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risen to perform the last
brief ritual to Isis, she replenished the lamp and left the sanctuary,
locking the door. In the outer world, the sun had already set, and
twilight was chill among the humming trees, which hummed still, though
the wind was abating.
    A stranger in a dark, broad hat rose from the corner of the temple steps,
holding his hat in the wind. He was dark–faced, with a black pointed
beard. "Oh, madam, whose shelter may I implore?" he said to the woman,
who stood in her yellow mantle on a step above him, beside a
pink–and–white painted pillar. Her face was rather long and pale, her
dusky blonde hair was held under a thin gold net. She looked down on the
vagabond with indifference. It was the same she had seen watching the
slaves.
    "Why come you down from the road?" she asked.
    "I saw the temple like a pale flower on the coast, and would rest among
the trees of the precincts, if the lady of the goddess permits."
    "It is Isis in Search," she said, answering his first question. "The
goddess is great," he replied.
    She looked at him still with mistrust. There was a faint, remote smile in
the dark eyes lifted to her, though the face was hollow with suffering.
The vagabond divined her hesitation, and was mocking her.
    "Stay here upon the steps," she said. "A slave will show you the
shelter."
    "The lady of Egypt is gracious."
    She went down the rocky path of the humped peninsula in her gilded
sandals. Beautiful were her ivory feet, beneath the white tunic, and
above the saffron mantle her dusky–blonde head bent as with endless
musings. A woman entangled in her own dream. The man smiled a little,
half bitterly, and sat again on the step to wait, drawing his mantle
round him, in the cold twilight.
    At length a slave appeared, also in hodden grey.
    "Seek ye the shelter of our lady?" he said insolently. "Even so."
    "Then come."
    With the brusque insolence of a slave waiting on a vagabond, the young
fellow led through the trees and down into a little gully in the rock,
where, almost in darkness, was a small cave, with a litter of the tall
heaths that grew on the waste places of the coast, under the stone–pines.
The place was dark, but absolutely silent from the wind. There was still
a faint odour of goats.
    "Here sleep!" said the slave. "For the goats come no more on this
half–island. And there is water." He pointed to a little basin of rock
where the maidenhair fern fringed a dripping mouthful of water.
    Having scornfully bestowed his patronage, the slave departed. The man who
had died climbed out to the tip of the peninsula, where the wave
thrashed. It was rapidly getting dark, and the stars were coming out. The
wind was abating for the night. Inland, the steep grooved up–slope was
dark to the long wavering outline of the crest against the translucent
sky. Only now and then a lantern flickered towards the villa.
    The man who had died went back to the shelter. There he took bread from
his leather pouch, dipped it in the water of the tiny spring, and slowly
ate. Having eaten and washed his mouth, he looked once more at the bright
stars in the pure windy sky, then settled the heath for his bed. Having
laid his hat and his sandals aside, and put his pouch under his cheek for
a pillow, he slept, for he was very tired. Yet during the night the cold
woke him pinching wearily through his weariness. Outside was brilliantly
starry, and still windy. He sat and hugged himself in a sort of coma, and
towards dawn went to sleep again.
    In the morning the coast was still chill in shadow, though the sun was up
behind the hills, when the woman came down from the villa towards the
goddess. The sea was fair and pale blue, lovely in newness, and at last
the wind was still. Yet the waves broke white in the many rocks, and tore
in the shingle of the little bay. The woman came slowly towards her
dream. Yet she was aware of an interruption.
    As she followed the little neck of rock on to her peninsula, and climbed
the slope between