At the end of the mercy-hour the Greek left the temple as usual, and went forth into the streets. He did not turn to the square of Istar. It were too miserably empty for him to-day. Rather he set off in another direction, wandering drearily along. And how the long hours of noon and the afternoon slipped away, he hardly knew. His unhappiness took no heed of time; for, all of a sudden, time had become worthless to him. It was just one hour to sunset when he turned his steps southward towards the canal of the New Year.
Meantime, while the Greek had wandered through unfamiliar quarters of the city, Baba had sat all day on the steps of the temple of Istar, with Ramûa's flowers in her lap. Of the three young people who passed those unhappy hours in brooding over the general misfortune, it was the youngest that endured most, and had suffered most acutely. Baba had to review the situation of her family always hopelessly for herself, sometimes not without hope for the cause of her sister and Charmides. Child as she was, Baba loved Charmides with a love to the heights of which Ramûa could not have risen. For, for the happiness of him whom she loved, the woman-child was willing to renounce him, to give him up to another, though by that act her own life was spoiled forever. From the first moment of seeing Ramûa and Charmides together, she, with the quick perception of one who loves unloved, had foreseen the end. Never once, after the night of their first meal on the roof of the tenement, had she rebelled at this fact. Her resignation was absolute. It had even been a little comfort to her to dream of her sister's happiness, of the wedded home in which she, Baba, might hold a definite place. That she might continue to see Charmides, and to hear his voice day by day, was all that she had asked. But now it seemed that this, too, might be taken from her. She saw Ramûa, a slave, secluded deep in the labyrinth of Ribâta's inaccessible palace; Charmides departed, in his grief, back to his dim, distant home; herself and her mother left alone, to toil through the endless days, living only on the memories of a doubtful happiness that was hopelessly gone.
It was at this juncture in her imaginings that Baba began to rebel. Ribâta should not have her sister, though he perished by her own hand there in the tenement of Ut. This resolve she made at a little past noon; and she looked up from the vow to find my Lord Ribâta about three feet away, regarding her.
"By Nebo, maid," said he, "thou art not she who came last night into my garden!"
"Nay, verily, lord."
"Yet these be the flowers that my hands plucked for her who becomes mine to-day. Who art thou, girl?"
"Baba, I," was the answer, as the child lifted her elfin face and dog-like eyes to the man.
"Baba! And she—the pretty one—is Ramûa. What is she to thee?"
"A sister."