Who knows what incomprehensible whim or freak may have brought her here?
At any rate, it will be easier for her to keep her eyes open than it is for me." He then signed to her and asked her quietly to fetch his cloak out of the next room, for his old body needed warmth; and Melissa gladly complied, and laid the caracalla over the old mans cold feet with obliging care.
She then returned to the side of the sick-bed, to wait for the emperor's awaking.

He slept soundly; his regular breathing indicated this.

The others also slept, and Adventus's light snore, mingling with the louder snoring of the physician, showed that he too had ceased to watch.

The slumbering Philostratus now and then murmured incomprehensible words to himself; and the lion, who perhaps was dreaming of his freedom in his sandy home, whined low in his sleep.
She watched alone.
It seemed to her as if she were in the habitation of sleep, and as if phantoms and dreams were floating around her on the unfamiliar noises.
She was afraid, and the thought of being the only woman among so many men caused her extreme uneasiness.
She could not sit still.
Inaudibly as a shadow she approached the head of the sleeping emperor, holding her breath to listen to him.

How soundly he slept! And she had come that she might talk to him.