her
foe happy!"

Turning to the freedman, she went on in a louder tone: "You, slave,
shall inform Hanno's wife that old Tabus gave the sculptor, whose
blindness she caused, the remedy which restored the sight of black
Psoti, whom she knew." Here she paused, gazed upward, and murmured
almost unintelligibly: "Satabus, Hanno! If this is the last act of the
old mother, it will give ye pleasure."

Then she told Hermon to kneel again, and ordered the slave to hold the
lamp which her nurse Tasia had just lighted at the hearth fire.

"The last," she said, looking into the box, "but it will be enough. The
odour of the herb in the salve is as strong as if it had been prepared
yesterday."

She laid the first bandage on Hermon's eyes with her own weak fingers,
at the same time muttering an incantation; but it did not seem to
satisfy her. Great excitement had taken possession of her, and as the
silver light of the full moon shone into her room she waved her hands
before the artist's eyes and fixed her gaze upon the threshold illumined
by the moonbeams, ejaculating sentences incomprehensible to the blind
man. Bias supported her, for she had risen to her full height, and he
felt how she tottered and trembled.

Yet her strength held out to whisper to Hermon: "Nearer, still nearer!
By the light of the august one whose rays greet us, let it be said: You
will see again. Await your recovery patiently in a quiet place in the
pure air, not in the city. Refrain from everything with which the Greeks
intoxicate themselves. Shun wine, and whatever heats the blood. Recovery
is coming; I see it drawing near. You will see again as surely as I now
curse the woman who abandoned the husband to whom she vowed fidelity.
She rejoiced over your blindness, and she will gnash her teeth with rage
and grief when she hears that it was Tabus who brought light into the
darkness that surrounds you."

With these words she pushed off the freedman's supporting arms and sank
back upon the couch.

Again Hermon tried to thank her; but she would not permit it, and said
in an almost inaudible tone: "I really did not give the salve to do you
good--the last act of all--"

Finally she murmured a few words of direction for its use, and added
that he must keep the sunlight from his blind eyes by bandages and
shades, as if it were a cruel foe.

When she paused, and Bias asked her another question, she pointed to the
door, exclaiming as loudly as her weakness permit