creature pursued by demons, and at the same time her eyes glistened with
such wild madness, and she drew her breath with such feverish rapidity
that Paulus, who had come close up to her, involuntarily drew back. He
saw that her lips moved, and though he could not understand what she
said, he felt that her voiceless utterance was to warn him back.

What should he do? If he hurried forward to save her by a hasty grip,
and if this manoeuvre failed, she would fling herself irredeemably into
the abyss: if he left her to herself, the stone to which she clung would
get looser and looser, and as soon as it fell she would certainly fall
too. He had once heard it said, that sleep-walkers always threw
themselves down when they heard their names spoken; this statement now
recurred to his mind, and he forbore from calling out to her.

Once more the unhappy woman waved him off; his very heart stopped
beating, for her movements were wild and vehement, and he could see that
the stone which she was holding on by shifted its place. He understood
nothing of all the words which she tried to say--for her voice, which
only yesterday had been so sweet, to-day was inaudibly hoarse--except the
one name "Phoebicius," and he felt no doubt that she clung to the stone
over the abyss, so that, like the mountain-goat when it sees itself
surprised by the hunter, she might fling herself into the depth below
rather than be taken by her pursuer. Paulus saw in her neither her guilt
nor her beauty, but only a child of man trembling on the brink of a
fearful danger whom he must save from death at any cost; and the thought
that he was at any rate not a spy sent in pursuit of her by her husband,
suggested to him the first words which he found courage to address to the
desperate woman. They were simple words enough, but they were spoken in
a tone which fully expressed the childlike amiability of his warm heart,
and the Alexandrian, who had been brought up in the most approved school