Before the bed stood a tripod holding a silver basin, representing Oceanus; in it lay a massive golden ball. The Empress lifted the ball and let it fall clanging into the basin. The clear tone roused the Syrian slave who slept in the ante-room. She entered, and, approaching the bed of the Empress with her arms crossed upon her bosom, drew back the heavy violet-coloured curtains of Chinese silk. Then she took a soft Iberian sponge, which, soaked in asses' milk, lay in a crystal dish, and carefully wiped off the coating of oily paste with which the neck and face of her mistress were covered during the night. Next she kneeled down before the bed, her face bent almost to the earth, and stretched out her hand to the Empress, who, taking it, slowly set her foot upon the neck of the kneeling girl, and sprang elastically to the ground. The slave rose and threw over her mistress, who, clad only in an under-tunic of the finest lawn, sat upon the palm-wood frame of the bed--a fine dressing-mantle of rose-coloured stuff. Then she made a profound obeisance, turned to the door, cried "Agave!" and disappeared. Agave, a young and beautiful Thessalian girl, entered the room. She rolled a washstand of citrean-wood, covered with countless boxes and bottles, close before her mistress, and began to rub her face, neck, and hands with soft cloths dipped in different wines and essences. This task completed, the Empress rose from the bedside and stepped on to a couch covered with panther's skins. "The large bath towards mid-day," she said. Agave pushed an oval bath of terebinthus-wood, covered outside with tortoise-shell and filled with deliciously-scented water, in front of the divan, and lifted the little white feet of the Empress into it. Afterwards she loosened the net of gold-thread which confined the luxurious hair of her mistress during the night, letting the rich dark coils fall over neck and shoulders, and departed in her turn, calling "Galatea!" Galatea was an aged slave, the nurse, attendant, and, we regret to add, the procuress of Theodora, when the latter was only the bespangled daughter of Acacius the lion-keeper, and, while yet almost a child, the already deeply-corrupted favourite of the great Circus. Galatea had faithfully shared all the humiliations and triumphs, the vices and cunning of the adventuress's life until the latter had attained to the imperial throne. "How hast thou slept, my dove?" asked Galatea, handing to Theodora in a vessel of amber the aromatic essence which the town of Adana, in Sicily, was forced to send in large quantities for the Empress's use as a yearly tribute. "Well; I dreamt of him." "Of Alexandros?" "No, thou fool! of the handsome Anicius." "But Alexandros has been waiting for some time already; outside in the secret niche." "He is impatient," said the Empress, smiling; "well then, let him in!"