"It is a proud city," Thais said musingly.
"Yes," Artemisia replied. "Proud, and cruel, and heartless!"
She shivered as she spoke. Thais beckoned to one of the women, who stood at a respectful distance, talking in low tones with a slender, dark-skinned man, whose cunning eyes gleamed like those of a rat. He was Mena the Egyptian.
"Fetch a wrap," Thais said to the slave girl who answered her summons.
The girl brought a shawl of cashmere and laid it around Artemisia's shoulders.
"Something tells me that our captivity will soon be over," Thais said. "Things cannot last much longer as they are."
There was a meaning in her words that Artemisia did not grasp. Since the flight from Halicarnassus, they had been confined in the house of Phradates, whose passion for Thais had increased until it burned like fever in his veins. The end must have come long ago had it not been for the frequent absences that had been forced upon the young man by the needs of the city and the commands of the Great King. As matters stood, even Thais' resources had been taxed to hold him in check. Hitherto she had fed him with hopes, playing upon his weaknesses and keeping him in a state of subjection from which she knew surrender would set him free. She made a gesture of impatience and began walking up and down between rows of young orange trees.
"I don't know what has come over me," she said. "I am as restless as one of the sea-gulls yonder."
She listened a moment to the cries and commotion in the streets.
The Egyptian advanced slowly, with an indefinable insolence in his bearing.
"Find out what is causing all this excitement in the city and bring me word," Thais said.
"Why should my lady be interested?" Mena replied coolly, with a smile that showed his white teeth.
Thais wheeled as though she had been stung. She looked at the Egyptian with head erect, and there was something in her eyes that caused his to fall before them.
"Mena," she said softly, "do not think that, because you are set to watch me, you are my master. Go, or I swear by Astoreth that you shall be flayed alive from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet."
Mena gasped, and moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
"Pardon," he stammered. "I did not mean--"