r face to face. She saw his wide
eyes, his mad smile. His hot breath smote her cheek. Cleopis at last was
screaming.

"Mine," he triumphed, while he forced her resisting head to his own,
"there is none to hinder!"

But even while the woman's flesh crept back at his impure kiss, a giant
power came rending the twain apart. A man had sundered them, sprung from
the ground or from heaven belike, or from behind a boulder? He tore
Democrates's hands away as a lion tears a lamb. He dashed the mad orator
prone upon the sod, and kicked him twice, as of mingled hatred and
contempt. All this Hermione only knew in half, while her senses swam. Then
she came to herself enough to see that the stranger was a young man in a
sailor's loose dress, his features almost hidden under the dishevelled
hair and beard. All this time he uttered no word, but having smitten
Democrates down, leaped back, rubbing his hands upon his thigh, as if
despising to touch so foul an object. The orator groaned, staggered
upward. He wore a sword. It flew from its scabbard as he leaped on the
sailor. The stranger put forth his hand, snatched his opponent's wrist,
and with lightning dexterity sent the blade spinning back upon the grass.
Then he threw Democrates a second time, and the latter did not rise again
hastily, but lay cursing. The fall had not been gentle.

But all this while Cleopis was screaming. People were hastening up the
hill,--fishermen from a skiff upon the beach, slaves who had been carrying
bales to the haven. In a moment they would be surrounded by a dozen. The
strange sailor turned as if to fly. He had not spoken one word. Hermione
herself at last called to him.

"My preserver! Your name! Blessed be you forever!"

The fisherfolk were very close. Cleopis was still screaming. The sailor
looked once into the lady's eyes.

"I am nameless! You owe me nothing!" And with that he was gone up the hill
slopes, springing with long bounds that would have mocked pursuing, had
any attempted. But Cleopis quenched her outcry instantly; her screams had
been drowned by a louder scream from Hermione, who fell upon the
greensward, no marble whiter than her face. The nurse ran to her mistress.
Democrates staggered to his feet. Whatever else the chastisement had given
him, it had restored his balance of mind. He told the fisherfolk a glib
story that a sailor wandering along the strand had accosted Hermione, that
he himself had chased the villain off, but had tr