e city, at those immense many-colored pylons of the
pharaoh's palace, or at some unknown object.

At times he did not even answer her questions, or he looked at her
suddenly as if roused from sleep, or as if he wondered that he saw her
there beside him.

CHAPTER XVI

THUS seemed those moments of approach between Sarah and her princely
lover, which were rare enough withal. For after he had given those
commands to-Patrokles and the steward, Ramses spent the greater part of
the day away from the villa, generally in a boat or sailing on the
Nile. He caught with a net fish which swam in thousands in the blessed
river, or he went into swamps, and hidden among lofty lotus stems
brought down with arrows wild birds, which circling in noisy flocks
were as numerous as flies are. But even at those times ambitious
thoughts did not desert him; so he turned the hunting into a kind of
predicting or soothsaying. More than once, when he saw a flock of
yellow geese upon the water, he drew his bow and said, "If I hit I
shall be like Ramses the Great."

The arrow made a low whistle, and the stricken bird, fluttering its
wings, gave out cries so painful that there was a movement in the whole
swampy region. Clouds of geese, ducks, and storks rose in the air, and
making a great circle above their dying comrade, dropped down to other
places.

When there was silence again, the prince pushed his boat farther, with
caution guiding himself by the movement of reeds or the broken calls of
birds, and when in the green growth he saw a spot of clear water and a
new flock, he drew his bow again, and said,

"If I hit I shall be pharaoh; if I miss."

This time the arrow struck the water, and bounding a number of times
along its surface, disappeared among lotuses. The excited prince sent
more and more arrows, killing birds or only frightening flocks of them.
From the villa they knew where he was by the noisy cloud of birds which
rose from time to time and circled above the boat in which he was
sailing.

When toward evening he returned to the villa wearied, Sarah waited on
the threshold with a bronze basin, a pitcher of light wine, and a
garland of roses. The prince smiled at her, stroked her face, but
looking into her eyes, which were full of tenderness, he thought,

"Would she beat Egyptian people, like her relatives who look frightened
all the time? Oh, my mother is right not to trust Jews, though Sarah
may be different from others."

On