returned from the House of the Leopard seemed to overwhelm every
other thought, and she murmured, "O Christian, I am afraid of thy
God and thee!"

She fled back to the black tent. Timokles' bound hands made but
awkward work of eating. He could hear the voices of the mother and
the daughter talking in the mother's tongue, but what they said he
knew not. Would the father or the son learn something about their
captive?

The voices hushed within the tent. The hours of sleep came on.

The night had grown black. There were footsteps audible.

"They have come back!" thought Timokles.

The father and the son had returned, and with them came another man.
Timokles heard and understood something of what was said at the
tent's door in the dark.

"If I may but see his face, I shall know whether he hath been here
before," declared the new voice eagerly. "I have seen all who have
come to our village."

"Thou shalt see him in the morning," impatiently answered the maker
of the hippopotamus. "Knowest thou not that on this day I cannot
make a flame by which thou shouldest see? It is the eleventh day of
Tybi, concerning which it is commanded by the priests of Egypt,
'Approach not any flame on this day; Ra is there for the purpose of
destroying the wicked.'"