Lives of Alcyone

every wall, while the huge blossoms of the lotus covered many of
the ponds. The children were as thoroughly at home in the water as
on the land, and enjoyed their early life immensely under the warm
Egyptian sun.
Naturally Sirius and Alcyone had long ago arranged to marry
as soon as they grew up, but unfortunately an unforeseen obstacle
presented itself. There was among the chief priests of the city a man
whom few liked and everybody feared—a man against whom
nothing was certainly known but a great deal was suspected.
Everyone who offended him or opposed his will invariably died
shortly afterwards, but the deaths could never in any way be traced
to him. He had a son (Scorpio) who was decidedly a chip of the old
block; he had all his father’ s unpleasant peculiarities and was
vulgar and offensive in addition.
When Alcyone was a well grown handsome girl of about
fifteen, Scorpio happened to see her; his passion was aroused by
her beauty, and he made some approaches which she rejected with
scorn. He drew off with some sort of muttered apology, but with an
evil look. The difficulty thus placed in the way of their gratification
only intensified his wicked desires and he determined to obtain
possession of her at any cost, even if he had to marry her. He soon
saw that marriage would be the only way in which he could hope to
attain his wishes, and so he prepare an elaborate plot. He worked at
his scheme for a long time, until it was diabolically ingenious and
complete. He got hold of certain letters of her father’ s, and by
skilful forgeries and interpolations transformed them into evidence of
complicity in a plot against the Pharaoh.
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