u 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 Marthana. "No, no; you stay here with your
mother."

"And do you think that I can wait here?" asked Dorothea. "I am going
with you."

"There is much here for you to do," replied Petrus evasively, "and we
must climb the hill quickly."

"I should certainly delay you," sighed the mother, "but take the girl
with you; she has a light and lucky hand."

"If you think it best," said the senator, and he left the room.

While the mother and daughter prepared everything for the
night-expedition, and came and went, they found time to put many
questions and say many affectionate words to Sirona. Marthana, even
without interrupting her work, set food and drink for the weary woman on
the table by which she had sunk on a seat; but she hardly moistened her
lips.

When the young girl showed her the basket that she had filled with
medicine and linen bandages, with wine and pure water, Sirona said, "Now
lend me a pair of your strongest sandals, for mine are all torn, and I
cannot follow the men without shoes, for the stones are sharp, and cut
into the flesh."

Marthana now perceived for the first time the blood on her friend's
feet, she quickly took the lamp from the table and placed it on the
pavement, exclaiming, as she knelt down in front of Sirona and took her
slender white feet in her hand to look at the wounds on the soles, "Good
heavens! here are three deep cuts!"

In a moment she had a basin at hand, and was carefully bathing the
wounds in Siro