The juice of the shell-fish had lent them rich hues of blue, violet, crimson, scarlet, and the peculiar shade of purple known as "royal"

that for ages had made the city famous. Hundreds of fishing and trading vessels were drawn up along the wharves or upon the beach.

Behind the old city, three miles from the beach, rose Mount Lebanon, clothed to its snow-clad summits with the foliage of pine, cedar, oak, and sumach. Its mighty barrier stretched north and south into the misty distance, leaving always between its base and the shore a narrow strip of level land that was given up to tillage.

From the elevation where they stood, the young women looked upon other roofs, filling the space inside the walls, which rose from the sea for one hundred and fifty feet, with towers at every curve and angle. They could see the Sidonian Harbor on their right and the Egyptian Harbor opposite to it on their left, both crowded with masts and connected by a canal spanned by movable bridges.

Before them rose the towers and cupolas of the Temple of Melkarth, and near it the wide Eurychorus, or market-place. Farther south was the huge dome of the Temple of Baal, and there, too, was the royal palace, with its many terraces crowned by a lofty citadel. Agenor's Temple was on the north, overlooking the Sidonian Harbor. Near the western wall was an oasis of verdure which marked the gardens attached to the voluptuous Temple of Astarte, where, through the foliage of palm and rhododendron, shone the marble columns of her habitation.

Phradates had caused a striped awning to be erected upon the roof.

Beneath this was spread a gay Babylonian carpet, with couches and silken cushions. Shrubs and flowering plants stood in great vases of stone, screening the enclosure from the eyes of the curious. All the other housetops of the quarter were occupied in a similar manner, thus enabling the population to escape the heat of the lower levels, from which the breeze was excluded by the height of the walls. The space inside the city was so crowded that the houses rose many stories, and, excepting those belonging to wealthy persons, each sheltered scores of families.

"It is a proud city," Thais said musingly.

"Yes," Artemisia replied. "Proud, and cruel, and heartless!"

She shivered as she spoke. Thais beckoned to one of the women, who stood at a respectful distance, talking in low tones with a slender, dark-skinned man, whose cunning eyes gleamed like those of a rat. He was Mena the Egyptian.

"Fetch a wrap," Thais said to the slave girl who answered her summons.

The girl brought a shawl of cashmere and laid it around Artemisia's shoulders.

"Something tells me that our captivity will soon be over," Thais said.

"Things cannot last much longer as they are."

There was a meaning in her words that Artemisia did not grasp. Since the flight from Halicarnassus, they had been confined in the house of Phradates, whose passion for Thais had increased until it burned like fever in his veins. The end must have come long ago had it not been for the frequent absences that had been forced upon the young man by the needs of the city and the commands of the Great King. As matters stood, even Thais' resources had been taxed to hold him in check.

Hitherto she had fed him with hopes, playing upon his weaknesses and keeping him in a state of subjection from which she knew surrender would set him free. She made a gesture of impatience and began walking up and down between rows of young orange trees.

"I don't know what has come over me," she said. "I am as restless as one of the sea-gulls yonder."

She listened a moment to the cries and commotion in the streets.

"Mena!" she cried. "Come here!"

The Egyptian advanced slowly, with an indefinable insolence in his bearing.

"Find out what is causing all this excitement in the city and bring me word," Thais said.

"Why should my lady be interested?" Mena replied coolly, with a smile that showed his white teeth.

Thais wheeled as though she had been stung. She looked at the Egyptian with head erect, and there was something in her eyes that caused his to fall before them.

"Mena," she said softly, "do not think that, because you are set to watch me, you are my master. Go, or I swear by Astoreth that you shall be flayed alive from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet."

Mena gasped, and moistened his dry lips with his tongue.

"Pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean--"

"I know well what you meant," Thais returned. "Go!"

He turned and went. Thais grasped a branch of the shrubbery and tore it away, crumpling the leaves in her hands and scattering them in a bruised shower at her feet.

"How long must I put up with the insolence of this slave and his master?" she exclaimed. The opalescent animal light gleamed in her eyes as she turned them northward, and she paced backward and forward with impatient strides like a captive lioness. "I hate them!" she cried. "How many times have I been tempted to end it!"

She thrust her hand into her bosom and drew out her tiny dagger, whose hilt was studded with rubies that sparkled like drops of blood.

"Hush, Thais, some one is coming!" Artemisia said.

Thais quickly hid the dagger and turned to greet Phradates. He came forward with a smile, and the smile with which she met him had no trace in it of the anger that had so shaken her but a moment before.

"Great news!" the young man cried. "Alexander is coming!"

Artemisia caught her breath, and for an instant her head swam.

"Tell us," Thais said. "We are dying to hear all about it. You know we have had no news since the battle of Issus, where the Great King, as you call him, was beaten by one who seems to be greater."

There was a spice of malice in her voice that evidently annoyed the Phnician.

"Yes, through the treachery of the Greeks," he replied, frowning.

"Darius will depend upon his own people next time, and you will see then what will happen."

"But what has Alexander been doing since the battle?" Thais asked.

"He might have advanced upon Babylon with nobody to oppose him,"

Phradates said. "Of course, he would not have been able to capture the city, but at least he will never have a better chance to try it. He was afraid to make the attempt. He has been marching down the coast instead, and there has been no more fighting, because all the northern cities have surrendered to him."

"Well?" Thais said, listening with parted lips.

"In the absence of King Azemilcus," the Phnician continued, "the council deemed it best to offer terms for the present. They sent an embassy, accompanied by the prince, to tell Alexander that he had nothing to fear from Tyre so long as he did not interfere with us."

"What was his reply?" Thais demanded quickly.

"What do you suppose?" Phradates said. "He had the impudence to announce that Melkarth was the same as your Heracles, and that as Heracles was of his family, he proposed to offer sacrifice in the temple here. The embassy told him flatly that Tyre had never admitted the Persians, and that we should not admit him. Everybody knows that if we should let him in here, he would do what he did in Ephesus when he took possession of the city under pretence of offering sacrifice to Artemis."

"But where is Darius?" Thais asked.

"He is in Babylon," said Phradates. "He sent a letter to Alexander after the battle of Issus, asking freedom for his wife and family. He wrote as one king to another, proposing peace and alliance; but your Alexander, to his sorrow, refused the terms. He pretends that he has already conquered all Asia, and he had the boldness to tell the Great King that he would liberate Statira and her children if Darius would come as a suppliant to ask it."

"The Gods fight with him," Thais said, after a pause. "It would be better for Tyre to open her gates."

The young Phnician laughed scornfully.

"The walls of Tyre will crumble and fall into the sea before he offers his sacrifice," he exclaimed. "I will wager anything I possess against your looking-glass that he will weary of his task before a stone has been loosened."

"You do not know Alexander," Thais replied.

"Thais," the young man said earnestly, "I will wager what is more precious to me than gold. Thou knowest that I love thee."

"You have told me so," she replied demurely.