satisfaction was audible in the soft sigh, which was the first sound that
had escaped her tightly closed lips since her rescue. Paulus smiled at
her encouragingly, and said, "Now rest a little, I see what you want;
one cannot defy the heat of the sun for a whole day with impunity."

Sirona nodded, pointed to her mouth, and implored wearily and very softly
for "water, a little water." Paulus struck his hand against his
forehead, and cried eagerly, "Directly--I will bring you a fresh draught.
In a few minutes I will be back again."

Sirona looked after him as he hastened away. Her gaze became more and
more staring and glazed, and she felt as if the rock, on which she was
sitting, were changing into the ship which had brought her from Massilia
to Ostia. Every heaving motion of the vessel, which had made her so
giddy as it danced over the shifting waves, she now distinctly felt
again, and at last it seemed as if a whirlpool had seized the ship, and
was whirling it round faster and faster in a circle. She closed her
eyes, felt vaguely and in vain in the air for some holdfast, her head
fell powerless on one side, and before her cheek sank upon her shoulder
she uttered one feeble cry of distress, for she felt as if all her limbs
were dropping from her body, as leaves in autumn fall from the boughs,
and she fell back unconscious on the stony couch which Paulus had
constructed for her.

It was the first swoon that Sirona, with her sound physical and mental
powers, had ever experienced; but the strongest of her sex would have
been overcome by the excitement, the efforts, the privations, and the
sufferings which had that day befallen the unfortunate fair one.

At first she had fled without any plan out into the night and up the