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As they entered the living-room, the gardener had just brought in fresh flowers, among them three rose-bushes covered with full-blown flowers and half-opened, dewy buds. Melissa asked Johanna timidly if the lady Berenike would permit her to pluck one there were so many; to which the Christian replied that it would depend on the use it was to be put to.
"The first thing to be done," Melissa exclaimed, "is to follow him and talk to him.-Wait a moment; I must speak a word to the slaves. My father's night-draught can be mixed in a minute. He might perhaps return home before us, and I must leave his couch I will be with you in a minute." The brother and sister had walked some distance.
If the order to stop the galley came much after daybreak, she would certainly be by that time well under way, and their father and Philip might have succumbed to the hard rowing before a swift trireme could overtake and release them. Melissa had listened to this information with mixed feelings.
Intoxicated already before he had even sipped it, he called Macrinus and Zminis to his side, and with glowing looks impressed on them to take particular care that Melissa, with her father, Alexander, and Diodoros were brought to him alive.
While Euryale and Melissa sat with eyes averted from the horrible scene going on above them, and the matron, holding her young companion's hand, whispered to her: "O child, child! to think that I should be compelled to bring you here!" loud applause and uproarious clapping surrounded them on every side.
It was far too late, and when the housekeeper came into the room and gladly volunteered to accompany Melissa to the town, Praxilla threatened to rouse her brother, that he might insist on their remaining at home; but at last she relented, for the girl, she saw, would take her own way against any opposition. The housekeeper had been nurse to Diodoros, and had been longing to help in tending him.
Here the strong man with the soft heart broke down, and, clasping his hands over his face, sobbed aloud, while Melissa clung to him and stroked his bearded cheeks. Under her loving words of consolation he soon regained his composure, and, still struggling against the rising tears, he cried: "Thank Heaven, there can be no more foolish talk of flight!
There is some still in the kitchen; for if you appear before your sister in that plight " But Melissa had recognized her brother's voice, and, although Philip had smoothed his hair a little with his hands, one glance at his face showed her that his efforts had been vain. "Poor boy!" she said, when, in answer to her question as to what his news was, he had answered gloomily, "As bad as possible."
But when the lady had come up to her, and asked, in her deep voice, what was the danger that threatened her brother, Melissa, with unembarrassed grace, and although it was the first time she had ever addressed a lady of such high degree, answered simply, with a full sense of the business in hand: "My name is Melissa; I am the sister of Alexander the painter.
And besides, to-morrow perhaps he will be in a better frame of mind, and next day " Melissa became urgent. "If Philip is ill " she put in. "Not exactly ill," said he. "He has no fever, no ague-fit, no aches and pains. He is not in bed, and has no bitter draughts to swallow.
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