His people said that when he was in this condition, the centurion's ghastly demon had entered into him, and he himself believed in this evil spirit, and dreaded it; nay, he had attempted to be released through heathen spells, and even through Christian exorcisms.
Now he sat in the dark room on the sheepfell, which in scorn of his wife he had spread on a hard wooden bench.

His hands and feet turned cold, his eyes glowed, and the power to move even a finger had wholly deserted him; only his lips twitched, and his inward eye, looking back on the past with preternaturally sharpened vision, saw, far away and beyond, the last frightful hour.
"If," thought he, "after my mad run down to the oasis, which few younger men could have vied with, I had given the reins to my fury instead of restraining it, the demon would not have mastered me so easily.

How that devil Miriam's eyes flashed as she told me that a man was betraying me.
She certainly must have seen the wearer of the sheepskin, but I lost sight of her before I reached the oasis; I fancy she turned and went up the mountain.

What indeed might not Sirona have done to her?
That woman snares all hearts with her eyes as a bird-catcher snares birds with his flute.

How the fine gentlemen ran after her in Rome! Did she dishonor me there, I wonder?
She dismissed the Legate Quintillus, who was so anxious to please me--I may thank that fool of a woman that he became my enemy--but he was older even than I, and she likes young men best.