ith her?" asked Phoebicius, full of
expectation.

"She carried something in her arms," answered the Amalekite. "In the
moonlight I took it for a baby. My brother, who was escorting the
caravan, told me the lady was no doubt running away, for she had paid the
charge for the escort not in ready money, but with a gold signet-ring."

The Gaul remembered a certain gold ring with a finely carved onyx, which
long years ago he had taken from Glycera's finger, for she had another
one like it, and which he had given to Sirona on the day of their
marriage.

"It is strange!" thought he, "what we give to women to bind them to us
they use as weapons to turn against us, be it to please some other man,
or to smooth the path by which they escape from us. It was with a
bracelet of Glycera's that I paid the captain of the ship that brought us
to Alexandria; but the soft-hearted fool, whose dove flew after me, and I
are men of a different stamp; I will follow my flown bird, and catch it
again." He spoke the last words aloud, and then desired one of the
senator's slaves to give his mule a good feed and drink, for his own
groom, and the superior decurion who during his absence must take his
place, were also worshippers of Mithras, and had not yet returned from
the mountain.

Phoebicius did not doubt that the woman who had joined the caravan--which
he himself had seen yesterday--was his fugitive wife, and he knew that
his delay might have reduced his earnest wish to overtake her and punish
her to the remotest probability; but he was a Roman soldier, and would
rather have laid violent hands on himself than have left his post without
a deputy. When at last his fellow-worshippers came from their sacrifice
and worship of the rising sun, his preparations for his long journey were
completed.

Phoebicius carefully impressed on the decurion all he had to do during
his absence, and how he was to conduct himself; then he delivered the key
of his house into Petrus' keeping as well as the black slave-woman, who
wept loudly and passionately over the flight of her mistress; he
requested the senator to bring the anchorite's misdeed to the knowledge
of the bishop, and then, guided by the Amalekite Talib, who rode before
him on his dromedary, he trotted hastily away in pursuit of the caravan,
so as to reach the sea, if possible, before its embarkation.

As the hoofs of the mule sounded fainter and fainter in the distance,
Paulus also quitted the senato