CHAPTER XIII.
During this conversation two men had been busily occupied, in front of the paraschites' hut, in driving piles into the earth, and stretching a torn linen cloth upon them.
One of them, old Pinem, whom we have seen tending his grandchild, requested the other from time to time to consider the sick girl and to work less noisily.
After they had finished their simple task, and spread a couch of fresh straw under the awning, they too sat down on the earth, and looked at the hut before which the surgeon Nebsecht was sitting waiting till the sleeping girl should wake.
"Who is that ?" asked the leech of the old man, pointing to his young companion, a tall sunburnt soldier with a bushy red beard.
"My son," replied the paraschites, "who is just returned from Syria." "Uarda's father ?" asked Nebsecht.
The soldier nodded assent, and said with a rough voice, but not without cordiality.
"No one could guess it by looking at us--she is so white and rosy.

Her mother was a foreigner, and she has turned out as delicate as she was.

I am afraid to touch her with my little finger--and there comes a chariot over the brittle doll, and does not quite crush her, for she is still alive." "Without the help of this holy father," said the paraschites, approaching the surgeon, and kissing his robe, "you would never have seen her alive again.

May the Gods reward thee for what thou hast done for its poor folks!" "And we can pay too," cried the soldier, slapping a full purse that hung at his gridle.

"We have taken plunder in Syria, and I will buy a calf, and give it to thy temple." "Offer a beast of dough, rather." [Hogs were sacrificed at the feasts of Selene (the Egyptian Nechebt).