"Sit here and talk, for fear seizes me."

"Thou art a foolish child," said Tafet, smiling. "Fear looked at me too
the first day from every corner; but when I went out beyond the wall,
there was no more of it. Whom have I to fear here? All fall on their
knees before me. Before thee they would stand on their heads even! Go
to the garden; it is as beautiful as paradise. Look out at the field,
see the wheat harvest; sit down in the carved boat the owner of which
is withering from anxiety to see thee and take thee out of the river."

"I am afraid."

"Of what?"

"Do I know? While I am sewing, I think that T am in our valley and that
my father will come right away; but when the wind pushes the curtain
aside from the window and I look on this great country it seems to me,
knowest what? that some mighty vulture has caught and borne me to his
nest on a mountain, whence I have no power to save myself."

"Ah, Thou thou! If Thou hadst seen what a bathtub the prince sent this
morning, a bronze one; and what a tripod for the fire, what pots and
spits! And if Thou knew that today I have put two hens to set, and
before long we shall have little chicks here."

Sarah was more daring after sunset, when no one could see her. She went
out on the roof and looked at the river. And when from afar a boat
appeared, flaming with torches, which formed fiery and bloody lines
along the dark water, she pressed with both hands her poor heart, which
quivered like a bird caught that instant. Ramses was coming, and she
could not tell what had seized her, delight because that beautiful
youth was approaching whom she had seen in the valley, or dread because
she would see again a great lord and ruler who made her timid.

One Sabbath evening her father came for the first time since she had
settled in that villa. Sarah rushed to him with weeping; she washed his
feet herself, poured perfumes on his head, and covered him with kisses.
Gideon was an old man of stern features. He wore a long robe reaching
his feet and edged at the bottom with colored embroidery; over this he
wore a yellow sleeveless kaftan. A kind of cape covered his breast and
shoulders. On his head was a smallish cap, growing narrow toward the
top.

"Thou art here! Thou art here!" exclaimed Sarah; and she kissed his
head again.

"I am astonished myself at being here," said Gideon, sadly. "I stole to
the garden like a criminal; I thought, along the whole way from
Memphis, that all th