And as Selene did not answer, she seized her violently by the neck:
“You have stolen it yourself! You have stolen it yourself! Answer, answer! I will loosen your tongue with the whip, miserable little bitch!”
Then a terrible thing happened. Beside herself with fear, the fear of suffering, the fear of death, the most instant terror she had ever known, the child exclaimed hurriedly:
“It is Aphrodisia! It is not I! it is not I!”
“Your sister!”
“Yes, yes,” said the mulatto woman; “it is Aphrodisia who has taken it.”
And they dragged their sister, who had just fallen into a fainting fit, before Bacchis.
[[1]] Philodème AP. V. 132.
V
THE CRUCIFIED ONE
They all repeated together: