What are we all but puny children?

THE SISTERS

By Georg Ebers

Volume 3.

CHAPTER XII.

While, in the vast peristyle, many a cup was still being emptied, and the
carousers were growing merrier and noisier--while Cleopatra was abusing
the maids and ladies who were undressing her for their clumsiness and
unreadiness, because every touch hurt her, and every pin taken out of her
dress pricked her--the Roman and his friend Lysias walked up and down in
their tent in violent agitation.

"Speak lower," said the Greek, "for the very griffins woven into the
tissue of these thin walls seem to me to be lying in wait, and listening.

"I certainly was not mistaken. When I came to fetch the gems I saw a
light gleaming in the doorway as I approached it; but the intruder must
have been warned, for just as I got up to the lantern in front of the
servants' tent, it disappeared, and the torch which usually burns outside
our tent had not been lighted at all; but a beam of light fell on the
road, and a man's figure slipped across in a black robe sprinkled with
gold ornaments which I saw glitter as the pale light of the lantern fell
upon them--just as a slimy, black newt glides through a pool. I have good
eyes as you know, and I will give one of them at this moment, if I am
mistaken, and if the cat that stole into our tent was not Eulaeus."

"And why did you not have him caught?" asked Publius, provoked.

"Because our tent was pitch-dark," replied Lysias, and that stout villain
is as slippery as a badger with the dogs at his heels, Owls, bats and
such vermin which seek their prey by night are all hideous to me, and
this Eulaeus, who grins like a hyaena when he laughs--"

"This Eulaeus," said Publius, interrupting his friend, "shall learn to
know me, and know too by experience that a man comes to no good, who
picks a quarrel with my father's son."

"But, in the first instance, you treated him with disdain and
discourtesy," said Lysias, "and that was not wise."

"Wise, and wise, and wise!" the Roman broke out. "He is a scoundrel. It
makes no difference to me so long as he keeps out of my way; but when, as
has been the case for several days now, he constantly sticks close to me
to spy upon me, and treats me as if he were my equal, I will show him
that he is mistaken. He has no reason to complain of my want of
frankness; he knows my opinion of him, and that I am quite inclined to
give him a thrashing. If I wanted to