'Sleepest thou, or art thou thinking of thy far-away Sidon, or perchance peering into the future to divine thy fortune? What are the omens? Have fair ones passed thee as thou standest here?'
'Nay, good sire, I was thinking of neither the past nor the future, but of the present. I know I am but a slave, a thing who has no right to speak or move or scarcely think without my mistress's bidding.'
'I pity thee, and have tried to befriend thee.'
'Thou art kind, but it will serve me little; they hate me--they all hate me, and make my life a misery--but it will not ever be thus. Just now a woman of peculiar mien stood before me--a woman skilled, she told me, in the mysteries of fate. Looking at me, she said my star was rising full of splendour, and would lead me by its power into a knowledge deep and high--deep as death, high as the heavens. Think you, master, there be any truth in such woman's talk?'
'I cannot say, Saronia. Of those hidden things I am not given to understand. I lean towards the new faith, whose founder is one Christ. Of Him I know little, but 'tis said He is both God and man. What thinkest thou of this?'
'I know not what to think. I do not know the faith, neither does it seem to rise for a hearing in my soul. No; born within me is the faith of Ashtoreth, and as it seems akin to much that is worshipped here, I think I should feel more at home were I to understand the mysteries of Hecate and worship at her shrine.'
'Thou dost not know what thou askest, Saronia. The way to those mysteries is dark and to thee impenetrable. Thou art too good to load thy spirit with such things of gloom, too young to sacrifice thee there. Around her darkness hovers--night, everlasting night, abides. I have heard those who know say this. Are there no brighter hopes for thee? If not, slave art thou indeed--slave in body, slave in soul.'
'True,' said the girl. 'Slaves are we either in body or spirit, whomsoever we serve--men or women, goddesses or gods; to such must we submit and lose our will in that of the greater. Serve, then, the one thou likest best. For myself, I think I like Diana as Hecate. She, I am told, rules the underworld. I aspire no higher; my pinions were shorn away, and I now grovel on the earth, and wish to worship in her bosom.'