Julian felt that they were issuing from the bowels of the earth, felt the morning sea-breeze bathing him. The hierophant unknotted the bandage over his eyes, and lo! they were standing on a high marble tower, the astronomical observatory of the great seer, built after the model of the ancient Chaldean towers, but upon a crag above the sea. Below stretched luxurious gardens, palaces, and cloisters, recalling the colonnades of Persepolis. In the distance the Artemision and Ephesus stood in clear relief against the mountains over which the sun was about to rise. Julian's head almost gave way at the extent of the view; he had to lean upon the arm of Maximus; but then with a smile the youth closed his eyes, and the beams of the rising sun flushed his white vestments with rose-colour. The seer stretched out his arm. "Behold! all this is thine!" "Can I sustain it, Master? Assassination may strike me at any moment. I am weak and ill." "The sun, the god Mithra, is crowning you with his purples--the purple of the Roman Empire. All this is thine. Dare!" "And what is it all to me, since truth unified does not exist, and since I cannot find the God for whom I seek?" "Ah! if thou canst make one the truth of the Titan and the truth of the Galilean, thou wilt be greater than any that have been born of women!..." * * * * * Maximus of Ephesus was the owner of marvellous libraries, quiet marble chambers, and spacious anatomical laboratories crowded with scientific apparatus. In one of the latter the young physicist, Oribazius, a doctor of the school of Alexandria, was vivisecting, scalpel in hand, a rare animal sent to Maximus from the Indies. The hall was circular and the walls loaded with rows of tin vessels, chafing dishes, retorts, apparatus like that of Archimedes, and fire machines like those of Ktesius and Geron. In the silence of the adjoining library drop after drop fell plashing from the water-clock, an invention of Apollonius. Globes were there also, geographical charts in metal, and models of the celestial spheres wrought by Hipparchus and Eratosthenes. In the clear and serene light falling through the glass ceiling, Maximus, clothed as a simple philosopher, was scrutinising the still-warm organs of the animal laid on the marble. Oribazius stooping over the liver of the animal was saying-- "How can Maximus, the great philosopher, believe in these ridiculous miracles?" "I believe in them and I believe in them not," answered the magian. "This Nature which you and I are studying, is not she most miraculous? Are not these blood-vessels, this nervous system, the admirable combination of organs which we are examining like augurs--are not these the most splendid of mysteries?" "You know my meaning," interrupted the young doctor. "Why have you deceived this young man?" "Julian?" "Yes." "He himself desired to be deceived." The brows of Oribazius knitted into a frown.