Sleep, Dreams, and Death,—were these the only gifts with which the gods, being merciful, could answer prayer?
CHAPTER VI.
At the little quay in the town many boats were lading and unlading, and many setting their sails to go southward with their loads of eggs, or of birds, of flowers, of fruit, or of herbage; all smelling of summer rain, and the odors of freshly plowed earths turned up with the nest of the lark and the root of the cowslip laid bare in them.
Folle-Farine lost herself in its little busy crowd, and learned what she needed without any asking, in turn, question of her.
Arslàn had sailed at sunrise.
There was a little boat, with an old man in it, loaded with Russian violets from a flower-farm. The old man was angered and in trouble: the lad who steered for him had failed him, and the young men and boys on the canals were all too busied to be willing to go the voyage for the wretched pittance he offered. She heard, and leaned towards him.
"Do you go the way to Paris?"
The old man nodded.
"I will steer for you, then," she said to him; and leaped down among his fragrant freight. He was a stranger to her, and let her be. She did for him as well as another, since she said that she knew those waters well.