Silence—the silence of a heart too troubled with conflicting emotions to trust itself to uttered thanks—could alone express the gratitude of Ganga. Flushed with his exertions, the Apollo-like youth stood the picture of manly beauty, save where the trickling blood betrayed his recent battle with the monster. He kindly offered to escort her to the temple; and as they proceeded with increasing confidence, and guessing the meaning of her curious looks, he confessed to her that he was not her countryman: that years since, when he could scarce lisp his native tongue, he remembered a vast and glittering city, dedicated to Athena, in a country far to the North-West, which looked out on the sparkling Ægean. He then—a Greek—had wandered or been taken captive, he scarce remembered how, and had come to Elephantum. All these things were as a daydream to him: a dream of the morning of life, which the rising sun of manhood had well nigh dispelled like the gray haze of dawn. He had heard them talk of King Philip, and he thought of the war of the allies. He tells her how well he remembered his mother, for there was memory, like affection, strongest, that she must now sit bereaved and weep the absence of her fair-haired boy. To him, there was no hope of return, indeed he would not wish to now: and the tender glance awoke a sympathetic flutter in the heart of Ganga, when they entered the vale of the temple. What was that sound afar, and the confusion as they draw nearer the temple? They run to and fro, and chant the dirge for the departed. Why did the echoes howling through the vault repeat the name of Nikaiyah? The old man was dead. Little time was left for reflection. As if to assuage the poignancy of her grief, the Gods had sent a new and imminent danger to divert her attention. Scarce is she allowed to take a farewell look at her old friend, or shed a tear over his corpse, when the increasing clamor in the court of the temple rouses new fears and most horrible suggestions. Why were they making this indecent tumult, while their eldest and most revered fellow had just breathed his last? Alas! the loud tones of the controversy showed, but too plainly, how little his past influence was regarded, while it made her painfully aware of the dangers that surrounded her. “Ganga to the pyre!”