arthana, "she was not bad-hearted--I
always said so."

"This morning," continued Hermas, nodding in sad assent to the maiden,
"she followed my father to the castle, and immediately after his fall,
Paulus told me, she rushed away from it, but only to seek me and to bring
me the sad news. We had known each other a long time, for years she had
watered her goats at our well, and while I was still quite a boy and she
a little girl, she would listen for hours when I played on my willow pipe
the songs which Paulus had taught me. As long as I played she was
perfectly quiet, and when I ceased she wanted to hear more and still
more, until I had too much of it and went away. Then she would grow
angry, and if I would not do her will she would scold me with bad words.
But she always came again, and as I had no other companion and she was
the only creature who cared to listen to me, I was very well-content that
she should prefer our well to all the others. Then we grew order and I
began to be afraid of her, for she would talk in such a godless way--and
she even died a heathen. Paulus, who once overheard us, warned me against
her, and as I had long thrown away the pipe and hunted beasts with my bow
and arrow whenever my father would let me, I was with her for shorter
intervals when I went to the well to draw water, and we became more and
more strangers; indeed, I could be quite hard to her. Only once after I
came back from the capital something happened--but that I need not tell
you. The poor child was so unhappy at being a slave and no doubt had
first seen the light in a free-house.

"She was fond of me, more than a sister is of a brother--and when my
father was dead she felt that I ought not to learn the news from any one
but herself. She had seen which way I had gone with the Pharanites and
followed me up, and she soon found me, for she had the eyes of a gazelle
and the ears of a startled bird. It was not this time difficult to find
me, for when she sought me we were fighting with the Blemmyes in the
green hollow that leads from the mountain to the sea. They roared with
fury like wild beasts, for before we could get to the sea the fishermen
in the little town below had discovered their boats, which they had
hidden under sand and stones, and had carried them off to their harbor.
The boy from Raithu who accompanied me, had by my orders kept them in
sight, and had led the fishermen to the hiding-place. The watchmen whom
they had left