not cast it off nor even defend myself. Aye! you may look grieved and
shake your head, but so it was, and the scars hurt me still with a pain
I cannot utter."

"But Klea," interrupted Serapion, "you are quite beside yourself--like
one possessed. Go to the temple and pray, or, if that is of no avail,
go to Asclepios or Anubis and have the demon cast out."

"I need none of your gods!" answered the girl in great agitation.
"Oh! I wish you had left me to my fate, and that we had shared the lot
of our parents, for what threatens us here is more frightful than having
to sift gold-dust in the scorching sun, or to crush quartz in mortars.
I did not come to you to speak about the Roman, but to tell you what the
high-priest had just disclosed to me since the procession ended."

"Well?" asked Serapion eager and almost frightened, stretching out his
neck to put his head near to the girl's, and opening his eyes so wide
that the loose skin below them almost disappeared.

"First he told me," replied Klea, "how meagrely the revenues of the
temple are supplied--"

"That is quite true," interrupted the anchorite, "for Antiochus carried
off the best part of its treasure; and the crown, which always used to
have money to spare for the sanctuaries of Egypt, now loads our estates
with heavy tribute; but you, as it seems to me, were kept scantily
enough, worse than meanly, for, as I know--since it passed through my
hands--a sum was paid to the temple for your maintenance which would have
sufficed to keep ten hungry sailors, not speak of two little pecking
birds like you, and besides that you do hard service without any pay.