"Pan! Pan!" shouted a hundred voices. "Come and judge the mortal who has dared to profane thy solitudes. Echo—where is Pan?"
Distant and faint the cry came back:
"Pan! Where is Pan?"
For a moment Otto stood rooted to the spot, believing himself in all truth surrounded by the rural gods of antiquity. He stared at the scene before him as on some strange sorcery. But suddenly a suspicion rushed upon him that he was betrayed, either to be made the jest of a company of carnival's revellers, or, perhaps, the object of vengeance of the Senator of Rome.
Gazing round with a quick fear in his heart, at finding himself thus completely surrounded, and meditating whether to attempt a forcible escape, he was startled by the shrill shriek of sylvan pipes and attended by a riotous company of satyrs, Pan on his goat-legs hobbled into the grotto, the satyrs playing a wild march on their oaken reeds.
"Silence! Where is the guilty nymph who has lured the mortal hither?" shouted the sylvan god.
"Egeria! Egeria!" resounded numerous accusing voices.
"At thine old tricks again luring wisdom whither it should least come?" questioned Pan, severely. "Yes, hide thyself in thy blushing waves! But the mortal,—where is he?"
"Here! Here!" exclaimed the nymphs with one voice. "Had it been old Silenus or one of his satyrs,—we had not wondered."
"The King! the King!" resounded on all sides amidst a general outburst of laughter.