Hearing the place I saw a young and slender and graceful woman dressed as a slave girl. Somehow the sight of her brought to my mind's-eye vivid recollections of my convalescent outings in Nemestronia's water-garden. She looked terrified and yet hesitating to flee from me, as if she feared the swamp. A step nearer I realized that Vedia's maid, a woman not unlike her in build, as faithful to her as Agathemer was to me and amazingly astute, had had the shrewdness and also the time to fool the brigands by exchanging clothes with her mistress in the carriage.
"Vedia!" I exclaimed. "Caia!"
"Castor!" she screamed. "You know me? You call me Caia? Are you a ghost?
Are you alive? And that voice! Oh, are you real?"
"Real and alive," I answered. "I am myself. I am Hedulio."
To my amazement there, in the dusk under the willows, among the alders, she gave a half-smothered shriek and the next instant her arms were round my neck and mine round her, and she was sobbing on my shoulder, repeating:
"Call me Caia again. This is too good to be true."
CHAPTER XXVIII
MOONLIGHT
When our transports had abated a little I was aware that the twilight was deepening into dusk and that I must somehow save Vedia from the roaming wild beasts. I guided her along the twisting track from her hiding-place to the road. As we gained it I heard a loud snarl of a lion or tiger or panther far off towards the crag. We must make haste.
I reflected that it would be a very strong and enterprising beast, even if a lion, which would break into Vedia's coach when its panels were slid and fastened.