This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
Within a few minutes after Hermas had flung himself out of window intothe roadway, Phoebicius walked into his sleeping-room. Sirona had hadtime to throw herself on to her couch; she was terribly frightened, andhad turned her face to the wall. Did he actually know that some one hadbeen with her? And who could have betrayed her, and have called himhome? Or could he have come home by accident sooner than usual?
It was dark in the room, and he could not see her face, and yet she kepther eyes shut as if asleep, for every fraction of a minute in which shecould still escape seeing him in his fury seemed a reprieve; and yet herheart beat so violently that it seemed to her that he must hear it, whenhe approached the bed with a soft step that was peculiar to him. Sheheard him walk up and down, and at last go into the kitchen that adjoinedthe sleeping-room. In a few moments she perceived through her half-closed eyes, that he, had brought in a light; he had lighted a lamp atthe hearth, and now searched both the rooms.
As yet he had not spoken to her, nor opened his lips to utter a word.
Now he was in the sitting-room, and now—involuntarily she drew herselfinto a heap, and pulled the coverlet over her head—now he laughed aloud,so loud and scornfully, that she felt her hands and feet turn cold, and arushing crimson mist floated before her eyes. Then the light came backinto the bed-room, and came nearer and nearer. She felt her head pushedby his hard hand, and with a feeble scream she flung off the coverlet andsat up.
Still he did not speak a word, but what she saw was quite enough tosmother the last spark of her courage and hope, for her husband's eyesshowed only the whites, his sallow features were ashy-pale, and on hisbrow the branded mark of Mithras stood out more clearly than ever. Inhis right hand he held the lamp, in his left Hermas' sheepskin.
As his haggard eye met hers he held the anchorite's matted garment soclose to her face, that it touched her. Then he threw it violently onthe floor, and asked in a low, husky voice, "What is that?"
She was silent. He went up to the little table near her bed; on it stoodher night-draught in a pretty colored glass, that Polykarp had broughther from Alexandria as a token, and with the back of his hand he swept itfrom the table, so that it fell on the dais, and flew with a crash into athousand fragments. She screamed, the greyhound sprang up and barked atthe Gaul. He seized the little beast's collar, and flung it so violentlyacross the room, that it uttered a pitiful cry of pain. The dog hadbelonged to Sirona since she was quite a girl, it had come with her toRome, and from thence to the oasis; it clung to her with affection, andshe to it, for Iambe liked no one to caress and stroke her so much as hermistress. She was so much alone, and the greyhound was always with her,and not only entertained her by such tricks as any other dog might havelearned, but was to her a beloved, dumb, but by no means deaf, companionfrom her early home, who would prick its ears when she spoke the name ofher dear little sisters in distant Arelas, from whom she had not heardfor years; or it would look sadly in her face, and kiss her white hands,when longing forced tears into her e