bridges? He can collect a couple of thousand of them. He will rescue
his lady, and take her outside the city, and he can go with her. They
will go to the end of the world, even to that place from which they had
come, where no one has heard of Rome.

Here he began to look forward, as if to see things in the future and
very distant.

"To the forest? Ai, what a forest, what a forest!"

But after a while he shook himself out of his visions. Well, he will go
to the bishop at once, and in the evening will wait with something like
a hundred men for the litter. And let not slaves, but even pretorians,
take her from him! Better for any man not to come under his fist, even
though in iron armor,--for is iron so strong? When he strikes iron
earnestly, the head underneath will not survive.

But Lygia raised her finger with great and also childlike seriousness.

"Ursus, do not kill," said she.

Ursus put his fist, which was like a maul, to the back of his head, and,
rubbing his neck with great seriousness, began to mutter. But he must
rescue "his light." She herself had said that his turn had come. He
will try all he can. But if something happens in spite of him? In
every case he must save her. But should anything happen, he will
repent, and so entreat the Innocent Lamb that the Crucified Lamb will
have mercy on him, poor fellow. He has no wish to offend the Lamb; but
then his hands are so heavy.