“For God’s sake, do you know where he is?” cried Dorothea, and her cheeks crimsoned while Petrus turned pale, and, interrupting her, asked in breathless anxiety, “Where is Polykarp, and what has happened to him?”

“Prepare yourself to hear bad news,” said Sirona, looking at the pair with mournful anxiety as if to crave their pardon for the evil tidings she was obliged to bring.  “Polykarp had a fall on a sharp stone and so wounded his head.  Paulus brought him to me this morning before he set out against the Blemmyes, that I might nurse him.  I have incessantly cooled his wound, and towards mid-day he opened his eyes and knew me again, and said you would be anxious about him.  After sundown he went to sleep, but he is not wholly free from fever, and as soon as Paulus came in I set out to quiet your anxiety and to entreat you to give me a cooling potion, that I may return to him with it at once.”  The deepest sorrow sounded in Sirona’s accents as she told her story, and tears had started to her eyes as she related to the parents what had befallen their son.  Petrus and Dorothea listened as to a singer, who, dressed indeed in robes of mourning, nevertheless sings a lay of return and hope to a harp wreathed with flowers.

“Quick, quick, Marthana,” cried Dorothea eagerly and with sparkling eyes, before Sirona had ended.  “Quick, the basket with the bandages.  I will mix the fever-draught myself.”  Petrus went up to the Gaulish woman.

“It is really no worse than you represent?” he asked in a low voice.  “He is alive? and Paulus—­”

“Paulus says,” interrupted Sirona, “that with good nursing the sick man will be well in a few weeks.”

“And you can lead me to him?”

“Oh, alas! alas!” Sirona cried, striking her hand against her forehead.  “I shall never succeed in finding my way back, for I noticed no way-marks!  But stay—­Before us a penitent from Memphis, who has been dead a few weeks—­”

“Old Serapion?” asked Petrus.

“That was his name,” exclaimed Sirona.  “Do you know his cave?”

“How should I?” replied Petrus.  “But perhaps Agapitus—­”

“The spring where I got the water to cool Polykarp’s wound, Paulus calls the partridge’s-spring.”

“The partridge’s-spring,” repeated the senator, “I know that.”  With a deep sigh he took his staff, and called to Dorothea, “Do you prepare the draught, the bandages, torches, and your good litter, while I knock at our neighbor Magadon’s door, and ask him to lend us slaves.”

“Let me go with you,” said Marthana.  “No, no; you stay here with your mother.”

“And do you think that I can wait here?” asked Dorothea.  “I am going with you.”

“There is much here for you to do,” replied Petrus evasively, “and we must climb the hill quickly.”

“I should certainly delay you,” sighed the mother, “but take the girl with you; she has a light and lucky hand.”