sake, do you know where he is?" cried Dorothea, and her cheeks
crimsoned while Petrus turned pale, and, interrupting her, asked in
breathless anxiety, "Where is Polykarp, and what has happened to him?"

"Prepare yourself to hear bad news," said Sirona, looking at the pair
with mournful anxiety as if to crave their pardon for the evil tidings
she was obliged to bring. "Polykarp had a fall on a sharp stone and so
wounded his head. Paulus brought him to me this morning before he set out
against the Blemmyes, that I might nurse him. I have incessantly cooled
his wound, and towards mid-day he opened his eyes and knew me again, and
said you would be anxious about him. After sundown he went to sleep, but
he is not wholly free from fever, and as soon as Paulus came in I set out
to quiet your anxiety and to entreat you to give me a cooling potion,
that I may return to him with it at once." The deepest sorrow sounded in
Sirona's accents as she told her story, and tears had started to her eyes
as she related to the parents what had befallen their son. Petrus and
Dorothea listened as to a singer, who, dressed indeed in robes of
mourning, nevertheless sings a lay of return and hope to a harp wreathed
with flowers.

"Quick, quick, Marthana," cried Dorothea eagerly and with sparkling eyes,
before Sirona had ended. "Quick, the basket with the bandages. I will mix
the fever-draught myself." Petrus went up to the Gaulish woman.

"It is really no worse than you represent?" he asked in a low voice. "He
is alive? and Paulus--"

"Paulus says," interrupted Sirona, "that with good nursing the sick man
will be well in a few weeks."

"And you can lead me to him?"

"Oh, alas! alas!" Sirona cried, striking her hand against her forehead.
"I shall never succeed in finding my way back, for I noticed no
way-marks! But stay--Before us a penitent from Memphis, who has been dead
a few weeks--"

"Old Serapion?" asked Petrus.

"That was his name," exclaimed Sirona. "Do you know his cave?"

"How should I?" replied Petrus. "But perhaps Agapitus--"

"The spring where I got the water to cool Polykarp's wound, Paulus calls
the partridge's-spring."

"The partridge's-spring," repeated the senator, "I know that." With a
deep sigh he took his staff, and called to Dorothea, "Do you prepare the
draught, the bandages, torches, and your good litter, while I knock at
our neighbor Magadon's door, and ask him to lend us slaves."

"Let me go with you," said