Serapis | Page 6

"Yes, and the curtain is not a strong back to the seat. Fortunately if I
fall asleep I shall drop forwards, not backwards."
"But there is a bed for each of you," said the mother, and giving the girl
a gentle push she followed her into the sleeping-alcove. In a few
minutes she came out again.
"That is just like Dada!" she exclaimed. "Little Papias had rolled off the
chest on which he was sleeping, so the good girl had put him into her
bed and was sitting on the chest herself, tired as she was."

"She would do anything for that boy," said Karnis. "But it is past
midnight. Come, Orpheus, let us make the bed!"
Three long hen-coops which stood piled against the wall were laid on
the ground and covered with mats; on these the tired men stretched
their limbs, but they could not sleep.
The little lamp was extinguished, and for an hour all was still in the
dark room. Then, suddenly, there was a loud commotion; some elastic
object flew against the wall with a loud flap, and Karnis, starting up,
called out: "Get out--monster!"
"What is it?" cried Herse who had also been startled, and the old man
replied angrily:
"Some daemon, some dog of a daemon is attacking me and giving me
no peace. Wait, you villain--there, perhaps that will settle you," and he
flung his second sandal. Then, without heeding the rustling fall of some
object that he had hit by accident, he gasped out:
"The impudent fiend will not let me be. It knows that we need Agne's
voice, and it keeps whispering, first in one ear and then in the other,
that I should threaten to sell her little brother if she refuses; but
I--I--strike a light, Orpheus!--She is a good girl and rather than do such
a thing. . ."
"The daemon has been close to me too," said the son as he blew on the
spark he had struck.
"And to me too," added Herse nervously. "It is only natural. There are
no images of the gods in this Christian hovel. Away, hateful serpent!
We are honest folks and will not agree to any vile baseness. Here is my
amulet, Karnis; if the daemon comes again you must turn it round--you
know how."
CHAPTER II.
Early next morning the singers set out for the house of Porphyrius. The

party was not complete, however, for Dada had been forced to remain
at home. The shoes that the old man had flung to scare away the
daemon had caught in the girl's dress which she had just washed, and
had dragged it down on to the earth; she had found it in the morning
full of holes burnt by the ashes into the damp material. Dada had no
other presentable garment, so, in spite of her indignant refusal and
many tears, she had to remain indoors with Papias. Agne's anxious
offers to stay in her place with the little boy and to lend Dada her dress,
both Karnis and his wife had positively refused; and Dada had lent her
aid--at first silently though willingly and then with her usual
merriment--in twining garlands for the others and in dressing Agne's
smooth black plaits with a wreath of ivy and violets.
The men were already washed, anointed and crowned with poplar and
laurel when a steward arrived from Porphyrius to bid them follow him
to his master's house. But a small sacrifice was necessary, for the
messenger desired them to lay aside their wreaths, which would excite
ill-feeling among the monks, and certainly be snatched off by the
Christian mob. Karnis when he started was greatly disappointed, and as
much depressed as he had been triumphant and hopeful a short time
before.
The monks, who had gathered outside the Xenodochium, glanced with
scowling suspicion at the party, who could not recover the good spirits
with which they had begun the day till they were fairly out of the
narrow, gloomy alleys, reeking with tar and salt fish, that adjoined the
harbor, and where they had to push their way through a dense throng.
The steward led the van with Herse, talking freely in reply to her
enquiries.
His master, he said, was one of the great merchants of the city, whose
wife had died twenty years since in giving birth to Gorgo. His two sons
were at present absent on their travels. The old lady who had been so
liberal in her treatment of the singers was Damia, the mother of
Porphyrius. She had a fine fortune of her own, and notwithstanding her
great age was still respected as the soul of business in the household,
and as a woman deeply versed in the mysterious sciences. Mary, the

pious Christian, who had founded the "House