better than you who
took the crying woman with a child, from Aila, for Sirona. What is your
name, boy?"

"Hermas," answered the lad. "And who are you, pray?"

The Gaul's lips were parted for an angry reply, but he suppressed it and
said, "I am the emperor's centurion, and I ask you, what did the woman
look like whom you saw, and where did you meet her?"

The soldier's fierce looks, and his captain's words showed Hermas that
the fugitive woman had nothing good to expect if she were caught, and as
he was not in the least inclined to assist her pursuers he hastily
replied, giving the reins to his audacity, "I at any rate did not meet
the person whom you seek; the woman I saw is certainly not this man's
wife, for she might very well be his granddaughter. She had gold hair,
and a rosy face, and the greyhound that followed her was called Iambe."

"Where did you meet her?" shrieked the centurion.

"In the fishing-village at the foot of the mountain," replied Hermas.
"She got into a boat, and away it went!"

"Towards the north?" asked the Gaul.

"I think so," replied Hermas, "but I do not know, for I was in a hurry,
and could not look after her."

"Then we will try to take her in Klysma," cried Phoebicius to the
Amalekite. "If only there were horses in this accursed desert!"

"It is four days' journey," said Talib considering. "And beyond Elim
there is no water before the Wells of Moses. Certainly if we could get
good dromedaries--"

"And if," interrupted Hermas, "it were not better that you, my lord
centurion, should not go so far from the oasis. For over there they say
that the Blemmyes are gathering, and I myself am going across as a spy so
soon as it is dark."

Phoebicius looked down gloomily considering the matter. The news had
reached him too that the sons of the desert were preparing for a new
incursion, and he cried to Talib angrily but decidedly, as he turned his
back upon Hermas, "You must ride alone to Klysma, and try to capture her.
I cannot and will not neglect my duty for the sake of the wretched
woman."

Hermas looked after him as he went away, and laughed out loud when he saw
him disappear into his inn. He hired a boat from the old man for his
passage across the sea for one of the gold pieces given him by Paulus,
and lying down on the nets he refreshed him self by a deep sleep of some
hours' duration. When the moon rose he was roused in obedience to his
orders, and helped the boy who accompanied