, and this strange beggar should
learn by experience that when his hand intended to hit hard, it was far
from "stroking." And Paulus did experience it, without uttering a cry,
and without stirring from the spot where he stood.

When at last Phoebicius dropped his weary arm and breathlessly repeated
his question, the ill-used man replied, "I told you before I do not know,
and therefore I cannot reveal it."

Up to this moment Petrus, though he had felt strongly impelled to rush to
the rescue of his severely handled fellow-believer, had nevertheless
allowed the injured husband to have his way, for he seemed disposed to
act with unusual mildness, and the Alexandrian to be worthy of all
punishment; but at this point Dorothea's request would not have been
needed to prompt him to interfere.

He went up to the centurion, and said to him in an undertone, "You have
given the evil-doer his due, and if you desire that he should undergo a
severer punishment than you can inflict, carry the matter--I say once
more--before the bishop. You will gain nothing more here. Take my word
for it, I know the man and his fellow-men; he actually knows nothing of
where your wife is hiding, and you are only wasting the time and strength
which you would do better to save, in order to search for Sirona. I fancy
she will have tried to reach the sea, and to get to Egypt or possibly to
Alexandria; and there--you know what the Greek city is--she will fall
into utter ruin."

"And so," laughed the Gaul, "find what she seeks--variety, and every kind
of pleasure. For a young thing like that, who loves amusement, there is
no pleasant occupation but vice. But I will spoil her game; you are
right, it is not well to give her too long a start. If she has found the
road to the sea, she may already--Hey, here Talib!" He beckoned to
Polykarp's Amalekite messenger. "You have just come from Raithu; did you
meet a flying woman on the way, with yellow hair and a white face?"

The Amalekite, a free man with sharp eyes, who was highly esteemed in the
senator's house, and even by Phoebicius himself, as a trustworthy and
steady man, had expected this question, and eagerly replied:

"At two stadia beyond el Heswe I met a large caravan from Petra, which
rested yesterday in the oasis here; a woman, such as you describe, was
running with it. When I heard what had happened here I wanted to speak,
but who listens to a cricket while it thunders?"

"Had she a lame greyhound w