is my whim to be Phorenice,
the maiden, for a few hours, and if some one I wot of would woo me now,
as other maidens are wooed, I should esteem it a luxury. Bid the slaves
carry us round the harbour's rim, and give word to these starers that,
if they follow, I will call down fire upon them as I did upon the
sacrifice."

Now, I had seen something of the unruliness of the streets myself, and
I had gathered a hint also from the officer at the gate of the royal
pyramid that night of Phorenice's welcoming banquet. But as whatever
there was in the matter must be common knowledge to the Empress, I did
not bring it to her memory then. So I dismissed the guard which had
come up, and drove away with a few sharp words the throng of gaping
sightseers who always, silly creatures, must needs come to stare at
their betters; and then I sat in the litter in the place where I was
invited, and the bearers put their heads to the pole.

They swung away with us along the wide pavement which runs between the
houses of the merchants and the mariner folk and the dimpling waters of
the harbour, and I thought somewhat sadly of the few ships that floated
on that splendid basin now, and of the few evidences of business that
showed themselves on the quays. Time was when the ships were berthed
so close that many had to wait in the estuary outside the walls, and
memorials had been sent to the King that the port should be doubled in
size to hold the glut of trade. And that, too, in the old days of oar
and sail, when machines drawing power from our Lord the Sun were but
rarely used to help a vessel speedily along her course.

The Egypt voyage and a return was a matter of a year then, as against a
brace of months now, and of three ships that set out, one at least could
be reckoned upon succumbing to the dangers of the wide waters and the
terrible beasts that haunt them. But in those old days trade roared with
lusty life, and was ever growing wider and more heavy. Your merchant
then was a portly man and gave generously to the Gods. But now all
the world seemed to be in arms, and moreover trade was vulgar. Your
merchant, if he was a man of substance, forgot his merchandise, swore
that chaffering was more indelicate than blasphemy and curled his beard
after the new fashion, and became a courtier. Where his father had spent
anxious days with cargo tally and ship-master, the son wasted hours in
directing sewing men as they adorned a coat, and nights in vap