“I am not Greek!
“You lie, you have a white skin and a straight nose. Unless you want the stick, submit quietly.”
Chrysis looked at the speaker, and suddenly fell on his neck.
“I love you, I will follow you,” she said. “You will follow both of us. My friend shall have his share. Walk with us: it will not be dull.”
Where were they taking her to? She had not the least idea, but this second sailor’s very rudeness, his brutish head pleased her. She considered him with the imperturbable glance that young bitches have in the presence of meat. She bent her body towards him, to touch him as she walked.
With rapid steps they traversed strange quarters, without life, without lights. Chrysis could not understand how they threaded their way through this nocturnal maze out of which she never could have got alone on account of the curious intricacy of the streets. The closed doors, the deserted windows, the motionless shadows terrified her. Above her head, between the houses, that almost met, ran a pale ribbon of sky, flooded with moonlight.
Finally, they entered life once more. At a turning of the street, suddenly, eight, ten, eleven lights appeared, illuminated doorways occupied by Nabatæan women squatting between two red lamps which cast a gleam from below upon their heads hooded with gold.
She shouted and struggled.
In the distance, they heard first a swelling murmur, and then a confused roar of chariots, tumbling bales, asses’ footsteps, and human voices. It was the square of Rhacotis where, during the Alexandrian summer, all the provisions for nine hundred thousand mouths a day were collected and stacked up.