Now go into the cave, or you may spoil everything.

I know too what you lack most since you heard the fair words of the senator's son." "Well--what ?" asked Sirona.
"A mirror!" laughed Paulus.
"How much you are mistaken!" said Sirona; and she thought to herself, "The woman that Polykarp looks at as he does at me, does not need a mirror." An old Jewish merchant lived in the fishing-town on the western declivity of the mountain; he shipped the charcoal for Egypt, which was made in the valleys of the peninsula by burning the sajal acacia, and he had formerly supplied fuel for the drying-room of the papyrus-factory of Paulus' father.

He now had a business connection with his brother, and Paulus himself had had dealings with him.

He was prudent and wealthy, and whenever he met the anchorite, he blamed him for his flight from the world, and implored him to put his hospitality to the test, and to command his resources and means as if they were his own.
This man was now to find a boat, and to provide the means of flight for Sirona.

The longer Paulus thought it over, the more indispensable it seemed to him that he should himself accompany the Gaulish lady to Alexandria, and in his own person find her a safe shelter.