Without a word, she dragged her hand from the old woman’s and ran wildly down the dark street.
She ran on and on, panting, stumbling, falling, picking herself up again, her plaits of hair which had come loose in the struggle with her mistress flying behind her. When she came out to the Piræus Road, where a few people were still about, she stopped, and leaning against a lamp post, tried with trembling fingers to tie up her hair.
To her uncle’s! No! She would not go there!
She had not had time to explain to Kyra Polyxene that her master knew where the baker’s shop was. He had asked her one day. And of course it was there they would search for her at once. No, no! Not to her uncle’s! But where then? Where?
She tried hard to remember where Antigone had said that her brother lived. Perhaps she would hide her; she knew how bad mistresses could be! But try as she would, she could not remember. Athens names were all new and strange to her.
And there was no one else.
Perhaps she could walk about all night, or sit down on a bench? But when it dawned, what then? Suddenly she heard running steps in the street behind her and loud voices, … men’s voices. Was the one her master’s? She looked wildly round like a trapped thing and once more started running, as she had never run before, down the middle of the broad road. Every moment it seemed as if a hand were grasping her shoulder. She flew past the lighted grocer’s shop where they might know her, and her head struck against the open shutter, but she did not feel the pain. On she ran, her breath coming in loud gasps, and great throbs beating in her throat. She heard steps again …. Were they behind her?
Suddenly, under a lamp post, she came into violent contact with a big man, who was walking leisurely before her, his hands crossed behind his back, fiddling with a short string of black beads.
He caught hold of the lamp post to save himself from falling and turned round.
“Who falls in this way on people? Have you gone mad, my girl? One would think someone was hunting you.”