When I was hardly more than half way from the road to the clump
I thought I heard a sob. I made haste.
Hearing the place I saw a young and slender and graceful woman dressed as
a slave girl. Somehow the sight of her brought to my mind's-eye vivid
recollections of my convalescent outings in Nemestronia's water-garden.
She looked terrified and yet hesitating to flee from me, as if she feared
the swamp. A step nearer I realized that Vedia's maid, a woman not unlike
her in build, as faithful to her as Agathemer was to me and amazingly
astute, had had the shrewdness and also the time to fool the brigands by
exchanging clothes with her mistress in the carriage.
"Vedia!" I exclaimed. "Caia!"
"Castor!" she screamed. "You know me? You call me Caia? Are you a ghost?
Are you alive? And that voice! Oh, are you real?"
"Real and alive," I answered. "I am myself. I am Hedulio."
To my amazement there, in the dusk under the willows, among the alders,
she gave a half-smothered shriek and the next instant her arms were round
my neck and mine round her, and she was sobbing on my shoulder, repeating:
"Call me Caia again. This is too good to be true."
CHAPTER XXVIII
MOONLIGHT
When our transports had abated a little I was aware that the twilight was
deepening into dusk and that I must somehow save Vedia from the roaming
wild beasts.
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