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Again his infernal skipper hanging about. This time he had come with news that the Medusa was running short of provisions. Would Sir Owen prefer that they should put in at Palermo or Tunis?

"Tunis, Tunis."

The steersman put down the helm, and the fore and aft sails went over. Three days later the Medusa dropped her (p. 043) anchor in the Bay of Tunis, and his skipper was again asking Owen for orders.

"Just take her round to Alexandria and wait for me there," he answered, feeling he would not be free from England till she was gone. It was his wish to get away from civilisation for a while, to hear Arabic, to learn it if he could, to wear a bournous, to ride Arab horses, live in a tent, to disappear in the desert, yes, and to be remembered as the last lover of the Mediterranean—that would be une belle fin de vie, après tout.

Then he laughed at his dreams, but they amused him; he liked to look upon his story as one of the love stories of the world. Rome had robbed Dido of her lover and him of his mistress. So far as he could see, the better story was the last, and his thoughts turned willingly to the Virgil who would arise centuries hence to tell it. One thing, however, puzzled him. Would the subject-matter he was creating for the future poet be spoilt if he were to fall in love with an Arab maiden, some little statuette carved in yellow ivory? Or would it be enhanced? Would the future Virgil regard her as an assuagement, a balm? Owen laughed at himself and his dream. But his mood drifted into sadness; and he asked if Evelyn should be punished. If so, what punishment would the poet devise for her? In Theocritus somebody had been punished: a cruel one, who had refused to relieve the burden of desire even with a kiss, had been killed by a seemingly miraculous interposition of Love, who, angered at the sight of the unhappy lover hanging from the neck by the lintel of the doorpost, fell from his pedestal upon the beloved, while he stood heart-set watching the bathers in the beautiful bathing-places.