Barine was frightened; but a few minutes after the outlines of a large fishing boat loomed through the darkness, dimly illumined by the harbour lights, and the next instant the giant who carried her placed her on the deck, and a deep voice whispered:  “All’s well.  I’ll bring some wine at once.”

Then Barine saw her husband lying motionless on a couch which had been prepared for him in the prow of the boat.  Bending over him, she perceived that he had fainted, and while rubbing his forehead with the wine, raising his head on her lap, cheering him, and afterwards by the light of a small lantern carefully renewing the bandage on his shoulder, she did not notice that the vessel was moving through the water until the boatman set the triangular sail.

She had not been told where the boat was bearing her, and she did not ask.  Any spot that she could share with Dion was welcome.  The more lonely the place, the more she could be to him.  How her heart swelled with gratitude and love!  When she bent over him, kissed his forehead, and felt how feverishly it burned, she thought, “I will nurse you back to health,” and raised her eyes and soul to her favourite god, to whom she owed the gift of song, and who understood everything beautiful and pure, to thank Phoebus Apollo and beseech him to pour his rays the next morning on a convalescent man.  While she was still engaged in prayer the boat touched the shore.  Again strong arms bore her and Dion to the land, and when her foot touched the solid earth, her rescuer, the freedman Pyrrhus, broke the silence, saying:  “Welcome, wife of Dion, to our island!  True, you must be satisfied to take us as we are.  But if you are as content with us as we are glad to serve you and your lord, who is ours also, the hour of leave-taking will be far distant.”

Then, leading the way to the house, he showed her as her future apartments two large whitewashed rooms, whose sole ornament was their exquisite neatness.  On the threshold stood Pyrrhus’s grey-haired wife, a young woman, and a girl scarcely beyond childhood; but the older one modestly welcomed Barine, and also begged her to accept their hospitality.  Recovery was rapid in the pure air of the Serpent Isle.  She herself, and—­she pointed to the others—­her oldest son’s wife, and her own daughter, Dione, would be ready to render her any service.

CHAPTER XVI.

Brothers and sisters are rarely talkative when they are together.  As Charmian went to Lochias with Archibius, it was difficult for her to find words, the events of the past few hours had agitated her so deeply.  Archibius, too, could not succeed in turning his thoughts in any other direction, though important and far more momentous things claimed his attention.

They walked on silently side by side.  In reply to his sister’s inquiry where the newly wedded pair were to be concealed, he had answered that, spite of her trustworthiness, this must remain a secret.  To her second query, how had it been possible to use the interior of the Temple of Isis without interruption, he also made a guarded reply.