Polykarp looked Paulus in the face with anxious and urgent entreaty, pointing to the dog as much as to say, “You must know, for here is the evidence.”

The Alexandrian hesitated to answer; he glanced by chance at the entrance of the cave, and seeing the gleam of Sirona’s white robe behind the palm-branches, he said to himself that if Polykarp lingered much longer, he could not fail to discover her—­a consummation to be avoided.

There were many reasons which might have made him resolve to stand in the way of a meeting between the lady and the young man, but not one of them occurred to him, and though he did not even dream that a feeling akin to jealousy had begun to influence him, still he was conscious that it was his lively repugnance to seeing the two sink into each other’s arms before his very eyes, that prompted him to turn shortly round, to take up the body of the little dog, and to say to the enquirer: 

“It is true, I do know where she is hiding, and when the time comes you shall know it too.  Now I must bury the animal, and if you will you can help me.”

Without waiting for any objection on Polykarp’s part, he hurried from stone to stone up to the plateau on the precipitous edge of which he had first seen Sirona.  The younger man followed him breathlessly, and only joined him when he had already begun to dig out the earth with his hands at the foot of a cliff.  Polykarp was now standing close to the anchorite, and repeated his question with vehement eagerness, but Paulus did not look up from his work, and only said, digging faster and faster: 

“Come to this place again to-morrow, and then it may perhaps be possible that I should tell you.”

“You think to put me off with that,” cried the lad.  “Then you are mistaken in me, and if you cheat me with your honest-sounding words, I will—­”

But he did not end his threat, for a clear longing cry distinctly broke the silence of the deserted mountain:  “Polykarp—­Polykarp.”  It sounded nearer and nearer, and the words had a magic effect on him for whose ear they were intended.

With his head erect and trembling in every limb, the young man listened eagerly.  Then he cried out, “It is her voice!  I am coming, Sirona, I am coming.”  And without paying any heed to the anchorite, he was on the point of hurrying off to meet her.  But Paulus placed himself close in front of him, and said sternly:  “You stay here.”

“Out of my way,” shouted Polykarp beside himself.  “She is calling to me out of the hole where you are keeping her—­you slanderer—­you cowardly liar!  Out of the way I say!  You will not?  Then defend yourself, you hideous toad, or I will tread you down, if my foot does not fear to be soiled with your poison.”

Up to this moment Paulus had stood before the young man with out-spread arms, motionless, but immovable as an oak-tree; now Polykarp first hit him.  This blow shattered the anchorite’s patience, and, no longer master of himself, he exclaimed, “You shall answer to me for this!” and before a third and fourth call had come from Sirona’s lips, he had grasped the artist’s slender body, and with a mighty swing he flung him backwards over his own broad and powerful shoulders on to the stony ground.