m; dazzling visions of the great deeds he was to
accomplish eclipsed the image of the fair Sirona, and he was so
accustomed to believe in the superior insight and kindness of Paulus that
he feared no longer for Sirona now that his friend had made her affair
his own.

The Alexandrian looked after him, and breathed a short prayer for him;
then he went down again into the valley.

It was long past midnight, and the moon was sinking; it grew cooler and
cooler, and since he had given his sheepskin to Hermas he had nothing on,
but his thread-bare coat. Nevertheless he went slowly onwards, stopping
every now and then, moving his arms, and speaking incoherent words in a
low tone to himself.

He thought of Hermas and Sirona, of his own youth, and of how in
Alexandria he himself had tapped at the shutters of the dark-haired Aso,
and the fair Simaitha.

"A child--a mere boy," he murmured. "Who would have thought it? The
Gaulish woman no doubt may be handsome, and as for him, it is a fact,
that as he threw the discus I was myself surprised at his noble figure.
And his eyes--aye, he has Magdalen's eyes! If the Gaul had found him with
his wife, and had run his sword through his heart, he would have gone
unpunished by the earthly judge--however, his father is spared this
sorrow. In this desert the old man thought that his darling could not be
touched by the world and its pleasures. And now? These brambles I once
thought lay dried up on the earth, and could never get up to the top of
the palm-tree where the dates ripen, but a bird flew by, and picked up
the berries, and carried them into its nest at the highest point of the
tree.

"Who can point out the road that another will take, and say to-day,
'To-morrow I shall find him thus and not otherwise.'

"We fools flee into the desert in order to forget the world, and the
world pursues us and clings to our skirts. Where are the shears that are
keen enough to cut the shadow from beneath our feet? What is the prayer
that can effectually release us--born of the flesh--from the burden of
the flesh? My Redeemer, Thou Only One, who knowest it, teach it to me,
the basest of the base."

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

He who wholly abjures folly is a fool
Some caution is needed even in giving a warning
Who can point out the road that another will take

HOMO SUM

By Georg Ebers

Volume 3.

CHAPTER X.

Within a few minutes after Hermas had flung hims