“How still he lies there with his eyes tight shut,” thought the Goth, “quite shut, and yet I could fancy he saw through the lids. Veleda,[358] the prophetess, had just such eyes! When I was carrying him across the hall he looked up, and it was like a flash of fire, and yet soft and mild like the blue sea when the sun shines. If he were fair, he would be just like the priest in the grove of Nerthus.[359] He indeed was a favorite of the gods; he knew everything on earth and above the earth. I feel as if this man too must know all secrets, which make such men wise above all others. It is written on his forehead.--If only he were not so pale and feeble--if he had limbs as strong as mine, and hale northern blood in his veins! Odin should melt us down to make one man.--There would be a hero!” So thought the worthy Gothic slave, while his eyes remained fixed on the features of the sleeper; but before long his own eyes also closed, and the ideas that had roused him to unwonted excitement remained in his mind in the realm of dreams. He saw Odin, with his wolves and raven, rushing down through the woods on the shores of the distant Baltic. He himself, Magus, was standing in the shadow of a sacred beech-tree, hand-in-hand with the wounded slave, who had dragged himself painfully through the underwood. As the god rushed past them, he lightly touched them with his sword; and they flowed and melted, as it were, into one, each feeling as though this had been their destiny from the beginning of things. And now, as the newly-created two-in-one looked up, behold! the mighty sword of the god hung to a branch of the beech-tree. He put out his hand, took it down, and with a giant’s strength, whirled it round his head. A flash of light shone through the grove, and the newly-formed being felt that he was stronger and mightier than all mortals, from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof. “A foolish dream!” Magus whispered to himself, as he suddenly started wide awake. He gave his charge, who had begun to stir, a draught of water, and then fell asleep again. Euterpe and Diphilus had meanwhile gone away, though the Batavian had begged them to take a change of clothes and rest under a comfortable roof for the rest of the night. After Quintus had changed his dress and refreshed himself with food and drink, he also wished to return home. But Aurelius detained him.