“Why do you mock at her kindness?” said Polykarp reproachfully.
“How sensitive you are!” said Marthana softly. “Sirona is as kind and sweet as an angel; but you had better look at her rather less, for she is not one of us, and repulsive as the choleric centurion is to me—”
She said no more, for Dame Dorothea, having reached the door of the sitting-room, looked around for her children.
Petrus received his wife with no less gravity than was usual with him, but there was an arch sparkle in his half closed eyes as he asked: “You scarcely know what is going on, I suppose?”
“You are madmen, who would fain take Heaven by storm,” she answered gaily.
“If the undertaking fails,” said Petrus, pointing to his sons, “those young ones will feel the loss longer than we shall.”
“But it will succeed,” cried Dorothea. “An old commander and young soldiers can win any battle.” She held out her small plump hand with frank briskness to her husband, he clasped it cheerily and said: “I think I can carry the project for the road through the Senate. To build our bridge we must also procure helping hands, and for that we need your aid, Dorothea. Our slaves will not suffice.”
“Wait,” cried the lady eagerly; she went to the window and called, “Jethro, Jethro!”
The person thus addressed, the old house-steward, appeared, and Dorothea began to discuss with him as to which of the inhabitants of the oasis might be disposed to let them have some able-bodied men, and whether it might not be possible to employ one or another of the house-slaves at the building.
All that she said was judicious and precise, and showed that she herself superintended her household in every detail, and was accustomed to command with complete freedom.
“That tall Anubis then is really indispensable in the stable?” she asked in conclusion. The steward, who up to this moment had spoken shortly and intelligently, hesitated to answer; at the same time he looked up at Petrus, who, sunk in the contemplation of the plan, had his back to him; his glance, and a deprecating movement, expressed very clearly that he had something to tell, but feared to speak in the presence of his master. Dame Dorothea was quick of comprehension, and she quite understood Jethro’s meaning; it was for that very reason that she said with more of surprise than displeasure: “What does the man mean with his winks? What I may hear, Petrus may hear too.”
The senator turned, and looked at the steward from head to foot with so dark a glance, that he drew back, and began to speak quickly. But he was interrupted by the children’s clamors on the stairs and by Sirona, who brought Hermas to the senator, and said laughing: “I found this great fellow on the stairs, he was seeking you.”
Petrus looked at the youth, not very kindly, and asked: “Who are you? what is your business?” Hermas struggled in vain for speech; the presence of so many human beings, of whom three were women, filled him with the utmost confusion. His fingers twisted the woolly curls on his sheep-skin, and his lips moved but gave no sound; at last he succeeded in stammering out, “I am the son of old Stephanus, who was wounded in the last raid of the Saracens. My father has hardly slept these five nights, and now Paulus has sent me to you—the pious Paulus of Alexandria—but you know—and so I—”
“I see, I see,” said Petrus with encouraging kindness. “You want some medicine for the old man. See Dorothea, what a fine young fellow he is grown, this is the little man that the Antiochian took with him up the mountain.”
Hermas colored, and drew himself up; then he observed with great satisfaction that he was taller than the senator’s sons, who were of about the same age as he, and for whom he had a stronger feeling, allied to aversion and fear, than even for their stern father. Polykarp measured him with a glance, and said aloud to Sirona, with whom he had exchanged a greeting, are off whom he had never once taken his eyes since she had come in: “If we could get twenty slaves with such shoulders as those, we should get on well. There is work to be done here, you big fellow—”
“My name is not ‘fellow,’ but Hermas,” said the anchorite, and the veins of his forehead began to swell. Polykarp felt that his father’s visitor was something more than his poor clothing would seem to indicate and that he had hurt his feelings. He had certainly seen some old anchorites, who led a contemplative and penitential life up on the sacred mountain, but it had never occurred to him that a strong youth could be long to the brotherhood of hermits. So he said to him kindly: “Hermas—is that your name? We all use our hands here and labor is no disgrace; what is your handicraft?”
This question roused the young anchorite to the highest excitement, and Dame Dorothea, who perceives what was passing in his mind, said with quick decision: “He nurses his sick father. That is what you do, my son is it not? Petrus will not refuse you his help.”
“Certainly not,” the senator added, “I will accompany you by-and-bye to see him. You must know my children, that this youth’s father was a great Lord, who gave up rich possessions in order to forget the world, where he had gone through bitter experiences, and to serve God in his own way, which we ought to respect though it is not our own. Sit down there, my son. First we must finish some important business, and then I will go with you.”
“We live high up on the mountain,” stammered Hermas.
“Then the air will be all the purer,” replied the senator. “But stay—perhaps the old man is alone no? The good Paulus, you say, is with him? Then he is in good hands, and you may wait.”
For a moment Petrus stood considering, then he beckoned to his sons, and said, “Antonius, go at once and see about some slaves—you, Polykarp, find some strong beasts of burden. You are generally rather easy with your money, and in this case it is worth while to buy the dearest. The sooner you return well supplied the better. Action must not halt behind decision, but follow it quickly and sharply, as the sound follows the blow. You, Marthana, mix some of the brown fever-potion, and prepare some bandages; you have the key.”
“I will help her,” cried Sirona, who was glad to prove herself useful, and who was sincerely sorry for the sick old hermit; besides, Hermas seemed to her like a discovery of her own, for whom she involuntarily felt more consideration since she had learned that he was the son of a man of rank.
While the young women were busy at the medicine-cupboard, Antonius and Polykarp left the room.
The latter had already crossed the threshold, when he turned once more, and cast a long look at Sirona. Then, with a hasty movement, he went on, closed the door, and with a heavy sigh descended the stairs.
As soon as his sons were gone, Petrus turned to the steward again.
“What is wrong with the slave Anubis?” he asked.
“He is—wounded, hurt,” answered Jethro, “and for the next few days will be useless. The goat-girl Miriam—the wild cat—cut his forehead with her reaping hook.”
“Why did I not hear of this sooner?” cried Dorothea reprovingly. “What have you done to the girl?”
“We have shut her up in the hay loft,” answered Jethro, “and there she is raging and storming.”
The mistress shook her head disapprovingly. “The girl will not be improved by that treatment,” she said. “Go and bring her to me.”
As soon as the intendant had left the room,
