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Let him beware that my arm does not yet reach him from afar!" Nay, his resentment went so far that he refused to receive Hermon, when Eumedes begged permission to present the artist whose sight had been so wonderfully restored. "To me he is still the unjustly crowned conspirator," Philadelphus replied.
"It was best so for her and for us," said Eumedes, after gazing long at Ledscha's touchingly beautiful, still, dead face. Then he ordered her to be buried at once and shouted to the guards: "Everything must be over on this strip of land early to-morrow morning! Let all who bear arms begin at once. Selene will light the men brightly enough for the work."
Eumedes commanded the Macedonians who formed his escort to remain at the fortress on the dune, and, pointing out Ledscha by a wave of the hand, he whispered to Hermon: "By the girdle of Aphrodite! she is terribly beautiful! For whom is the Medea probably brewing in imagination the poisoned draught?"
Hermon wished to accompany them there and sail thence on a ship bound for Pergamus. With Eumedes he visited the unfamiliar scenes around him, and his newly restored gift of sight presented to him here many things that formerly he would scarcely have noticed, but which now filled him with grateful joy. Gratitude, intense gratitude, had taken possession of his whole being.
Now the barriers which had hitherto restricted Hermon's social intercourse also fell. Eumedes, the commander of the fleet, often visited him, and while exchanging tales of their experiences they became friends. When Hermon was alone with Thyone and her gray-haired husband, the conversation frequently turned upon Daphne and her father.
The doves now flew swiftly to and fro; but before the third arrived, Eumedes, the commander of the fleet just from Ethiopia, was already on the way to Alexandria with all the troops assembled on the frontier.
"Neither by threats nor promises," answered the admiral, "can this sinister, beautiful creature be induced to speak." "Certainly not," said the artist, and a smile of satisfaction flitted over his face. A short row took Hermon and Eumedes the admiral's galley. Ledscha had already been carried ashore.
They were guilty of death to the last man, and starvation was to perform the executioner's office upon them. He, Eumedes, the admiral concluded, was in the King's service, and must do what his commander in chief ordered. "Duty," sighed Philippus; "yet what a punishment!"
Eumedes came from the admiral's galley to the King's. Ptolemy embraced him like a friend, and Arsinoe added a wreath of fresh roses to the laurel crown which the sovereign had sent the day before. At the same time thundering plaudits echoed from the walls of the fortifications and broke, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, against the ships and masts in the calm water of the harbour.
How quietly, with what calm dignity, Eumedes received the well-merited homage, and how disgracefully the false fame had bewildered his own senses! Yet he had not passed through the purifying fire of misfortune in vain! The past should not cloud the glad anticipation of brighter days!
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