Hermon had noticed this same contrast in his own person.  Otherwise the Gaul did not resemble him in a single feature, and he might even have refused to compare his soft, wavy beard with the harsh, almost bristly one of the barbarian.  And what a defiant, almost evil expression his countenance wore when—­perhaps because his wound ached—­he closed his lips more firmly!  The children who so willingly let him, Hermon, take them in his arms would certainly have been afraid of this savage-looking fellow.

Yet in build, and at any rate in height and breadth of shoulders, there was some resemblance between him and the Gaul.

As a bridge builder, the injured man belonged, in a certain sense, to the ranks of the artists, and this increased Hermon’s interest in his patient, who was now probably out of the most serious danger.

True, the Greek still cast many a searching glance at the barbarian, but his eyes closed more and more frequently, and at last the idea took possession of him that he himself was the wounded man on the couch, and some one else, who again was himself, was caring for him.

He vainly strove to understand the impossibility of this division of his own being, but the more eagerly he did so the greater became his bewilderment.

Suddenly the scene changed; Ledscha had appeared.

Bending over him, she lavished words of love; but when, in passionate excitement, he sprang from the couch to draw her toward him, she changed into the Nemesis to whose statue she had just prayed.

He stood still as if petrified, and the goddess, too, did not stir.  Only the wheel which had rested at her feet began to move, and rolled, with a thundering din, sometimes around him, sometimes around the people who, as if they had sprung from the ground, formed a jeering company of spectators, and clapped their hands, laughed, and shouted whenever it rolled toward him and he sprang back in fear.

Meanwhile the wheel constantly grew larger, and seemed to become heavier, for the wooden beams over which it rolled splintered, crashing like thin laths, and the spectators’ shouts of applause sounded ruder and fiercer.

Then mortal terror suddenly seized him, and while he shouted for help to Myrtilus, Daphne, and her father Archias, his slave Bias, the old comrade of Alexander, Philippus, and his wife, he awoke, bathed in perspiration, and looked about him.

But he must still be under the spell of the horrible dream, for the rattling and clattering around him continued, and the bed where the wounded Gaul had lain was empty.

Hermon involuntarily dipped his hand into the water which stood ready to wet the bandages, and sprinkled his own face with it; but if he had ever beheld life with waking eyes, he was doing so now.  Yet the barbarian had vanished, and the noise in the house still continued.

Was it possible that rats and mice—?  No!  That was the shriek of a terrified human being—­that a cry for help!  This sound was the imperious command of a rough man’s voice, that—­no, he was not mistaken—­that was his own name, and it came from the lips of his Myrtilus, anxiously, urgently calling for assistance.