Sisters, the — Volume 3 by Georg Ebers
page 39 of 74 (52%)
page 39 of 74 (52%)
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her hands:
"May I ride in a chariot with spirited horses, like the queen? Oh! impossible! Where are your horses standing?" In this instant she had forgotten Klea, the duty which called her back to the temple, even her parents, and she followed the Corinthian with winged steps, sprang into the two-wheeled chariot, and clung fast to the breastwork, as Lysias took his place by her side, seized the reins, and with a strong and practised hand curbed the mettle of his spirited steeds. She stood perfectly guileless and undoubting by his side, and wholly at his mercy as the chariot rattled off; but, unknown to herself, beneficent powers were shielding her with buckler and armor--her childlike innocence, and that memory of her parents which her tempter himself had revived in her mind, and which soon came back in vivid strength. Breathing deep with excitement, and filled with such rapture as a bird may feel when it first soars from its narrow nest high up into the ether she cried out again and again: "Oh, this is delightful! this is splendid!" and then: "How we rush through the air as if we were swallows! Faster, Lysias, faster! No, no--that is too fast; wait a little that I may not fall! Oh, I am not frightened; it is too delightful to cut through the air just as a Nile boat cuts through the stream in a storm, and to feel it on my face and neck." |
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