Barine felt as if every moment might rouse her from a blissful dream, and yet she gladly told herself that she was awake, for the man walking before her, leaning on the arm of a friend, was Dion.  True, she saw, even in the faint light of the dim temple corridor, that he was suffering.  Walking appeared to be so difficult that she rejoiced when, yielding to Gorgias’s entreaties, he entered the litter.

But where were the bearers?

She was soon to learn; for, even while she looked for them, the architect and the youth, in whom she had long since recognized Philotas, her grandfather’s assistant, seized the poles.

“Follow us,” said Gorgias, under his breath, and she obeyed, keeping close behind the litter, which was borne first down a broad and then a narrow staircase, and finally along a passage.  Here a door stopped the fugitives; but the architect opened it and helped his friend out of the litter, which before proceeding farther he placed in a room filled with various articles discovered during his investigation of the subterranean temple chambers.

Hitherto not a word had been spoken.  Now Gorgias called to Barine:  “This passage is low—­you must stoop.  Cover your head, and don’t be afraid if you meet bats.  They have long been undisturbed.  We might have taken you from the temple to the sea, and waited there, but it would probably have attracted attention and been dangerous.  Courage, young wife of Dion!  The corridor is long, and walking through it is difficult; but compared with the road to the mines, it is as smooth and easy as the Street of the King.  If you think of your destination, the bats will seem like the swallows which announce the approach of spring.”

Barine nodded gratefully to him; but she kissed the hand of Dion, who was moving forward painfully, leaning on the arm of his friend.  The light of the torch carried by Gorgias’s faithful foreman, who led the way, had fallen on her blackened arm, and when the little party advanced she kept behind the others.  She thought it might be unpleasant for her lover to see her thus disfigured, and spared him, though she would gladly have remained nearer.  As soon as the passage grew lower, the wounded man’s friends took him in their arms, and their task was a hard one, for they were not only obliged to move onward bending low under the heavy burden, but also to beat off the bats which, frightened by the foreman’s torch, flew up in hosts.

Barine’s hair was covered, it is true, but at any other time the hideous creatures, which often brushed against her head and arms, would have filled her with horror and loathing.  Now she scarcely heeded them; her eyes were fixed on the recumbent figure in the bearers’ arms, the man to whom she belonged, body and soul, and whose patient suffering pierced her inmost heart.  His head rested on the breast of Gorgias, who walked directly in front of her; the architect’s stooping posture concealed his face, but his feet were visible and, whenever they twitched, she fancied he was in pain.  Then she longed to press forward to his side, wipe the perspiration from his brow in the hot, low corridor, and whisper words of love and encouragement.