations to Melkart and Baal have been offered up," observed Eshmun, piously, "and men in the city are already at work making new oars. Yonder on the beach are all the small boats, which are to be manned by our sailors and the young men of the city. They, proceeding to the Fish, will lay hold of her stern with ropes, and, all pulling in the same direction, by the aid of the gods we shall hope to get her out."

"And the galley-slaves?" queried Kabir. "What has been done with them?"