The crowd howled with enthusiasm. Agamemnon struggled with rage because his companions held him back. Suddenly the girl stopped. A slight shudder ran through her body. Deep silence prevailed. The head of the Nubian was thrown back as if in a rigid swoon, but above it the crotals still shivered with an extraordinary languor, a dying vibration, quick and tender as the wing-flutterings of a captive butterfly. The flashing of the yellow eyes died away, although the eyeball kept its sparkling lights, and the face remained severe; but upon the dark and sensuous lips of that sphinx-like mouth a smile trembled, faint as the dying sound of the crotals. The public shouted and applauded so loudly that the blue tent with its stars and spangles swayed like a sail in a hurricane. The showman became apprehensive lest his booth should collapse. The companions of Agamemnon at last failed to hold him back; raising the curtain, he rushed through the scenes into the part reserved for the dancers and actors. In vain his friends counselled-- "Wait; to-morrow you shall have everything as you wish! now something might...." Agamemnon interrupted them-- "Not to-morrow; now, at once!" He approached the owner of the show, the cunning and grey-bearded Greek, Mirmes, and without explanation flung into the skirt of his robe a handful of gold pieces. "Is that dancing-girl your slave?" "Yes. What does your excellency desire?" Mirmes, evidently astonished, was staring now at Agamemnon and now at the gold. "What's your name, girl?" "Phyllis." He bestowed money on her also, without stopping to reckon it. The Greek murmured some words in the ear of the smiling Phyllis, who tossed up the pieces and threw sparkling glances at Agamemnon. He said-- "Come with me!" Phyllis threw over her shoulders a dark cloak and glided with him into the street, asking submissively-- "Whither?" "I don't know." "To your house?" "Impossible. I live at Antioch." "And as for me, I only arrived in this city this morning. What, then, are we to do?" "Wait a moment; I saw just now in a lane near this the temple of Priapus open. Let us go there!" Phyllis led him on hastily, laughing. The companions of Agamemnon desired to follow him, but he said to them-- "It is unnecessary--remain here." "Be careful! At any rate take a weapon, the quarter is dangerous..." and drawing from under his dress a dagger with a jewelled hilt, one of the friends of Agamemnon respectfully tendered it to him. Groping at every step into thick darkness, Agamemnon and Phyllis made their way up a narrow passage out of the market-place. "Here! here it is! Fear nothing--go in!" They found themselves in the vestibule of a little vacant temple, its ancient and massive columns ill-lighted by the flicker of a lamp.