"Can you restore me?" Hermon now asked in great excitement. "Answer me
honestly, you experienced woman! Give me back my sight, and demand
whatever gold and valuables I still possess--"

"Keep them," Tabus contemptuously interrupted. "Not for gold or goods
will I restore you the best gift man can lose. I will cure you because
you are the person to whom the infamous wretch most ardently wished the
sorest trouble. When she hoped to destroy you, she perceived in this
deed the happiness which had been promised to her on a night when the
full moon was shining. To-day--this very night--the disk between
Astarte's horns rounds again, and presently--wait a little while!--
presently you shall have what the light restores you--" Then she called
the Biamite woman, ordered her to bring the medicine chest, and took from
it one vessel after another. The box she was seeking was among the last
and, while handing it to Bias, she muttered: "Oh, yes, certainly--it does
one good to destroy a foe, but no less to make her foe happy!"

Turning to the freedman, she went on in a louder tone: "You, slave, shall
inform Hanno's wife that old Tabus gave the sculptor, whose blindness
she caused, the remedy which restored the sight of black Psoti, whom she
knew." Here she paused, gazed upward, and murmured almost
unintelligibly: "Satabus, Hanno! If this is the last act of the old
mother, it will give ye pleasure."

Then she told Hermon to kneel again, and ordered the slave to hold the
lamp which her nurse Tasia had just lighted at the hearth fire.

"The last," she said, looking into the box, "but it will be enough. The
odour of the herb in the salve is as strong as if it had been prepared