The morning twilight had dawned into day, and the sun had risen on the first of December of the year of our Lord 129, but was still veiled by milk-white mists which rose from the sea, and it was cold.

Kasius, a mountain of moderate elevation, stands on a tongue of land that projects from the coast between the south of Palestine and Egypt. It is washed on the north by the sea which, on this day, is not gleaming, as is its wont, in translucent ultramarine; its more distant depths slowly surge in blue-black waves, while those nearer to shore are of quite a different hue, and meet their sisters that lie nearer to the horizon in a dull greenish-grey, as dusty plains join darker lava beds. The northeasterly wind, which had risen as the sun rose, now blew more keenly, wreaths of white foam rode on the crests of the waves, though these did not beat wildly and stormily on the mountain-foot, but rolled heavily to the shore in humped ridges, endlessly long, as if they were of molten lead. Still the clear bright spray splashed up when the gulls dipped their pinions in the water as they floated above it, hither and thither, restless and uttering shrill little cries, as though driven by terror.

Three men were walking slowly along the causeway which led from the top of the hill down into the valley, but it was only the eldest, who walked in front of the other two, who gave any heed to the sky, the sea, the gulls, and the barren plain that lay silent at his feet. He stopped, and as soon as he did so, the others followed his example. The landscape below him seemed to rivet his gaze, and it justified the disapproval with which he gently shook his head, which was somewhat sunk into his beard. A narrow strip of desert stretched westward before him as far as the eye could reach, dividing two levels of water. Along this natural dyke a caravan was passing, and the elastic feet of the camels fell noiselessly on the road they trod. The leader, wrapped in his white mantle, seemed asleep, and the camel-drivers to be dreaming; the dull-colored eagles by the road-side did not stir at their approach. To the right of the stretch of flat coast along which the road ran from Syria to Egypt, lay the gloomy sea, overhung by grey clouds; to the left lay the desert, a strange and mysterious feature in the landscape, of which the eye could not see the end, either to the east or to the west, and which looked here like a stretch of snow, there like standing water, and again like a thicket of rushes.

The eldest of our travellers gazed constantly towards heaven or into the distance; the second, a slave who carried rugs and cloaks on his broad shoulders, never took his eyes off his master; and the third, a young, free-man, looked wearily and dreamily down the road.

A broad path, leading to a stately temple, crossed that which led from the summit of the mountain to the coast, and the bearded pedestrian turned up it; but he followed it only for a few steps, then he turned his head with a dissatisfied air, muttered a few unintelligible words into his beard, turned round and hastily retraced his steps to the narrow way, down which he went towards the valley. His young companion followed him without raising his head or interrupting his reverie, as if he were his shadow, but the slave lifted his cropped fair head and a stolen smile crossed his lips as on the left hand side of the Kasius road he caught sight of a black kid, and close beside it an old woman who, at the approach of the three men covered her wrinkled face in alarm with her dark blue veil.

“That is the reason then!” said the slave to himself with a nod, and blowing a kiss into the air to a black-haired girl who crouched at the old woman’s feet. But she, for whom the greeting was intended, did not observe this mute courtship, for her eyes followed the travellers, and especially the young man, as if spellbound. As soon as the three were far enough off not to hear her, the girl asked with a shiver, as if some desert-spectre had passed by-and in a low voice “Grandmother, who was that?”

The old woman raised her veil, laid her hand on her grandchild’s mouth, and whispered:

“It was he.”

“The Emperor?”

The old woman answered with a significant nod, but the girl squeezed herself up, against her grandmother, with vehement curiosity stretching out her dusky head to see better, and asked softly: “The young one?”

“Silly child! the one in front with a grey beard.”

“He? Oh, I wish the young one was the Emperor!”

It was in fact Hadrian, the Roman Emperor, who walked on in silence before his escort, and it seemed as though his advent had given life to the desert, for as he approached the reed-swamp, the kites flew up in the air, and from behind a sand-hill on the edge of the broader road which Hadrian had avoided, came two men in priestly robes. They both belonged to the temple of Baal of Kariotis, a small structure of solid stone, which faced the sea, and which the Emperor had yesterday visited.

“Do you think he has lost his way?” said one to the other, in the Phoenician tongue.

“Hardly,” was the answer. “Master said that he could always find a road again by which he had once gone, even in the dark.”

“And yet he is gazing more at the clouds than at the road.”

“Still, he promised us yesterday.”

“He promised nothing for certain,” interrupted the other.

“Indeed he did; at parting he called out—and I heard him distinctly: ‘Perhaps I shall return and consult your oracle.’”

“Perhaps.”

“I think he said ‘probably.’”

“Who knows whether some sign he has seen up in the sky may not have turned him back; he is going to the camp by the sea.”

“But the banquet is standing ready for him in our great hall.”

“He will find what he needs down there. Come, it is a wretched morning, and I am being frozen.”

“Wait a little longer-look there.”

“What?”

“He does not even wear a hat to cover his grey hair.”

“He has never yet been seen to travel with anything on his head.”

“And his grey cloak is not very imperial looking.”

“He always wears the purple at a banquet.”

“Do you know who his walk and appearance remind me of?”

“Who?”

“Of our late high-priest, Abibaal; he used to walk in that ponderous, meditative way, and wear a beard like the Emperor’s.”

“Yes, yes—and had the same piercing grey eye.”

“He too used often to gaze up at the sky. They have both the same broad forehead, too; but Abibaal’s nose was more aquiline, and his hair curled less closely.”

“And our governor’s mouth was grave and dignified, while Hadrian’s lips twitch and curl at all he says and hears, as if he were laughing at it all.”

“Look, he is speaking now to his favorite—Antonius I think they call the pretty boy.”

“Antinous, not Antonius. He picked him up in Bithynia, they say.”

“He is a beautiful youth.”

“Incomparably beautiful! What a figure and what a face! Still, I cannot wish that he were my son.”

“The Emperor’s favorite!”

“For that very reason. Why, he looks already as if he had tried every pleasure, and could never know any farther enjoyment.”

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