“Nay! He was indignant that the fools of Avenio should continue to treat him as though he were a wild beast that had to be glutted, and not as a god. All you parents that fear for your children! Some of you have already lost your daughters, and have trembled for them; combine, and with one voice proclaim that you will no more suffer this. Look to the urn of the divine Nemausus. See how evenly the ripples run. Dip your fingers in the water and feel how passionless it is. Has he blown forth a blast of seething water and steam like the hot springs of Aquæ Sextiæ? Has his fountain clouded with anger? Was the god powerless to avenge the act when I plunged in? If he had desired the death of the maiden would he have suffered me, a mortal, to pluck her from his gelid lips? Make room on Olympus, O ye gods, and prepare a throne for Common Sense, and let her have domain over the minds of men.” “There is no such god,” called one in the crowd. “Ye know her not, so besotted are ye.” “He blasphemes, he mocks the holy and immortal ones.” “It is ye who mock them when ye make of them as great clowns as yourselves. The true eternal gods laugh to hear me speak the truth. Look at the sun. Look at the water, with its many twinkling smiles. The gods approve.” Whilst the young man thus harangued and amused the populace, Baudillas and Quincta, assisted by two female slaves of the latter, removed the drenched, dripping, and half‐drowned girl. They bore her with the utmost dispatch out of the crowd down a sidewalk of the city gardens to a bench, on which they laid her, till she had sufficiently recovered to open her eyes and recognize those who surrounded her. Then said the widow to one of the servants: “Run, Petronella, and bid the steward send porters with a litter. We must convey Perpetua as speedily as possible from hence, lest there be a riot, and the ministers of the devil stir up the people to insist upon again casting her into the water.” “By your leave, lady,” said Baudillas, “I would advise that, at first, she should not be conveyed to your house, but to mine. It is probable, should that happen which you fear, that the populace may make a rush to your dwelling, in their attempt to get hold of the lady, your daughter. It were well that she remained for a while concealed in my house. Send for the porters to bring the litter later, when falls the night.” “You are right,” said Quincta. “It shall be so.”