If she has found the road to the sea, she may already--Hey, here Talib!" He beckoned to Polykarp's Amalekite messenger.

"You have just come from Raithu; did you meet a flying woman on the way, with yellow hair and a white face ?" The Amalekite, a free man with sharp eyes, who was highly esteemed in the senator's house, and even by Phoebicius himself, as a trustworthy and steady man, had expected this question, and eagerly replied: "At two stadia beyond el Heswe I met a large caravan from Petra, which rested yesterday in the oasis here; a woman, such as you describe, was running with it.

When I heard what had happened here I wanted to speak, but who listens to a cricket while it thunders ?" "Had she a lame greyhound with her ?" asked Phoebicius, full of expectation.
"She carried something in her arms," answered the Amalekite.

"In the moonlight I took it for a baby.

My brother, who was escorting the caravan, told me the lady was no doubt running away, for she had paid the charge for the escort not in ready money, but with a gold signet-ring." The Gaul remembered a certain gold ring with a finely carved onyx, which long years ago he had taken from Glycera's finger, for she had another one like it, and which he had given to Sirona on the day of their marriage.
"It is strange!" thought he, "what we give to women to bind them to us they use as weapons to turn against us, be it to please some other man, or to smooth the path by which they escape from us.