ntil I sank down exhausted at the door of a small house on
the outskirts of the suburbs. Then I called for aid, but no one was by
to hear me. I crept--for I could stand no longer--into the house. It
was empty. I looked from the windows: no human figure passed through
the silent streets. The roar of a mighty confusion still rose from the
walls of the city, but I was left to listen to it alone. In the house
I saw scattered on the floor some fragments of bread and an old
garment. I took them both, and then rose and departed; for the silence
of the place was horrible to me, and I remembered the fields and the
plains that I had once loved to look on, and I thought that I might
find there the refuge that had been denied to me at Rome! So I set
forth once more; and when I gained the soft grass, and sat down beside
the shady trees, and saw the sunlight brightening over the earth, my
heart grew sad, and I wept as I thought on my loneliness and remembered
my father's anger.

'I had not long remained in my resting-place, when I heard a sound of
trumpets in the distance, and looking forth, I saw far off, advancing
over the plains, a mighty multitude with arms that glittered in the
sun. I strove, as I beheld them, to arise and return even to those
suburbs whose solitude had affrighted me. But my limbs failed me. I
saw a little hollow hidden among the trees around. I entered it, and
there throughout the lonely day I lay concealed. I heard the long
tramp of footsteps, as your army passed me on the roads beneath; and
then, after those hours of fear came the weary hours of solitude!

'Oh, those--lonely--lonely--lonely hours! I have lived without
companions, but those hours were more terrible to me than all the years
of my former life! I dared not venture to leave my hiding-place--I
dared not call! Alone in the world, I crouched in my refuge till the
sun went down! Then came the mist, and the darkness, and the cold.
The bitter winds of night thrilled through and through me! The lonely
obscurity around me seemed filled with phantoms whom I could not
behold, who touched me and rustled over the surface of my skin! They
half maddened me! I rose to depart; to meet my wrathful father, or the
army that had passed me, or solitude in the cold, bright meadows--I
cared not which!--when I discerned the light of your torch, the moment
ere it was extinguished. Dark though it then was, I found your tent.
And now I know that I have