"For all the gods' sake! they are coming out, and if they see you here I
am lost!"

Hermas looked hastily round the court, and listened to the increasing
noise in the other house, then, perceiving that there was no possible
escape from the senator's people, who were close upon him, he cried out
to Sirona in a commanding tone, "Stand back," and flung himself up
through the window into the Gaul's apartment.  At the same moment the
door opposite opened, and the slaves streamed out into the yard.

In front of them all was Miriam, who looked all round the wide space-
expectant; seeking something, and disappointed.  He was not there, and
yet she had heard him come in; and the gate had not opened and closed a
second time, of that she was perfectly certain.  Some of the slaves went
to the stables, others went outside the gate into the street to enjoy the
coolness of the evening; they sat in groups on the ground, looking up at
the stars, chattering or singing.  Only the shepherdess remained in the
court-yard seeking him on all sides, as if she were hunting for some lost
trinket.  She searched even behind the millstones, and in the dark sheds
in which the stone-workers' tools were kept.

Then she stood still a moment and clenched her hands; with a few light
bounds she sprang into the shadow of the Gaul's house.  Just in front of
Sirona's window lay the steinbock; she hastily touched it with her
slender naked toes, but quickly withdrew her foot with a shudder, for it
had touched the beast's fresh wound, wet with its blood.  She rapidly
drew the conclusion that: he had killed it, and had thrown it down here,
and that he could not be far off.  Now she knew where he was in hiding-
and she tried to laugh, for the pain she felt seemed too acute and
burning for tears to allay or cool it.  But she did not wholly lose her
power of reflection.  "They are in the dark," thought she, "and they
would see me, if I crept under the window to listen; and yet I must know
what they are doing there together."

She hastily turned her back on Sirona's house, slipped into the clear
moonlight, and after standing there for a few minutes, went into the
slaves' quarters.  An instant after, she slipped out behind the
millstones, and crept as cleverly and as silently as a snake along the
ground under the darkened base of the centurion's house, and lay close
under Sirona's window.

Her loudly beating heart made it difficult for even her sharp ears to
hear, but though she could not gather all that he said, she distinguished
the sound of his voice; he was no longer in Sirona's room, but in the
room that looked out on the street.

Now she could venture to raise herself, and to look in at the open
window; the door of communication between the two rooms was closed, but a
streak of light showed her that in the farther room, which was the
sitting-room, a lamp was burning.

She had already put up her hand in order to hoist herself up into the
dark room, when a gay laugh from Sirona fell upon her ear.  The image of
her enemy rose up before her mind, brilliant and flooded with light as on
that morning, when Hermas had stood just opposite, bewildered by her
fascination.  And now--now--he was actually lying at her feet, and saying
sweet flattering words to her, and he would speak to her of love, and
stretch out his arm to clasp her--but she had laughed.

Now she laughed again.  Why was all so still again?

Had she offered her rosy lips for a kiss?  No doubt, no doubt.  And
Hermas did not wrench himself from her white arms, as he had torn himself
from hers that noon by the spring-torn himself away never to return.

Cold drops stood on her brow, she buried her hands in her thick, black
hair, and a loud cry escaped her--a cry like that of a tortured animal.
A few minutes more and she had slipped through the stable and the gate by
which they drove the cattle in; and no longer mistress of herself, was
flying up the mountain to the grotto of Mithras to warn Phoebicius.

The anchorite Gelasius saw from afar the figure of the girl flying up the
mountain in the moonlight, and her shadow flitting from stone to stone,
and he threw himself on the ground, and signed a cross on his brow, for
he thought he saw a goblin-form, one of the myriad gods of the heathen--
an Oread pursued by a Satyr.  Sirona had heard the girl's shriek.

"What was that?"  she asked the youth, who stood before her in the full-
dress uniform of a Roman officer, as handsome as the young god of war,
though awkward and unsoldierly in his movements.

"An owl screamed--" replied Hermas.  "My father must at last tell me
from what house we are descended, and I will go to Byzantium, the new
Rome, and say to the emperor, 'Here am I, and I will fight for you among
your warriors.'"

"I like you so!" exclaimed Sirona.

"If that is the truth," cried Hermas, "prove it to me!  Let me once press
my lips to your shining gold hair.  You are beautiful, as sweet as a
flower--as gay and bright as a bird, and yet as hard as our mountain
rock.  If you do not grant me one kiss, I shall long till I am sick and
weak before I can get away from here, and prove my strength in battle."

"And if I yield," laughed Sirona, "you will be wanting another and
another kiss, and at last not get away at all.  No, no, my friend--I am
the wiser of us two.  Now go into the dark room, I will look out and see
whether the people are gone in again, and whether you can get off unseen
from the street window, for you have been here much too long already.  Do
you hear?  I command you."

Hermas obeyed with a sigh; Sirona opened the shutter and looked out.  The
slaves were coming back into the court, and she called out a friendly
word or two, which were answered with equal friendliness, for the Gaulish
lady, who never overlooked even the humblest, was dear to them all.  She
took in the night-air with deep-drawn breaths, and looked up contentedly
at the moon, for she was well content with herself.

When Hermas had swung himself up into her room, she had started back in
alarm; he had seized her hand and pressed his burning lips to her arm,
and she let him do it, for she was overcome with strange bewilderment.

Then she heard Dame Dorothea calling out, "Directly, directly, I will
only say good night first to the children."  These simple words, uttered
in Dorothea's voice, had a magical effect on the warm-hearted woman--
badly used and suspected as she was, and yet so well formed for
happiness, love and peace.  When her husband had locked her in, taking
even her slave with him, at first she had raved, wept, meditated revenge
and flight, and at last, quite broken down, had seated herself by the
window in silent thought of her beautiful home, her brothers and sisters,
and the dark olive groves of Arelas.

Then Hermas appeared.  It had not escaped her that the young anchorite
passionately admired her, and she was not displeased, for she liked him,
and the confusion with which he had been overcome at the sight of her
flattered her and seemed to her doubly precious because she knew that the
hermit in his sheepskin, on whom she had bestowed a gift of wine, was in
fact a young man of distinguished rank.  And how truly to be pitied was
the poor boy, who had had his youth spoilt by a stern father.  A woman
easily bestows some tender feeling on the man that she pities; perhaps
because she is grateful to him for the pleasure of feeling herself
the stronger, and because through him and his suffering she finds
gratification for the noblest happiness of a woman's heart--that of
giving tender and helpful care; women's hands are softer than ours.
In men's hearts love is commonly extinguished when pity begins, while
admiration acts like sunshine on the budding plant of a woman's
inclination, and pity is the glory which radiates from her heart.

Neither admiration nor pity, however, would have been needed to induce
Sirona to call Hermas to her window; she felt so unhappy and lonely, that
any one must have seemed welcome from whom she might look for a friendly
and encouraging word to revive her deeply wounded self-respect.  And
there came the young anchorite, who forgot himself and everything else in
her presence, whose looks, whose movement, whose very silence even seemed
to do homage to her.  And then his bold spring into her room, and his
eager wooing--"This is love," said she to herself.  Her cheeks glowed,
and when Hermas clasped her hand, and pressed her arm to his lips, she
could not repulse him, till Dorothea's voice reminded her of the worthy
lady and of the children, and through them of her own far-off sisters.

The thought of these pure beings flowed over her troubled spirit like a
purifying stream, and the question passed through her mind, "What should
I be without these good folks over there, and is this great love-sick
boy, who stood before Polykarp just lately looking like a school-boy, is
he so worthy that I should for his sake give up the right of looking them
boldly in the face?"  And she pushed Hermas roughly away, just as he was
venturing for the first time to apply his lips to her perfumed gold hair,
and desired him to be less forward, and to release her hand.

She spoke in a low voice, but with such decision, that the lad, who was
accustomed to the habit of obedience, unresistingly allowed her to push
him into the sitting-room.  There was a lamp burning on the table, and on
a bench by the wall of the room, which was lined with colored stucco, lay
the helmet, the centurion's staff, and the other portions of the armor
which Phoebicius had taken off before setting out for the feast of
Mithras, in order to assume the vestments of one of the initiated of the
grade of "Lion."

The lamp-light revealed Sirona's figure, and as she stood before him in
all her beauty with glowing cheeks, the lad's heart began to beat high,
and with increased boldness he opened his arms, and endeavored to draw
her to him; but Sirona avoided him and went behind the table, and,
leaning her hands on its polished surface while it protected her like a
shield, she lectured him in wise and almost motherly words against his
rash, intemperate, and unbecoming behavior.

Any one who was learned in the heart of woman might have smiled at such
words from such lips and in such an hour; but Hermas blushed and cast
down his eyes, and knew not what to answer.  A great change had come over
the Gaulish lady; she felt a great pride in her virtue, and in the
victory she had won over herself, and while she sunned herself in the
splendor of her own merits, she wished that Hermas too should feel and
recognize them.  She began to expatiate on all that she had to forego and
to endure in the oasis, and she discoursed of virtue and the duties of a
wife, and of the wickedness and audacity of men.

Hermas, she said, was no better than the rest, and because she had shown
herself somewhat kind to him, he fancied already that he had a claim on
her liking; but he was greatly mistaken, and if only the courtyard had
been empty, she would long ago have shown him the door.

The young hermit was soon only half listening to all she said, for his
attention had been riveted by the armor which lay before him, and which
gave a new direction to his excited feelings.  He involuntarily put
out his hand towards the gleaming helmet, and interrupted the pretty
preacher with the question, "May I try it on?"

Sirona laughed out loud and exclaimed, much amused and altogether
diverted from her train of thought, "To be sure.  You ought to be a
soldier.  How well it suits you!  Take off your nasty sheepskin, and let
us see how the anchorite looks as a centurion."

Hermas needed no second telling; he decked himself in the Gaul's armor
with Sirona's help.  We human beings must indeed be in a deplorable
plight; otherwise how is it that from our earliest years we find such
delight in disguising ourselves; that is to say, in sacrificing our own
identity to the tastes of another whose aspect we borrow.  The child
shares this inexplicable pleasure with the sage, and the stern man who
should condemn it would not therefore be the wiser, for he who wholly
abjures folly is a fool all the more certainly the less he fancies
himself one.  Even dressing others has a peculiar charm, especially for
women; it is often a question which has the greater pleasure, the maid
who dresses her mistress or the lady who wears the costly garment.

Sirona was devoted to every sort of masquerading.  If it had been needful
to seek a reason why the senator's children and grandchildren were so
fond of her, by no means last or least would have been the fact that she
would willingly and cheerfully allow herself to be tricked out in colored
kerchiefs, ribands, and flowers, and on her part could contrive the most
fantastic costumes for them.  So soon as she saw Hermas with the helmet
on, the fancy seized her to carry through the travesty he had begun.  She
eagerly and in perfect innocence pulled the coat of armor straight,
helped him to buckle the breastplate and to fasten on the sword, and as
she performed the task, at which Hermas proved himself unskilful enough,
her gay and pleasant laugh rang out again and again.  When he sought to
seize her hand, as he not seldom did, she hit him sharply on the fingers,
and scolded him.

Hermas' embarrassment thawed before this pleasant sport, and soon he
began to tell her how hateful the lonely life on the mountain was to him.
He told her that Petrus himself had advised him to try his strength out
in the world, and he confided to her that if his father got well, he
meant to be a soldier, and do great deeds.  She quite agreed with him,
praised and encouraged him, then she criticised his slovenly deportment,
showed him with comical gravity how a warrior ought to stand and walk,
called herself his drill-master, and was delighted at the zeal with which
he strove to imitate her.

In such play the hours passed quickly.  Hermas was proud of himself in
his soldierly garb, and was happy in her presence and in the hope of
future triumphs; and Sirona was gay, as she had usually been only when
playing with the children, so that even Miriam's wild cry, which the
youth explained to be the scream of an owl, only for a moment reminded
her of the danger in which she was placing herself.  Petrus' slaves had
long gone to rest before she began to weary of amusing herself with
Hermas, and desired him to lay aside her husband's equipment, and to
leave her.  Hermas obeyed while she warily opened the shutters, and
turning to him, said, "You cannot venture through the court-yard; you
must go through this window into the open street.  But there is some one
coming down the road; let him pass first, it will not be long to wait,
for he is walking quickly."

She carefully drew the shutters to, and laughed to see how clumsily
Hermas set to work to unbuckle the greaves; but the gay laugh died upon
her lips when the gate flew open, the greyhound and the senator's watch-
dogs barked loudly, and she recognized her husband's voice as he ordered
the dogs to be quiet.

"Fly-fly-for the gods' sake!"  she cried in a trembling voice.  With that
ready presence of mind with which destiny arms the weakest woman in great
and sudden danger, she extinguished the lamp, flung open the shutter, and
pushed Hermas to the window.  The boy did not stay to bid her farewell,
but swung himself with a strong leap down into the road, and, followed by
the barking of the dogs, which roused all the neighboring households, he
flew up the street to the little church.

He had not got more than half-way when he saw a man coming towards him;
he sprang into the shadow of a house, but the belated walker accelerated
his steps, and came straight up to him.  He set off running again, but
the other pursued him, and kept close at his heels till he had passed all
the houses and began to go up the mountain-path.  Hermas felt that he was
outstripping his pursuer, and was making ready for a spring over a block
of stone that encumbered the path, when he heard his name called behind
him, and he stood still, for he recognized the voice of the man from whom
he was flying as that of his good friend Paulus.

"You indeed" said the Alexandrian, panting for breath.  "Yes, you are
swifter than I.  Years hang lead on our heels, but do you know what it is
that lends them the swiftest wings?  You have just learned it!  It is a
bad conscience; and pretty things will be told about you; the dogs have
barked it all out loud enough to the night."

"And so they may!"  replied Hermas defiantly, and trying in vain to free
himself from the strong grasp of the anchorite who held him firmly.
"I have done nothing wrong."

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife!"  interrupted Paulus in a tone
of stern severity.  "You have been with the centurion's pretty wife, and
were taken by surprise.  Where is your sheepskin?"

Hermas started, felt on his shoulder, and exclaimed, striking his fist
against his forehead, "Merciful Heaven!--I have left it there!  The
raging Gaul will find it."

"He did not actually see you there?"  asked Paulus eagerly.

"No, certainly not," groaned Hermas, "but the skin--"

"Well, well," muttered Paulus.  "Your sin is none the less, but something
may be done in that case.  Only think if it came to your father's ears;
it might cost him his life."

"And that poor Sirona!"  sighed Hermas.

"Leave me to settle that," exclaimed Paulus.  I will make everything
straight with her.  There, take sheepskin.  You will not?  Well, to be
sure, the man who does not fear to commit adultery would make nothing of
becoming his father's murderer.--There, that is the way!  fasten it
together over your shoulders; you will need it, for you must quit this
spot, and not for to-day and to-morrow only.  You wanted to go out into
the world, and now you will have the opportunity of showing whether you
really are capable of walking on your own feet.  First go to Raithu and
greet the pious Nikon in my name, and tell him that I remain here on the
mountain, for after long praying in the church I have found myself
unworthy of the office of elder which they offered me.  Then get yourself
carried by some ship's captain across the Red Sea, and wander up and down
the Egyptian coast.  The hordes of the Blemmyes have lately shown
themselves there; keep your eye on them, and when the wild bands are
plotting some fresh outbreak you can warn the watch on the mountain-
peaks; how to cross the sea and so outstrip them, it will be your
business to find out.  Do you feel bold enough and capable of
accomplishing this task?  Yes?  So I expected!  Now may the Lord guide
you.  I will take care of your father, and his blessing and your mother's
will rest upon you if you sincerely repent, and if you now do your duty."

"You shall learn that I am a man," cried Hermas with sparkling eyes.
"My bow and arrows are lying in your cave, I will fetch them and then--
aye!  you shall see whether you sent the right man on the errand.  Greet
my father, and once more give me your hand."

Paulus grasped the boy's right hand, drew him to him, and kissed his
forehead with fatherly tenderness.  Then he said, "In my cave, under the
green stone, you will find six gold-pieces; take three of them with you
on your journey.  You will probably need them at any rate to pay your
passage.  Now be off, and get to Raithu in good time."

Hermas hurried up the mountain, his head full of the important task
that had been laid upon him; dazzling visions of the great deeds he was
to accomplish eclipsed the image of the fair Sirona, and he was so
accustomed to believe in the superior insight and kindness of Paulus that
he feared no longer for Sirona now that his friend had made her affair
his own.

The Alexandrian looked after him, and breathed a short prayer for him;
then he went down again into the valley.

It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking; it grew cooler and
cooler, and since he had given his sheepskin to Hermas he had nothing on,
but his thread-bare coat.  Nevertheless he went slowly onwards, stopping
every now and then, moving his arms, and speaking incoherent words in a
low tone to himself.

He thought of Hermas and Sirona, of his own youth, and of how in
Alexandria he himself had tapped at the shutters of the dark-haired Aso,
and the fair Simaitha.

"A child--a mere boy," he murmured.  "Who would have thought it?  The
Gaulish woman no doubt may be handsome, and as for him, it is a fact,
that as he threw the discus I was myself surprised at his noble figure.
And his eyes--aye, he has Magdalen's eyes!  If the Gaul had found him
with his wife, and had run his sword through his heart, he would have
gone unpunished by the earthly judge--however, his father is spared this
sorrow.  In this desert the old man thought that his darling could not be
touched by the world and its pleasures.  And now?  These brambles I once
thought lay dried up on the earth, and could never get up to the top of
the palm-tree where the dates ripen, but a bird flew by, and picked up
the berries, and carried them into its nest at the highest point of the
tree.

"Who can point out the road that another will take, and say to-day, 'To-
morrow I shall find him thus and not otherwise.'

"We fools flee into the desert in order to forget the world, and the
world pursues us and clings to our skirts.  Where are the shears that are
keen enough to cut the shadow from beneath our feet?  What is the prayer
that can effectually release us--born of the flesh--from the burden of
the flesh?  My Redeemer, Thou Only One, who knowest it, teach it to me,
the basest of the base."




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

He who wholly abjures folly is a fool
Some caution is needed even in giving a warning
Who can point out the road that another will take






HOMO SUM

By Georg Ebers

Volume 3.



CHAPTER X.

Within a few minutes after Hermas had flung himself out of window into
the roadway, Phoebicius walked into his sleeping-room.  Sirona had had
time to throw herself on to her couch; she was terribly frightened, and
had turned her face to the wall.  Did he actually know that some one had
been with her?  And who could have betrayed her, and have called him
home?  Or could he have come home by accident sooner than usual?

It was dark in the room, and he could not see her face, and yet she kept
her eyes shut as if asleep, for every fraction of a minute in which she
could still escape seeing him in his fury seemed a reprieve; and yet her
heart beat so violently that it seemed to her that he must hear it, when
he approached the bed with a soft step that was peculiar to him.  She
heard him walk up and down, and at last go into the kitchen that adjoined
the sleeping-room.  In a few moments she perceived through her half-
closed eyes, that he, had brought in a light; he had lighted a lamp at
the hearth, and now searched both the rooms.

As yet he had not spoken to her, nor opened his lips to utter a word.

Now he was in the sitting-room, and now--involuntarily she drew herself
into a heap, and pulled the coverlet over her head--now he laughed aloud,
so loud and scornfully, that she felt her hands and feet turn cold, and a
rushing crimson mist floated before her eyes.  Then the light came back
into the bed-room, and came nearer and nearer.  She felt her head pushed
by his hard hand, and with a feeble scream she flung off the coverlet and
sat up.

Still he did not speak a word, but what she saw was quite enough to
smother the last spark of her courage and hope, for her husband's eyes
showed only the whites, his sallow features were ashy-pale, and on his
brow the branded mark of Mithras stood out more clearly than ever.  In
his right hand he held the lamp, in his left Hermas' sheepskin.

As his haggard eye met hers he held the anchorite's matted garment so
close to her face, that it touched her.  Then he threw it violently on
the floor, and asked in a low, husky voice, "What is that?"

She was silent.  He went up to the little table near her bed; on it stood
her night-draught in a pretty colored glass, that Polykarp had brought
her from Alexandria as a token, and with the back of his hand he swept it
from the table, so that it fell on the dais, and flew with a crash into a
thousand fragments.  She screamed, the greyhound sprang up and barked at
the Gaul.  He seized the little beast's collar, and flung it so violently
across the room, that it uttered a pitiful cry of pain.  The dog had
belonged to Sirona since she was quite a girl, it had come with her to
Rome, and from thence to the oasis; it clung to her with affection, and
she to it, for Iambe liked no one to caress and stroke her so much as her
mistress.  She was so much alone, and the greyhound was always with her,
and not only entertained her by such tricks as any other dog might have
learned, but was to her a beloved, dumb, but by no means deaf, companion
from her early home, who would prick its ears when she spoke the name of
her dear little sisters in distant Arelas, from whom she had not heard
for years; or it would look sadly in her face, and kiss her white hands,
when longing forced tears into her eyes.

In her solitary, idle, childless existence Iambe was much, very much, to
her, and now as she saw her faithful companion and friend creep ill-
treated and whining up to her bed--as the supple animal tried in vain to
spring up and take refuge in her lap, and held out to his mistress his
trembling, perhaps broken, little paw, fear vanished from the miserable
young woman's heart--she sprang from her couch, took the little dog in
her arms, and exclaimed with a glance, which flashed with anything rather
than fear or repentance: "You do not touch the poor little beast again,
if you take my advice."

"I will drown it to-morrow morning," replied Phoebicius with perfect
indifference, but with an evil smile on his flaccid lips.  "So many two-
legged lovers make themselves free to my house, that I do not see why I
should share your affections with a quadruped into the bargain.  How came
this sheepskin here?"  Sirona vouchsafed no answer to this last question,
but she exclaimed in great excitement, "By God--by your God--by the
mighty Rock, and by all the gods! if you do the little beast a harm, it
will be the last day I stop in your house."

"Hear her!"  said the centurion, "and where do you propose to travel to?
The desert is wide and there is room and to spare to starve in it, and
for your bones to bleach there.  How grieved your lovers would be--for
their sakes I will take care before drowning the dog to lock in its
mistress."

"Only try to touch me," screamed Sirona beside herself, and springing to
the window.  "If you lay a finger on me, I will call for help, and
Dorothea and her husband will protect me against you."

"Hardly," answered Phoebicius drily.  "It would suit you no doubt to find
yourself under the same roof as that great boy who brings you colored
glass, and throws roses into your window, and perhaps has strewed the
road with them by which he found his way to you to-day.  But there are
nevertheless laws which protect the Roman citizen from criminals and
impudent seducers.  You were always a great deal too much in the house
over there, and you have exchanged your games with the little screaming
beggars for one with the grownup child, the rose-thrower-the fop, who,
for your sake, and not to be recognized, covers up his purple coat with a
sheepskin!  Do you think, you can teach me anything about lovesick night-
wanderers and women?

"I see through it all!  Not one step do you set henceforth across Petrus'
threshold.  There is the open window--scream--scream as loud as you will,
and let all the people know of your disgrace.  I have the greatest mind
to carry this sheepskin to the judge, the first thing in the morning.  I
shall go now, and set the room behind the kitchen in order for you; there
is no window there through which men in sheepskin can get in to my house.
You shall live there till you are tamed, and kiss my feet, and confess
what has been going on here to-night.  I shall learn nothing from the
senator's slaves, that I very well know; for you have turned all their
heads too--they grin with delight when they see you.  All friends are
made welcome by you, even when they wear nothing but sheepskin.  But they
may do what they please--I have the right keeper for you in my own hand.
I am going at once--you may scream if you like, but I should myself
prefer that you should keep quiet.  As to the dog, we have not yet heard
the last of the matter; for the present I will keep him here.  If you are
quiet and come to your senses, he may live for aught I care; but if you
are refractory, a rope and a stone can soon be found, and the stream runs
close below.  You know I never jest--least of all just now."

Sirona's whole frame was in the most violent agitation.  Her breath came
quickly, her limbs trembled, but she could not find words to answer him.

Phoebicius saw what was passing in her mind, and he went on, "You may
snort proudly now; but an hour will come when you will crawl up to me
like your lame dog, and pray for mercy.  I have another idea--you will
want a couch in the dark room, and it must be soft, or I shall be blamed;
I will spread out the sheepskin for you.  You see I know how to value
your adorer's offerings."

The Gaul laughed loud, seized the hermit's garment, and went with the
lamp into the dark room behind the kitchen, in which vessels and utensils
of various sorts were kept.  These he set on one side to turn it into a
sleeping-room for his wife, of whose guilt he was fully convinced.

Who the man was for whose sake she had dishonored him, he knew not, for
Miriam had said nothing more than, "Go home, your wife is laughing with
her lover."

While her husband was still threatening and storming, Sirona had said to
herself, that she would rather die than live any longer with this man.
That she herself was not free from fault never occurred to her mind.  He
who is punished more severely than he deserves, easily overlooks his own
fault in his feeling of the judge's injustice.

Phoebicius was right; neither Petrus nor Dorothea had it in their power
to protect her against him, a Roman citizen.  If she could not contrive
to help her self she was a prisoner, and without air, light, and freedom
she could not live.  During his last speech her resolution had been
quickly matured, and hardly had he turned his back and crossed the
threshold, than she hurried up to her bed, wrapped the trembling
greyhound in the coverlet, took it in her arms like a child, and ran into
the sitting-room with her light burden; the shutters were still open of
the window through which Hermas had fled into the open.  With the help of
a stool she took the same way, let herself slip down from the sill into
the street, and hastened on without aim or goal--inspired only by the
wish to escape durance in the dark room, and to burst every bond that
tied her to her hated mate--up the church-hill and along the road which
lead over the mountain to the sea.

Phoebicius gave her a long start, for after having arranged her prison he
remained some time in the little room behind the kitchen, not in order to
give her time, collect his thoughts or to reflect on his future action,
but simply because he felt utterly exhausted.

The centurion was nearly sixty years of age, and his frame, originally a
powerful one, was now broken by every sort of dissipation, and could no
longer resist the effects of the strain and excitement of this night.

The lean, wiry, and very active man did not usually fall into these
fits of total enervation excepting in the daytime, for after sundown a
wonderful change would come over the gray-headed veteran, who
nevertheless still displayed much youthful energy in the exercise of his
official duties.  At night his drooping eyelids, that almost veiled his
eyes, opened more wildly, his flaccid hanging under-lip closed firmly,
his long neck and narrow elongated head were held erect, and when, at a
later hour, he went out to drinking-bouts or to the service in honor of
Mithras, he might often still be taken for a fine, indomitable young man.

But when he was drunk he was no longer gay, but wild, braggart, and
noisy.  It frequently happened that before he left the carouse, while he
was still in the midst of his boon-companions, the syncope would come
upon him which had so often alarmed Sirona, and from which he could never
feel perfectly safe even when he was on duty at the head of his soldiers.

The vehement big man in such moments offered a terrible image of helpless
impotence; the paleness of death would overspread his features, his back
was as if it were broken, and he lost his control over every limb.  His
eyes only continued to move, and now and then a shudder shook his frame.
His people said that when he was in this condition, the centurion's
ghastly demon had entered into him, and he himself believed in this evil
spirit, and dreaded it; nay, he had attempted to be released through
heathen spells, and even through Christian exorcisms.  Now he sat in the
dark room on the sheepfell, which in scorn of his wife he had spread on
a hard wooden bench.  His hands and feet turned cold, his eyes glowed,
and the power to move even a finger had wholly deserted him; only his
lips twitched, and his inward eye, looking back on the past with
preternaturally sharpened vision, saw, far away and beyond, the last
frightful hour.

"If," thought he, "after my mad run down to the oasis, which few younger
men could have vied with, I had given the reins to my fury instead of
restraining it, the demon would not have mastered me so easily.  How that
devil Miriam's eyes flashed as she told me that a man was betraying me.
She certainly must have seen the wearer of the sheepskin, but I lost
sight of her before I reached the oasis; I fancy she turned and went up
the mountain.  What indeed might not Sirona have done to her?  That woman
snares all hearts with her eyes as a bird-catcher snares birds with his
flute.  How the fine gentlemen ran after her in Rome!  Did she dishonor
me there, I wonder?  She dismissed the Legate Quintillus, who was so
anxious to please me--I may thank that fool of a woman that he became my
enemy--but he was older even than I, and she likes young men best.  She
is like all the rest of them, and I of all men might have known it.  It
is the way of the world: to-day one gives a blow and to-morrow takes
one."

A sad smile passed over his lips, then his features settled into a stern
gravity, for various unwelcome images rose clearly before his mind, and
would not be got rid of.

His conscience stood in inverse relation to the vigor of his body.  When
he was well, his too darkly stained past life troubled him little; but
when he was unmanned by weakness, he was incapable of fighting the
ghastly demon that forced upon his memory in painful vividness those very
deeds which he would most willingly have forgotten.  In such hours he
must need remember his friend, his benefactor, and superior officer, the
Tribune Servianus, whose fair young wife he had tempted with a thousand
arts to forsake her husband and child, and fly with him into the wide
world; and at this moment a bewildering illusion made him fancy that he
was the Tribune Servianus, and yet at the same time himself.  Every hour
of pain, and the whole bitter anguish that his betrayed benefactor had
suffered through his act when he had seduced Glycera, he himself now
seemed to realize, and at the same time the enemy that had betrayed him,
Servianus, was none other than himself, Phoebicius, the Gaul.  He tried
to protect himself and meditated revenge against the seducer, and still
he could not altogether lose the sense of his own identity.

This whirl of mad imagining, which he vainly endeavored to make clear to
himself, threatened to distract his reason, and he groaned aloud; the
sound of his own voice brought him back to actuality.

He was Phoebicius again and not another, that he knew now, and yet he
could not completely bring himself to comprehend the situation.  The
image of the lovely Glycera, who had followed him to Alexandria, and whom
he had there abandoned, when he had squandered his last piece of money
and her last costly jewels in the Greek city, no longer appeared to him
alone, but always side by side with his wife Sirona.

Glycera had been a melancholy sweetheart, who had wept much, and laughed
little after running away from her husband; he fancied he could hear her
speaking soft words of reproach, while Sirona defied him with loud
threats, and dared to nod and signal to the senator's son Polykarp.

The weary dreamer angrily shook himself, collected his thoughts, doubled
his fist, and lifted it angrily; this movement was the first sign of
returning physical energy; he stretched his limbs like a man awaking from
sleep, rubbed his eyes, pressed his hands to his temples; by degrees full
consciousness returned to him, and with it the recollection of all that
had occurred in the last hour or two.

He hastily left the dark room, refreshed himself in the kitchen with a
gulp of wine, and went up to the open window to gaze at the stars.

It was long past midnight; he was reminded of his companions now
sacrificing on the mountain, and addressed a long prayer "to the crown,"
"the invincible sun-god," "the great light," "the god begotten of the
rock," and to many other names of Mithras; for since he had belonged to
the mystics of this divinity, he had become a zealous devotee, and could
fast too with extraordinary constancy.  He had already passed through
several of the eighty trials, to which a man had to subject himself
before he could attain to the highest grades of the initiated, and the
weakness which had just now overpowered him, had attacked him for the
first time, after he had for a whole week lain for hours in the snow,
besides fasting severely, in order to attain the grade of "lion."

Sirona's rigorous mind was revolted by all these practices, and the
decision with which she had always refused to take any part in them,
had widened the breach which, without that, parted her from her husband.
Phoebicius was, in his fashion, very much in earnest with all these
things; for they alone saved him in some measure from himself, from dark
memories, and from the fear of meeting the reward of his evil deeds in a
future life, while Sirona found her best comfort in the remembrance of
her early life, and so gathered courage to endure the miserable present
cheerfully, and to hold fast to hope for better times.

Phoebicius ended his prayer to-day--a prayer for strength to break his
wife's strong spirit, for a successful issue to his revenge on her
seducer--ended it without haste, and with careful observance of all the
prescribed forms.  Then he took two strong ropes from the wall, pulled
himself up, straight and proud, as if he were about to exhort his
soldiers to courage before a battle, cleared his throat like an orator in
the Forum before he begins his discourse, and entered the bedroom with a
dignified demeanor.  Not the smallest suspicion of the possibility of her
escape troubled his sense of security, when, not finding Sirona in the
sleeping-room, he went into the sitting-room to carry out the meditated
punishment.  Here again--no one.

He paused in astonishment; but the thought that she could have fled