gray-haired crone listened eagerly until he said that Ledscha lived
unhappily with her husband, and therefore had left him. She sent back to
her, as the head of Hanno's family, the bridal dowry with which Hanno had
bought her from her father as his wife.

Then Tabus struggled into a little more erect posture, and asked: "What
does this mean? Five talents--and gold, not silver talents? And she
sends the money to me? To me? And she ran away from her husband? But
no--no! Once more--you are a Biamite--repeat it in our own language--and
loudly. This ear is the better one."

Bias obeyed, and the old dame listened to the end without interrupting
him: then raising her brown right hand, covered with a network of blue-
black veins, she clinched it into a fist, which she shook far more
violently than Bias would have believed possible in her weak condition.
At the same time she pressed her lips so tightly together that her
toothless mouth deepened into a hole, and her dim eyes shone with a keen,
menacing light. For some time she found no reply, though strange,
rattling, gasping sounds escaped her heaving breast.

At last she succeeded in uttering words, and shrieked shrilly: "This--
this--away with the golden trash! With the bridal dowry of the family
rejected, and once more free, the base fool thinks she would be like the
captive fox that gnawed the rope! Oh, this age, these people! And this,
this is the haughty, strong Ledscha, the daughter of the Biamites, who--
there stands the blind girl--deceiver!--who so admirably avenged
herself?"

Here her voice failed, and Hermon began to speak to assure her that she
understood Ledscha's wish aright. Then he asked her for a token by which