s weighed down by the burden of my disgrace, but,
on the contrary, lifted up. Here at least I need not cast down my eyes,
for I am alone with my God, and in his presence I feel I need not be
ashamed."

Thus meditating, he pressed on through a narrow space, which divided two
huge masses of porphyry, but suddenly he stood still, for he heard the
barking of a dog in his immediate neighborhood, and a few minutes after
a greyhound rushed towards him--now indignantly flying at him, and
now timidly retreating--while it carefully held up one leg, which was
wrapped in a many-colored bandage.

Paulus recollected the enquiry which Phoebicius lead addressed to the
Amalekite as to a greyhound, and he immediately guessed that the Gaul's
runaway wife must be not far off. His heart beat more quickly, and
although he did not immediately know how he should meet the disloyal
wife, he felt himself impelled to go to seek her. Without delay he
followed the way by which the dog had come, and soon caught sight of a
light garment, which vanished behind the nearest rock, and then behind a
farther, and yet a farther one.

At last he came up with the fleeing woman. She was standing at the very
edge of a precipice, that rose high and sheer above the abyss--a strange
and fearful sight; her long golden hair had got tangled, and waved over
her bosom and shoulders, half plaited, half undone. Only one foot was
firm on the ground; the other-with its thin sandal all torn by the sharp
stones--was stretched out over the abyss, ready for the next fatal step.
At the next instant she might disappear over the cliff, for though with
her right hand she held on to a point of rock, Paulus could see that the
boulder had no connection with the rock on which she stood, and rocked
too and fro.

She hung over the edge of the chasm like a sleepwalker, or a possessed
creature pursued by demons, and at the same time her eyes glistened with
such wild madness, and she drew her breath with such feverish rapidity
that Paulus, who had come close up to her, involuntarily drew back. He
saw that her lips moved, and though he could not understand what she
said, he felt that her voiceless utterance was to warn him back.

What should he do? If he hurried forward to save her by a hasty grip,
and if this manoeuvre failed, she would fling herself irredeemably into
the abyss: if he left her to herself, the stone to which she clung would
get looser and looser, and as soon as it fell