in breathless anxiety, "Where is Polykarp, and what has happened to him?"

"Prepare yourself to hear bad news," said Sirona, looking at the pair
with mournful anxiety as if to crave their pardon for the evil tidings
she was obliged to bring. "Polykarp had a fall on a sharp stone and so
wounded his head. Paulus brought him to me this morning before he set
out against the Blemmyes, that I might nurse him. I have incessantly
cooled his wound, and towards mid-day he opened his eyes and knew me
again, and said you would be anxious about him. After sundown he went to
sleep, but he is not wholly free from fever, and as soon as Paulus came
in I set out to quiet your anxiety and to entreat you to give me a
cooling potion, that I may return to him with it at once." The deepest
sorrow sounded in Sirona's accents as she told her story, and tears had
started to her eyes as she related to the parents what had befallen their
son. Petrus and Dorothea listened as to a singer, who, dressed indeed in
robes of mourning, nevertheless sings a lay of return and hope to a harp
wreathed with flowers.

Quick, quick, Marthana," cried Dorothea eagerly and with sparkling eyes,
before Sirona had ended. "Quick, the basket with the bandages. I will
mix the fever-draught myself." Petrus went up to the Gaulish woman.

"It is really no worse than you represent?" he asked in a low voice.
"He is alive? and Paulus--"

"Paulus says," interrupted Sirona, "that with good nursing the sick man
will be well in a few weeks."

"And you can lead me to him?"