“Where?” the girl demanded.

“Not on board the Hydra yet,” replied the boy hurriedly.  “First only to the old man on the Megara.  The dowry is ready for your father.  But there is not a moment to lose.”

“Well, well!” she gasped hoarsely.  “But, first, shall I find the man with the black beard on board of one of the ships?”

“Certainly!” answered the lad proudly, grasping her arm to hurry her; but she shook him off violently, turned toward the cella again, and once more lifted her hands and eyes to the statue of Nemesis.

Then she took up the bundle she had hidden behind a pillar, drew from it a handful of gold coins, which she flung into the box intended for offerings, and followed the boy.

“Alive?” she asked as she descended the steps; but the lad understood the meaning of the question, and exclaimed:  “Yes, indeed!  Hanno says the wounds are not at all dangerous.”

“And the other?”

“Not a scratch.  On the Hydra, with two severely wounded slaves.  The porter and the others were killed.”

“And the statues?”

“They-such things can’t be accomplished without some little blunder-Labaja thinks so, too.”

“Did they escape you?”

“Only one.  I myself helped to smash the other, which stood in the workroom that looks out upon the water.  The gold and ivory are on the ship.  We had horrible work with the statue which stood in the room whose windows faced the square.  They dragged the great monster carefully into the studio that fronts upon the water.  But probably it is still standing there, if the thing is not already—­just see how the flames are whirling upward!—­if it is not already burned with the house.”

“What a misfortune!” Ledscha reproachfully exclaimed.

“It could not be helped,” the boy protested.  “People from Tennis suddenly rushed in.  The first—­a big, furious fellow-killed our Loule and the fierce Judas.  Now he has to pay for it.  Little Chareb threw the black powder into his eyes, while Hanno himself thrust the torch in his face.”

“And Bias, the blackbeard’s slave?”

“I don’t know.  Oh, yes!  Wounded, I believe, on board the ship.”

Meanwhile the lad, a precocious fourteen-year-old cabin-boy from the Hydra, pointed to the boat which lay ready, and took Ledscha’s bundle in his hand; but she sprang into the light skiff before him and ordered it to be rowed to the Owl’s Nest, where she must bid Mother Tabus good-bye.  The cabin-boy, however, declared positively that the command could not be obeyed now, and at his signal two black sailors urged it with swift oar strokes toward the northwest, to Satabus’s ship.  Hanno wished to receive his bride as a wife from his father’s hand.