Why was all so still again?
Had she offered her rosy lips for a kiss?
No doubt, no doubt.

And Hermas did not wrench himself from her white arms, as he had torn himself from hers that noon by the spring-torn himself away never to return.
Cold drops stood on her brow, she buried her hands in her thick, black hair, and a loud cry escaped her--a cry like that of a tortured animal.
A few minutes more and she had slipped through the stable and the gate by which they drove the cattle in; and no longer mistress of herself, was flying up the mountain to the grotto of Mithras to warn Phoebicius.
The anchorite Gelasius saw from afar the figure of the girl flying up the mountain in the moonlight, and her shadow flitting from stone to stone, and he threw himself on the ground, and signed a cross on his brow, for he thought he saw a goblin-form, one of the myriad gods of the heathen--an Oread pursued by a Satyr.

Sirona had heard the girl's shriek.
"What was that ?" she asked the youth, who stood before her in the full-dress uniform of a Roman officer, as handsome as the young god of war, though awkward and unsoldierly in his movements.
"An owl screamed--" replied Hermas.

"My father must at last tell me from what house we are descended, and I will go to Byzantium, the new Rome, and say to the emperor, 'Here am I, and I will fight for you among your warriors.'" "I like you so!" exclaimed Sirona.
"If that is the truth," cried Hermas, "prove it to me! Let me once press my lips to your shining gold hair.

You are beautiful, as sweet as a flower--as gay and bright as a bird, and yet as hard as our mountain rock.