On the following day he asked Sirona of her father for his wife, and as he had to set out for Rome in a few days the wedding was promptly celebrated.  She had never before quitted Arelas, and knew not what she was giving up, when she took leave of her father’s house perhaps for ever.  In Rome Phoebicius and his young wife met again; there many admired the beautiful woman, and made every effort to obtain her favor, but to him she was only a lightly won, and therefore a lightly valued, possession; nay, ere long no more than a burden, ornamental no doubt but troublesome to guard.  When presently his handsome wife attracted the notice of the legate, he endeavored to gain profit and advancement through her, but Sirona had rebuffed Quintillus with such insulting disrespect, that his superior officer became the centurion’s enemy, and contrived to procure his removal to the oasis, which was tantamount to banishment.

From that time he had regarded her too as his enemy, and firmly believed that she designedly showed herself most friendly to those who seemed most obnoxious to him, and among these he reckoned Polykarp.

Once more the knocker sounded on the senator’s door; it opened, and Petrus himself stood before the raging Gaul, a lamp in his hand.

CHAPTER XI.

The unfortunate Paulus sat on a stone bench in front of the senator’s door, and shivered; for, as dawn approached, the night-air grew cooler, and he was accustomed to the warmth of the sheepskin, which he had now given to Hermas.  In his hand he held the key of the church, which he had promised the door-keeper to deliver to Petrus; but all was so still in the senator’s house, that he shrank from rousing the sleepers.

“What a strange night this has been!” he muttered to himself, as he drew his short and tattered tunic closer together.  “Even if it were warmer, and if, instead of this threadbare rag, I had a sack of feathers to wrap myself in, still I should feel a cold shiver if the spirits of hell that wander about here were to meet me again.  Now I have actually seen one with my own eyes.  Demons in women’s form rush up the mountain out of the oasis to tempt and torture us in our sleep.  What could it have been that the goblin in a white robe and with flowing hair held in its arms?  Very likely the stone with which the incubus loads our breast when he torments us.  The other one seemed to fly, but I did not see its wings.  That side-building must be where the Gaul lives with his ungodly wife, who has ensnared my poor Hermas.  I wonder whether she is really so beautiful!  But what can a youth who has grown up among rocks and caves know of the charms of women.  He would, of course, think the first who looked kindly at him the most enchanting of her sex.  Besides she is fair, and therefore a rare bird among the sunburnt bipeds of the desert.  The centurion surely cannot have found the sheepskin or all would not be so still here; once since I have been here an ass has brayed, once a camel has groaned, and now already the first cock is crowing; but not a sound have I heard from human lips, not even a snore from the stout senator or his buxom wife Dorothea, and it would be strange indeed if they did not both snore.”