"At two stadia beyond el Heswe I met a large caravan from Petra, which
rested yesterday in the oasis here; a woman, such as you describe, was
running with it. When I heard what had happened here I wanted to speak,
but who listens to a cricket while it thunders?"

"Had she a lame greyhound with her?" asked Phoebicius, full of
expectation.

"She carried something in her arms," answered the Amalekite. "In the
moonlight I took it for a baby. My brother, who was escorting the
caravan, told me the lady was no doubt running away, for she had paid the
charge for the escort not in ready money, but with a gold signet-ring."

The Gaul remembered a certain gold ring with a finely carved onyx, which
long years ago he had taken from Glycera's finger, for she had another
one like it, and which he had given to Sirona on the day of their
marriage.

"It is strange!" thought he, "what we give to women to bind them to us
they use as weapons to turn against us, be it to please some other man,
or to smooth the path by which they escape from us. It was with a
bracelet of Glycera's that I paid the captain of the ship that brought us
to Alexandria; but the soft-hearted fool, whose dove flew after me, and I
are men of a different stamp; I will follow my flown bird, and catch it
again." He spoke the last words aloud, and then desired one of the
senator's slaves to give his mule a good feed and drink, for his own
groom, and the superior decurion who during his absence must take his
place, were also worshippers of Mithras, and had not yet returned from
the mountain.