A REUNION OF DIFFERENT ACTORS STREAMS THAT FLOWED APPARENTLY APART RUSH INTO ONE GULF

IMPATIENT to learn whether the fell drug had yet been administered by Julia to his hated rival, and with what effect, Arbaces resolved, as the evening, came on, to seek her house, and satisfy his suspense. It was customary, as I have before said, for men at that time to carry abroad with them the tablets and the stiles attached to their girdle ; and with the girdle they were put off when at home. In fact, under the appearance of a literary instrument,the Romans carried about with there in that same stilus a very sharp and formidable weapon. It was with his stilus that Cassius stabbed C sar the senate house. Taking,then,his girdle and his cloak, Arbaces left his house, supporting his steps, which were still somewhat feeble (though hope and vengeance had conspired greatly with his own medical science, which was profound, to restore his natural strength), by his long staff : Arbaces took his way to the villa of Diomed.

And beautiful is the moonlight of the south ! In those climes the night so quickly glides into the day that twilight scarcely makes a bridge between then. One moment of darker purple in the sky of a thousand rose-hues in the water of shade half victorious over light ; and then burst forth at once the countless stars--the moon is up--night has resumed her reign.

Brightly then, and softly bright, fell the moonbeams over the antique grove consecrated to Cybele--the stately trees, whose date went beyond tradition, cast their long shadows over the soil, while through the openings in their boughs the stars shone still and frequent. The whiteness of the small sacellum in the center of the grove, amid the dark foliage, had in it something abrupt and startling it recalled at once the purpose to which the wood was consecrated its holiness and solemnity.

With a swift and stealthy pace, Calenus, gliding under the shade of the trees, reached the chapel, and gently putting back the boughs that completely closed around its rear, settled himself in his concealment ; a concealment so complete, what with the fane in front and the trees behind, that no unsuspicious passenger could possibly have detected him. Again, all was apparently solitary in the grove ; afar off you heard faintly the voices of some noisy revellers, or the music that played cheerily to the groups that then, as now in those climates, during the nights of summer, lingered in the streets, and enjoyed, in the fresh air and the liquid moonlight, a milder day.

From the height on which the grove was placed, you saw through the intervals of the trees the broad and purple sea, rippling in the distance, the white villas of Stabi in the curving shore, and the dim Lectiarian hills mingling with the delicious sky. Presently the tall figure of Arbaces, on his way to the house of Diomed, entered the extreme end of the grove ; and at the same instant Ap cides, also bound to his appointment with Olinthus, crossed the Egyptian's path.

Hem! Ap cides, "said Arbaces, recognizing the priest at a glance; when last we met, you were my foe. I have wished since then to see you, for I would have you still my pupil and my friend."

Ap cides started at the voice of the Egyptian ; and halting abruptly, gazed upon him with a countenance full of contending, bitter, and scornful emotions.

"Villain and impostor, "' said he at length; thou hast recovered then from the jaws of the grave ! But think not again to weave around me thy guilty meshes. Retiarius, I am armed against thee!

Hush "' said Arbaces, in a very low voice but his pride, which in that descendant of kings was great, betrayed the wound it received from the insulting epithets of the priest in the quiver of his lip and the flush of his tawny brow. Hush ! more low ; thou mayest be overheard, and if other ears than mine had drunk those sounds why-

" Dost thou threaten " what if the whole city had heard me ?"

"The manes of my ancestors would not have suffered me to forgive thee. But, hold, and hear me. Thou art enraged that I would have offered violence to thy sister. Nay, peace, peace, but one instant, I pray thee. Thou art right; it was the frenzy of passion. and of jealousy I have repented bitterly of my madness. Forgive me; I, who never implored pardon of living man, beseech thee now to forgive me. Nay, I will atone the insult I ask thy sister in marriage start not, consider what is the alliance of yon holiday Greek compared to mine? Wealth unbounded birth that in its far antiquity leaves your Greek and Roman names the things of yesterday science , but that thou knowest! Give me thy sister, and my whole life shall atone a moment's error."

" Egyptian, were even I to consent, my sister loathes the very air thou breathest: but I have my own wrongs to forgive I may pardon thee that thou hast made me a tool to thy deceits, but never that thou hast seduced me to become the abettor of thy vices a polluted and a perjured man. Tremble! even now I prepare the hour in which thou and thy false gods shall be unveiled. Thy lewd and Circe'an life shall be dragged to day thy mumming oracles disclosed the fane of the idol Isis shall be a by-word and a scorn the name of Arbaces a mark for the hisses of execration! Tremble!"

The flush on the Egyptian's brow was succeeded by a livid paleness. He looked behind, before, around, to feel assured that none were by; and then he fixed his dark and dilating eye on the priest, with such a gaze of wrath and menace, that one, perhaps, less supported than Ap cides by the fervent daring of a divine zeal, could not have faced with unflinching look that lowering aspect. As it was, however, the young convert met it unmoved, and returned it with an eye of proud defiance.

Ap cides," said the Egyptian, in a tremulous and inward tone, "beware! What is it thou wouldst meditate? Speakest thou reflect, pause before thou repliest from the hasty influences of wrath, as yet divining no settled purpose, or from some fixed design?"

I speak from the inspiration of the True God, whose servant I now am," answered the Christian, boldly; and in the knowledge that by His grace human courage has already fixed the date of thy hypocrisy and thy demon's worship; ere thrice the sun has dawned thou wilt know all! Dark sorcerer, tremble, and farewell!"

All the fierce and lurid passions which he inherited from his nation and his clime, at all times but ill concealed beneath the blandness of craft and the coldness of philosophy, were released in the breast of the Egyptian. Rapidly one thought chased another; he saw before him an obstinate barrier to even a lawful alliance with Ione the fellow-champion of Glaucus in the struggle which had baffled his designs the reviler of his name the threatened desecrator of the goddess he served while he disbelieved the avowed and approaching revealer of his own impostures and vices. His love, his repute, nay his very life, might be in danger the day and hour seemed even to have been fixed for some design against him. He knew by the words of the convert that Ap cides had adopted the Christian faith ; he knew the indomitable zeal which led on the proselytes of that creed. Such was his enemy; he grasped his stilus--that enemy was in his power! They were now before the chapel ; one hasty glance once more he cast around; he saw none near the silence and solitude alike tempted him.

Die, then, in thy rashness !" he muttered; away obstacle to my rushing fates!"

And just as the young Christian had turned to depart, Arbaces raised his hand high over the left shoulder of Ap cides, and plunged his sharp weapon twice into his breast.

Ap cides fell to the ground pierced to the heart he fell mute, without even a groan, at the very base of the sacred chapel.

Arbaces gazed upon him for a moment with the fierce animal joy of conquest over a foe. But presently the full sense of the danger to which he was exposed flashed upon him; he wiped his weapon carefully in the long grass, and with the very garments of his victim, drew his cloak round him, and was about to depart, when he saw, coning up the path, right before him, the figure of a young man, whose steps reeled and vacillated strangely as he advanced : the quiet moonlight streamed fall upon his face, which seemed, by the whitening ray, colorless as marble. The Egyptian recognized the face and form of Glaucus. The unfortunate and benighted Greek was chanting a disconnected and mad song, composed from snatches of hymns and sacred odes, all jarringly woven together.

"Ha!" thought the Egyptian, instantaneously divining his state and its terrible cause; -so, then, the hell-draught works, and destiny hath sent thee hither to crush two of my foes at once!"

Quickly, even ere this thought occurred to him, he had withdrawn on one side of the chapel, and concealed himself among, the boughs ; from that lurking-place he watched, as a tiger, in his lair, the advance of his second victim. He noted the wandering and restless fire in the bright and beautiful eyes of the Athenian; the convulsions that distorted his statue-like features and writhed his hue-less lip. He saw that the Greek was utterly deprived of reason. Nevertheless, as Glaucus came up to the dead body of Ap cides, from which the dark red stream flowed slowly over the grass, so strange and ghastly a spectacle could not fail to arrest hire, benighted and erring as was his glimmering sense. He paused, placed his hand to his brow, as if to collect himself, and then saying:

"What, ho! Endymion, sleepest thou so soundly? What has the moon said to thee? Thou makest me jealous; it is time to wake" he stooped down with the intention of lifting up the body.

Forgetting--feeling not his own debility, the Egyptian sprang from his hiding place, and as the Greek bent, struck him forcibly to the ground, over the very body of the Christian; then, raising his powerful voice to its loudest pitch, he shouted:

" Ho, citizens oh! help me run hither, hither! A murder a murder before your very fane! Help, or the murderer escapes!" As he spoke, he placed his foot on the breast of Glaucus: an idle and superfluous precaution; for the potion operating with the fall, the Greek lay there motionless and insensible, save that now and then his lips gave vent to some vague and raving sounds.

As he there stood awaiting the coming of those his voice still continued to summon, perhaps some remorse, some compunctious visitings--for despite his crimes he was human--haunted the breast of the Egyptian; the defenceless state of Glaucus his wandering words--his shattered reason, smote him even more than the death of Ap cides, and he said, half audibly to himself :

Poor clay--poor human reason! where is the soul now? I could spare thee, O my rival rival never more! But destiny must be obeyed my safety demands thy sacrifice." With that, as if to drown compunction, he shouted yet more loudly; and drawing from the girdle of Glaucus the stilus it contained, he steeped it in the blood of the murdered man, and laid it beside the corpse.

And now, fast and breathless, several of the citizens came thronging to the place, some with torches, which the moon rendered unnecessary, but which flared red and tremulously against the darkness of the trees: they surrounded the spot.