It was a woman, poorly clad as far as he could see in the dim light, and of middle age, to judge from what appeared of her veiled and cloaked figure.
"Help, noble Cleanor!"
That strange faculty of remembering voices that most of us have, strange because it is a sheer effort of memory, unhelped by any accessories of shape and colour, did not fail him.
"What! is it you, Theoxena?" he cried.
Theoxena was his foster-mother, the wife of a poor schoolmaster at Chelys, who had been persuaded by her own need and the liberal offers of Cleanor's father to undertake the nurture of one of his twin-children. She had been resident for some years at Carthage, to which city her husband had migrated, tempted by the prospect of more liberal remuneration than he could hope for in his native place.
"Yes, sir, it is I," said the poor woman in a voice broken with tears. "And oh, in such trouble! If you could help me—but come in here. 'Tis but a poor place; but I cannot tell you my story in the street."
Her home was close at hand, and Cleanor followed her in. A poor place it was, but clean and neatly kept, and even with some little marks of taste and culture. In one corner of the room stood a capsa, a cylindrical case for holding manuscript rolls, and above it, on a bracket fastened into the wall, a statuette of Hermes. The chairs were of elegant pattern, though of common wood, and the mats on the floor, though worn and shabby, were of artistic pattern.
"Well, Theoxena," he said, "what is the matter? What can I do for you?"
"Oh, sir!" she answered, commanding her voice with an effort, "they have stolen from me my little Cephalus, the dearest, brightest little boy that ever was, and are going to offer him for a sacrifice to their dreadful Hammon."
"But how do you know? How did it happen?"