For a moment she disappeared in the vitreous waters, and her white garland alone remained floating on the surface.
Then her dress glimmered, next her arm, as the surging spring threw her up.
Suddenly from the entire concourse rose a cry of astonishment and dismay.
The young man, Æmilius Lentulus Varo, had leaped into the holy basin.
The chain of priests and priestesses could not restrain the mob, that thrust forward to the great basin, to see the result.
Exclamations of every description rose from the throng.
"Nay, he cast himself in. The god will withdraw the holy waters. It was impious. The fountain is polluted."
"Was it not defiled when a dead tom-cat was found in it? Yet the fountain ceased not to flow."
"Why should the god pick out the handsomest girl? His blood is ice-cold. She is not a morsel for him," scoffed a red-faced senator.
"Encourage not the sacrilegious one! Thou makest thyself partaker in his impiety!"
"Do! Coil up like wood-lice, and uncurl only when all is forgotten."
"His father was a philosopher. He swears by the gods."
"Body of Bacchus! how the water boils. The god is wroth."
"Bah! It boils no more now than it did yesterday."
In the ice-green water could be seen the young man with nervous arms striking out. He held up the girl with one arm. The swell of the rising volumes of water greatly facilitated his efforts. Indeed the upsurging flood had such force, that to die by drowning in it was a death by inches, for as often as a body went beneath the surface, it was again propelled upwards.
In a minute he was at the breastwork, had one hand on it, then called: "Help, some one, to lift her out!"
Thereupon the man clothed in brown wool put down his arms, clasped the half-conscious girl and raised her from the water. Callipodius assisted, and between them she was lifted out of the basin. The priests and priestesses remonstrated with loud cries. But some of the spectators cheered. A considerable portion of the men ranged themselves beside the two who had the girl in their arms, and prevented the ministers of Nemausus from recovering Perpetua from the hands of her rescuers.
The men of the upper town--Greek colonists, or their descendants--looked superciliously and incredulously on the cult of the Gallic deity of the fountain. It was tolerated, but laughed at, as something that belonged to a class of citizens that was below them in standing.