ted at her feet began to move, and rolled, with
a thundering din, sometimes around him, sometimes around the people
who, as if they had sprung from the ground, formed a jeering company of
spectators, and clapped their hands, laughed, and shouted whenever it
rolled toward him and he sprang back in fear.

Meanwhile the wheel constantly grew larger, and seemed to become
heavier, for the wooden beams over which it rolled splintered, crashing
like thin laths, and the spectators' shouts of applause sounded ruder
and fiercer.

Then mortal terror suddenly seized him, and while he shouted for help
to Myrtilus, Daphne, and her father Archias, his slave Bias, the old
comrade of Alexander, Philippus, and his wife, he awoke, bathed in
perspiration, and looked about him.

But he must still be under the spell of the horrible dream, for the
rattling and clattering around him continued, and the bed where the
wounded Gaul had lain was empty.

Hermon involuntarily dipped his hand into the water which stood ready to
wet the bandages, and sprinkled his own face with it; but if he had ever
beheld life with waking eyes, he was doing so now. Yet the barbarian had
vanished, and the noise in the house still continued.

Was it possible that rats and mice--? No! That was the shriek of a
terrified human being--that a cry for help! This sound was the imperious
command of a rough man's voice, that--no, he was not mistaken--that
was his own name, and it came from the lips of his Myrtilus, anxiously,
urgently calling for assistance.

Then he suddenly realized that the white house had been attacked,
that his friend must be rescued from robbers or the fury of a mob of
Biamites, and, like the bent wood of a projectile when released from the
noose which holds it to the ground, the virile energy that characterized
him sprang upward with mighty power. The swift glance that swept the
room was sent to discover a weapon, and before it completed the circuit
Hermon had already grasped the bronze anchor with the long rod twined
with leaves and the teeth turned downward. Only one of the three little
vessels filled with oil that hung from it was burning. Before swinging
the heavy standard aloft, he freed it from the lamps, which struck the
floor with a clanging noise.

The man to whom he dealt a blow with this ponderous implement would
forget to rise. Then, as if running for a prize in the gymnasium, he
rushed through the darkness to the staircase, and with