is seven pater nosters as he walked, and then
looked around. He had just passed a goatherd, and they looked hard at each
other. Agellius wished him good morning.

"You are wishing a kid for Bacchus, sir," said the man to him as he was
running his eye over the goats. On Agellius answering in the negative, he
said in a clownish way, "He who does not sacrifice to Bacchus does not
sacrifice goats."

Agellius, bearing in mind Caecilius's directions, saw of course there was
something in the words which did not meet the ear, and answered
carelessly, "He who does not sacrifice, does not sacrifice to Bacchus."

"True," said the man, "but perhaps you prefer a lamb for a sacrifice."

Agellius replied, "If it is the right one; but the one I mean was slain
long since."

The man, without any change of manner, went on to say that there was an
acquaintance of his not far up the rock, who could perhaps satisfy him on
the point. He said, "Follow those wild olives, though the path seems
broken, and you will come to him at the nineteenth."

Agellius set out, and never was path so untrue to its own threats. It
seemed ending in abrupt cliffs every turn, but never fulfilled the
anticipation; that is, while he kept to the olive-trees. After ascending
what was rather a flight of marble steps, washed and polished by the
winter torrents, than a series of crags, he fulfilled the number of trees,
and looked round at the man sitting under it. O the joy and surprise! it
was his old servant Aspar.

"You are safe, then, Aspar," he said, "and I find you here. O what a
tender Providence!"

"I have taken my stand here, master," returned Aspar, "day after day,
since I got here, in hopes of seeing you. I could not get back to you from
Jucundus's that dreadful morning, and so I made my way here. Your uncle
sent for you in my presence, but at the time I did not know what it meant.
I was able to escape."

"And now for Caecilius," said Agellius.

Behind the olive-tree a torrent's bed descended; the descent being so
easy, and yet so natural, that art had evidently interfered with nature,
yet concealed its interference. After tracing it some yards, they came to
a chasm on the opposite side; and, passing through it, Agellius soon found
himself, to his surprise, on a bleak open hill, to which the huge mountain
formed merely a sort of _facade_. Its surface was half rock, half moor,
and it was surrounded by precipices. It was such a place as some hermit of