ts, offered his hand to the Arab, and that in a way which
could not fail to satisfy any one, so that even the old man was won
over; and then he left the room.

The merchant's honor was saved; still his conscientious soul was
disturbed by a doubt that he could not away with. He was about to take
leave but the Mukaukas was so buried in pillows, and kept his eyes
so closely shut, that no one could detect whether he were sleeping
or waking; so the Arab, not wishing to disturb him, withdrew without
speaking.

CHAPTER X.

After the great excitement of the night Paula had thrown herself on her
bed with throbbing pulses. Sleep would not come to her, and so at rather
more than two hours after sunrise she went to the window to close the
shutters. As she did so she looked out, and she saw Hiram leap into a
boat and push the light bark from the shore. She dared neither signal
nor call to him; but when the faithful soul had reached open water he
looked back at her window, recognized her in her white morning dress
and flourished the oar high in the air. This could only mean that he
had fulfilled his commission and sold her jewel. Now he was going to the
other side to engage the Nabathaean.

When she had closed the shutters and darkened the room she again lay
down. Youth asserted its rights the weary girl fell into deep, dreamless
slumbers.

When she woke, with the heat drops on her forehead, the sun was nearly
at the meridian, only an hour till the Ariston would be served, the
Greek breakfast, the first meal in the morning, which the family eat
together as they also did the principal meal later in the clay. She had
never yet failed to appear, and her absence would excite remark.

The governor's household, like that of every Egyptian of rank, was
conducted more on the Greek than the Egyptian plan; and this was the
case not merely as regarded the meals but in many other things, and
especially the language spoken. From the Mukaukas himself down to the
youngest member of the family, all spoke Greek among themselves, and
Coptic, the old native dialect, only to the servants. Nay, many borrowed
and foreign words had already crept into use in the Coptic.

The governor's granddaughter, pretty little Mary, had learnt to speak
Greek fluently and correctly before she spoke Coptic, but when Paula
had first arrived she could not as yet write the beautiful language
of Greece with due accuracy. Paula loved children; she longed for some