She glanced apprehensively at the camp fire as if she feared the approach of the soldiers who were warming themselves around it, laughing and drinking with a group of _lupas_ from the port. The miserable harlot, in lowered voice, told the Greek why she was there. She was the favorite of Geryon, a Balearic slinger. He had left his companions a moment before, and had got out of her way so as not to have to give her the wages he had just received, and in searching for him she had stumbled upon Actæon. He might return, or his companions might approach, attracted by their voices; it was dangerous for Actæon to remain where he was. "What are you going to do?" "I want to reach the coast, and follow along it until I find a fishing smack which will take me to Emporion or to Denia. I have money to pay my passage. Afterward I will look for a ship to take me away, very far away." "You will not return, will you? I do not wish you to return. If you only knew how often I have thought of you while men were killing each other on the walls! I shall never see you again, but I would rather not see you than have you remain in the city or become the slave of my lover the slinger. Hannibal will finish all of them! Ah, cruel city! And how I long to see all those rich women fall before Hannibal's troops--those women who used to have us beaten when we came near them at the port!" The poor harlot, extending her hand to the Greek, began to guide him through the fields. "Come!" she murmured; "I will conduct you to the beach, and from there you can continue on your way without other help than that of the gods. Seeing you with me they will think you are a Celtiberian soldier with his woman, looking for a place to spend the night. Come! I fed you the first night you came here, and I will save you on this last." They drew near the shore. As they passed several camp fires they were hailed by obscene calls from the soldiers and the women who thought them an amorous pair in search of a hiding-place. Some armed groups allowed them to pass without the slightest suspicion. The murmur of the waves on the sand grew louder. They were walking through the rushes, sinking into the warm and oozy bottom of the lagoon formed by the overflow of the tide. The poor _lupa_ stood still. "Here I leave you, Actæon. If you wished I would follow you as your slave! But you do not wish it; I know what I am----I can be nothing to you! You are going away forever, but I am content because you are fleeing from Sónnica. Before we part, kiss me, my divinity! No, not on the eyes----on the mouth----thus!" The Athenian, with tender commiseration, moved by the kindness of the miserable creature, kissed the dry and flaccid lips, from which escaped the insufferable odor of the wine of the Balearic slingers. CHAPTER VIII THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER When the sun's first rays reddened the walls of the Capitol the life of Rome had been astir for more than an hour.