Bias obeyed, and the old dame listened to the end without interrupting him:  then raising her brown right hand, covered with a network of blue-black veins, she clinched it into a fist, which she shook far more violently than Bias would have believed possible in her weak condition.  At the same time she pressed her lips so tightly together that her toothless mouth deepened into a hole, and her dim eyes shone with a keen, menacing light.  For some time she found no reply, though strange, rattling, gasping sounds escaped her heaving breast.

At last she succeeded in uttering words, and shrieked shrilly:  “This—­this—­away with the golden trash!  With the bridal dowry of the family rejected, and once more free, the base fool thinks she would be like the captive fox that gnawed the rope!  Oh, this age, these people!  And this, this is the haughty, strong Ledscha, the daughter of the Biamites, who—­there stands the blind girl—­deceiver!—­who so admirably avenged herself?”

Here her voice failed, and Hermon began to speak to assure her that she understood Ledscha’s wish aright.  Then he asked her for a token by which she acknowledged the receipt of the gold, which he handed her in a stout linen bag.

But his purpose was not fulfilled, for suddenly, flaming with passionate wrath, she thrust the purse aside, groaning:  “Not an obol of the accursed destruction of souls shall come back to Hanno, nor even into the family store.  Until his heart and hers stop beating, the most indissoluble bond will unite both.  She desires to ransom herself from a lawful marriage concluded by her father, as if she were a captive of war; perhaps she even wants to follow another.  Hanno, brave lad, was ready to go to death for her sake, and she rewards him by bringing shame on his head and disgrace on us all.  Oh, these times, this world!  Everything that is inviolable and holy trampled in the dust!  But they are not all so!  In spite of Grecian infidelity, marriage is still honoured among our people.  But she who mocks what is sacred, and tramples holy customs under foot, shall be accursed, execrated, given over to want, hunger, disease, death!”

With rattling breath and closed eyes she leaned farther back against the cushions that supported her; but Bias, in their common language, tried to soothe her, and informed her that, though Ledscha had probably run away from her husband, she had by no means renounced her vengeance.  He was bringing two talents with him to place in the Temple of Nemesis.

“Of Nemesis?” repeated the old dame.  Then she tried to raise herself and, as she constantly sank back again, Bias aided her.  But she had scarcely recovered her sitting posture when she gasped to the freedman:  “Nemesis, who helped, and is to continue to help her to destroy her foe?  Well, well!  Five talents—­a great sum, a great sum!  But the more the better!  To Nemesis with them, to Ate and the Erinyes!  The talons of the avenging goddess shall tear the beautiful face, the heart, and the liver of the accursed one!  A twofold malediction on her who has wronged the son of my Satabus!”