e spoke, and Hermon wondered if it was not time
for him to lie down also; but the wounded man's brow was still burning,
and the Gallic words which he constantly muttered were probably about
the phantoms of fever, which Hermon recognised from Lycon's illness.

So he resolved to wait and continue to devote the night, which he had
already intended to give him, to the sufferer. From the chair at the
foot of the bed he looked directly into his face. The soft light of the
lamp, which with two others hung from a tall, heavy bronze stand in the
shape of an anchor, which Bias had brought, shone brightly enough to
allow him to perceive how powerful was the man whose life he had saved.
His own face was scarcely lighter in hue than the barbarian's, and how
sharp was the contrast between his long, thick black beard and his white
face and bare arched chest!

Hermon had noticed this same contrast in his own person. Otherwise the
Gaul did not resemble him in a single feature, and he might even have
refused to compare his soft, wavy beard with the harsh, almost bristly
one of the barbarian. And what a defiant, almost evil expression his
countenance wore when--perhaps because his wound ached--he closed his
lips more firmly! The children who so willingly let him, Hermon, take
them in his arms would certainly have been afraid of this savage-looking
fellow.

Yet in build, and at any rate in height and breadth of shoulders, there
was some resemblance between him and the Gaul.

As a bridge builder, the injured man belonged, in a certain sense, to
the ranks of the artists, and this increased Hermon's interest in his
patient, who was now probably out of the most serious danger.

True, the Greek still cast many a searching glance at the barbarian,
but his eyes closed more and more frequently, and at last the idea took
possession of him that he himself was the wounded man on the couch, and
some one else, who again was himself, was caring for him.

He vainly strove to understand the impossibility of this division of
his own being, but the more eagerly he did so the greater became his
bewilderment.

Suddenly the scene changed; Ledscha had appeared.

Bending over him, she lavished words of love; but when, in passionate
excitement, he sprang from the couch to draw her toward him, she changed
into the Nemesis to whose statue she had just prayed.

He stood still as if petrified, and the goddess, too, did not stir. Only
the wheel which had res