Johannes's helmet struck against the roots of a tall olive-tree, which spread over the mouth of the passage in the atrium of the temple. We know this tree. As he avoided the roots, Johannes struck his helmet with a loud jingle against the side wall; he stopped short in alarm. But he only heard the rapid flutter of the wings of numerous pigeons which flew startled out of the branches of the olive-tree.
"What was that?" said a hoarse voice above him. "How the wind howls in the old ruins!"
It was the widow Arria.
"O God!" she cried, kneeling before the cross, "deliver us from evil! Let not the city fall until my Jucundus returns! Alas! if he does not find his mother! Oh, let him again come the way he went that unhappy day, when he descended into the secret labyrinth to seek the hidden treasure! Show him to me as I saw him last night in my dream, rising up from below the roots of the tree!"
And she turned to look at the hole.
"O dark passage! into which my happiness disappeared, give it up to me again! God! by this way lead him back to me."
She stood exactly before the opening with folded hands, her eyes piously raised to heaven.
Johannes hesitated as he issued from the hole and perceived her.
"She prays," he murmured. "Shall I kill her whilst praying!"
He waited; he hoped that she would turn away.