At a sign from lord Trymalcion, the veils dropped--I recognized you both--you, my son Sylvest and your sister Syomara. You were both pale and wan; you were shivering with fear. Anguish was depicted in your tear-bathed faces. The long blonde hair of my little girl fell upon her shoulders. She dared not raise her eyes, neither did you; you held each other by the hand, closely clasped. Despite the terror that disfigured her face, I beheld my daughter in her singular and infantine beauty--accursed beauty! At sight of her Trymalcion's dead eyes lighted up and glistened like glowing coals in the middle of his wrinkled, paint-covered visage. He stood up, stretched out his emaciated arms towards my daughter as if to seize his prey, while a shocking smile disclosed his yellow teeth. Terror-stricken, Syomara threw herself back and clung to your neck. The merchant quickly tore you from each other and brought Syomara to the old man. The latter impatiently pushed away with his foot the slave that crouched on the ground before him, and grabbing my little girl, took her between his knees. He easily subdued the efforts she made to escape, while she uttered piercing cries; he violently snapped the strings that fastened my little girl's robe, and stripped her half naked in order to examine her chest and shoulders. While this was going on, the merchant was holding you back, my son, and I--the father of the two victims--I, loaded with chains, beheld the spectacle. At the sight of this crime of the patrician Trymalcion, outraging the chastity of a child, the three fettered Gallic women and the matron made a desperate but vain effort to break from their irons, and began to pour out a torrent of imprecations and groans. Trymalcion finished complacently his disgusting examination, and said a few words to the merchant. Immediately a keeper replaced the robe on my girl, who was more dead than alive, wrapped her up in her long white veil, which he tied around her, and taking the slender burden under his arm, held himself in readiness to follow the old man, who was taking some gold from his purse to pay the merchant. At that moment of supreme despair--you and your sister, poor little ones bewildered with terror, cried out as if you believed you would be heard and succored: "Mother! Father!"