ay that I had come home?" She nodded.

"And yet, this morning even, while you were actually expecting me, you
could practise the hymn with such a creature?"

"Agne is not such another as the girl who played tricks with your
helmet," replied Gorgo, and the black arches of her eyebrows knit into
something very like a scowl. "I told you just now that I was not yours
today, nor to-morrow. We still serve different gods."

"Indeed we do!" he exclaimed, so vehemently that the others looked round,
and old Damia again began to fidget in her chair.

Then with a strong effort he recovered himself and, after standing for
some minutes gazing in silence at the ground, he said in a low tone:

"I have borne enough for to-day. Gorgo, pause, reflect. God preserve me
from despair!"

He bowed, hastily explained that his duties called him away, and left the
spot.

CHAPTER XIII.

The amateurs of horse-racing who assembled in the Hippodrome could afford
no clue to Dada's hiding-place, because she had not, in fact, run away
with any gay young gallant. Within a few minutes of her sending Sachepris
to fetch her a pair of shoes, Medius had hailed her from the shore; he
wanted to speak with Karnis, and having come on an ass it was not in vain
that the incensed damsel entreated him to take her with him. He had in
fact only come to try to persuade Karnis and his wife to spare Dada for a
few performances, such as he had described, in the house of Posidonius.
His hopes of success had been but slender; and now the whole thing had
settled itself, and Dada's wish that her people should not, for a while,
know where to find her was most opportune for his plans.

In the days when Karnis was the manager of the theatre at Tauromenium
Medius had led the chorus, and had received much kindness at the hands of
the girl's uncle. All this, he thought, he could now repay, for certainly
his old patron was poor enough, and he intended honestly to share with
his former benefactor the profits he expected to realize with so fair a
prodigy as Dada. No harm could come to the girl, and gold--said he to
himself--glitters as brightly and is just as serviceable, even when it
has been earned for us against our will.

Medius, being a cautious man, made the girl bring her new dress away with
her, and the girdle and jewels belonging to it, and his neat hands packed
everything into the smallest compass. He filled up the basket which he
took for the purpose with swe