Homo Sum — Complete by Georg Ebers (great books to read TXT) 📕

“He died a noble death, in battle for those he loved,” said the senator consolingly,

“Paulus was near him when he fell,” replied Hermas. “My father fell from the wall while defending the tower; but look here this girl—poor child—who used to keep your goats, died like a heroine. Poor, wild Miriam, how kind I would be to you if only you were alive now!”

Hermas as he spoke stroked the arm of the shepherdess, pressed a kiss on her small, cold hand, and softly folded it with the other across her bosom.

“How did the girl get into the battle with the men?” asked Petrus. “But you can tell me that in my own house. Come and be our guest as long as it pleases you, and until you go forth into the world; thanks are due to you from us all.”

Hermas blushed and modestly declined the praises which were showered on him on all sides as the savior of the oasis. When the wailing women appeared he knelt once more at the head of his father’s bier, cast a last loving look at Miriam’s peaceful face, and then followed his host.

The man and boy crossed the court together. Hermas involuntarily glanced up at the window where more than once he had seen Sirona, and said, as he pointed to the centurion’s house, “He too fell.”

Petrus nodded and opened the door of his house. In the hall, which was lighted up, Dorothea came hastily to meet him, asking, “No news yet of Polykarp?”

Her husband shook his head, and she added, “How indeed is it possible? He will write at the soonest from Klysma or perhaps even from Alexandria.”

“That is just what I think,” replied Petrus, looking down to the ground. Then he turned to Hermas and introduced him to his wife.

Dorothea received the young man with warm sympathy; she had heard that his father had fallen in the fight, and how nobly he too had distinguished himself. Supper was ready, and Hermas was invited to share it. The mistress gave her daughter a sign to make preparations for their guest, but Petrus detained Marthana, and said, “Hermas may fill Antonius’ place; he has still something to do with some of the workmen. Where are Jethro and the house-slaves?”

“They have already eaten,” said Dorothea.

The husband and wife looked at each other, and Petrus said with a melancholy smile, “I believe they are up on the mountain.”

Dorothea wiped a tear from her eye as she replied, “They will meet Antonius there. If only they could find Polykarp! And yet I honestly say—not merely to comfort you—it is most probable that he has not met with any accident in the mountain gorges, but has gone to Alexandria to escape the memories that follow him here at every step—Was not that the gate?”

She rose quickly and looked into the court, while Petrus, who had followed her, did the same, saying with a deep sigh, as he turned to Marthana—who, while she offered meat and bread to Hermas was watching her parents—“It was only the slave Anubis.”

For some time a painful silence reigned round the large table, to-day so sparely furnished with guests.

At last Petrus turned to his guest and said, “You were to tell me how the shepherdess Miriam lost her life in the struggle. She had run away from our house—”

“Up the mountain,” added Hermas. “She supplied my poor father with water like a daughter.”

“You see, mother,” interrupted Marthana, “she was not bad-hearted—I always said so.”

“This morning,” continued Hermas, nodding in sad assent to the maiden, “she followed my father to the castle, and immediately after his fall, Paulus told me, she rushed away from it, but only to seek me and to bring me the sad news. We had known each other a long time, for years she had watered her goats at our well, and while I was still quite a boy and she a little girl, she would listen for hours when I played on my willow pipe the songs which Paulus had taught me. As long as I played she was perfectly quiet, and when I ceased she wanted to hear more and still more, until I had too much of it and went away. Then she would grow angry, and if I would not do her will she would scold me with bad words. But she always came again, and as I had no other companion and she was the only creature who cared to listen to me, I was very well-content that she should prefer our well to all the others. Then we grew order and I began to be afraid of her, for she would talk in such a godless way—and she even died a heathen. Paulus, who once overheard us, warned me against her, and as I had long thrown away the pipe and hunted beasts with my bow and arrow whenever my father would let me, I was with her for shorter intervals when I went to the well to draw water, and we became more and more strangers; indeed, I could be quite hard to her. Only once after I came back from the capital something happened—but that I need not tell you. The poor child was so unhappy at being a slave and no doubt had first seen the light in a free-house.

“She was fond of me, more than a sister is of a brother—and when my father was dead she felt that I ought not to learn the news from any one but herself. She had seen which way I had gone with the Pharanites and followed me up, and she soon found me, for she had the eyes of a gazelle and the ears of a startled bird. It was not this time difficult to find me, for when she sought me we were fighting with the Blemmyes in the green hollow that leads from the mountain to the sea. They roared with fury like wild beasts, for before we could get to the sea the fishermen in the little town below had discovered their boats, which they had hidden under sand and stones, and had carried them off to their harbor. The boy from Raithu who accompanied me, had by my orders kept them in sight, and had led the fishermen to the hiding-place. The watchmen whom they had left with the boats had fled, and had reached their companions who were fighting round the castle; and at least two hundred of them had been sent back to the shore to recover possession of the boats and to punish the fishermen. This troop met us in the green valley, and there we fell to fighting.

“The Blemmyes outnumbered us; they soon surrounded us before and behind, on the right side and on the left, for they jumped and climbed from rock to rock like mountain goats and then shot down their reed-arrows from above. Three or four touched me, and one pierced my hair and remained hanging in it with the feather at the end of the shaft.

“How the battle went elsewhere I cannot tell you, for the blood mounted to my head, and I was only conscious that I myself snorted and shouted like a madman and wrestled with the heathen now here and now there, and more than once lifted my axe to cleave a skull. At the same time I saw a part of our men turn to fly, and I called them back with furious words;