f you are in such a hurry to get to Asgard up this
ditch in the sand, you had better ask the fellow how far it is thither.'

Wulf took him quietly at his word, and addressed a question to the young
monk, which he could only answer by a shake of the head.

'Ask him in Greek, man.'

'Greek is a slave's tongue. Make a slave talk to him in it, not me.'

'Here--some of you girls! Pelagia! you understand this fellow's talk.
Ask him how far it is to Asgard.'

'You must ask me more civilly, my rough hero,' replied a soft voice from
underneath the awning. 'Beauty must be sued, and not commanded.'

'Come, then, my olive-tree, my gazelle, my lotus-flower, my--what was
the last nonsense you taught me?--and ask this wild man of the sands how
far it is from these accursed endless rabbit-burrows to Asgard.'

The awning was raised, and lying luxuriously on a soft mattress,
fanned with peacock's feathers, and glittering with rubies and topazes,
appeared such a vision as Philammon had never seen before.

A woman of some two-and-twenty summers, formed in the most voluptuous
mould of Grecian beauty, whose complexion showed every violet vein
through its veil of luscious brown. Her little bare feet, as they
dimpled the cushions, were more perfect than Aphrodite's, softer than a
swan's bosom. Every swell of her bust and arms showed through the thin
gauze robe, while her lower limbs were wrapped in a shawl of orange
silk, embroidered with wreaths of shells and roses. Her dark hair lay
carefully spread out upon the pillow, in a thousand ringlets entwined
with gold and jewels; her languishing eyes blazed like diamonds from
a cavern, under eyelids darkened and deepened with black antimony; her
lips pouted of themselves, by habit or by nature, into a perpetual kiss;
slowly she raised one little lazy hand; slowly the ripe lips opened; and
in most pure and melodious Attic, she lisped her huge lover's question
to the monk, and repeated it before the boy could shake off the spell,
and answer....

'Asgard? What is Asgard?'

The beauty looked at the giant for further instructions.

'The City of the immortal Gods,' interposed the old warrior, hastily and
sternly, to the lady.

'The city of God is in heaven,' said Philammon to the interpreter,
turning his head away from those gleaming, luscious, searching glances.

His answer was received with a general laugh by all except the leader,
who shrugged his shoulders.

'It may as well be up in t