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. ill-052 _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. They passed the houses of the square, between green piles, vegetables, lotus roots, smooth beans, baskets of olives. Chrysis took a handful of mulberries out of a violet heap, and ate them without stopping. Finally, they arrived before a low door and the sailors entered with her for whom had been stolen the True Pearls of Anadyomene. There was an immense hall there. Five hundred men of the people sat waiting for the day, drinking cups of yellow beer, eating figs, lentils, sesame cakes, olyra bread. In their midst, swarmed a herd of yelping women, a whole field of black hair and multicoloured flowers in an atmosphere of fire. They were poor homeless girls who were the property of all. They came there to beg for scraps, bare-footed, bare-breasted, with a scanty red or blue rag tied round their bellies, carrying, for the most part, a tattered infant on their left arm. There were also dancing-girls, six Egyptians on a dais, with an orchestra of three musicians, the first two of whom smote ox-hide timbrels with drum-sticks, whilst the third wielded a great sistrum of sonorous brass. “Oh! myxaira sweets!” said Chrysis gleefully. And she bought two sous’ worth of the little girl who hawked them. But suddenly she swooned, overcome by the insupportable stink of this den, and the sailors carried her out in their arms. The fresh air brought her round a little.