“He!” exclaimed the slave in a scornful tone.  “Yes, if you want to know what the flies are talking about!  Alexander for me.  He has his head screwed on the right way, and he will find her if any man in Egypt can, and bring her back, alive or dead.”

“Dead!” echoed Dido, with a fresh burst of sobs, and her tears fell in the porridge, which Argutis, indeed, in his distress of mind had forgotten to salt.

While this conversation was going on the gemcutter was feeding his birds.  Can this man, who stands there like any girl, tempting his favorites to feed, with fond words and whistling, and the offer of attractive dainties, be the stormy blusterer of last night?  There is not a coaxing name that he does not lavish on them, while he fills their cups with fresh seed and water; and how carefully he moves his big hand as he strews the little cages with clean sand!  He would not for worlds scare the poor little prisoners who cheer his lonely hours, and who have long since ceased to fear him.  A turtle-dove takes peas, and a hedge-sparrow picks ants’ eggs from his lips; a white-throat perches on his left hand to snatch a caterpillar from his right.  The huge man was in his garden soon after sunrise gathering the dewy leaves for his feathered pets.  But he talks and plays longest with the starling which his lost wife gave him.  She had bought it in secret from the Bedouin who for many years had brought shells for sale from the Red Sea, to surprise her husband with the gift.  The clever bird had first learned to call her name, Olympias; and then, without any teaching, had picked up his master’s favorite lament, “My strength, my strength!”

Heron regarded this bird as a friend who understood him, and, like him, remembered the never-to-be-forsaken dead.  For three years had the gem cutter been a widower, and he still thought more constantly and fondly of his lost wife than of the children she had left him.  Heron scratched the bird’s knowing little head, saying in a tone which betrayed his pity both for himself and his pet “Yes, old fellow, you would rather have a soft white finger to stroke you down.  I can hear her now, when she would call you ‘sweet little pet,’ or ‘dear little creature.’  We shall neither of us ever hear such gentle, loving words again.  Do you remember how she would look up with her dear sweet face—­and was it not a lovely face?—­when you called her by her name ‘Olympias’?  How many a time have her rosy lips blown up your feathers, and cried, ’Well done, little fellow! ’—­Ay, and she would say ‘Well done’ to me too, when I had finished a piece of work well.  Ah, and what an eye she had, particularly for art!  But now well, the children give me a good word too, now that her lips are silent!”

“Olympias!” cried the bird loudly and articulately, and the clouds that shadowed the gem-cutter’s brow lifted a little, as with an affectionate smile he went on: 

“Yes, yes; you would be glad, too, to have her back again.  You call her now, as I did yesterday, standing by her grave—­and she sends you her love.