urtesan," was in every
mouth. The shepherdess, who evinced a certain attraction toward the
stranger, continued:

"She is good. Sometimes she seems sad; she says she languishes with
tedium in the midst of her riches; she is indifferent to everything, and
in that mood she is capable of letting all her slaves be crucified
without interfering. But when she is happy she is as kind as a mother,
and she will not allow us to be punished. Her overseer in charge of the
slaves is a cruel man, an Iberian freedman, who watches us, and at every
instant threatens us with the lash and the cross. He has whipped my
father several times on account of a lost ewe, or a goat which had
broken its leg, or because a little milk was spilled in the
cheese-making season. I would have received his blows myself had it not
been for the respect he feels for me on account of having seen me
caressed sometimes by Sonnica."

Rhanto spoke of the terrible situation of the slaves with the
naturalness of a creature accustomed from birth to witnessing such
severities.

"In winter," she continued, "I go to the mountain with my father, and I
await with impatience the coming of the season when my mistress will
return to the villa, and I can come down to the plain where there are
flowers. Then I can spend the whole day in the shade of a tree
surrounded by my goats."

"And how have you learned something of Greek?"

"Sonnica speaks it with rich people of the city, who are her friends,
and with the slaves who serve her. Besides----"

She hesitated, and her pale cheeks flushed.

"Besides," she persisted, with animation, "my friend Erotion, the son of
Mopsus, the archer who came from Rhodes, speaks it. He is a friend who
helps me watch the goats when he is not working in the pottery, which
also belongs to Sonnica."

She pointed to the great works near the river, the famous Saguntine
potteries, which revealed, between clay walls, the cupolas of its ovens
like enormous red bee-hives.

From one side of the road among the trees, sounded mellow notes, wild
and joyous flute-tones, and Actaeon saw a boy spring into the highway. He
was about the same age as Rhanto, tall, slender, barefooted, clad only
in a soft goat-skin which hung over his left shoulder, leaving his right
exposed, and was tied together at the waist. His eyes were like live
coals, his black hair had bluish tones and, forming short ringlets,
shook like a heavy mane with the nervous movements of his