Egypt -- History -- 332-30 B.C. -- Fiction; German fiction -- Translations into English
Besides, the boy and the light in his hand occupied his mind only a
short time. He had better things to think of. With what longing
Myrtilus must now be expecting his arrival! But the Gaul needed his aid
no less urgently than his friend. Accurately as he knew what remedies
relieved Myrtilus in severe attacks of illness, he could scarcely
dispense with an assistant or a leech for the other, and the idea
swiftly flashed upon him that the wounded man would afford him an
opportunity of seeing Ledscha again.
She had told him more than once about the healing art possessed by old
Tabus on the Owl’s Nest. Suppose he should now seek the angry girl to
entreat her to speak to the aged miracle-worker in behalf of the sorely
wounded young foreigner?
Here he interrupted himself; something new claimed his attention.
A dim light glimmered through the intense darkness from a bit of rising
ground by the wayside. It came from the Temple of Nemesis—a pretty
little structure belonging to the time of Alexander the Great, which he
had often examined with pleasure. Several steps led to the anteroom,
supported by Ionic columns, which adjoined the naos.
Two lamps were burning at the side of the door leading into the little
open cella, and at the back of the consecrated place the statue of the
winged goddess was visible in the light of a small altar fire.
In her right hand she held the bridle and scourge, and at her feet
stood the wheel, whose turning indicates the influence exerted by her
power upon the destiny of mortals. With stern severity that boded evil,
she gazed down upon her left forearm, bent at the elbow, which
corresponds with the ell, the just measure.
Hermon certainly now, if ever, lacked both time and inclination to
examine again this modest work of an ordinary artist, yet he quickly
stopped his weary horse; for in the little pronaos directly in front of
the cella door stood a slender figure clad in a long floating dark
robe, extending its hands through the cella door toward the statue in
fervent prayer. She was pressing her brow against the left post of the
door, but at her feet, on the right side, cowered another figure, which
could scarcely be recognised as a human being.
This, too, was a woman.
Deeply absorbed in her own thoughts, she was also extending her arms
toward the statue of Nemesis.
Hermon knew them both.
At first he fancied that his excited imagination was showing him a
threatening illusion. But no!
The erect figure was Ledscha, the crouching one Gula, the sailor’s wife
whose child he had rescued from the flames, and who had recently been
cast out by her husband.
“Ledscha!” escaped his lips in a muttered tone, and he involuntarily
extended his hands toward her as she was doing toward the goddess.
But she did not seem to hear him, and the other woman also retained the
same attitude, as if hewn from stone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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