And thus he made his heart like the clay which the fire does but harden, not like the gold which it melts. But, notwithstanding his despair, he grew stronger. In two or three months his wounds healed, and he was free to leave his couch of hay and beechen leaves and to wander about the exquisite scenery of his temporary home. Aricia was built in a valley, the crater of an extinct volcano, at the foot of the Alban Mount. Below it the Lacus Nemorensis, ‘the Mirror of Diana,’ lay gleaming like a transparent emerald, while the steep lava slopes which descended to its level were rich with vineyards and groves and flowers. But he seldom ventured out in the broad daylight. Aricia lay on the Appian road, only sixteen miles from Rome, and its hill was the haunt of a throng of clamorous beggars, who assailed with their importunity every vehicle that passed along that ‘queen of ways.’ Hundreds were familiar with the features of Onesimus, and, though their beauty was now impaired by pallor and emaciation, he might again be recognised, with fatal consequences. He only went out after sunset, and by the unfrequented paths which led him towards the grove of Diana and the Nemorensian lake. The lower slopes of the Alban Mount were so overshadowed with dense foliage that, among the woods, he could easily escape observation and indulge without disturbance in his melancholy thoughts. One day, as he sat under a huge chestnut-tree, he heard the pipe of a shepherd lad driving home his herd of goats from the upland pastures; and, as the hut of the boy’s parents adjoined the lodge of Pudens’ vineyard, he recognised him as an acquaintance whose name was Ofellus. But instead of coming up to talk with him, as usual, the boy gave a low whistle and beckoned. Onesimus thought that Ofellus only wanted to play a game at _mora_ after he had herded his goats, but the boy laid a finger on his lip, and made signs to him to be on his guard until they had got some distance from the place where he was sitting. ‘What is the matter?’ whispered the Phrygian, in alarm. ‘Is any one pursuing me?’ ‘No,’ answered Ofellus, ‘but if the king sees you he will think you mean mischief.’ ‘The king! What king?’ ‘Don’t you know?’ said the boy. ‘Come and help me to drive in my goats, and I will tell you.’ When they were well out of the grove, and the goats, with their frisking kids, which gave Ofellus so much trouble, were safe in their pen, the boy said: ‘We may speak aloud now; but don’t you really know who the king is?’ ‘I did not know that Romans had had a king since Tarquin the Proud,’ said Onesimus, laughing; ‘unless you mean some Jewish or Eastern Alabarch, like Herod or Izates.’ ‘No, no,’ said Ofellus, ‘but the priest of yon temple has been called for ages “the King of the Grove.”’ ‘Why?’ ‘I don’t know why, except that there are some sacrifices which only a king can offer; so they have to call him king, just as they call one of the priests at Rome “the King of the Sacred Rites.”’