ked kindly at him the most enchanting of her sex. Besides she is
fair, and therefore a rare bird among the sunburnt bipeds of the desert.
The centurion surely cannot have found the sheepskin or all would not
be so still here; once since I have been here an ass has brayed, once a
camel has groaned, and now already the first cock is crowing; but not
a sound have I heard from human lips, not even a snore from the stout
senator or his buxom wife Dorothea, and it would be strange indeed if
they did not both snore."

He rose, went up to the window of Phoebicius dwelling, and listened at
the half open shutters, but all was still.

An hour ago Miriam had been listening under Sirona's room; after
betraying her to Phoebicius she had followed him at a distance, and had
slipped back into the court-yard through the stables; she felt that she
must learn what was happening within, and what fate had befallen Hermas
and Sirona at the hands of the infuriated Gaul. She was prepared for
anything, and the thought that the centurion might have killed them both
with the sword filled her with bitter-sweet satisfaction. Then, seeing
the light through the crack between the partly open wooden shutters, she
softly pushed them farther apart, and, resting her bare feet against the
wall, she raised herself to look in.

She saw Sirona sitting up upon her couch, and opposite to her the Gaul
with pale distorted features; at his feet lay the sheepskin; in his
right hand he held the lamp, and its light fell on the paved floor in
front of the bed, and was reflected in a large dark red pool.

"That is blood," thought she, and she shuddered and closed her eyes.

When she reopened them she saw Sirona's face with crimson cheeks, turned
towards her husband; she was unhurt--but Hermas?

"'That is his blood!" she thought with anguish, and a voice seemed to
scream in her very heart, "I, his murderess, have shed it."

Her hands lost their hold of the shutters, her feet touched the pavement
of the yard, and, driven by her bitter anguish of soul, she fled out by
the way she had come--out into the open and up to the mountain. She
felt that rather would she defy the prowling panthers, the night-chill,
hunger and thirst, than appear again before Dame Dorothea, the senator,
and Marthana, with this guilt on her soul; and the flying Miriam was one
of the goblin forms that had terrified Paulus.

The patient anchorite sat down again on the stone seat. "The frost
is r