“The last,” she said, looking into the box, “but it will be enough.  The odour of the herb in the salve is as strong as if it had been prepared yesterday.”

She laid the first bandage on Hermon’s eyes with her own weak fingers, at the same time muttering an incantation; but it did not seem to satisfy her.  Great excitement had taken possession of her, and as the silver light of the full moon shone into her room she waved her hands before the artist’s eyes and fixed her gaze upon the threshold illumined by the moonbeams, ejaculating sentences incomprehensible to the blind man.  Bias supported her, for she had risen to her full height, and he felt how she tottered and trembled.

Yet her strength held out to whisper to Hermon:  “Nearer, still nearer!  By the light of the august one whose rays greet us, let it be said:  You will see again.  Await your recovery patiently in a quiet place in the pure air, not in the city.  Refrain from everything with which the Greeks intoxicate themselves.  Shun wine, and whatever heats the blood.  Recovery is coming; I see it drawing near.  You will see again as surely as I now curse the woman who abandoned the husband to whom she vowed fidelity.  She rejoiced over your blindness, and she will gnash her teeth with rage and grief when she hears that it was Tabus who brought light into the darkness that surrounds you.”

With these words she pushed off the freedman’s supporting arms and sank back upon the couch.

Again Hermon tried to thank her; but she would not permit it, and said in an almost inaudible tone:  “I really did not give the salve to do you good—­the last act of all—­”

Finally she murmured a few words of direction for its use, and added that he must keep the sunlight from his blind eyes by bandages and shades, as if it were a cruel foe.

When she paused, and Bias asked her another question, she pointed to the door, exclaiming as loudly as her weakness permitted, “Go, I tell you, go!”

Hermon obeyed and left her, accompanied by the freedman, who carried the box of salve so full of precious promise.

The next morning Bias delivered to the astonished priest of Nemesis the large gifts intended for the avenging goddess.

Before Hermon entered the boat with him and his Egyptian slave, the freedman told his master that Gula was again living in perfect harmony with the husband who had cast her off, and Taus, Ledscha’s younger sister, was the wife of the young Biamite who, she had feared, would give up his wooing on account of her visit to Hermon’s studio.

After a long voyage through the canal which had been dug a short time before, connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, the three men reached Clysma.  Opposite to it, on the eastern shore of the narrow northern point of the Erythraean sea—­[Red Sea]—­lay the goal of their journey, and thither Bias led his blind master, followed by the slave, on shore.