What could it have been that the goblin in a white robe and with flowing hair held in its arms?
Very likely the stone with which the incubus loads our breast when he torments us.

The other one seemed to fly, but I did not see its wings.
That side-building must be where the Gaul lives with his ungodly wife, who has ensnared my poor Hermas.

I wonder whether she is really so beautiful! But what can a youth who has grown up among rocks and caves know of the charms of women.

He would, of course, think the first who looked kindly at him the most enchanting of her sex.

Besides she is fair, and therefore a rare bird among the sunburnt bipeds of the desert.
The centurion surely cannot have found the sheepskin or all would not be so still here; once since I have been here an ass has brayed, once a camel has groaned, and now already the first cock is crowing; but not a sound have I heard from human lips, not even a snore from the stout senator or his buxom wife Dorothea, and it would be strange indeed if they did not both snore." He rose, went up to the window of Phoebicius dwelling, and listened at the half open shutters, but all was still.
An hour ago Miriam had been listening under Sirona's room; after betraying her to Phoebicius she had followed him at a distance, and had slipped back into the court-yard through the stables; she felt that she must learn what was happening within, and what fate had befallen Hermas and Sirona at the hands of the infuriated Gaul.