TIMOLEON A FRIEND OF PAUL Being the romantic adventures of a By MABEL ANSLEY MURPHY PHILADELPHIA 1816 CHESTNUT STREET TIMOLEON A Friend of Paul BOOK I CHAPTER I THE untimely heat of April lay on the land like a heavy hand. Tarsus slept, as best it could, through the two trying hours after midday. The poor sought the dim recesses of their hovels; the merchants drowsed, each sitting cross-legged on a bit of carpet spread under the arch of his stall; the homeless dropped in whatever spot the shade offered. Under one of the piers that bordered the river, a ten-year-old boy, pale and thin, lay listlessly. With his right arm crooked under his head, he watched indifferently the turbid torrent of the Cydnus. Thick with the mud of the rich alluvial plain through which it ran, it was little like the clear, sparkling river that usually coursed through the heart of the city. Half awake, Timoleon thought to himself, 5 8 L T XT ? |