Again Hermon tried to thank her; but she would not permit it, and said in an almost inaudible tone: "I really did not give the salve to do you good—the last act of all—"
Finally she murmured a few words of direction for its use, and added that he must keep the sunlight from his blind eyes by bandages and shades, as if it were a cruel foe.
When she paused, and Bias asked her another question, she pointed to the door, exclaiming as loudly as her weakness permitted, "Go, I tell you, go!"
Hermon obeyed and left her, accompanied by the freedman, who carried the box of salve so full of precious promise.
The next morning Bias delivered to the astonished priest of Nemesis the large gifts intended for the avenging goddess.
Before Hermon entered the boat with him and his Egyptian slave, the freedman told his master that Gula was again living in perfect harmony with the husband who had cast her off, and Taus, Ledscha's younger sister, was the wife of the young Biamite who, she had feared, would give up his wooing on account of her visit to Hermon's studio.
After a long voyage through the canal which had been dug a short time before, connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, the three men reached Clysma. Opposite to it, on the eastern shore of the narrow northern point of the Erythraean sea—[Red Sea]—lay the goal of their journey, and thither Bias led his blind master, followed by the slave, on shore.
CHAPTER XII.
It was long since Hermon had felt so free and light-hearted as during this voyage.
He firmly believed in his recovery.