g
sweet flattering words to her, and he would speak to her of love, and
stretch out his arm to clasp her--but she had laughed.

Now she laughed again. Why was all so still again?

Had she offered her rosy lips for a kiss? No doubt, no doubt. And Hermas
did not wrench himself from her white arms, as he had torn himself from
hers that noon by the spring-torn himself away never to return.

Cold drops stood on her brow, she buried her hands in her thick, black
hair, and a loud cry escaped her--a cry like that of a tortured animal.
A few minutes more and she had slipped through the stable and the gate
by which they drove the cattle in; and no longer mistress of herself,
was flying up the mountain to the grotto of Mithras to warn Phoebicius.

The anchorite Gelasius saw from afar the figure of the girl flying up
the mountain in the moonlight, and her shadow flitting from stone to
stone, and he threw himself on the ground, and signed a cross on his
brow, for he thought he saw a goblin-form, one of the myriad gods of
the heathen--an Oread pursued by a Satyr. Sirona had heard the girl's
shriek.

"What was that?" she asked the youth, who stood before her in the
full-dress uniform of a Roman officer, as handsome as the young god of
war, though awkward and unsoldierly in his movements.

"An owl screamed--" replied Hermas. "My father must at last tell me from
what house we are descended, and I will go to Byzantium, the new Rome,
and say to the emperor, 'Here am I, and I will fight for you among your
warriors.'"

"I like you so!" exclaimed Sirona.

"If that is the truth," cried Hermas, "prove it to me! Let me once press
my lips to your shining gold hair. You are beautiful, as sweet as a
flower--as gay and bright as a bird, and yet as hard as our mountain
rock. If you do not grant me one kiss, I shall long till I am sick and
weak before I can get away from here, and prove my strength in battle."

"And if I yield," laughed Sirona, "you will be wanting another and
another kiss, and at last not get away at all. No, no, my friend--I am
the wiser of us two. Now go into the dark room, I will look out and see
whether the people are gone in again, and whether you can get off unseen
from the street window, for you have been here much too long already. Do
you hear? I command you."

Hermas obeyed with a sigh; Sirona opened the shutter and looked out. The
slaves were coming back into the court, and she called out a friendly
word or two