with furtive kisses. [A thunderous hammering was heard at
the door, while all this was going on, and everyone wondered what this
unexpected interruption could mean, when we saw a soldier, one of the
night-watch, enter with a drawn sword in his hand, and surrounded by a
crowd of young rowdies. He glared about him with savage eyes and
blustering mien, and, catching sight of Quartilla, presently, "What's up
now, you shameless woman," he bawled; "what do you mean by making game of
me with lying promises, and cheating me out of the night you promised me?
But you won't get off unpunished You and that lover of yours are going to
find out that I'm a man!" At the soldier's orders, his companion bound
Quartilla and myself together, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, and
thigh to thigh; and not without a great deal of laughter. Then the
catamite, also at the soldier's order, began to beslaver me all over with
the fetid kisses of his stinking mouth, a treatment I could neither fly
from, nor in any other way avoid. Finally, he ravished me, and worked
his entire pleasure upon me. In the meantime, the satyrion which I had
drunk only a little while before spurred every nerve to lust and I began
to gore Quartilla impetuously, and she, burning with the same passion,
reciprocated in the game. The rowdies laughed themselves sick, so moved
were they by that ludicrous scene, for here was I, mounted by the stalest
of catamites, involuntarily and almost unconsciously responding with as
rapid a cadence to him as Quartilla did in her wriggling under me. While
this was going on, Pannychis, unaccustomed at her tender years to the
pastime of Venus, raised an outcry and attracted the attention of the
soldier, by this unexpected howl of consternation, for this slip of a
girl was being ravished, and Giton the victor, had won a not bloodless
victory. Aroused by what he saw, the soldier rushed upon them, seizing
Pannychis, then Giton, then both of them together, in a crushing embrace.
The virgin burst into tears and plead with him to remember her age, but
her prayers availed her nothing, the soldier only being fired the more by
her childish charms. Pannychis covered her head at last, resolved to
endure whatever the Fates had in store for her. At this instant, an old
woman, the very same who had tricked me on that day when I was hunting
for our lodging, came to the aid of Pannychis, as though she had dropped
from the clouds. With loud cries, she