"Very well," said her aunt, and Zoe set off down the road. "Georgios!" she called. There was no answer, but she thought she saw the tracks of his feet in the dust of the road.
"Perhaps he has gone to the river," she said to herself, "to try to fish," and hastily she ran to the bank but there was no little boy in a red tasselled cap in sight. She hurried back to the road.
"I am afraid he has tried to go and see the Pass," she thought. "It would be just like him, for he said he would not wait for Marco. Oh, dear! I must find him. Aunt Anna will think it my fault if he is lost or anything happens to him." She hurried onward, calling and looking everywhere but found not a trace of the naughty little boy. It seemed as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth, and she murmured to herself,
"Oh, if he has gone to the river and a Nereid has stolen him! Perhaps he has run to the mountain and a brigand has found him! I must bring him home. Good St. Georgios, who killed the terrible dragon, help me to find your name-child! Oh, dear, of course the saints hear us, but it would be ever so much nicer if they would answer!" she thought. Then she had little time to think more, for her whole mind was bent upon finding the naughty boy whom, with all his naughtiness, she dearly loved. She hurried up the hill, peering under every bush, behind every tree, beginning to think that perhaps something had happened to the child. She went on and on until the shadows of twilight began to gather and she grew more and more frightened. Beneath her on the mountain-side flowed a little stream and she peered into its silver depths wondering if perhaps Georgios could have fallen into it. Then in her eagerness she leaned too far, lost her balance and fell. Down, down she tumbled, rolling over and over on the soft grass until she reached the bottom of the hill. She lay still for a few moments then sat up and looked about her.
"SOMETHING LAY THERE HALF COVERED WITH EARTH."
She was in a spot in which she had never been before, a pretty little glen, where the silvery stream ran over white pebbles with a soft, murmuring sound. Ferns grew tall and green, delicate wild flowers bloomed among them, the air was fragrant with the pines which grew overhead, and the whole spot was like a fairy dell. She tried to rise, but frowned with pain, for she had hurt her foot. So she sat thinking, "I will rest a minute and then go on and find Georgios."
As she sat thinking she noticed a queer place hollowed out by the water. Something lay there half covered with earth and she stooped to see what it was.
"Perhaps I shall find something like the shepherd did," she thought, but with sharp disappointment she found that the object which had caught her eye was but a queer little cup black with red figures around the rim, and with two handles, one at each side. It had the figure of a woman at one side and Zoe thought it rather pretty.