ttle guests depart
with the first Thracian ship. You can surely afford to be separated from
them one short half-year longer, and I promise you they shall receive
the best lessons, and be guided to all that is good and beautiful."

"On that head I have no fear," answered Phanes, with a thankful smile.
"But still you must send off the two little plagues by the first ship;
my anxiety as to Psamtik's revenge is only too well grounded. Take my
most heartfelt thanks beforehand for all the love and kindness which you
will show to my children. I too hope and believe, that the merry little
creatures will be an amusement and pleasure to Sappho in her lonely
life."

"And more," interrupted Rhodopis looking down; "this proof of confidence
repays a thousand-fold the disgrace inflicted on me last night in a
moment of intoxication.--But here comes Sappho!"

CHAPTER IV.

Five days after the evening we have just described at Rhodopis' house,
an immense multitude was to be seen assembled at the harbor of Sais.

Egyptians of both sexes, and of every age and class were thronging to
the water's edge.

Soldiers and merchants, whose various ranks in society were betokened by
the length of their white garments, bordered with colored fringes,
were interspersed among the crowd of half-naked, sinewy men, whose only
clothing consisted of an apron, the costume of the lower classes. Naked
children crowded, pushed and fought to get the best places. Mothers in
short cloaks were holding their little ones up to see the sight, which
by this means they entirely lost themselves; and a troop of dogs and
cats were playing and fighting at the feet of these eager sight-seers,
who took the greatest pains not to tread on, or in any way injure the
sacred animals.

[According to various pictures on the Egyptian monuments. The
mothers are from Wilkinson III. 363. Isis and Hathor, with the
child Horus in her lap or at her breast, are found in a thousand
representations, dating both from more modern times and in the Greek
style. The latter seem to have served as a model for the earliest
pictures of the Madonna holding the infant Christ.]

The police kept order among this huge crowd with long staves, on the
metal heads of which the king's name was inscribed. Their care was
especially needed to prevent any of the people from being pushed into
the swollen Nile, an arm of which, in the season of the inundations,
washes the walls of Sais.