lowers without a sound. The birds
must be asleep, for not one was to be seen or broke the oppressive
stillness by a chirp or a twitter. The chariot at the door might have
been spellbound; the driver had dismounted, and he, with the other
slaves, had stretched himself in the narrow strips of shade cast by the
pillars of the verandah; their chins buried in their breasts, they spoke
not a word. The horses alone were stirring-flicking off the flies
with their flowing tails, or turning to bite the burning stings they
inflicted. This now and then lifted the pole, and as the chariot
crunched backwards a few inches, the charioteer growled out a sleepy
"Brrr."

Katharina had laid a large leaf on her head for protection against the
sun; she did not dare use a parasol or a hat for fear of being seen. The
shade cast by the shrubs was but scanty, the noontide heat was torment;
still, though minute followed minute and one-quarter of an hour after
another crept by at a snail's pace, she was far too much excited to be
sleepy. She needed no dial to tell her the time; she knew exactly how
late it was as one shadow stole to this point and another to that, and,
by risking the danger to her eyes of glancing up at the sun, she could
make doubly sure.

It was now within three-quarters of an hour of noon, and in that house
all was as still as before; the Patriarch, however, might be expected
to be punctual, and she had done nothing towards dressing but putting
on those gilt sandals. This brought her to swift decision she hurried
to her room, desired the maid not to dress her hair, contenting herself
with pinning a few roses into its natural curls. Then, in fierce haste,
she made her throw on her sea-green dress of bombyx silk edged with fine
embroidery, and fasten her peplos with the first pins that came to hand;
and when the snap of her bracelet of costly sapphires broke, as she
herself was fastening it, she flung it back among her other trinkets as
she might have tossed an unripe apple back upon a heap. She slipped
her little hand into a gold spiral which curled round half her arm, and
gathered up the rest of her jewels, to put them on out of doors as she
sat watching. The waiting-woman was ordered to come for her at noon
with the flowers for the Patriarch, and, in a quarter of an hour after
leaving her lurking place, she was back there again. Just in time;--for
while she was putting on the trinkets Nilus came out, followed by some
slaves