The camp had been reduced during the afternoon; for Caracalla had carried out his threat of that morning by quartering a portion of the picked troops in the houses of the richest Alexandrians.
Melissa, bending far out, looked toward the north.

The sea-breeze blew her hair into her face.

Perhaps on the ocean whence it came the high waves would, in a few hours, be tossing the ship on which her father and brother, seated at the oar, would be toiling as disgraced galley-slaves.
That must not, could not be! Hark! what was that?
She heard a light whisper.

In spite of strict orders, a loving couple were passing below.

The wife of the centurion Martialis, who had been separated for some time from her husband, had at his entreaty come secretly from Ranopus, where she had charge of Seleukus's villa, to see him, as his services prevented his going so far away.